The tenth anniversary of the War in Iraq

The War in Iraq which began 10 years ago tomorrow cost 179 British soldiers' lives, over 100,000 Iraqi and nearly 4,500 American lives and caused one of the UK's biggest ever demonstrations against it in London. Why did it happen? What was involved? Was it worth it? As a result of the anniversary there is a wealth of information on the conflict. The BBC have a wide range of interviews with the people involved particularly Tony Blair , John Simpson and Panorama have done a special programme on the intelligence involved in the decision to go to war. The Daily Telegraph also has some interesting interviews especially one with Andrew Gilligan, the journalist who was accused of lying about the government's intelligence dossier just after the war started. Also interesting to look at the USA's coverage of the anniversary, here in USA Today Obama pays tribute to the troops involved and the Washington Post suggests 10 great books, fiction and non-fiction, to read on the event.

Egypt and Lessons from History

Here is an interesting article from the BBC's John Simpson putting the events in Egpyt into historical context. He examines other popular uprisings, such as the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the revolutions in Eastern Europe in 1989, and the events in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the same year. Massive crowds of people gathered to make their feelings known in each case, but they weren't always successful. In Iran the Shah resisted for some time but then gave up and escaped. In Eastern Europe the communist governments lost the backing of the Soviet Union and swiftly folded, but in China Deng Xiaoping found army generals prepared to use force against the people, leading the deaths of thousands but the survival of his regime. If a leader can guarantee the support of his military and police forces there is a reasonable chance that they can hang on, but this may not be the case for Mubarak. We will have to wait and see what the outcome will be.

PS: Now that President Mubarak has been successfully removed, this article by Professor Mark Almond compares the events in Egypt with previous revolutions, including Indonesia and Ukraine, looking for particular patterns. He writes:

"What collapses a regime is when insiders turn against it. So long as police, army and senior officials think they have more to lose by revolution than by defending a regime, then even mass protests can be defied and crushed. Remember Tiananmen Square in 1989. But if insiders and the men with guns begin to question the wisdom of backing a regime - or can be bought off - then it implodes quickly."

Aung San Suu Kyi

A rather belated post about Nobel prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi's release by the military junta last Saturday. Under house arrest for seven years, Suu Kyi is the leader of the pro-democracy party in Burma, the National League for Democracy. The party overwhelmingly won elections in 1990 but was prevented from taking power by the junta who continued its military dictatorship. Following the recent elections in Burma, widely criticised for not being free or fair, the NLD leader is now free but for how much longer and will her release really change Burma? Here is her interview with John Simpson and here some more information about the elections and the situation in Burma.
For some more discussion on Burma's history, see Laurence Rees's blog.