What the world is reading

Foreign Policy-Twilight for Gaddafi?

Hardly anyone thinks the Gaddafi family deserves to run Libya,and few if any will mourn their departure. But assuming the rebels win,will the benefits of regime change be worth the costs, asks Stephen M Walt. And do the US and NATO have a plan ready if and when Gaddafi falls? As we are now seeing in some other contexts e.g.,Egypt,revolutionary change is usually chaotic,unpredictable,and violent8230;So if the liberal interventionists who got us into this war want to make their decisions look good in retrospect,they had better have a plan to ensure that political transition in Libya goes a lot more smoothly than it did in Iraq, writes Walt.

Wall Street Journal-Burmas leadership change

Writing about Burmas military transition,where the long-ruling general Than Shwe,78,has been replaced by Thein Sein,who is a youthful 66,Bertil Lintner says that a younger set of leaders is not always as liberal as outsiders hope. For instance,in Libya,Muammar Gadaffis son Saif al Islam was educated at the London School of Economics and was once hailed as a reformist influence. Syrian ruler Bashar Assad is a doctor once greeted as a reformer when he took over power from his father. Both are now leading bloody crackdowns in their countries8230;, writes Lintner.

Dawn-Something has changed

Its been two weeks since the Abbottabad operation and the jurys still out in Pakistan. Who knew? Who didnt? And does anyone at all feel bad about the whole thing? While international journalists and US lawmakers continue to ask these questions,Pakistan observers are at pains to point out that the answers matter little given that nothing has changed, Huma Yusuf writes in Dawn. Thanks to the unilateral raid of Osama bin Ladens house,Pakistanis have glimpsed a potential future when the worlds policies towards their country shift from engagement to containment. If Pakistan allows militant groups to proliferate and seek sanctuary within its borders,it will lose whatever credibility it has left and find itself banished to the margins where rogue states languish, Yusuf says.

Time-An Eye for an Eye

Last week,an Iranian court decided to postpone the blinding of a man convicted of throwing acid on the face of a woman in 2004. Writing on the case,Azadeh Moaveni writes: This case underscores how Iranian womens social standingthey are now in the majority at universities and active throughout societyfits awkwardly with deep-seated patriarchal attitudes. This eye for an eye, approach to crimes underlies how the law reinforces a cycle of violence8230;, Moaveni says.