As protests escalate in countries in the middle east resulting in various degrees of repression by their authoritarian governments, a lot of nonsense is being spouted by commentators here. Juan Cole tries to set things straight by listing top the top five myths about the protests.
Meanwhile in Libya, Gadhafi seems to have gone completely berserk in his attempts to forcibly quell the protests in his country and Cole provides some insights into that situation.
Meanwhile Yemen’s leader seems to be also digging in his heels and it looks likely that he will increase his use of violence to repress protests.