The brink of civil war   [By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn]

The world's attention has been riveted on the Arab region's internet-generated protests that have so far seen regimes toppled in Egypt and Tunisia, a gathering storm in Libya and sizzling scenes in Bahrain and Yemen.

The United States, Britain and the European Union (EU), still unable to call the shots as they would have liked on the Arab Street, are still ducking and dithering as events overtake the accustomed reality.

Flexing and rolling with the punches, Washington, London and Brussels are applying the external pressure on targeted regimes while still unable to fine-tune an approach to the resulting realities and worrying possibilities of the troubles they publicly welcome but privately worry about.

Long-held policy approaches are being conveniently set aside and stepped away from in the uncertainty of the moment.

Where the US, UK and Europe have historically and traditionally championed "free and fair elections" as the natural and logical defining outcome of potential regime-changing national protests in "enemy states" and "rogue nations", this has not been the case in Egypt, for example.

Afraid that "free and fair elections" in post-Mubarak Egypt could lead to election of the Islamic Muslim Brotherhood, they initially argued and pressed for "a peaceful transition" that would have seen Mubarak remain in charge until September – by which time a more defined approach would have been agreed.

But with the protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square not the least interested in the strategic military and geopolitical concerns of Western nations and Israel in their part of the world, they settled for the next best thing they claim to hate the most: army rule.

As days pass, the dictation of Western leaders and foreign affairs spokespersons (such as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and British Foreign Secretary William Hague, as well as the EU Foreign Policy Chief Baroness Ashton) increases in volume and breadth of demands.

To a country, the most powerful EU member-states have shown no concern or regard for Italy's potential price to pay for the unrest in Libya.

With Prime Minister Sylvio Berlusconi now the political "bête noir" of the EU, there seems little concern for the potential effects of any economic chaos in Tripoli on the vast long-term Libyan-Italian investments recently agreed.

The US, UK and EU were happy that Berlusconi – after over a dozen meetings with Gadaffi, including a state visit to Italy during which the Libyan leader pitched his famous tent in the middle of Rome – had been somehow able to encourage the former international pariah leader to embrace trade with the West.

For his extension of the hand of peace through economics and trade, Gadaffi soon got Libya lowered down on the West's list of post 9/11 "countries providing state support for terrorism".

But the moment it started looking like he may have to un-pitch and fold his tent, Gadaffi became the next name on the list of Arab leaders to become victim of the "domino effect" of the overnight Internet Intifada.