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The powerful wave in favour of democracy has not only uprooted many well-entrenched dictatorial regimes in the Arab world but it has also paved the way for the emergence of new power-equations among member-states of the region and in their relations with several of the polar powers. The popular upsurge, the Arab Spring, which began in Tunisia against strongman Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, also known as Jasmine revolution, spreading over the Arab world has, perhaps, taken the most appropriate toll on the late Col. Gaddafi.
Earlier, it progressed through Egypt, ensuring the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, engulfed Yemen in flames, sparked a bloody strife in Syria and eventually wound its way to the armed clashes in Libya, finally culminated in the decisive victory for anti-Gaddafi protestors. Perhaps the deceased dictator of Libya had never even dreamt of such a violent and vicious death by the hands of the rebels in his hometown of Sirte. All through his 42 years of rule, he eliminated most of his opponents in the most heinous and macabre manner.
Although the shaken regimes in Syria and Yemen do survive at present, the crisis is not yet over because the political topography of the Arab world has already undergone a radical change. In fact, the uprooted regimes of Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya represented the legacy of the Cold War, although each is and was unique. The emerging Cold War schism between the two superpowers at the end of the second World War had ensured a relative sense of security, stability and certainty in the region because almost all countries, for variety of reasons, practiced alliance behavior with either of the superpowers who had vested interests in the oil wealth of the region.
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