Inspired by last month's Egyptian uprising, young activists in Azerbaijan are calling for antigovernment demonstrations on March 11 -- and using Facebook to spread the word. Originally planned as a "virtual protest," in which supporters could express their solidarity with a simple click of the mouse, the March 11 movement has since morphed into calls for a flesh-and-blood demonstration of growing disenchantment with the country's autocratic regime. It is a move that has rattled Baku.

Libya’s warring sides opened a new and critical front in the deepening conflict there. Muammar Qaddafi and rebels trying to oust him sent envoys to European capitals to sway the debate over potential international military involvement in Libya, a day ahead of a European Union summit that could well determine the future of the crisis.

Moving ahead of its allies, France on Thursday became the first country to recognize Libya’s rebel leadership in the eastern city of Benghazi and said it would soon exchange ambassadors with the insurgents.

According to a U.S. State Department official, the concept of “smart power” ― the intelligent integration and networking of diplomacy, defense, development, and other tools of so-called “hard” and “soft” power ― is at the heart of the Obama administration’s foreign-policy vision. Currently, however, Obama’s smart-power strategy is facing a stiff challenge from events in the Middle East.

It’s become increasingly clear there is an awful reality dawning on European Union officials. Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s Libyan regime, which everyone assumed a week ago would be swept away in an irresistible tide of North African democratic enthusiasm, is not just hanging onto power: it’s fighting back.

Western countries are urgently considering a number of options for intervention in Libya, ranging from military operations to diplomatic initiatives and stepped-up humanitarian assistance.

“I want to say here unequivocally - unequivocally, categorically - that Israel welcomes the democratization process in the Middle East, that if democracies arise in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere, we will be the first to embrace them,” Ambassador Michael Oren said.

As revolution has spread from the Maghreb to the Gulf region and back again, President Barack Obama has stuttered and fumbled and sometimes fallen strangely silent. What can explain this from a man whose manner has always been smooth and whose oratorical gifts propelled him from utter obscurity to the White House in just four short years?