Anyone interested in the televised appearances of Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi would certainly remember his distinguished interview on Al Jazeera, which was reported in the international press.

After weeks of diplomatic wavering on the tumult in the Arab world, President Nicolas Sarkozy is scrambling to signal to the world that France is back on track, defending core human values and treading with a sure foot in the changed Middle East.

The events from Tunisia and Egypt to Yemen and now Libya also shined a spotlight on Al Jazeera, as the Qatar-based news network used its well-positioned reporters to garner scoops and become, almost overnight, a new must-view for millions of global citizens interested in the big Middle East story.

The international community moved to isolate Libya further on Wednesday, with France pressing for European Union sanctions and Peru severing relations against Moammar Gadhafi's government after the U.N. Security Council condemned his crackdown on government protesters.

It is of course possible, and probably likely, that the Arab Spring of 2011 will fail, as other springs in the Middle East and elsewhere have never come to fruition. There would still be a case, for reasons of honor and duty, for the United States to try to help, to do the right thing, to stand with the opponents of tyranny, even if one thought them likely, even nearly certain, to fail.

It's not surprising that the White House worked with Bahrain's Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa to end the crackdown on protesters and to hold talks with the country's mainly Shiite-led opposition, after reading classified State Department cables released last week by WikiLeaks.

Even as the European Union has moved toward formulating a unified policy on Egypt and Tunisia, member states are sharply divided over how to deal with the increasingly volatile and violent situation in Libya.

Key Western nations urged the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday to demand an immediate end to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's bloody crackdown on civilian protesters and strongly condemn the violence.