Could the US have a military coup?

The military is the only American institution left with public trust, and that trust is enormous. As a new era dawns, the previously unthinkable is on the table.

Each year, I come home to the United States for an extended break over the Christmas holiday. Ordinarily it’s a time to relax, recharge, and spend some quality time with family. But this year a dark cloud is hanging over my visit.

I’m from the New York area, so it’s no surprise that people here are still feeling a sense of shell shock about November’s election result. But this isn’t the same disappointment people felt during the George W era. This isn’t about politics. There is a palpable sense of anxiety and fear in the air. Nobody knows what’s coming next.

There is a sense that everything people thought they knew about their own country has suddenly evaporated. More than one person has described the feeling as being one of a “living nightmare” that they still expect to wake up from. Someone else told me that the sudden shock of having the world you thought you knew come tumbling to the ground gave him “the same feeling as on September 11th”.

Can the EU rebuild the Arab world like the US rebuilt Europe?

Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has called on the West to create a new 'Marshall Plan for Arab states' in response to the current unrest. Such a plan, modeled on the wildly successful scheme launched by the United States in 1947 to rebuild war-ravaged Europe, would be designed to give new Arab governments the financial support they need to build stable democracies. More implicitly, it would provide a bulwark against Islamism in the same way that the Marshall Plan successfully provided a bulwark against Communism in Western Europe.

Europe is still still haunted by its failure to do anything to prevent the chaos that unfolded in its own backyard in the 1990s during the Balkan Wars. The calls for quick decisive action are coming from every corner. Most politicians now acknowledge that financial support is going to be needed, but there is disagreement about who should supply it. These thorny issues will be discussed tomorrow at a special summit of EU leaders in Brussels to discuss the crisis in Libya.

At the European Union level, there has now been begrudging admittance that the union's approach to its Southern neighbours has until this point been a misguided failure. Valuing stability and protection of Israel above all else has led to the European Union and the United States ploughing billions of dollars into despotic regimes over the past decades, earning them the enmity of the Arab street. For the EU, most of this aid was distributed through the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), which gives financial and political assistance to the EU's neighbours.

€2.8bn in assistance has already been pledged to the Middle East and North Africa over the next three years through the ENP. Now that it is clear that a much larger amount than this is going to be needed to support budding Democracy movements, there are questions over whether the ENP is the best tool to use. Southern European countries have long complained that the ENP was always more focused on the EU's Eastern neighbours than those to the South. Why not give the Southern Mediterranean its own new, dedicated assistance vehicle?

Tunisian refugees overwhelming Italy

Egypt may have stolen the spotlight from the revolution in Tunisia, but the situation there is still in chaos. Since the uprising that overthrew long-time President/Dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali there have been strikes and clashes on the streets and a state of lawlessness still exists as many police officers have abandoned their posts.

Amid all of this Italy said this weekend a flood of Tunisian refugees coming across the Mediterranean Sea have overwhelmed the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, just off the Tunisian coast. More Tunisian immigrants have arrived on the island in the past week there are residents of the island, they say.

But the situation seems to be mired in confusion and perhaps not a small amount of exaggeration. Though the Italian foreign minister claims that he asked for EU help in stemming the flow of migrants on Saturday, today a European Commission spokesperson said there has been no such request from Italy. In fact, he said, the EU offered Italy assistance but the Italian government refused it. So they were "surprised" by the foreign minister's comments, he said.

An embarrassing day for Ashton and Van Rompuy

Today's summit of European leaders is winding down, and now everyone is waiting for the prime ministers and presidents to emerge to announce what they have decided for the stability of the Eurozone. Between the euro crisis and the turmoil in Egypt, this council has turned out to bear little resemblance to the gathering it was supposed to be – a special summit on European energy issues.

This is actually the first European Council (the summits of European heads of government) that I've covered. Since my beat is environment, there hasn't been an occasion so far where the leaders have had an environmental issue on the agenda important enough for me to spend the day here. Today was supposed to be different. European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, now one year into his newly created position, called for this summit dedicated to energy last year. But as the European debt crisis has raged on, in the past two months it became clear that the seemingly non-pressing issue of energy security and sustainability was going to take a back seat to the crisis. And now that a revolution is underway in Egypt, by yesterday few were expecting to see anything significant come out of this council in the way of energy - even though that was still purportedly the main subject behind today's meeting.

Sure enough, at noon today we received a very short list of conclusions on energy by the council - and there was little to really sink your teeth into. I'm told the leaders spent just an hour talking about energy before moving on to the Egypt issue. Essentially they just looked over the pre-agreed conclusions and signed off on it. Ah well, it did mean I could file my story earlier and be done with it!

Better the devil you know

Both Europe and the United States have been put in an awkward position this month by the unfolding political revolt in Egypt. On one hand, they want to be consistent in encouraging democratic values and they don't want to be seen to be propping up dictatorships. On the other hand, they are terrified of the instability that could be set off by a political meltdown in the Middle East's most populous country. This is not helped by the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is the second most powerful political force in Egypt after the regime of president-for-life Hosni Mubarak.

As the saying goes, better the devil you know than the devil you don't. Thus, the statements coming out of Brussels and Washington this week have been tepid and non-committal, stressing the need for stability over any ideological talk of overthrowing tyrants. The west is no great fan of Mubarak, but his semi-dictatorial rule has kept Egypt's strong Islamist movement in check and kept the country at peace with Israel. If he goes, there's no telling who might replace him.

The EU has come under particular criticism, as political violence has unfolded around the Mediterranean, for its slow reaction to events in its own backyard. This has been a particular embarrassment for the EU because its new diplomatic arm, the EEAS, was supposed to make Europe more decisive and reactive to foreign policy issues. And yet as one riot after the other has unfolded across the Mediterranean over the past weeks, the EU has been very restrained in its reaction.