That makes it all the more remarkable that these leaders have now
largely accepted the normative principle that regime legitimacy can be
forfeited at a certain level of internal violence. Nobody would say that
the Arab League has acted effectively to defend this new norm --
the ongoing bloodshed in Syria, the decimated civil society of Bahrain,
and the grim stalemate in Yemen attest all too clearly that they have
not. But they now speak almost all speak the language of international
norms against impunity. Norms do not need perfect behavioral compliance
for them to be significant in international relations. The simple fact
that both popular and official Arab political discourse now begins from
the premise that domestically violent regimes should be sanctioned or
even removed from power has already significantly changed the game of
Arab politics.