ABSTRACT
The invasion of Panama by the armed forces of the United States of America on 20 December 1989 and the capture and imprisonment of General Manuel Noriega were widely covered and decrypted by the Arabic press. The Arabic media analyzed this incident in a manner in keeping with their interpretive lens on other international issues of the day: the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall on 2 November 1989. The Panamanian invasion was the first armed intervention decreed by President George H. Bush (1988-1992) outside American borders, and also the first military intervention to occur in the postCold War international system, following the collapse of the USSR under the presidency of Mikhail Gorbachev. The Arabic media had their own perspective on the importance of the invasion, given the context of domestic political events in the Arab world (military juntas, corruption, authoritarianism, etc.), the tensions with the United States, the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and tensions among between regimes in place. They speculated that similar interventions might take place in certain countries in the Arab world, a suspicion that would soon be validated.
