With regimes collapsing throughout the Middle East, many
Washington experts wonder if two U.S.-aligned monarchies, Bahrain
and Jordan, might be the next possible candidates for the type of
regime change seen of late in Tunisia and Egypt. In recent weeks,
thousands have demonstrated in Bahrain in favor of overthrowing the
monarchy after security forces killed several protesters calling
for constitutional reforms and investigations into government
corruption and human rights abuses. In Jordan, meanwhile,
demonstrations against rising food prices and rampant unemployment
quickly transformed into pro-democracy rallies, rocking the
Hashemite Kingdom to its core.
The stakes for the U.S. are enormous. The overthrow of
either regime would threaten American interests and further
destabilize the already-volatile region. Bahrain’s strategic
position in the Persian Gulf, through which approximately a fifth
of the world’s oil exports pass, as well as its role as host to the
U.S. Fifth Fleet (which helps protect that oil), makes its
continued alliance with the U.S. crucial to American energy
security. As for Jordan, its long border with Iraq, which will
likely host American troops for many more years, and its peace
treaty with Israel, makes the country an important strategic
partner for America.
The good news is that the Bahraini and Jordanian regimes
are less susceptible to overthrow than those in Tunisia, Egypt and
even Libya. The reason has everything to do with identity; whereas
the soldiers of the those countries hailed from the same
ethno-religious group as the protesters, the Bahraini and Jordanian
militaries are manned by ruling minorities less sympathetic to the
plight of a disenfranchised majority.
This difference goes to the core of why revolutionary
groups succeed or fail. If a revolutionary group lacks a guerrilla
army capable of overpowering the government’s military, their
efforts can only succeed if there are mass defections from the
armed forces. Because none of the revolutionary movements that have
recently surfaced in the Middle East possess a guerrilla army, the
extent of their success has corresponded to the scale of the
military defections to their cause. In instances where the entire
military leadership defected, as was the case in Tunisia and Egypt,
the ruler had to resign almost immediately. On the other hand, in
Libya, where only part of the military defected, a civil war
erupted and the fate of the Gaddafi regime is still unclear as of
this writing.
The Tunisian, Egyptian, and Libyan soldiers who refused to
suppress anti-regime demonstrations did so in part because they
identified with the protesters and had qualms about shooting their
fellow countrymen. In each case, the soldiers and demonstrators
came from the same ethno-religious group. By contrast, Bahrain’s
Sunni minority, which comprises about 30 percent of the nation’s
population (including the monarch and most military personnel),
lords over a large Shi’ite majority. Similarly, Jordan’s monarchy
and military are dominated by members of Jordan’s East Bank tribes,
which represent only a third of the country’s population; largely
disenfranchised Palestinians make up the rest.
Not only do Bahrain and Jordan’s soldiers not come from
the same families as the demonstrators, their families actually
stand to lose their privileged status if the demonstrators achieve
their aims. And, since a Shi’ite-dominated Bahraini government is
unlikely to trust a predominantly Sunni military to defend it, that
government can be expected to alter the religious balance of the
military so that it more accurately reflects the country’s
religious make-up — providing a powerful disincentive for the
country’s current crop of military leaders to contemplate
abandoning their posts. Majority rule in Jordan would similarly end
the East Bank tribes’ control over their country’s economy and
military, a development the armed forces are not eager to
contemplate.
History teaches that few minority-run regimes accept
democratization peacefully, and the Middle Eastern record is
especially blood-soaked. Following the 1991 Gulf War,
revolutionaries from Iraq’s Shi’ite majority sought to oust Saddam
Hussein’s Sunni-backed dictatorship. At the revolt’s height, Saddam
controlled only four of Iraq’s 18 provinces and most pundits
assumed that his Ba’athist regime would soon collapse. But
recognizing the threat the Shi’ite rebellion posed to Sunni
interests, the largely Sunni Republican Guard mercilessly quashed
the insurgency with helicopter gunships and tanks, killing tens of
thousands of Shi’ite civilians in the process. Similarly, when
Yasser Arafat’s PLO attempted to depose Jordan’s King Hussein in
1970-71, the Jordanian military killed thousands of Palestinians
and expelled the PLO from the country.
The lesson remains true today. As long as Bahrain’s Sunnis
and Jordan’s East Bankers continue to oppose majority rule, few
soldiers are likely to defect to the opposition. As a result, a
future struggle for majority rule in Manama and Amman might end up
looking a lot more like Iraq in 1991 or Jordan in 1970-71 than
Tunisia, Egypt or Libya circa 2011.
