The Arab Spring certainly has not blossomed into an Arab Summer.
The “democratic transition” heralded by Western journalists and
politicians is moving at a snail’s pace in Tunisia and Egypt — if
at all. Yemen really never was about democracy and Bahrain’s
demonstrations for freedom began to fizzle once the Sunni monarchy
ordered brutal attacks on the primarily Shia
protesters and then did what Bahrainis do best — financially
satisfied the deal makers after jailing top Shia leaders. Of course
it didn’t hurt to have a Saudi Army contingent roll across the
causeway separating the two countries in support of the ruling
Khalifa family’s security forces.
Libya and Syria have presented very different issues, even
though both have death and destruction as a characteristic. The
Assad family has been on alert for a Sunni-driven uprising for
years. They had practiced their planned reaction in the past by
killing tens of thousands led by the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama in
1982. Qaddafi has had to keep a lid on Cyrenaica (the eastern
portion of Libya) ever since his overthrow of King Idris in 1969.
The King’s family came from that part of the country and tribalism
once again has become a major factor in national politics. Key
Cyrenaican politicians always were strategically placed in
Qaddafi’s governments to limit regional dissent and add balance to
the Tripolitanian dominance. To add further confusion, Libyan
recruits for al Qaeda disproportionately came from Cyrenaica.
Though Tunisia was the site of the first popular uprising, it
was Egypt and the many thousands of people cramming Tahrir Square
that really signaled the political upheaval that was characterized
as a new era in Arab governance. Within the numerous anti-Mubarak
factions that rushed to protests in the street was the long
restricted — but still widely followed — Muslim Brotherhood.
These disciplined elements were the ones on which the military kept
the closest watch.
What evolved in Egypt was always going to be the key to
uprisings elsewhere. The continued dominance of the Egyptian
military — which has ultimately controlled the nation since Nasser
— marked the immediate post-demonstration period. In the past two
weeks, however, crowds have returned to Tahrir Square demanding
trials for many of the Mubarak politicians and security force
personnel. This represents essentially a challenge to the current
military administration and shows that a volatile civilian
atmosphere continues to exist. The Muslim Brotherhood has so far
stayed out of the fray.
While most analysts concede a close relationship between the
Assad regime in Syria and the clerical leadership in Iran, the
working relationship between the Egyptian and Syrian military goes
back many years. The bond leans heavily on their shared antagonism
toward the Muslim Brotherhood, though the reasons for this enmity
are different. It’s been known for some time that Damascus and
Cairo maintained and utilized backdoors to each other’s mutual
military and intelligence interests.
Even though the United States has been the principal source of
aid to the Egyptian military, the British have continued to be an
important conduit of Egyptian interests in Europe. This has been
true also of the Syrians, who would have been expected from their
history to be closer to the French. The sending of Bashar al-Assad
to Britain for further medical schooling by his father, Hafez
al-Assad, was a carefully-made political decision. The Assad family
holds its London connections even today in the highest regard.
(Conspicuously, when pro-Assad mobs attacked the U.S. and French
embassies a short while ago, the U.K. embassy was spared.)
It is this sort of connectivity and behind-the-scenes intrigue
that holds a traditional role in all Arab affairs. The people in
the street may courageously demonstrate for freedoms taken for
granted in the West, but in the end the deals are made among the
privileged few. This is particularly true in Yemen, where the
extended family of President Ali Abdullah Saleh hold controlling
positions on both sides of the current upheaval.
Similarly, military and political power positions held by the
Assads’ Alawite clan and their Shia allies are under threat by the
majority Sunni populace favored by Wahhabist Sunni Saudis. On a
personal basis, the Saudi ruler, King Abdullah, always has been
unhappy with the efforts of the Assads to curry favor with Iran.
The West looks for and encourages democratic yearnings, while the
Middle East in general and Arabs in particular manipulate and are
manipulated by various traditional interests both religious and
political.
Perhaps the current situation in Libya is the best example of
Western misperceptions of democracy in action in the region. In
fact, several individuals of Cyrenaican background serving in the
Qaddafi government (the interior and justice ministers) joined
forces with local eastern Libyan political, commercial and tribal
power brokers to take advantage of the highly-publicized uprising
in neighboring Egypt, actually aiming to organize a similar event
in their oil-rich eastern region. No matter how one views this
escalating civil war, it is not a revolution for
democracy — rather an attempted coup d’état led by the
eastern sector of the country aiming to overthrow the western
province-dominated government of a quasi-monarchist ruler
pretending to be a democratic socialist.
And lest we forget, the principal military and political allies
of the Cyrenaicans are those Western European nations (like the
U.S., which provides defense-budget support) that hold the main
interests in Libyan oil development and distribution. And this is
an Arab Spring?
