The Arab uprisings of 2011 started out with a great deal of hope that old structures and institutions and mindsets were being cleared away and the revolutionaries have continued to struggle to ensure that their aspirations become part of the new structures. Dictators in Egypt and Tunisia have been dragged out of power, inspiring Arabs across the region to rise up against their leaders. So far, the monarchies of the region and Libya, Syria and Yemen are pushing back against the protesters, often using deadly force. In Libya, Syria and Bahrain, events have taken an interesting turn as we see quite different responses to the situation in each of these countries. In Libya, an alliance of US/EU and Arab League countries are supporting a military intervention to prevent civilian deaths under the ‘responsibility to protect’ doctrine. In Bahrain, the GCC countries led by Saudi Arabia have agreed to occupy Bahrain to restore stability. In Syria, President Assad is being coaxed by a variety of sources to implement reforms to meet protesters demands.
Intervening in Libya
Those who follow developments in the Arab world in the west have been attempting to justify the intervention in Libya by a US/EU/Arab coalition under the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ doctrine (see several diaries discussing Juan Cole’s support for the intervention). Arab intellectuals have not been immune to this. A group of Arab intellectuals have signed a letter against the intervention in Libya but approving the intifada and the removal of Qaddafi from power. The letter (in Arabic, my translation) describes the intervention as ‘imperialist’ and argues that the approval by the Arab League, which conferred legitimacy to the intervention in Libya, is merely the approval of the tyrannical governments that are allied with the US. Furthermore:
True support [for the Libyan uprising] does not require the bombing and destruction of civilian life and civilizations and we who have seen and suffered the American style of war in more than one Arab country did not admire the performance nor the results.
The letter is signed by As’ad Abu Khalil, Joseph Massad, Rami Zreik Haidar Eid, Rania Masri, Ziad Hafez and others. A more complex argument supplied by Gilbert Ashcar which calls for nuanced/critical support from the left for the intervention in Libya:
Can anyone claiming to belong to the left just ignore a popular movement's plea for protection, even by means of imperialist bandit-cops, when the type of protection requested is not one through which control over their country could be exerted? Certainly not, by my understanding of the left. No real progressive could just ignore the uprising's request for protection — unless, as is too frequent among the Western left, they just ignore the circumstances and the imminent threat of mass slaughter, paying attention to the whole situation only once their own government got involved, thus setting off their (normally healthy, I should add) reflex of opposing the involvement.snip
Does it mean that we had and have to support UNSC resolution 1973? Not at all. This was a very bad and dangerous resolution, precisely because it didn't define enough safeguards against transgressing the mandate of protecting the Libyan civilians. The resolution leaves too much room for interpretation, and could be used to push forward an imperialist agenda going beyond protection into meddling into Libya's political future. It could not be supported, but must be criticized for its ambiguities. But neither could it be opposed, in the sense of opposing the no-fly zone and giving the impression that one doesn't care about the civilians and the uprising. We could only express our strong reservations.
snip
One can safely bet that the present intervention in Libya will prove most embarrassing for imperialist powers in the future. As those members of the US establishment who opposed their country's intervention rightly warned, the next time Israel's air force bombs one of its neighbours, whether Gaza or Lebanon, people will demand a no-fly zone. I, for one, definitely will. Pickets should be organized at the UN in New York demanding it. We should all be prepared to do so, with now a powerful argument.
To my mind, Aschar’s argument is not convincing since I don’t find bombing an inherently humanitarian intervention. In fact, it is anti-humanitarian. Additionally, violent intervention will greatly decrease the chance that Libyans will be able to create a democracy based on negotiation, compromise and those qualities necessary in forming and strengthening a democratic state. I would add that the UNSC did not give the political aspects of UNSC1973 enough time before they started bombing. The political elements were calls for a ceasefire and the start of negotiations with the Libyans, the African Union and the UN Special Envoy. Non-violent solutions were not given a chance.
Further criticism of the bombing in Libya has come from the German government, unhappy about the intervention and perhaps indicating some problems in coordination within the European members of NATO. Following the German abstention in the UNSC, Chancellor Angela Merkel has been outspoken about the need for a complete oil embargo against Libya, an action not proving popular among some NATO allies. German Development Minister Dirk Niebel accused the United Nations-backed military alliance currently operating in Libya of hypocrisy:
It is notable that exactly those countries which are blithely dropping bombs in Libya are still drawing oil from Libya
It’s interesting to find politicians in western countries making the blood-oil linkage.
Latest reports indicate that the US and EU are holding talks about whether arming the rebels would be legal under the UN resolution. This is part of the ‘mission creep’ associated with any armed intervention – initial goals and strategies do not survive first contact with the enemy and the goals become larger and more complex, dragging many initial supporters into areas they perhaps would be unwilling to go if known at the beginning. This is how good intentions spiral into a complete mess. This situation could leave the Libyan people in one of several horrific situations including a protracted stalemate that would take them even further away from a properly-functional state with some hope of popular legitimacy and expression.
Occupying Bahrain
The Gulf Countries have begun their occupation of Bahrain in an attempt to restore stability and ensure the continuation of al-Khalifa family rule. Crown Prince Salman praised the efforts of the security services for restoring calm and allowing the country to return to normal. However, it appears as though the situation is far from calm as the security services are still crushing small protests and targeting opposition members and their families for retribution:
- The Bahraini regime may speak of having “cleansed the streets” and “restored order” all it and its supporters want, but facts on the ground speak a different truth.... Far from “protecting people’s lives," police brutality and pro-government thug violence have wreaked havoc on the streets of otherwise peaceful residential neighborhoods. The attendant physical and psychological traumas, as well as material damage to private and public property, have yet to be officially addressed or accounted for. The Bahraini regime’s undercover intelligence services have also continued to unleash an arsenal of intimidation tactics against opposition activists, spokespersons, and supporters. To date, over a hundred Bahrainis have been reported missing, their families left in the dark as to their whereabouts.Security officers and pro-regime thugs have also targeted the homes of those who have publicly criticized the al-Khalifa. Some, like the home of Munira Fakhro, have been attacked more than once. Intimidation tactics against medical staff have also persisted, despite government claims to the opposite... In some areas, Shi’a protesters who were injured during reprisals by riot police are receiving rudimentary medical care at home because they fear being targeted at hospitals if they were to seek proper medical help.
Protesters are also being targeted by the government, with student scholarships suspended for those studying abroad and business opportunities being denied to opponents of the regime. It’s difficult to predict just what Bahrain’s dissident movement will now do and whether they have been crushed and demoralized enough to not rise again in the near future. But it is clear that the west will not interfere with how the GCC and the Khalifas deal with Bahrain and are happy to have the cooperation of the Gulf countries in the intervention in Libya.
Coaxing the Syrian regime
The Syrian regime has responded harshly to the flaring up of dissent in Syria and talked about some concessions such as raising public sector salaries and lifting the decades-long Emergency Law. The response to the crisis in Syria has been markedly different than the response to Libya. The International Crisis Group recommends:
President Assad must show visible leadership and do so now. His political capital today depends less on his past foreign policy successes than on his ability to live up to popular expectations at a time of dangerous domestic crisis. Meanwhile, repression perpetrated under his responsibility is costing him dearly. He alone can prove that change is possible and already in the making, restore some sense of clarity and direction to a bewildered power apparatus and put forward a detailed framework for structural change.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has recommended to President Assad that he meet the demands of the protesters including releasing political prisoners, lift the Emergency Law and implement reforms. Turkey has sent an intelligence official to Damascus to and the Foreign Ministry is monitoring events.
SecState Hillary Clinton has rejected intervention in Syria:
“No,” Clinton said when asked on the CBS program “Face the Nation” if the U.S. would intervene in Syria’s unrest. Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s security forces clashed with protesters in several cities over the weekend after his promises of freedoms and pay increases failed to prevent dissent from spreading across the country.
French President Sarkozy, leading the intervention against Libya, is also unwilling to consider retribution at this time.
I suspect that there are unspoken factors behind this lack of intervention. Syria is not as accessible to violent intervention as Libya and certainly Turkey, which has strong trade, investment and political ties to Syria would veto any NATO attempt to use its resources to intervene in Syria. Syria is not such an easy target as Libya – it is better armed, has WMDs and is allied with Iran, which the US has not shown a desire to become entangled with, despite Israeli rhetoric on the threat posed by Iran and the fears of US Sunni Arab allies in the Gulf of Shiite Iran’s ambitions. The US also needs Syria’s help to contain the flow of insurgents into Iraq that pose a threat to US troops.
Meanwhile, Bashar al-Assad has struck back. His spokeswoman Bouthaina Shaaban portrayed the protests as foreign-supported have made way for promised to lift the emergency law, introduce a crackdown on corruption and implement wider political freedoms. He sacked the cabinet on Tuesday and encouraged massive popular demonstrations in the larger cities such as Damascus and Aleppo using the recently-approved facebook and other social media. He finally gave a speech to the countryalong the theme 'apres moi, le deluge', where he hammered home the theme of foreign interference and the role that he and the regime play in the stability of the country. If the demonstrations do not spread to the larger cities, the regime could ride this out. While this situation is being played out, it’s clear that the west will continue to give the Syrian regime room to manoeuvre.
It is clear that the international community will give al-Assad some space to resolve the situation in Syria. As Helena Cobban notes:
...this posture of western governments issuing a clear demarche to Syria against using excessive violence against protesters and then enrolling a variety of international diplomatic mechanisms to monitor and report on the situation with a view to incentivizing or disincentivizing good or bad behavior on the streets and real, significant moves to political reform is one that could and should have been used in both Libya and Bahrain (emphasis in original).Instead of which, what we had was: in Libya, the rush to a terrible war whose consequences (and even, whose goals) are quite impossible to discern; and in Bahrain-- nothing, a complete carte blanche to that very repressive regime to do whatever it wanted against the well-organized and above all nonviolent protesters who were gathering in a disciplined way to seek basic human rights.
About the series:Adalah ("justice" in Arabic) is a diary series about the Middle East, with special (but not exclusive) emphasis on the Arab-Israeli conflict. The authors of this series believe in the right of self-determination for all the people of the Middle East and that a just resolution respecting the rights and dignity of both Palestinians and Israelis is the only viable option for peace. Our diaries will consist of news roundup and analysis. We invite you to discuss them in the comments or contribute with stories from the region which deserve attention. We ask only that you be respectful and that the number of meta comments be kept to a minimum.