Please refer to the list on the right to access earlier posts. They give a day-to-day account of the violent climaxes of the Arab revolutions in 2011. Plus there are more reflective guidelines for the future settlement of political and economic issues in the region.
ARAB REVOLUTIONS 201 The Middle East Speculum Report Feb. 21 2011
Libya in Extremis!
Heavy artillery and jet strafing of lines of protesters in the streets around Green Square Tripoli was Al Qaddafi's Parthian shot. If the US does not intervene, Libya may see another 42 years of Al Qadahfy darkness. Will the Libyan army turn on him? Some, the junior officers. Some have likely been already shot in their barracks by the authorities. An air-bridge of mercenaries arriving at Tripoli airport can easily be stopped, but the US is slow off the mark. Expect a concerted counterattack by Qadafy's goons.
Al Qadahfy deploys jet fighters to strafe demonstrators in Tripoli. We warned about just this vulnerability yesterday. Hundreds massacred in the streets. I can hope Euro-American teams are ready to deploy to Tripoli.
“The Game is Over! - 42 years of Hell Ended” they say in Benghazi. But not yet. Atrocity in Tripoli - the people are very afraid, may be cowed. What then? Military clamp down condemns Libya to another 42 years of oppression. Libyans call intervention - Speculum asked President Obama to launch US Navy aircraft over 20 hours ago, to sever east-west highway, enforce a no-fly zone, hit armor concentrations (if they deploy on the streets) and if necessary meet the Libyan air force in the skies.
One must understand mercenaries, how Qadahfy is using them, flown in to Sabha, then transported overland. These poor guys now find themselves dead if captured. Even the black African workers - close to a million - are trying to get out. Crowds surround the airport, which in Tripoli is some 40 km. south of the city.
Defections of Libyan units and agents now are in full flood. Embassies are going over as expat Libyans gather at their gates. The entire Libyan delegation at the UN has called for international intervention, a no-fly zone over Tripoli. In other words, they want the US Navy carriers to launch F-18Cs, which is exactly what we advised yesterday, Sunday the 20th, when Speculum sent seven critical e mails to select elected officials, asking that the war-hot US pilots be allowed to sever the Tripoli road, hit armor concentrations and meet the Libyan air force in the skies. (away from SAMs.) To do nothing forfeits a chance for the US gov. to regain Arab esteem. But I bet we blow it.
At the moment, an airlift of mercenaries from Africa, Syria, Yemen, and Eastern Europe is underway, and the foreign goons are deploying. Some have been hunted down and killed. Blood and revenge is in the air. Some are fleeing, driving madly down the long road to al Kufrah, that vital oasis, where they can hold hostage Libya's entire oil production. Yes, Qadahfy will blow a few wells, shoot up some pipelines, break some pumps, which will likely interrupt for three (3) months.
Will oil production be cut by the Libyan crisis? Yes. But already the Saudis and Kuwaitis are ramping up, to pump enough extra oil to bridge the Libyan shortfall. But it is not sweet crude. Though there are Americans working in Libya, almost all of Libya's oil exports go to Europe. Qadahfy has charged them extortionate royalties, just like he did in 1971. Military action is difficult with some 400,000 guest workers and students, any of whom can be held hostage.
Two days ago Libyan special police starting shooting people throwing stones. Now Benghazi is free. In the west, Tripoli erupts in street demonstrations on the 21st. But Qadafy deploys his goons who shoot to kill. The tribes and religious leaders all pull together and seem unanimous in their condemnation of the Al Qadafy apparat. Or do we have it wrong? Al Qadahfy is deploying fighter jets to strafe protesters, killing an estimated 300 and wounding some 3,000.
The big surprise was the uprising in Tripoli. Apparently not that many rallied at first, some 200, but soon there were running gun battles in several parts of town. People attacked with sticks and stones, driving them back. Now Green Square is littered with 300 dead and many injured who will die because hospitals just can't cope. Euro-US medical airlifts will follow US Navy air operations, but will these happen? Am I dreaming?
Saif Qadahfy made his dreadful speech on the night of the 20th, and soon a rumor went around that Qadahfy had resigned, crowds gathered in the streets to celebrate. Saif al Qadahfy 'the Sword' made his weird speech, and the army/police returned, and, using machine guns mounted on cut-out SUVs, killed many, prompting attacks by the shebab, and their deaths, probably some 100 or so. This uprising in Tripoli adds to the legends already emanating from Benghazi and Al Bayda. But at what cost?
Saif was correct in citing the tribes and the sects: “We are a nation of tribes and sects, like no other...” Incoming reports indicate that many Libyan tribes have declared rebellion, led by elders unanimously opting for the overthrow of the Qadahfy entity, its apparat, its murderous judiciary, and all the police/intel toughs, the mercs, and the rich beneficiaries, those involved in petroleum corruption, those who siphon off some 70% of state oil revenues.
Saif Al Qadahfy's speech on Feb. 20th reveals much and augurs poorly for a peaceful transfer of power. On the 20th, Speculum sent requests to elected reps to intervene: US carrier battle groups (2) are already within strike range of eastern Libya, and SF units are on alert. US F-18s can sever the road to Tripoli, and hit armor concentrations, should Qadahfy and his sons and killers opt to massacre his own people once again. Obviously the world just can't step aside when a whole army is turned on an unarmed people who are demonstrating peacefully.
Regrettably, petroleum is such a factor in our lives that all the nations have sidled up to tyrants, autocrats, even as these leaders do little with all the revenues they receive, for the people. The Arab malaise was imposed by our own dependence on oil.
Back in 1970, when we first studied Col. Mu'ammer Qadahfy, he was intent on distributing the oil wealth, and famously, he would hand out new appliances and electronic equipment. Apartments were the main means by which loyalty was rewarded, much like Soviet Russia. Qadahfy has been building infrastructure, and his 'coming over' against terrorism, has brought in some $25 b. in investments. People of Benghazi have a big new power plant, giving the people electricity 24/7. But look at photos from Libya and you'll see how few cars are on the streets, and those cars present are late-models, with tinted windows and special license plates.
Two weeks ago the leading Muslim clerics issued a warning to the government not to kill protesting citizens. This of course they did, wantonly slaying women and children. So the muftis issued a 'raft' of fatwas condemning the Qadahfy regime. Many followed their directives to rise up and slay the killers. Tank after tank was knocked out by Molotov cocktails in Benghazi. Automatic weapons were wrestled out of the hands of soldiers and the secret police. Apparently, demonstrators are still able to communicate after Qadahfy shut down all internet servers and cell phone towers. It is through the land lines and some satellites that these angry crowds can conduct complex maneuvers, feints, sudden targeted assaults, and feigned withdrawals.
ALGERIA -
A mature mob would be more patient than one led by teenagers. And so we see in Algeria, some communication between the various parties, legal and illegal. Mr. Bouteflika was made president by the army, in 1999, but he himself is not from the army. In 2004 he defeated the army FLN's Ali Benflis, and was elected in a landslide. Elections in 2009 saw him loose support, especially since rigging was strongly suspected. Strangely, he's been criticized by the FLN, that relic of the war against the French, and if Mr. Bouteflicka loses control of events on the ground, the army can step in. But will not that heavy-handed return to military law, prompt uprising and civil war?
The Algerians of course are wary of war. Some 250,000 died from 1992 to 1998 in a civil war notable in its brutality. A number of political parties have been pursuing prescriptions for the various issues facing the populace, but the shebab in the streets, reinforced by their mothers, can't tolerate curfews. Of course it the refusal of these young people to obey the army's curfew, which made folks in Tunisia realize that they, too, could successfully defy the army, demonstrate 24/7 and bring down the government. The Egyptian protesting democrats did the same thing, disobeying the army and police on the night of the Jan. 25th, which is why they call their revolution the January 25th Revolution.
Algeria gets money from oil and gas, but obligations like high pensions for retired army officers, just eat into the nation's discretionary spending.
Tunisia -
On the 6th of Feb. 2011 the ruling party of Zine Ben Ali was banned, forcing the exodus of hundreds of privileged friends, some $9 billion leaving the country in the two weeks since. The interim prime minister Ghannouchi, who like Ben Ali has served since 1989, is under enormous pressure to work out a new government, one that represents all those ignored. The youth, many organized by Islamicists, insist that all those associated with Ben Ali and his Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) be removed from office immediately. How fast can these prospective leaders move? Not fast enough.
Secondly, the rule of law has not returned to all places in Tunisia. Murders are up as thieves are resisted with force by neighborhood watch organs. We all recall the three days Feb. 4-6, when Tunisians had to fend off organized criminals driving stolen cars. Egypt has, or had, the same issues – organized criminal groups taking advantage of the commotion, the lack of police, to make their moves.
As we speak, various criminal and terrorist groups are watching closely to see if the shebab on the streets are vulnerable to impatience, and may prompt them. As the Ikhwan return to Tunisia and come out from then shadows in Egypt, we see their young being used as spear-points. Many amateur Mid East 'buffs' think the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) presents a serious threat, or that they are harmless social workers deserving a place at the table.
Our understanding of the Al Ikhwan al Muslimiyya is not so simple. It is and is not a unified organ. Which augurs poorly or well. We know that at least one cell of terrorists is actrive: the bombing of a Christian church in Alexandria in early January prompted violent riots, the burning of a mosque. You have your pick: it was either the Gama'a al Islamiyya or Hizb-e-Tahrir or Al Qaida.
The MB made one big mistake, back in 1929, when a presumptuous schoolteacher named Hassan al Banna, turned the established Muslim reform tradition on its head, rejecting everything western, and claiming that old Islamic ways of dress and speech and prayer-in-front-of-others, will lead to political mastery, the overthrow of secular regimes, and the rigorous implimentation of the Shari'a.
Speculum keeps pointing out the stupid error of the Ikhwan, why their work has been so destructive. It was Sayyid Qutb who, apeing the psycho-path ibn Taymiyya, told all Brothers to fight the Shi'i and to condemn other, more secular Muslims, to hell, licensing their murder.
Clearly the Brothers need to publicly renounce their dumbed-down innovation.
As Speculum readers well know, the authenitic Islamic reform tradition runs from Sheikh Ahmed in Iran, to Sayyid Jalalad Din al Afghani, also Iranian, to Muhammed Abduh, to Rashid Rida. All these men advocated non-violent solutions to colonial occupation, and a needed crititque of the clergy, the religion. They could see as few can, that Muhammed's practicdes at Medina, are not those proffered and enforcfed by the Islamic religion. I know of no place on earth where the simple laws of the Prophet determine land-ownership, relations with children and women, tolerance ethnic and sectarian, and the auto-construction of cities.
Tunisian Ikhwan leaders are returning from London, which of course incubates innumerable expats and opposition newspapers and media, from almost all nations.
Morocco -
King Muhammed has been granting reforms over the past decade, so the varied opposition, which demonstrated in Rabat on the 20th, is pressing for more limited changes, like a more representation in parliament, and less military involvement in southern adventures in the Spanish Sahara. Morocco has the most lively interplay of political parties – some 40 representing every niche, it seems – so change will be consensual. King Muhammed is known to be a modest man, who has been challenging his father's favorites, those rich young heirs, to invest in their country.
Egypt -
Will the people of Egypt be able to overcome Nasser's legacy? Though Nasser helped bring about Egyptian independence, he instituted a socialist plan, made the army the supreme power, banned parties, and chased out many 'foreigners' – talented and/or rich Turks, Jews, Greeks, English, Albanians, - thereby cutting available capital and emboldening a dumb-down version of Pan Arabism, which Nasser tried to promote.
The Egyptian people have had forty years to study Nasser's legacy, and few admire him now, having seen through and solved for themselves, state-heavy deviations, be it the mistakes of heavy industrial investment, or state-heavy institutional socialism. The limits of symbolic appeal became obvious, and the treaty with Israel was grudgingly accepted. Surely, any military moves towards war will cancel funds and labor necessary to make the economy viable.
Some protesters till believe that the army is their friends, but many more suspect the army. Field Marshall Tantawi Behind the scenes and not publicized, is the jockeying for power on behalf of some twenty 'players.' Many seem to be puppets with strings attached, that is, they carry ideological or class baggage, be it socialism or crony capitalism. The rivalry has only grown, encouraged no doubt by the military and prompted by the shebab on the street.
Muhammad Al Baradei has linked up with the Ikhwan and others, which casts suspicions on Al Baradei's image as a technocrat, a scientist. Is he going for symbols at this late date?
Palestine -
The Palestinian president, Mahmud Abbas, in Ramallah, asks for the resignation of his cabinet. He'll usher in a younger bunch. He acted very fast to head off popular anger. Meanwhile, in Gaza, Hamas 'Zeal' is following the Iranian line: an obvious attempt to take advantage of the unrest, while secretly worrying. The educated people of Teheran have been fighting in the streets for basic liberties since 2009.
The Palestinian issue becomes more not less relevant, now that Israelis need not worry about 'wayward crazies' blowing themselves up; or the world's demands for some chance for an independent country called Palestine. Maybe one out of ten feels for the Arabs.
So do not be surprised if other Arab movements become more and more anti-Israel, and anti-American. It's another tragic detour. If Jordan and Egypt shake free of their treaties with the Jewish state, then a military build-up will begin, and a different paradigm emerge.
As the Chinese master Sun Tzu said years ago “Do not corner your enemy. Always leave for him a way out.” Israeli greed for more land is the cause for this hatred of America, and Jews. The main cause of the rising anti-Semitism, is just theft of another nation. This whole idea, hatched after WWII, of forming two states, Israel and Palestine, was, of course, an American idea. But why can't the Americans enforce their own design and purpose?
Will this Arab uprising turn anti-American? It would be better to put like this: does American hypocrisy prelude future negotiations? Does the Israeli theft of land and water, approved recently by the Americans in a UN vote, cancel out any good will on behalf of the Arab people.
Iran sends two warships through the Suez canal, something that could not have happened last month. On Israel's northern border, Lebanon had just changed its government, admitting in a militant coalition of Hizbullah and Palestinian refugees.
Yemen -
Two weeks of violent protests and police attacks, has led the young democrats to adapt 'sit down' tactics. Less provocative, the protesters spare themselves the truncheons and gas, while narrowing their message – the entire regime of Ali Saleh has to go. That's too big a jump for this poor nation. Sana'a, al Hudaydah, Aden, al Mukalla, and Ta'izz may have a combined twenty thousand modern-minded protesters, a small minority. They'll help spread specific North American notions re democratic self-rule into the Hadramaut and along the western coast, the Tahima, both more sophisticated than Sana'a. Both are sophisticated cultures, quite different and diverging. But this demand for a complete surrender of Saleh, while he is making some concessions, augurs poorly for the future. Yemen's democratic movement is losing its secular features and falling under the sway of younger, militantly organized mock-Islamic shebab. Adolescents do not possess adult brains, the frontal cortex is still sorting itself out, so kids they just don't listen; they act impulsively, demonize older folk, people not like them; think in black-and-white terms. They are impatient and think magically, believing that removing the entire government will lead to the peaceful pursuit of western democracy. They can be manipulated, and are, by the Ikhwan, the Brothers.
Yemen needs science – and patience. Development assistance gives way to humanitarian relief. Sana'a is not the only city on the verge of running out of fresh water. Energy is another problem – too expensive. So most Yemenis live without electricity or supplies trucked in. Urban commuters have few buses, so can't to work, or to the cafes where, if unemployed, as most are, they hang out, provided they can afford a coffee or a tea.
South and North are so different, and the Saleh regime so alone in the middle. The South is over-sophisticated, open to South Asian culture, and Soviet socialism, while the north is solidly royal – the kingship of the Zaydi imams. To the east are the more remote regions beyond Ma'rib. Here the Saudi forces remain ready to strike mock-Muslims calling themselves al Qaidah of the Arabian Peninsula. Saudi forces are ready to intervene in Bahrain and Kuwait, also. At the momdent, Adm. Mike Mullen is in Riyadh, not the best place to command US Navy intervention in Libya.
Bahrain -
The assault on peaceful demonstrators last week at night at the Pearl Circle was probably instigated from some older member of the the Khalifa clan, not 'King' i.e. Emir Salman Hamad al Khalifa. He has been the best of the monarchs, trying again and again to work things out with an obstreperous elected lower house. The Shi'a keep going for it – the complete removal of the Sunni Khalifa dynasty and cabinet. Who's right?
The Sunni Emir and all behind him. The Sunnis Khalifas have been in Bahrain for some 240 years. They were nomads who, like their Kuwaiti, Qatari and UAE counterparts, migrated to the coast from the Najd desert after three years of no water. The Shi'a were merchants coming from Iran and Iraq, or workers brought in by the British, to work in Manama's port. (Some were in Bahrain for generations also).
We in the West fall for our own assumptions, calling only Israel democratic, when in Arabia bedouin chiefs are usually elected, when most every shura or community meeting ends with a show of hands. We call this 'primitive' democracy, and discount it. Now, believing the Arabs have no experience with ruling themselves, Americans see monarchs and emirs and all those working for them, as anti-democratic, obsolete, and fated to pass. The Arab elected leader is proud to keep his doors open for anyone who needs help. Chivalric behavior (mur'u'a) amongst the Arabs is even deeper than the impulse of 'adab. If you don't know what 'adab is, you don't know anything about Muslim people.
The Bahrain mob has a front and a back. The front is full of liberal educated democrats, saying “We are neither Sunni or Shi'i. We are both together.” In the back, however, are the Shi'a radicals. They cannot claim poverty – the Emir has been generous – or even unemployment – Bahrain is bustling. It has long served as Saudis' No.1 vacation destination. Liquor and prostitutes has served the Bahrainis well, and this is one area where the Emir must reform its 'customs,' recognizing Muslim sensibilities.
I don't know if Shi'a clerics do the bidding of the Iranians. They may have in the past, but the Iranian regime has really been discredited, and these clerics have no doubt matured. The violence last week has turned these clerics into legal instruments, as fatwas are issued for the complete removal of the Sunni regime. Well, this will not fly. There are many pro-Khalifa citizens, including many Shi'a.
Kuwait -
On the 18th the Kuwaiti authorities moved to break up a spontaneous demonstration of some 1,000 'stateless persons,' using rubber bullets, water cannon and gas. Curiously, the demonstration was sited well outside Kuwait City.
Iran -
Just as in the early 19 C. Iranian Shi'a intellectuals designed and set in motion the modern Islamic reform tradition, so now does Iran remain the source and font of rebellion against usurping clerics bent on power. Where is Ruhollah Khomeini when we need him? He'd have no tolerance for the present regime, for he hated police repression. And he hated those who used Islam to further their selfish ideologies, and those who stole from the treasury, or wasted the public money and youth on needless wars and provocations.
Now the democrats of Teheran prepare to sacrifice themselves in a coming big protest. But look what's happening – the hard line clerics rallied and pledged to try and execute Iran beloved opposition leaders. That's Musavi and Khatami and Karrubi, and others. Heaven forbid!
As closet Zarathushtris, the Persians are primed for the final showdown.
Kazakhstan -
Lifer premier/president Nursultan Nazarbaiyev has been maneuvered into stepping down, granting needed democratic reforms. We are not clear why that happened. Apparently his security organs pushed him to resign to upstage the gathering mob.
By John Paul Maynard
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