The terrible price of democracy in Libya, the Yemen, and in Syria

Revolutions Move Towards Denouement, or, Freedom at What Price?

Revolutions sometimes fail. The demonstrators get shot for interrupting traffic, and the next day, the rebels call for the immediate removal of the entire regime.

So they get shot again, because they overstepped the line, being impatient, demanding everything, with no leadership, unable to discipline their ranks. In the current wave of protests, children, teenagers, often did the aps and the ops, masterfully using social media to incite riots, then coordinate mass maneuvers against the police, and escape.

One way of measuring revolutions is weigh, assay, the demonization that each side conducts against the other. Sometimes, just one side demonizes. Enough bad things have occurred, to provide a 'logical basis' for such extreme demonization. The crowds surge forward. Maybe they go for a ministry, or a barracks. Or just block traffic. They get shot down.

Here in Massachusetts, Speculum is all in favor of democracy coming to the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. Regime change in Egypt did not catch us by surprise (see May 2010 posting on http://middleeastspeculum.blogspot.com). We were tracking developments in Algeria, and saw the anomaly in early January, 2011, when the crowds disobeyed a police curfew order.

There is reason to believe that long-delayed justice in the Western Sahara, those continual demonstrations in and around Tindouf, sparked the Algerian unrest. That means that Morocco basically caused the whole thing, 'inadvertently, of course.' The Moroccan king and ministers, backed by some Americans, just sat on a UN order to hold a referendum on independence in Western Sahara.

So what happens on the 22nd of April is a vociferous small 'manifestation' in Rabat, Morocco, protesting the death of a young Sahrawi. The organization most responsible for the waves of unrest is the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).  They control the four big refugee camps sited around the Algerian town of Tindouf. POLISARIO possesses only a few thousand warriors, perhaps just 2 thousand. Using fast 4-wheel drive vehicles, they can cross three hundred miles across open country (not on a road) in a day.


One lesson given to us by the Sahrawis is to see how centered we are on the Levant (Nile, Palestine, Israel, Syria, Jordan. Lebanon, Cyprus). We assumed that the Levant was where the leading Arabs lived. They were supposed to be more sophisticated, more westernized, even sharing a broader East Mediterranean culture. Meanwhile, events unseen in the far-away  undeveloped contested proto-nation called Western Sahara take their course (the near-constant demonstrations around Tindouf during the late summer and autumn of 2010.)  Then, on the 20th of April, the UN Security Council says it wants the independence referendum for the Sahrawis to go ahead. 

Can Morocco delay and obfuscate any longer? People forget that Morocco was never part of the Ottoman Empire. Furthermore, it did extend its various empires far south, into the Sahara, seeking to control the gold trade from Timbuktu. Morocco actually maintained troops in Mali, at Timbuktu. Curiously, the Western Sahara, Morocco's Southern province, was the source of much of Morocco's distinctive culture, its economy and its politics.  Of course the Portuguese built forts in various towns on the coast, while the Spanish took it over and administered 'Rio d'Oro and Ifni, and sent troops into the eastern borders. Morocco too was Spanish-controlled till the French took it over in the last months of the 19th. Century. France supports Moroc's claim.  America has been neutral, studiously. But some way should be found to solve this so it doesn't rip apart the entire Arab 'ummat like it did in early 2011.

Syria -

On April 22^nd,  some 100  demonstrators were shot dead in demonstrations occurring through out the country. After Friday prayers, crowds erupted fro0m Dera'a in the south to Aleppo in the north (Haleb). The biggest may have been in Homs, where some 10,000 were reported in the streets. Some were killed in Homs. Even as casualty reports came in, ordinary Syrians left their homes and jobs to protest in the street. The resulting atrocities indicate that Bashar Al Asad is not be in complete control. Or maybe he's a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde type, like Qaddafi. One day he abrogates the emergency law, the next, his security men shoot down demonstrators. Potent elements of the Syrian apparat do not want any talk of democracy.

How can Bashar Al Asad forget the legacy of his father, Hafiz, who stage-managed demonstrations while still in high school, some of which turned violent? The regime is not just Alewite Shi'a. Some of Al Asad's close advisors are Sunnis, Christians, even Jews. They stand for a separation between church and state, as well as for equal rights for minorities.

Did the demonstrators provoke the attacks? No. The demonstrators are expressing a wish to do what we in the west take for granted: the right to assemble.

Dark clouds hide the country in shadows. If the police and army keep firing in to crowds, there may be intentional suicides. As ordinary Syrian citizens joined the vanguard, the regime went crazy. The police did not expect so many. Of course they had previously deployed, just prior to the end of Friday prayers. So they were primed to shoot to kill.

Although Al Asad abrogated Syria's emergency laws, in force for over 50 years. But that will not prevent the authorities from committing further atrocities. Just listen to the constant demonization of the protesters. If they're not foreign agents, then the Muslim Brotherhood must be in control. "They are criminals - Al Qaida" the regime keeps saying. Of course, this is not the case. The Syrian youth were educated in a secular tradition, and have become rather modernized. So Al Asad is up against real democrats –  ordinary citizens - a vanguard. Iran has stepped in to manage police responses, which have been lethal.

Has the Syrian regime been using Iranians to do its dirty work? The Iranian regime is a master of crowd control using force. The Pasdaran and Baseej already have office compounds in Damascus. There were already Iranian mercs and advisers in Syria when the unrest began.

Libya -

On the 21^st of April, US president Obama announces the deployment of drones over Libya. The next day, Senator John McCain makes a surprise visit to Benghazi. He speaks with the Libyan Transitional Council, and announced that the Libyan democrats are not Islamists or communists or criminally minded. He asks for an increase of assistance. He suggested that money held by Qaddafi, which was confiscated abroad, should be paid out to the democrats, not just in Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, but throughout the country.

No one can tell what will happen. As I write, I receive reports that Qaddafi may agree to pull out of Misurata (Mishrata), permitting aid and ammunition while evacuating the wounded. Even the entire remaining population if Mishrata can conceivably be evacuated. Qaddafi may not want that, and may withdraw from Mishrata, before the UN and NATO destroys his remaining armor and artillery.

We often asked why NATO aircraft could not spot the artillery firing in Ajdabiyyah in the east and Mishrata in the west. Qaddafi has buried his guns, and the ammo is buried also. But the Americans can put Libya under real-time surveillance, using satellites. Such imagery would show artillery flashes and smoke, and rocket contrails. But for some reason, the Americans have yet to look. They have been avoiding looking.

Rumor has it that the Libyan tribes are growing weary with Qaddafi's assault on civilians, and are beginning to come together. In Mishrata apparently, tribal leaders have told the Libyan soldiers that they should just get out, and leave the fighting to the tribes. Mishrata is the name of a sizable tribe, originally nomads. It is this tribal coherence and support which has made possible Misrata's defense.

We have reported on the split in the Al Qaddafa tribe: the young want modern freedoms, the adults are too well connected to leave 'the Man,' while the elders, they are aghast at the wanton destruction, the murder, being delivered upon the citizens by the government. That government of course is no longer recognized by the UN and most outside governments.

Spain and Italy have been sending in jets. But all these pilots, including the Americans, are flying above 20,000 feet, 'to avoid the AAA.' So they cannot really bomb without endangering civilians. Those NATO pilots are too worried about their personal safety to fly low enough to catch Qaddafi's armor and artillery. The US also denied requests to deploy K-130 gunships and A-10s.

Only the application of force will compel the military to force the Qaddafi entity to let go and leave.

The Yemen -

We expect Ali Saleh to accept the Gulf Cooperation Council's transition plan in  just a few days. The protesters, however, will not go along.  After prayers, thousands poured into the streets of Sana'a, Ta'izz, Al Hudayda, Aden and Al Mukalli. But a bigger crowd, pro-Saleh men, assembled and demonstrated in Sana'a. The police and army have been deployed in between pro- and anti-Saleh forces. Though the youth of Sana'a demand immediate unconditional surrender of the entire regime, those involved in Yemen's struggle for unity, the pro-Saleh demonstrators, have now mobilized more protesters than the democrats. Many business people look to the Saleh government for stability.  But the Sana'a government was never very strong. Only a few got rich, and they Salih's relatives and a few friends. The democrats do not want that wealth to leave the country.

We believe Ali Saleh may be soon out, but only when he and his family are guaranteed immunity from prosecution. Many Yemeni officials and officers have deserted the government. But a hard core remains. Even if the Yemeni democrats were able to chase Saleh out of office, the new democratic government would be subject to sudden attacks – assassinations, by pro-Saleh dead-enders. So Yemen would divide yet again.

Bahrain -

Two weeks ago we reported that Bahraini police were raiding Shi'i homes at night, dragging off anybody they believe they can identify from photos. Doctors and nurses who tended to the wounded, and treated them, are now being seized in nighttime raids, dragged off to prison.

The US and other powers condemn this heavy-handed intervention. Indeed, the intervention last month of some 2,000 Saudi 'frontier police,' expressed the Gulf countries' jitters. But a source speaking confidentially, says the GCC has much evidence of Iranian destabilizing agents. Of course the west has been worried about Iran's influence in Bahrain. Now the liberal democrats say such 'details' give the Al Khalifa regime what it needs to crush the Shi'a.

The Bahrain protesters kept upping their demands till they were just seen as threats to the state.

The crowd always had a front, made up of educated secular democrats, and a back, driven by shadowy Shi'a forces bent of a coup d'etat.

These back-curtain manipulators hope to inherit the situation once the secular protesters and the Sunni regime discredit each other.

Of all countries, Bahrain was most open to negotiations. Repeatedly, the emir (or king) suggested talking about things in parliament. But the crowd upped its demands, and the police could only interpret their stated aims as a threat. Why cannot the Shi'a talk to the Sunnis in parliament?

Iraq -

The Iraqi government failed to request continued deployment of NATO soldiers in the country. The US was hoping to keep some 50,000 troops in Iraq after the summer withdrawals. Many ignorant generals want permanent bases in the country. We interpret this surprising move by Nuri al Maliki as a bid by the Shi'a to control the country. So great is the bitterness between Sunni and Shi'a that the Kurds, split themselves, linked up with Nuri Maliki's Shi'i Dawa Party to present a common front against the Sunnis. Two months ago, he welcomed in M. Sadr, the bomb-throwing buffoon.

The Shia have traditionally believed that sanctity is handed down from father to son. So they are secretly conniving with the Pasdaran, accepting new upgrades of IEDs, shaped charges, mines and other heavy equipment. Note the assault by Iraqi forces on the 'terrorist' camps of the Mujahideen al Khalq, last week. Maliki is doing Iran's bidding.

With foreign troops out of the country, the Shi'a and the Kurds can divvy up the oil. But we expect a rising tide of violence, violence so strong, that it will bring the nascent oil industry to a stop. Just this past week, gasoline has become too expensive to burn (much).
Speculum sees a perfect storm arising.

Arab views of Israel, the US and NATO are highly critical, but this time the criticism is coming from secular educated citizens, not from extreme nationalists, communists or Islamists.

Our next posting will be Apr. 29. Please feel free to comment. This blog is published in Amherst, Massachusetts.   You can easily trace topics back through the archives, listed on the right margins. You can also log on to http://middleeastspeculum.blogspot.com.
Speculum is Latin for mirror. But mirror, comes from mira'a, the 4th form verbal noun of the root ra'a 'to see.'  Namely: an object that one peers into.

Consolidating Arabia's Freedoms

<span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.jtitle=Arab+Revolutions+2011-12&rft_id=info%3A%2F&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fresearchblogging.org&rft.atitle=Consolidating+Arabia%27s+Freedoms&rft.issn=&rft.date=2011&rft.volume=&rft.issue=&rft.spage=&rft.epage=&rft.artnum=&rft.au=John+Paul+Maynard&rfe_dat=bpr3.included=1;bpr3.tags=Social+Science">John Paul Maynard (2011). Consolidating Arabia's Freedoms <span style="font-style: italic;">Arab Revolutions 2011-12</span></span>

Middle Eastern, North African revolutions – Consolidating the Freedoms

Only two nations have changed regimes so far. In both Tunisia and Egypt there is intense dialogue between secular, local councils, professional groups, businessmen, trade unionists, and scholars both secular and sectarian,  Muslim professors from Kairouan and Al Azhar Universities, plus emissaries from the Islamic interior.But the army is controlling it all from behind the curtain. Marshall Tentawi is a Sphinx, saying nothing, but overseeing all. 

In Yemen, and Syria, violence keeps breaking out – a full month of near-continuous demonstration.

In Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Oman, the Gulf governments weigh in, not trusting the new linkages between Shi'i Islamists and the left.  The demonstrations had a front, made up of secular democrats, and a back, made up of people with aggendum. As the Al Khalifa forces attacked the crowds, the aims of these demonstrators were increased. The aim became, is, to make the Al Khalifa clan leave the country. The front breaks off, while the back takes charge. It is a sectarian conflict, and both sides are citizens of Bahrain. Each has claims, valid.

Meanwhile Qatar plays the fiddle, deploying F-16s to hit Qaddafi in Libya.

Sudan and Lebanon have their inner divisions, a very big country and a very little one. Sudan has split into the two but, as fortune would have have it, much of the oil is right on the border between North and South Sudan, around Abiyye. So neither one can claim exclusive possession. A no-brainer, right? Unfortunately, neither side can consider sharing the oil. Khartoum may want one half, but the southern Sudanese want most of it, being close to them, and being the only oil they have.

In Lebanon we see demonstrations protesting for and against the UN report on the death of Rafiq Hariri, and against 'confessionalism.' The vanguard of the Christians, the Druze and the Sunni Muslims don't want these religious divisions to characterize the formation of political parties.

Then there is the Western Sahara, that disputed nation, and Algeria. They're in a special category by themselves. Morocco, as we'll see, has a prime role also, behind the scenes. It has been the intentional delay by King Muhammad VIth in holding a UN-approved referendum on independence, for the Western Sahara, which triggered the continual demonstrations in and around Tindouf. Coastal Algeria is not immune to influences coming up from the far south Sahara. 

Every country has a different history, and we should not be surprised that so many educated unemployed suddenly speak up, or that the demonstrations should persist and grow, in the Yemen, and in Syria. In each country, some 220-240 have been killed, and thousands wounded.

But the demonstrations grow stronger when the police kill. The people may shy away in the presence of lethal soldiers and police, but re-appear elsewhere. We have looked at the crowds of demonstrators, studying their fronts and their backs. We also know that US political 'institutes' were training opposition parties throughout the Middle East in the use of non-violent techniques, the use of cell phones and the internet, from 2006 up till this autumn.

We cannot avoid the conclusion that all these revolutions were sparked by the endemic unrest and symbolic manifestations of Western Saharan Berber peoples, for a UN-promised referendum on independence, a decision which Morocco just delays.

Many times in history, trouble erupted between the deep Berber of the Western Sahara, and the city and farming folk of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. The nomadic Almohads overthrew the farming Almoravids in 1175, and again, the Merinid dynasty grew up in the 12^th C., politics again featuring a tussle for control of the lucrative trans-Saharan trade. The dynasties of the Merinids in Morocco, the Zayyanids in Algeria (centered on Tlemcen), and the Hafsids of Tunisia all had imperial pretensions. The Christians fought for control, but the Muslims drove them out.. The Ottomans took control of coastal Algeria and Morocco in the 1540s, and war raged with the Christians, even after the Jews and Muslims were kicked out of Spain. French colonization, focused at first on Algeria, started the modern independence struggle, a bitter war in Algeria, but there occurred a much more accommodating (and practical) 'mode de vivendi' with the French, in Morocco and Tunisia. Secular education and tolerance  has made Morocco and Tunisia advanced societies.  As the French put it: Tant on comprendre, tant on pardonner.

Morocco -

King Muhammad VI is the only Arab ruler who decided not to resist the demonstrations. At times, back in late March, there were demonstrations in some 60 Moroccan cities and towns. The manifestations persisted for two weeks, till the King told his police not to shoot. The King didn't react except promising specific steps to turn his sultanat, his power, into a constitutional monarchy; and to permit ta limited democracy with parties. 


Morocco is responsible for the unfortunate war and unrest in Western Sahara. So it has the obligation to find a step-by-step way to bring in all the peoples to elections. And secondly, to provide the bare minimums of food, fuel and medical care, not to mention education.


Morocco did not become an Ottoman Province. The Arab-Berber genetic meld is seasoned with Christian and Jewish markers.  It has a functioning bicameral parliament, which, curiously, is not popularly elected, but elected by trade unions, scholarly associations, professors, doctors, minorities (like the Jews, the Shi'a), and local councils. This arrangement keeps the Muslim leaders focused on meeting local social problems. The demonstrators are a legitimate vanguard, and include Muslim leaders.  Can Maliki fiqh and shari'a help address Morocco's economic problems? Maybe the King should study the Osmanlis after all.  Ottoman geniuses modernized the Shari'a in the mid-19th C., and many of these new Ottoman revisions, hold relevance to today. For example, a whole book was published just on the laws of pious endowments, the famous waqf (pl.auqaf) institutions. Muslim communities were able to provide advanced services to local folk because of these endowments, without costing the state a penny. Also, capitalism is further advanced amongst the Muslims (though on a much smaller scale). Traditionally, people owned shares in various business adventures, spreading risk, as well in owning homes. In Islam, the women and children, even the parents if alive, have shares in the house. But these original Islamic laws are not much practiced today.


Note: you may like to read Speculum's "Land-ownership and land-use in Islamic Civilization" found on http://middleeastspeculum.blogspot.com.  That paper carefully 'lifts' the seven ways land is owned in Islam. No books will tell you these seven ways, how they work as an octave. We are referencing Muhammad's practice ('amal) at Medina, his think tank and social laboratory. I don't believe there exists today any community that is based on the original laws. Men own the houses today, and tribal and state factors prove more decisive that that old Medinan way. Muhammad did not make up new laws, but enshrined the Neolithic achievement - the co-existence and cooperation of farming communities and pastoral ones, in long-distant trade, i.e., capitalism. It was that unspoken unrecorded 'live-and-let-live' understanding that made long-distance ventures possible.

Algeria -

Of course it was the string of tense demonstrations around Algiers during the last days of 2010 and the first ten days of 2011, which triggered the Arab revolts in Tunisia and then Egypt. The Algerian protesters decided to disobey the police and violate their curfew, a bold tactic quickly taken up in Tunis, and then in Egypt. From there it spread to every Arab country, except Qatar, which plays the fiddle.

Algeria sees demonstrations everyday, somewhere, be it the Berbers in the Kabyle Mountains, or the Islamists in Tlemcen, or the secular modernists in Algiers and Oran, or, probably, in the dismal suburbs around Algiers, and around Tindouf in the far south west.

Libya -

World outrage over Qaddafi's use of cluster munitions against innocent civilians in Misurata (Mishrata), may propel world powers to act to bring down the Al Qaddafi apparat. On the 15^th of April, some 22 were killed by GRAD rockets and Spanish-made cluster munitions, while waiting in a bread line at the port. The democratic fighters are holding off both mercs and an elite SF 'brigade,'  actually a battalion. NATO aircraft have been intensified their strikes, hitting armor and ammo dumps around Tripolitania, but Qaddafi's artillery seems not to be silenced – or found. NATO would need continual real-time surveillance with special radars to verify firing locations. The guns and ammunition are buried. Finally, on April 22nd, Mr. Obama unleashes the drones. 

Fighting also rages in the east, where Benghazi freedom fighters have re-taken Ajdabiyya, only to have pro-Qaddafi forces counter-attack (Apr.19). That city was established a thousand years ago as a Muslim-designed urban space. Today, it sits at the end of the long road south to the Kufrah oasis – to most of Libya's oil. Its capture is a prerequisite for any move on Sirte.  Ajdabiyya is the start of the long road to the south, where most of Libya's oil is found. The Cyrenaican resistance is desperately training itself to match and meet the guerrilla-style combat favored by Saif al Islam. Of course the Libyan army had adopted Soviet ways, such as digging in armor. Qaddafi carried it one step further, digging in his artillery. Inward from the asphalt coastal road, lies a network of dirt tracks, plus some very strange installations. The battle may seem jammed along the road to Sirte, but there's plenty of action further south. The one hundred miles of steppe in the south of Cyrenaica, Sirt and Tripoli, permit mobile operations. NATO can make sure that vehicles and equipment and supplies and ammo, cannot be masked.

Sirte (Surt) is Qaddafi's political showcase. He transplanted from Tripoli to Sirte, the Peoples' Congress, and many offices, including the bizarre 'Museum of the Green Book.' Qaddafi's parents were nomads who came up from the Fezzan to settle amidst the Sirte tribe. The Al Qaddafa are a more recent tribal grouping, the root Qaddafa meaning 'detonation' and 'bomb.' (Note: the 'dd' in Qaddafy is actually a hard 'z', the correct pronunciation being 'qazdzafi.') They have been favored by Qaddafi, as have the larger Maghrahi tribe.

We've learned not to stress the tribes as a factor, for many modern Libyan young people, have no idea what tribe their ancestors identified with. Today, of course, tribal identifications have come to the fore, amidst democrats, as the modern socialist Libya 'nation' has been made redundant.

We have intentionally not tried to figure out the least harmful outcomes. Although we have studied the Qaddafi entity intensively on some 5 previous occasions, starting in 1975, along with the story of the Libyan oil industry, we cannot predict this guy, his sons and his daughter, his lieutenants and interrogators, his torturers and mercs. We hope some of them will move on the Qaddafi entity. 


The meeting on April 14 in Berlin sees Britain, France and the USA appealing to Italy, Spain, Germany and Greece and Turkey, to get involved in taking apart Qaddafi's genocidal war machine. These Europeans may have to fight for their energy. Spain and Italy put teams into Libya east and west. Potent rebel attacks along the border with Tunisia reveals a slow collapsing of the front maintained by the Qaddafi regime. The National Transition Counsel has only one aim: the end of the Qaddafi family regnum.

Syria -

Syria has seen over 35 days of unrest. It began in Dera'a, probably triggered by the ferment in Jordan, just to the south. The Damascus suburb Douma has been cordoned off, though food is getting through. Other suburbs staged converging marches, aiming to reach the Abbasidine Square in the center of Damascus. The police blocked and turned them.

On the 15^th, after Friday prayers, a huge crowd tried to march into Damascus center, but were met with phalanxes of security police. Protests were erupting again in Banias, where a charismatic Sunni cleric is issuing fatwas; and in Latakia, another coastal city and one close to the Al Assad family. There have been demonstrations elsewhere, to the north, in Homs, and even out east, Deir Az Zoar in the far west, featuring the Kurds calling for rights.

Bashar Assad has finally given 'no shoot' orders to his police. They did not fire on the crowds in Dera'a, for once (after killing some 200). The protesters kept their discipline. Riots, destructive acts, occupation of vital arteries – the rebels are smart to avoid these. The game is about granting Syria's diverse people some genuine say in their own government. Assad realized that if he shot and killed a thousand here and a thousand there, he'd be hunted down by his own soldiers.

It seems intractable, but the government is slowly giving way to democratic reform. Assad is about to abrogate his emergency law, but he'll just replace it with some other mock-legal statute. He seems entranced with his alliance with Iran, seeing this relationship between paupers, as a boon in some big strategic movement, a Shi'a surge, aimed at Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. The Sunni and Christian people don't want this socialist military-led bankruptcy.  The Syrian security apparatus wants to crack down hard on dangerous Islamist democrats, but Asad and his close group of advisers, which include several women, have ordered them not to fire unless the crowds break into the government sections of Damascus. We expect the Ba'ath regime to abrogate the no-assembly provisions of the emergency laws in just a few days. Syria is set for change.

Palestine and Gaza -

Two weeks ago we saw Fatah and Hamas commit themselves to a unity government. What happened was that crazed salafis in Gaza have been firing rockets into the occupied West Bank. Israel responded 'excessively,' killing some Salafi field leaders, forcing Hamas to sue for peace and ceasefire with the Jewish state. (The Hamas leaderships speaks Hebrew, learned while in prison.)

Salafis kidnap the activist Arrigoni, hoping to trade him for detained salafi imams and operatives, but the deal sours, and the salafis kill the devoted pro-Palestinian Italian. Hamas is pissed and has captured suspects. Those Arab-Arab tortures are noted for being 'exquisite.'

On the 14^th, the US State Department announces a new initiative. Hamas seems to have mellowed. Almost respectable. Remember, when people have nothing, they cling to their religion. I have no problem understanding the Arab's foolish aspiration, to drive the Jews into the sea. Such preposterous symbolic statements are magnified in Arabic. It's the last scrap of identity, they would say. But of course it just pertains to personality, false personality, held not everyone, just a few aggressively loud and violent 'spokesmen.'

No. If you are faced with an enemy with overwhelming force, it is clearly best to protest verbally and non-violently, than try to fight it militarily. And terror attacks are military attacks, even worse.

The situation is difficult. The Likud masters in Israel get money and support from rich American Jews, who really want the Arabs down, and down in such a way that they do not get up again. The fools. Don't they realize that the Arabs are producing almost 3 children for every one Jewish child born?

The Israelis and the Americans have shown again that they do value the Jewish child over the Muslim one, the Israeli over the Arab. For the Israeli is (or seems to be) 'like ourselves.' Israel has gone from being a 2^nd world country to a 1^st world one, even as it sponsors (and is led by) orthodox rabbis in an out-and-out annexation of most of Palestine. “It's written in our book, that Jews should rule, from the Euphrates to the Nile.” I've heard that several times. These are the same people who will tell you “We Israelis know what you Americans cannot know. We know the Middle East, you do not.” Israeli men will tell you that with a straight face. Of course they can't go anywhere outside Israel, except maybe a short tour to the pyramids. Of course I've spent years working in some eight Islamic countries, and don't think twice about crossing the Jordanian and Syrian borders.

The world's leaders understand clearly, that the Likud policy of land and water conquest and annexation, will so cheapen and foul the Jewish legacy, that these so-called chosen people, will no longer remember what happened, so guided they are by the Torah, by the imperatives of Zionism. Most American Jews think Israel is besieged and surrounded by powerful Arab armies. Enough!

The Yemen -

Unrest persists, as crowds grow, some calling for Ali Abdullah Saleh's demise, others supporting him and the regime. The army – bless their hearts – has found it more agreeable to step between the two sides, keeping them apart, rather than simply fire into the democratic crowd. Saleh is in office still, because he knows that, once out of power, he and his family will be prosecuted and imprisoned. So they look to Saudi Arabia for help. If I'm not mistaken, the several very different regions of the Yemen are loosening their ties, pursuing their own destinies, for better or worse. In the south, we detect a slow merger of Islamists and leftist radicals who know their explosives. This is in addition to the regular battle being waged against Al Qaida of the Arabian Peninsula, in the rough land to the far west, a fight which has drawn in the Saudis. But most critical perhaps to the regime in Sana'a, is the rebellion of the Houthi tribe, to the north of Yemen, which seems to be allying itself with the Zaydi Shi'a royal house.  As poor as Yemen is, it has very diversified old populations, specializing. The Tihama, the highlands of Ta'iz, Aden, the Hadramaut, the desolate west with its strange skyscrappers in cities like Shibam, plus the north, in Ma'thrib, and the undefined borderlands with Saudi Arabia - different processes are at work in each of these regions. 


The worst may be over. Ali Saleh is going to leave. His family occupy privileged positions, both in government and in business, so all of them will flee prosecution. We expect the Saleh clan and its affiliates, to take out of the country, some $3 billion. Yemen, like Egypt and Tunisia, will be impoverished further by their genuine revolution.

Saudi Arabia -

There is unfortunate and needless tension between King Abdullah and the US government. The Americans don't like the cultural and political suppression of the Saudi Shi'a, especially since they live right where the oil fields are, and work in them.

Just this summer there was much talk about the new de facto alliance of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Egypt, against Iran, Syria and their proxies in Gaza and in the Lebanon. Now the Arab kings are anxious, even disturbed: the American Democrat and Republican Institutes have been teaching the radical opposition how to use the internet and mobile phones, to stage and co-ordinate, truly awesome manifestations. So the hurt is real.

Bahrain -

Terror reigns at night in the poor Shi'a villages surrounding Manama. Hamad Khalifa' s security police are conducting nightly raids against opposition activists. The Sunnis have also organized, and present good reasons why not to overthrow the Sunni Al Khalifas.

In the Gulf countries, the maritime populations, many of whom are Shi'a, claim to be the indigenous people. But that's a contradiction: these mariners had no real home Many Shi'a came only in the last century, when the British ruled. Some Shi'a on Bahrain can trace their ancestry back, but so can the Sunni Al Khalifa family. They were nomads, related to the tribes who also settled Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who came out of the Nufuz and Najd deserts, some 250 years ago, during a famine. Traditionally, they controlled the water wells found in the western parts of Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE. As nomads, they synchronized the activities of fishermen, pearl divers, and traders. In fact, they invested and coordinated and protected long-distant trade throughout the Gulf, but also into the Arabian Gulf, to Pakistan, India and Indonesia, even China. 

The Shi'a 12-er culture is fantastic. They are legal owners of the planet Mars, having filed the cofrrect papers. But they preserve a sense of victimhood which leads them to an exclusive eceptionalism. Shi'a leaders all appoint each other, in a religious hierarchy. They don't vote for their leaders. The Sunnis, however, are predisposed to vote in, elect their chiefs, the way bedouin do, while the Shi'a see their chiefs as divinely-appointed and infallible. It's not as if the Saudi king does not know the Shi'a muftis and imams: he meets with them at least once each year, and has done so for decades. He also meets with Hanafi, Shifa'i and Maliki muftis. The Saudi princes have waged a secret war against the crazed Wahhabis, and just might come to see these other traditions are of equal value and importance as the Wahhabis. It is curious that even Ahmed ibn Hanbal, the Wahhabi's favorite 7^th C. jurist, condemned Muslims who attend to their beards and their clothes, foolishly believing such outer trappings had anything to do with the prophet's message.

You know the story, I hope, of how Muhammad Qurayshi received his prophethood. He liked to meditate in a cave up on Mt. Hira, outside of Mecca. One night he heard voices speaking to him. He rightly included he was going crazy, ran home to his wife, Khadija, and said he wanted to kill himself. She said: “What do these voices say?” It was then that Muhammad started his strange career as a medium, the record of which is the Qur'an.

Contrast Muhammad's unassuming character with all the puffed up imams and mullahs, not to mention the crazed perverse terrorists. To be humble, unassuming, without pretense. That's the key to the prophet's splendid character.
                                                            -by John Paul Maynard

Arab Revolutions: Springtime, or Hellfire?

We see possible solutions emerging in all the Arab nations. Yet the gains of the revolutions have not been achieved, not yet set in law. Only in Tunisia and Egypt have regimes fallen. In the other Arab nations, concessions have been made, and gifts distributed; but governmental reform has yet to be realized. In the case of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, UAE, money has simply been handed over. King Abdallah II of Jordan and King Muhammad VIth of Morocco, have promised reform, bringing dissident democrats, trade unionists, and Islamists into parliament. That is a valid step, a foot-in-the-door, which should not be scoffed at. Algeria has lifted its state-of-emergency, yet protests are met with police attacks. Meanwhile, in Syria, Libya and the Yemen, the conflict appears intractable, as scores are killed. But even here solutions are emerging. In Bahrain and Djibouti the governments have simply crushed the protests, but again, needed concessions are being granted.

Libya -

Qaddafi accepts the African Unions peace plan, calling for a ceasefire (Apr.10). The rebels will not stop fighting, however, till the Qaddafi entity steps down and leaves. 

The battle for Misrata goes on. Libyan democrats can receive by boat some supplies. At the moment, Qaddafi's tanks and APCs are inside the city, though barely. NATO jets flown by hotshot pilots are gunning for any military vehicle. The Battle for Al Misrata has been going on for forty four days. Who are these people?

The city of some 200,000 has a long tradition. Tripolitania was a Phoenician colony, while Cyrenaica was a Greek one. For centuries this area of the world was probably the best place for humans on the planet earth, to live. These differences still linger.

These chosen regions became Muslim gradually. The Christians generally welcomed the Arabs as liberators from predatory church taxation and restrictions. Today the Libyan people of the Mediterranean coast are a mixture of Greek, Phoenician, Arab, and Berber peoples – plus some European and Jewish genes as well.

Al Misrata is an Arab tribal name. The coherence of tribal identity in an urban context explains why these citizens are holding off Qaddafi's best troops.

This week there is a call for a ceasefire, but each side attaches conditions to it, so the fighting continues. The democrats simply ask for the right to protest peacefully without fear of regime assaults. Papa Qaddafi has apparently given his son Saif Al Islam the task of arranging a ceasefire. Is anyone game?

Could this little two-headed war be settled peacefully? Yes. But the West would have to accept another one or two years of Qaddafi rule. The democrats are ready to settle, if only a few rights are granted – like the right to choose their government.

Yes. It is possible, that a transition to democracy can 'shoe-horned into place. Qaddafi's children, Saif, Aisha, Mukhtassim, Sa'idi, could gracefully set up elections, organize the new parties, then bow out, in about a year's time. Mu'ammar can fly down to Sabha and then to Harari, to prepare a compound for his family.

Does this seem far-fetched? Why? Everyone would have to give to make peace happen.

The Qaddafi apparat has to be taken apart, but this is best done through legal means. If the Al Qaddafi is serious about democratic, he might agree to go to Sabha in the western Sahara, where he went to high school, and where he first began to scheme and plot revolution. From there, to Zimbabwe.

Meanwhile, events in the east took a tragic turn when a NATO jet hit a convoy of tanks and rocket launchers on the road heading west. That was the Benghazi democrats' only armor. I doubt the rebels will take Sirt. That's why a deal might well be possible.

It's not exactly a question of right or wrong: everyone has a bit of blood on their hands. Long ago, Qaddafi initiated foul deeds, killing civilians; attempted assassinations; gun-running for the IRA, the Abu Saif rebels in Mindinao, in the Philippines; American soldiers were targeted in Germany. His secret support of several radical terror groups run by Palestinians has long been well known.

At the moment, Musa Kusa, Libya's recent foreign minister and a long-time intelligence chief, is being interrogated by Scotland Yard and MI5 re the Lockerbie bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Scotland.

Worst of all, abuses inside Qaddafi's underground prisons are grounding down some 2,400 democrats. They're stacked in dog cages from floor to ceiling. Since there are so many detained, they cannot be maintained.

One way to test Qaddafi's sincerity (and his son's) is whether these terrible prisons will be opened and the prisoners released.

Qaddafi is on the way out. Even his sons and daughter will have to admit they do not have a special place in Libya's government. But it is also true, that, in pursuit of the aims of peace and democracy, these war criminals be aloud to open the way to national redemption. As I said, all parties have blood on their hands, so we should not wax so principled and idealistic, that we force the Qaddafi regime to destroy the country and its people.

Important data re the tribes in Libya can be found in the previous Apr. 1 posting. Is it true that Qadddafi mediates between tribes, settling blood feuds? Reconciling them? Is it true that he has conciliated them enough so that they worked together to forge a nation? A bit too simplistic. He no doubt ran many de-stabilizing operations against the more recalcitrant tribes, like the Warfalla (who seek a dominance of numbers) and, of course, the Misrata, the Zawiyya, and the Sirt.

Soon, the inside 'secret history' of the Libya's political evolution will be chronicled for us. In the meantime, we must not be snobs. Qaddafi has blood on his hands, but so do we. Qaddafi has Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde sides. Maybe for him the one constant has been a love for Libya. What if he agreed to retire to Sabha, while his sons work with the democrats to set a representational democracy?

Syria -

Another wave of angry demonstrations erupted throughout Syria following Friday prayers on April 8^th.  The police fired live ammunition directly into a peaceful demonstration, killing 37 in Dera'a. The next day unrest broke out again in Banias on the coast. The Damascus suburb of Douma, has been completely ringed by Syrian army troops. The leadership is gambling that the terror and death visited upon the democrats by 'loyal security forces' using live ammunition will eventually eliminate the democratic 'criminals' and 'chaos'. Of course, the protests are spreading: the live firing into peaceful crowds will backfire, as it did elsewhere. News of the Dera'a atrocity triggered angry protests in Latakia, the hometown of the Al Assad clan, as well as in other cities. The new demand was for Bashar Assad to step down immediately.


The waves of protest were, are, not organized by a 'master hand.'  News travels by word-of-mouth. People lurk in the shadows of the medina, whispering the unspeakable. The regime is concerned that the rabid Muslim Brotherhood will take advantage of the mayhem. True, Dera'a and As Suweiya are near the border with Jordan, where the Brothers are highly organized and roam freely. Bashar Assad has some clerics directly in his sights. But his goons can't kill them.

Syria is majority Sunni Muslim, but has large minorities: the Alawites or Nasiris, the Druze, Greek Orthodox Christians, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Monophysite Christians, Yazidis and Maneans from Iraq. From my own time spent in Haleb, Hama, Hims, and Damascus, I can see a modern secular nation, though poor. The Syrians did buy into Europe. Syrian students circulate widely. Thousands of Syrian businessmen have made fortunes in Lebanon, off-loading merchandise and trucking it over the mountains to Damascus.

But it is this very advance, which causes conservative towns like Ad Dera'a, to blow their lids. People are poor, some young men destitute. Meanwhile, their Ba'ath party peers are driving BMWs to Lebanon for week-end get-a-ways in the fleshpots of Beirut. It all says corruption to the people. And this is where the clerics step in, for what hope is there, except in God?

The protests began in Dera'a when some 15 teenagers writing graffiti on walls were detained by the police. Those youngsters were all released. That's the only public concession. Behind the scenes, it is another story. Protests erupting in an estimated 16 locals in Syria present too big a commotion for even the army to control. And it is not sure that the Syrian army will fire on its people.

If there existed a pro-Syrian, pro-Ba'ath opposition on the streets, then the army could neatly step between the two crowds, and keep the lid on. This is what the army in the Yemen is doing. But the army is grimly attached to the Assad apparat: soldiers will be executed and tortured if they prove liberal and tolerant of such blatant bids for freedom.

Again, look the frailty of our own presumptions of innocence. Did not the US government invad Iraq, The Americans sacrificed some 4,000 soldiers, and left Iraq like a wound that barely heals. How then can the Americans claim the moral high ground now?  The West turns to the Syrians and Libyans and says: 'You were indirectly related to a terrorist organs and acts, so we will never admit you into our respect. We want you to give up power, even at the risk of anarchy and lawlessness.' Or when so-called educated people say Syria's close support of Hizbullah in southern Lebanon, and its vocal support of HAMAS in Gaza, are proof that the Al Assad regime is America's inveterate enemy.

Obviously, that's a warped and skewed vision. Hizbullah and HAMAS may be crazed, but they occupy their own land, unlike the Israelis, who have annexed the land and water of West Bank Arabia.

When I was in Israel I occasionally discussed these matters with foreign policy and defense 'experts' and officers, I was usually told “As an American, you don't know the Middle East. We live here. We know it.” The subtext being, 'fall into line behind us as we expand over the land God gave the Jews.'

When told this, I say simply: but you cannot go to any of the places I go to. I have lived in Turkey and speak Turkish. I've lived and worked in Iran, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, and speak Persian. As for the Arabs, I only know Egypt, Syria and Jordan, but I speak and read Arabic. But you can't even leave your own country.

What if the world, led by the United States, used low-frequency communication to bring down, over time, the ultra-right Likud apparat? What then? Israel might cease being an enemy and become a player.

The Syrian and Israeli defense elite can be rehabilitated, de-programed, only through each other.Their border has been completely quiet for three decades, trade crosses it almost daily (from the Golan to Qunetra.) I recall the pre-Islamic code: a wise enemy is better than foolish friends.

Syria deserve respect, if not its murderous government, then its people. As for the future, one wonders how vicious the Ba'ath regime will be. I expect Syria to be in the news for the months to come. Some of the protesters are ready to sacrifice their lives.

Yemen -

A continual demonstration, it seems, has been going on around the university area of Sana'a. Severe manifestations breakout in Ta'iz, that mountain aeyrie. The south has its own protests and secessionist movements: Aden in the far south,  the Tihama to the west, on the coast of the Red Sea, and the Hadramaut on the south east side. Up north the Houthi tribal rebellion persists, a call for equality and democratic reform, which is now aligning with the Zaydi Shi'a, the 'Seveners,' who once constituted Yemen's royal family. In the east, one finds worlds that westerners have only flown over, if that. And in these unimaginable eco-niches, dwell the troglodyte Al Qa'ida of the Arabian Peninsula, and their acolytes.

The crowd has grown nasty, and no compromise seems possible. The democrats want Ali Saleh out immediately, with all his family. They have been running things, the army, secret police, hotels, ministries, car dealerships, real estate. That's the bad thing about Mr. Saleh. His family looted the country. Now he demands freedom from all prosecution before he resigns. That the protesters will not accept. We expect more deaths.

The tribes can work through the Tribal Council offices, perhaps with some politicians and technocrats, to become the body to whom Ali Saleh hands over power.


At the moment there is a shortage of NG and gasoline in Yemen. Food will become scarcer also.

Egypt -

Following Friday prayers, some 400 protesters re-occupied Tahrir Square, demanding trials for Hosni Mubarak, his family, friends and ministers. At night the army attacked these protesters, detaining many, and driving them from the Square. A group of army officers who were with the protesters, were all detained, and will likely not be seen again. Gunfire was heard all night long. No report on casualties yet. We presume the hospitals are not free to announce casualty figures. But the deed was done, and everyone knows it. So how will the democrats react? They will occupy Tahrir Square. So, on the third day of these new protests, some 1,800 protesters have re-captured Tahrir Sq., disobeying the army. Marshall Tantawi is playing the Sphinx, saying nothing, while pulling strings from behind a curtain. The protesters have his resignation as a precondition before the protests stop. 

Elections are due in just over 4 months, not enough time for new political parties to coalesce. So we'll see the two establishment parties, the National Democratic Party (NDP) and the Muslim Brotherhood, get the upper hand, triggering another round of demonstrations and protests.

Algeria -

Every day there is a protest somewhere, at all hours. And they are the most orderly and well-dressed of all Arab protesters. Why? Because they've had such long experience demonstrating. Regular fights with the police are nothing to them. President Bouteflika, who was originally a front man for the FLN and the army, got himself elected in his own right, and has gone on to effectively channel protest so they don't hurt the economy.

The protesters are put together by opposition parties, including democrats; human rights activists; regional agents, like the Berber in Kabyle in the east); tribal leaders, and Islamists.

As readers of this know, I favor Algeria, putting it in a special category. I believe it was protests in late 2010 which triggered the Tunisian protests, because the Algerian protesters disobeyed a curfew order. The outbreak of revolution in Libya occurred on the 17^th of Feb., the same day that mass demonstrations were held in greater Algiers, Oran, Constantine and points south.

The Algerian protests may have been triggered by sustained protests of the various Tuareg groups living in tents around the southern city of Tindouf. They went on all during the year 2010, the aim being, to persuade Morocco to hold a referendum on independence for the Western Sahara. We suspect it was the unrest the Western Sahara which triggered the Algerians protests in late December, and early January.

Tunisia -

The city Tunis is a small part of the country: the Tunisian hinterland is Muslim and not exactly all Arab. Berbers live here too. The lawlessness, however, is not coming from the desert nomads and the remote villages, but from organized criminals operating in Tunis' suburbs. Since the democrats demanded the dismantling of the security apparat, there are few ways to counter the organized criminal gangs, so lawlessness remains a feature of life in Tunisia. We suspect that the new democratic leaders are all secular and barred Islamist self-acclaimed salafis from winning any high political position.

Palestine -

Pressure was building for a unification government, joining Gaza and the West Bank, but an upturn in violence (against Israel) has made such re-unification unlikely this year. Meanwhile, rogue terrorist elements sent some 80 missiles into Israel. Israel reacts with deadly force, prompting the leaders of Hamas to suggest a ceasefire with the Jewish state. That Jewish state is of course one quarter Muslim.

Bahrain -
The government has been dragging off activists, usually in night raids. Hundreds have disappeared in detention. What began as a peaceful secular protest, gradually turned into a sectarian rebellion, as the underground Shi'a cells assumed tactical control. No body knows quite how many have been injured, killed or tortured. The opposition now demands the removal of the Al Khalifa family, leaving no doubt that they would install a Shi'i regime, where elections and parliament were replaced by vilayat faqih, or Supreme Judge.

Iraq - 


Over February and March, demonstrations were seen from Basra to Suleimaniyya. Most protested endemic corruption; or asked for the removal off a corrupt governor.  Other protests demanded more electricity. In Kerbala, on March 16 to 17, some 2,000 Shi'a demonstrated against Saudi's deployment of troops in Bahrain. Nuri al Maliki also protested. Maliki also threatened each of his ministers to shape up or resign.


The Material Question:

Politics aside, one looks carefully at what is needed: cheaper food and fuel, affordable housing, jobs. The material requirements deserve more coverage than they are getting. What are the prescriptions for fulfilling each of the above needs? The prime purpose of government is to figure out how to meet these requirements. The 'Washington Concensus' was abandoned a decade ago. Even the so-called Seoul Development method does not relieve the suffering most everyone is enduring: high prices for food and fuel, a drastic dearth of affordable housing, few jobs for young citizens who worked hard to educate themselves, and political police intimidation,  lack of rights, torture. Then the issue of corruption, also a material hemorrhage. As the revolutions persist, one hears more extreme demands, like bringing former leaders to trial (and their families), replacing all police, total control over the army.  All the governments are trying to work out a step-by-step transition, one entailing a complete change in the political environment;  but these meeting and consulting groups must soon make changes in their nations' economic systems.

In addition, the Arab nations should build a railroad from Morocco to Muscat.
In our next posting (Apr.16), we will examine the role of oil in uncertain political environments.

Arab Revolutions 2011 - The Search for Resolutions

ثورات العربي

The Arab Uprisings Persist – The Search for Resolutions

Following Friday prayers today, all hell broke loose. Murderous conflict occurs again as police and troops shoot protesters in Libya, Syria and the Yemen. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, in Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, Djibouti, negotiations continue as concessions are made and new governments are put together. Note we do not mention the Western Sahara and Algeria, as these powerful precursors are in a class by themselves.

Libya -

Today fighting rages in the east and west. Marse al Brega, which is part of the larger Marse Al Buqayrah industrial city, is being fought over street by street in a bizarre industrial setting that mocks the West. For example, there are rows of miniature tract homes, all identical. Many walls and gated areas. Large box buildings and petrol off-loading structures: pipelines, pumping stations and the terminal. The past week saw the retreat of anti-Qaddafi democratic fighters, from their most-western positions, 29 miles east of Sirt (not Surt), back through the Ras Lanuf complex, to Al Adjabiya. Marshalling their forces March 30-31, they attacked back into Al Brega. NATO, which took command of its Libyan operation on March 30, did not appear to provide combat air support to the 'rebels,' although US and French jets attacked Qaddafi positions and armor in the suburbs of Al Misrata.

The democratic fighters of Al Misrata have been battling Qaddafi forces for over 40 days. Long ago they gave up electricity, water and the freedom to walk the streets without fear. The town is strewn with debris. Apparently the democratic fighters used RPGs to prevent Qaddafi snipers from occupying the roofs of buildings. Just where the rebels are getting their supplies, their arms and ammunition, will soon be known (probably just themselves, using their own boats). The city, which hosts some 240,000 people, has an eight mile coastline on which small boats can land and off-load.

I can't quite think of another battle quite so heroic. Except perhaps Zawiya.

But why the emphasis on war? Should not we stress political developments? Already we hear of dialogue between pro- and anti-Qaddafi factions. Then there are the tribes, all 30 of them. (There are actually around 140, but many are just sub-tribes.)

Reports arriving March 31 say Qaddafi's son Saif al Islam, is negotiating with rebel leaders. The first issue must be a ceasefire, and indeed, on April 1, we hear the rebels of Benghazi call for a ceasefire – as long as Qaddafi lets the people to protest without interference. But Qaddafi mocks this. But...

On March 31, we see the defection of three high-ranking Libyan ministers. Musa Kusa (not Moussa Koussa)He has been Libya's foreign minister since 2009. Before that, he was head of Libya's foreign intelligence branch, since 1994. He brings especial knowledge of the most sensitive Libyan 'players,' not just his own government, but the tribes, the People's Congresses, et al.

Libya's UN ambassador Abuzeid Dorda, and Mohamet Abdul Qasim, speaker of Libya's General Peoples' Congress, also defected on March 31. (All somehow got out of Libya to Tunisia.)

As for communications between the tribes, one might discount them, as Qaddafi did. Could these various tribes communicate with each other? Remember what Qaddafi gave his people: electric power 24/7, promotions, roads and automobiles. So such communications do indeed take place: by phone and using cars. Furthermore, the leaders of the tribes do know each other, through the Peoples' Congress. So we see a possibility of the tribes becoming effective 3rd forces, able to mediate between pro- and anti-Qaddafi forces, and bring peace.

The largest tribe is the Warfallah, with over one million members. Another tribe, the Magariha, has a reputation for violence and bloodshed, stemming from its very strong and long association with Al Qaddafi. The biggest tribe around Tripoli is the Al Misrata, which explains why that city can hold off the Qaddafi armor and artillery and death squads. The Al Awajila is a desert tribe, Berber-speaking, which has recently vowed to protect the oil fields and pumping stations. Then there are the mild-mannered Farjan tribals, scattered all through coastal Libya, from Al Ajdabiyah through Sirt to Tripoli. Far to the south, in the Fezzan, one encounters the Kawar, 15 small tribes, all Berber speaking. Qaddafi often emulated them in his many camping retreats in the far south. Another Berber group is the Al Tubo. They inhabit Sabha, Kufra and Gatroon. The Toureg Berbers, once very loyal to Mu'ammar, have defected to the democrats. As for Qaddafi's own tribe, they've long been perturbed that their wayward son "killed too many Libyans." In Sirt one finds Qaddafi's most symbolic structures - mock parliaments (Peoples Congresses), the Green Book museum. Qaddafi's tribesmen have been favored, but rising expectations, not deprivation, triggers revolutions. The Qadhafa have traditionally been in charge of the air force. The pilot who flew his MiG into Khamis Qaddafi's lair, was likely a member of the Al Qadhafa tribe, angry that these wayward sons should stain the tribe with the blood of Libyan civilians.

Curiously, we hear from both the Benghazi democrats and various European leaders, that existing oil contracts will remain in force. But then what? Will the Libyan patriots resume Qaddafi's gross over-pricing of the oil?  Qaddafi did the same trick again and again, effectively multiplying the price of world oil by some 7-9 times. He kept charging his customers 'premiums on the premiums,' because Libyan fuel is of such quality, and because Libya is close to European ports. And every time Qaddafi hiked his premiums, the oil companies – bless their hearts – jacked up their prices! This went on and on, from 1971 to the present day.

It seems that the Europeans have to fight for their energy. NATO attention has shifted to Al Misrata, where British jet have been blowing up Qaddafi armor. A Turkish ferry evacuates some 200 wounded.

Syria - Day of the Martyrs

Following Friday prayers, violent demonstrations broke out in some 7 Syrian towns and cities. Worshipers coming out of Friday prayers were shot dead (at least 10), in the suburb Douma, while in the south, Dar'a erupts in a huge protest, countered by police and army using water cannon and much tear gas. Latakiya, Halab, Homs, Banias, As-Suwayda all saw intense, well-organized demonstrations. The town of Sanamen, near Dara'a, saw violent clashes today. For the first time, out east, amongst the Kurds, there occurred angry demonstrations in the towns of Qamishli, and Amuda.

Since the center of the rebellion has been Dar'a in the far south, near Jordan, we suspect the Brothers, the Ikhwan, the Muslim Brotherhood, based in Jordan, to have played a role in radicalizing the crowd, especially after Assad's goons attacked the mosque, while protesters were sleeping, killing 20.

Bashar Assad has granted some concessions, then went back on the most important one: the end of martial law. He did say he would investigate the mass-slaughter of protesters (over 70), while setting up 'review committees.' Some 160 Syrian citizens have been gunned down, not including the 300+ detained and disappeared.

When the Syrian police responded with violence, the protesters upped their demands to include the resignation of the government. The median – what can happen – is that the ruling Ba'ath party admit other parties and hold nation-wide elections.

Yes, that is the issue, a practical, reachable goal: a multi-party Syria.

Syria has its dark side. It has forged an alliance with Iran, Iraq, the Shi'a in Lebanon, now in power, and with the Palestinians. They sponsored many radical groups, not all terrorists. Years ago, the Syrian intelligence services killed some 282 Americans, many Marines and the entire CIA station. However....

More Americans may have been saved by the Syrians in recent years. They look and talk radical, but are determined to root out the dumbed down miscreant MB and its grotesque off-shoots, like Islamic Jihad and Al Qa'ida. In Syria, the MB appear to be the only party (secretly) in opposition, because other parties have all been banned. In any case...the whole world owes something to the Al Assad family. They kept Syria from becoming a fanatic Muslim nation. The Nasiris, also called Alawites, are a Shi'i minority. Like the Ishma'ilis, they are secular people. They see no contradiction in integrating western technology and costume, with their Islam. Not so the Brothers. They hate everything western, and command the deaths of all Shi'a, all non-Muslims and all secular Muslims. They are the instruments of reaction. In short the West owes the Ba'ath government some respect, as it has engineered a peaceful though corrupt and sometimes frightening, multi-sectarian society. At least till now.

Since both pro- and anti-Assad demonstrators are correct, all the more reason to believe that compromise might be had, should Bashar and his advisers grant other political parties the right to compete in open elections. This cannot happen all at once, so it necessary to think in steps – it can only happen is both parties proceed step-by-step in sincere negotiations. Can that happen? We don't know.

The Yemen -

Demonstrations have grown and persisted, over the past two weeks, so that today, after Friday prayers in Sana'a, we see a huge protest involving some 100,000 near the university, while another protest demonstration, in support of President Saleh, was centered on Sana'a's Tahrir Square. The police have been keeping the two sides apart. That's a new role for the police/army, seen during Egypt's revolution, and now in Jordan.

This persistent protests, sustained over weeks, might seem a disaster, especially considering the estimate 140 who were killed, not so much by the police, but by unidentified pro-regime vigilantes, firing down from roofs. But there are signs of hope.

Like Assad, president Ali Abdullah Saleh has some right on his side. He has long labored to keep the Yemen together. His forces struggle against al Qaida of the Arabian Peninsula in the mountains to the east, while trying to engage the Zaiydi Shi'i north, with its royal family. That Yemen royal family is the legal possessor of the planet Mars, having filed the correct papers. You get the picture.

Always we must support minorities in the Middle East, as they preserve ancient secrets. And also because they are often under threat by the dumbed-down MB and its affiliates. Iran, which suffers a gross perversion and the ultra-dumbing down of Islam, nevertheless protects its minorities, with the possible exceptions of the Balouch and the Qashqai nomads. Iran also is persecuting Christians, the Bahais, giving their leaders 20-year jail terms. Jews, Christians and atheists are also suppressed.

Though small in area, the Yemen contains a cornucopia of cultures, from the Hadramaut in the south east (connected to South Asia), to the Tihama on the Red Sea littoral, to the mountains south of Sana'a, to Ta'izz; the city port of Aden, and the weird vertical cities of Shibam and Shabwa in the eastern badlands – all are distinctive cultures which somehow have to co-exist.

President Saleh keeps re-arranging his cabinet, trying to stay in office till 2013, in order to avoid 'a time bomb' (in his words). Like the situation in Syria, the government does have some credibility, not least in its secular spirit. The Yemen is a strange world. Like Afghanistan, it has no middle class.

Every Arab nation has an educated secular class, long suffering, and, as small as they may be, they are the true vanguard. But they ward off repeated attacks and intrigues of Muslim hotheads, usually the Brothers. We recall the verse: "There is no fanaticism in Islam."

The Brothers are, as we know, a deviation from the genuine Muslim tradition of reform (running up through Jalal ad-Din Al-Afghani, through M. Abdu to Rashid Rida, only to grossly mutate into a wretched deformed, still-birth, the dumbed-down MB, following Sayyid Qutb.They license themselves to reject everything, every idea, that is western; they are sworn to kill non-Muslims, Shi'a and secular Muslims. Obviously they need cough up and spit out that sick mission statement.

Standing back and looking at the conflict afflicting the whole Muslim world, one might say this: peace will not come till the actual ways and practices of Muhammad at Medina, gain as much publicity and study, as Islam the religion. Islam the religion formed later, as did Islamic law. The clergy usurps power then moves against Muhammad's teaching in these ways: land law (the men own everything), in relation to women and children, in how non-Muslims (particularly Jews and Zoroastrians) are to be treated, plus the Qur'anic injunctions against terror, violence, and the ridiculous gross abomination of jihad against not just non-Muslims, but Shi'a and secular Muslims.

I've talked with Brothers and can tell you they all claim to follow Muhammad, and when one cites the differences between his ways, and the laws of the religio0n, they shrivel up as if you struck them in the head or heart. The Brothers works locally, helping the destitute at times, but no Brother can hold high political office till he spits out the gross perversions of Sayyid Qutb.

At the same time, the West really has to change its view of the Muslims. In many important ways, they are more advanced. All practice 'adab, a gentile literary ethic, a grace and etiquette. 'Adab leads most Arabs and Persians and Turks, to talk politics in a non-confrontational way. The average educated Arab, male or female,  probably spends 3-5 times more time talking politics than his American or European counterpart.

While it is impossible to find on earth a society adhering in detail to Muhammad's practices in Medina, many rural towns and villages preserve aspects of the Mr. Qurayshi's Medinan 'amal. For example, in Islam poorest person, the smallest vendor, is guaranteed by law to have a place at the market place, a simple set of regulations which we'll not discuss here, but which completely outclasses the state-heavy energy-intensive industrial economies.

The West grows out of the Dutch revolution, the 80-years war, which somehow, against great odds, brought into being, the first modern financial empire. The Dutch learned to invest in each others' projects, to spread risk. The wealthy held shares. Then the system evolved in London, largely as a result of Dutch money, and then after WWI, to New York.

But the simplest Muslim has long learned to hold shares, even as a child, in everything from long-distant trading ventures, to the ownership of homes. But of course, today, the men own almost all the homes in Muslim lands, which is not Islamic, as defined and legislated by M.

Jordan -

After Friday prayers, rival rallies occurred in Amman, with the police moving in between them, to prevent clashes. A regrettable polarization is developing between secular and Islamic. Here the educated people are fighting the dumbed-down religion proffered by a venal clergy: the Muslim Brothers are over-represented. The Palestinian camps are also split.  The protesters are calling for the release of prisoners.

Palestine -

Daily combat is occurring on the northern borders of Gaza. Hamas cannot control jihadist groups bent on killing Israelis. Meanwhile, secular Palestine and sectarian Gaza are studying proposals for re-integration. The aims of these two, however, are incompatible. Hamas wants a theocratic government. They are card-carrying MB, and as such, can only subscribe to a subterranean self-styled anti-western, anti-Semitic ideology.

Bahrain -

Security forces are going door to door, raiding homes at night, roughing up suspected protesters. Protests ended on March 16. What began as a distinctly non-religious educated vanguard, was usurped by clerics and their agents, many just teenagers.The protest turned into a Shi'a/Sunni existential struggle. Some 20 ordinary people have been killed since protests began in Feb. 14th.

Saudi Arabia -

Saudi police and GCC border units are still in Manama, Bahrain. The Saudis are scared, scared that Iran is manipulating their own Shi'a. The tussle in Bahrain seems to have drawn in elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Though western analysts tend to see Saudi fears as excessive, Saudi intelligence is on the trail of repeated attempts to land Iran-trained Shi'a subversives on its eastern coasts using speed boats. The revolutions have drawn into focus the emerging Saudi-Iranian rivalry.

Egypt -

Protesters occupied Tahrir Square again today (Apr.1). They want the leaders of the previous regime to be tried for corruption and abuse of power. Mubarak has been prevented from leaving Egypt. So have many others. There is some evidence that dirty deals are being made, being an un-reformed Muslim Brotherhood, and secular types looking for local control. The army sweeps them up. The army calls the shots in Egypt, for another four months, at least.

Our next issue will be published Friday, April 8, some eight hours after prayers end in Arabia. Stay tuned. Bookmark this page. We welcome comments. Thank you.

Longer studies on Islam can be found at http://middleeastspeculum.blogspot.com.
Speculum means mirror in Latin, but 'mirror' is the 4th masdar (verbal noun) of the verb ra'a, to see, which is mira'a – 'a thing one peers into.' It does not come from the Latin mirabilus, 'a wonder,' as the English dictionaries say. Note the cover-up. Or is it just ignorance of ourselves?

Note: The author has lived and worked in some eight Muslim countries. He is a graduate of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University.