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.