Middle East Focus: 2011: a Year of Arab Revolutions, a Year of Arab Counterrevolution………

Arabia Deserta

2011: a Year of Arab Revolutions, a Year of Arab Counterrevolution………

Rattlesnake Ridge

BFF

The Arab peoples had been dormant, obedient to their despots for many decades. 2011 was the year many of them woke up and decided that they could not take it anymore. Starting in Tunisia, Arab uprisings spread east all the way to Bahrain and Qatif on the Gulf, it spread north to Syria and south to Yemen. It is understandable that many would call 2011 the year of Arab uprisings. It was also a year when the fear disappeared from most Arab streets, a year of no more fear.

Yet it takes two to tango. A revolution inevitably faces counterrevolutionary forces: Lenin and Trotsky faced and defeated Alexander Kolchak among others, Castro faced and defeated the Cuban exiles and their backers, the Arab revolutionaries faced and are facing a combination of forces opposing them. The early Arab uprisings succeeded because they nearly had the element of surprise in Tunisia and Egypt. Libya succeeded because NATO, for various reasons, decided to intervene against the Qaddafi regime. Bahrain’s uprising was initially crushed by the regime’s foreign mercenaries and imported Saudi forces, but it seems to have been revived. Yemen is divided among various ideologies and tribal and regional loyalties. The counterrevolution in Yemen took the form of a Gulf GCC initiative plotted by the Saudis that eventually got rid of the dictator Saleh but kept his regime intact (the ideal counterrevolutionary deceptive outcome). Syria’s uprising is still ongoing, but the opposition is divided along ideological and tribal (a new thing for Syria) lines. The Arab order would like for Syria to have a similar fate as Libya, the Iranians and the Assads would like for Syria to have a Bahrain-type outcome, or at worst a Yemen-type outcome. As for what the Turks and the Israelis prefer for Syria, who knows?

Egypt’s revolution is also slated by the Gulf potentates to have a similar fate as that of Yemen, but the Egyptians are not as divided along ethnic or sectarian or tribal lines as most other Arabs. The Egyptian revolution is not complete and it faces internal enemies (the ruling military SCAF and the Salafi fifth column of the Saudis) and external enemies (brotherly and sisterly interference and others).
Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com