Are the press exacerbating sectarian tension in Syria?

The Guardian has published a genuinely interesting and informative ‘timeline of Syria’ map to help explain the background of the Syria crisis. However, included on the map is a list of Syria’s ’ethnic groups’, with shaded areas to denote where these groups form a majority.

These geographical concentrations are presented in quite a crude fashion. Census data is not readily available so I’m not quite sure what sources were used. In particular, there seem to be two glaring inaccuracies that should be noted:

Firstly, the ethnic breakdown of the cities is completely ignored. About half of the Syrian population lives in either Aleppo or Damascus and they are both ethnically diverse. The map implies that Christians, Alawis and Druze are concentrated in just a few geographical areas, but that ignores the very large numbers that reside in these cities which, according to the map, are ‘Sunni-dominated areas.

Secondly, the map’s view of the coastal region as Alawi-dominated is inaccurate. There are large parts that have an Alawi majority and it is where most Alawis live, but many areas have a Sunni majority. Indeed, the area should probably be multi-coloured or grey rather than ‘all orange’. Take the cities along the coast as an example. Tartus is probably the only city where more than 50% of the population are Alawi. In Banyas, Jableh and Lattakia, the Alawis do not make up more than 50% of the population, yet according to the Guardian’s map they do.

In my opinion the western press should be very cautious about how they portray ethnic and sectarian conflict and tensions in Syria (and indeed everywhere). There IS a sectarian component to this conflict, but it is not (yet) the dominate theme and narrative of the uprising, which remains political – against an autocratic regime.

By emphasising the ethnic divisions in Syria (and not even portraying them accurately), coverage such of this (which I’m sure has been done with no such ill intent) is feeding a certain narrative that this is purely a sectarian dispute.

In the end it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

What did the Arab League monitors achieve in Syria?

From a piece in CNN, 1st February 2012

The Arab League monitoring mission in Syria has been criticized for failing to stop the al-Assad regime’s deadly crackdown on anti-government protests across the country.

But the head of the Arab League observers in Syria, Sudanese Gen. Mohammed Ahmed al-Dabi, said the mission was designed not to bring an immediate end to violence but to investigate and observe the situation.

The choice of Al-Dabi to lead the mission was controversial in itself: he was part of the Sudanese security establishment that put down the rebellion in the breakaway region of Darfur a decade ago.

Still, one expert says the Arab League mission, which began on December 26, kept the world’s attention focused on Syria at a time when attention had been slipping away.

“The presence of monitors served to galvanize the opposition, and we saw an increased number of demonstrations and anti-government activity during that time period,” Middle East professor Chris Phillips from Queen Mary, University of London told CNN. “But as a consequence we also saw the government step up its visible repression of the protesters.”

While critics say al-Assad has used the Arab League mission as a cover to continue suppression of protests in Syria, Phillips says it was important that the League be seen to be acting on the Syrian crisis before taking the issue up with bigger organizations.

“The Arab League have now exhausted their own internal options and they can be seen to have taken action themselves to try to resolve the crisis,” said Phillips. “It would now seem legitimate for the Arab League to now turn to larger bodies, certainly the U.N., to take action itself.”

Individual states in the Arab League have called for al-Assad to step down, but the organization as a whole has failed to table a similar resolution — and Phillips says that is unlikely to change anytime soon.

“While it seems likely there is going to be some internal negotiation (on a resolution) taking place, it certainly seems very unlikely Lebanon or Iraq — states who are allied effectively to Iran and Syria — will ever join calls for Assad to stand down,” said Phillips.

Will the international community intervene like it did in Libya?

Nothing will happen in terms of military intervention in Syria unless Russia changes its current stance, according to Phillips.

“Russia have said quite clearly that they’re not going to support anything that would risk al-Assad being forced from power,” Phillips told CNN.

“If Russia gave the same kind of green light for Syria that it did for Libya, there’s every possibility that you’d see military intervention, probably coming out of Turkey,” Phillips said. “But Turkey have said they’re highly reluctant to intervene unless they have NATO or U.N. backing.”

Rights group Amnesty International urged Russia Wednesday to rethink its opposition to the latest draft.

“Russia’s threats to abort a binding U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria for the second time are utterly irresponsible. Russia bears a heavy responsibility for allowing the brutal crackdown on legitimate dissent in Syria to continue unchecked,” said Jose Luis Diaz, Amnesty International’s representative to the United Nations.

“Russia must work with other Security Council members to pass a strong and legally binding resolution that will help to end the bloodshed and human rights violations in Syria once and for all.”

Is the opposition united against the al-Assad regime?

The longer the fighting goes on in Syria, activists and Western diplomats say, the more radicalized the revolution is becoming.

Fringe elements of Muslim extremist groups are moving in and sectarian rifts are widening as feelings of despair descend on some flashpoint Syrian cities.

While the besieged city of Homs has traditionally been a place of religious tolerance, “there is a real sense now that that is changing and being manipulated by people on both sides” of the conflict, according to Phillips.

President al-Assad belongs to the Alawite Muslim sect while Sunni Muslims form the majority in Syria.

“The older Sunni merchant class that feel the city is theirs rightfully are now turning on the Alawites, who they see as these recent migrants that don’t actually belong in the city,” said Phillips.

Many Christians have fled to Damascus as communities begin to divide on sectarian lines. Salafists — Islamic radicals, many of whom have brought terror tactics honed in neighboring Iraq — are moving into Homs.

Hard-liners inside and outside the country are already jockeying for post-al-Assad power, while the Alawite community fears the prospect of persecution if the government falls.

“The regime is trying to persuade the Alawites that if they abandon the government, they will be wiped out in the dog-eat-dog aftermath,” Phillips said.

The International Relations of the Middle East after the Arab Spring

A version of this article first appeared in The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Middle East Regional Overview, January 2012.

Regional relations after the Arab Spring: the multi polar Middle East

By Christopher Phillips

In the 1960s an American political scientist, Malcolm Kerr, coined the phrase ‘the Arab Cold War’ to describe the regional rivalry between two blocks of Arab states each backed by superpower patrons. Mr Kerr accepted that this rivalry ended in the 1970s but in the first decade of the 21^st century several commentators claimed that, following increased US intervention after 9/11, once again the Middle East was being divided into two blocks and a new Middle Eastern Cold War was taking shape. This bipolarity saw one camp led by the US and its principle allies – Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt – face down a second, self-styled ‘resistance’ camp composed of Iran, Syria, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Palestinian militia/party, Hamas. As in the 1950s and 60s, these two blocks found themselves competing in numerous minor conflicts, political battles and the media, in a bid to dominate the region, with Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine forming the key battlegrounds.

The Arab Spring has changed this. While Israel and Saudi Arabia persist with their old narrative about the threat from Iran, in reality the popular uprisings of 2011 has changed the environment around all three states. New actors that had previously stood back from the region, such as Turkey and Qatar, stand to increase their influence and clout as a consequence of the unrest while formerly influential states such as Egypt and Syria look set for prolonged instability and weakness. Alongside this the global context has changed. The emerging BRICS powers have enhanced their influence and importance, at the very moment that the US and EU appear weaker following internal economic turmoil. The result is that instead of two clear blocks competing, the Middle East after the Arab Spring looks set to be multi-polar, with many different regional and global powers vying for influence in the different political and, possibly, military conflicts that the uprisings have created.

Regional winners: Turkey and Qatar

Turkey is one of the big winners from the Arab Spring. Even before 2011, Turkey’s ‘zero problems with neighbours’ policy had expanded its political, economic and cultural influence in the region considerably. The Arab Spring has boosted this further. Firstly, Turkey has mostly found itself on the right side of events. The Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was the first foreign leader to call for Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to quit and he eventually turned on Muammar Qadhafi in Libya and Bashar al-Assad in Syria in favour of pro-democracy protestors. Secondly, most of the moderate Islamist parties that are now likely to dominate the Arab world, such as Tunisia’s Ennadha and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, claim that the combination of Islam, democracy and economic success modelled by Turkey’s ruling party, the AKP, is their goal. Although some of its business links with these states may be lessened in the short term as they undergo transition and some economic difficulty, in the longer term Turkey can expect to translate its early support for and ideological affinity with the new regimes into strong relations and enhanced influence.

The other big winner is Qatar, which had also expanded its regional influence prior to 2011. With its security guaranteed by hosting the US military and its oil and gas-based economy booming, Qatar has used its wealth and media influence, primarily via its satellite channel, Al-Jazeera, to punch above its weight. The government reacted quicker than most to the Arab Spring. Al-Jazeera, which is theoretically independent but rarely contradicts its parent state’s wishes, led reporting on the unrest in Tunisia and Egypt and helped it spread across the region. Similarly, Qatar led Arab League efforts against Mr Qaddafi and Mr Assad. Some accuse Qatar of hypocrisy for being vocal on Libya and Syria yet quiet on similar unrest in its ally, Bahrain. Others claim Qatar is using the Arab Spring to spread an Islamist agenda, particularly in Libya and Tunisia where it is rumoured to have financed Islamist political parties. Both accusations may be true but Qatar is primarily opportunistic. The region is changing and Qatar has been among the quickest to realise that it is well placed to fashion a future that will enhance its interests.

Regional losers: Egypt, Syria, Israel

The states that have experienced wide-reaching change are likely to be weaker in the short term as they focus internally. Tunisia, Yemen and Libya, have never been particularly influential in the region, however. Egypt’s weakness on the other hand, as the most populous Arab state and formerly a lead player in the US’ bloc of allies, will be felt. Despite the post-Mubarak military government negotiating the release of Gilad Shalit in October, its involvement in Arab-wide concerns has lessened. Even if elections go smoothly and a democratic order takes shape, it is likely to be several years before Egypt returns to its previous role of a leading power in the Arab world. Syria’s ongoing unrest and the realistic possibility that Mr Assad will also soon be toppled have removed another traditionally powerful voice from regional politics. As the main Arab partner of the Iran-led resistance bloc to American hegemony in the region, the Assad regime has long held influence beyond its borders, notably in neighbouring Lebanon and Iraq. After the Arab Spring however, as the regime slowly crumbles, Syria is likely to become an arena for competing regional powers itself.

Israel may not have faced domestic instability due to the Arab Spring but it ends 2011 considerably weaker. It still has the region’s best military and a thriving economy, but it is increasingly isolated. Even before 2011, the government of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu had fallen out with Turkey and was relying increasingly on US diplomatic cover rather than building regional support. The Arab Spring has exacerbated this isolation. The new government in once-reliable Egypt looks likely to be a more hostile Islamist-led regime. Although Syria is an enemy, it was at least predictable and stable, and a civil war may threaten Israel’s north-eastern border. Even the friendly Hashemite regime in Jordan may have to make concessions to its revived Muslim Brotherhood, which wants to abrogate the Jordan-Israeli peace. On top of this, the threat of popular unrest has finally brought together the rival Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, in a unity agreement, to Mr Netanyahu’s chagrin. Furthermore, the success of the Muslim Brotherhood as a result of the democratic opening in Egypt is likely to boost Hamas in time for Palestinian elections in 2012. Isolated Israel may soon be entirely surrounded by unfriendly Islamist governments, forcing it to either compromise or become ever more insular.

Rivalry re-shaped: Saudi Arabia and Iran

Long-time rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran find themselves simultaneously enhanced and impinged by the Arab Spring. When unrest began, some feared Iran would be the main beneficiary. Ayatollah Khamenei claimed that the Arab Spring was modelled on the 1979 Iranian revolution, while Iran’s enemies claimed it was all part of an Iranian plot. Iran did little to dispel this when shortly after regime change in Egypt it sent military ships through the Suez Canal for the first time in 30 years. Yet whatever gains Iran may have made in Egypt and elsewhere were undermined with the outbreak of violence in Syria, Iran’s main ally. The fall of the Assad regime, or even its survival but in a weaker state, will be a major blow to Iran’s regional influence. Its supply line to Hezbollah in Lebanon will be cut while its other ally, Hamas, has shown sides of abandoning the pro-Iran axis for the emerging Sunni Islamist-led governments. Iran will not necessarily be weaker, having already reconfigured its regional approach by strengthening its influence over Iraq as an alternative Arab ally to Syria. However, the days of a fixed pro-Iran block of Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas seem over. Iran looks likely to continue its cold and proxy wars with its regional rivals in Israel and Saudi Arabia, but the Arab Spring has created a new, fluid regional scene for it to work in.

Saudi Arabia’s position is equally mixed. In a reversal of Iran’s experience, when Mr Mubarak fell and there was serious unrest in neighbouring Bahrain, the Saudis looked unnerved. To prevent what it perceived as Iranian influence from spreading, it took action to consolidate power in the ‘near abroad’. Troops were sent to Bahrain, US$20bn was promised to boost Bahrain and Oman, an active role was played to broker a solution in Yemen, which was also facing unrest, and Gulf Cooperation Council membership was offered to Jordan (and Morocco). However, as events have shifted Saudi Arabia looks more secure and finds itself in an unfamiliar, more assertive role. Although the ageing rulers seem keener to focus on internal succession issues than the region, there remains an obsession with the Iran threat. The weakness of the Assad regime has offered a chance to flip Syria away from Iran, and Saudi has joined Qatar in pressing the Arab League to hasten its fall. The willingness of its long-standing ally, the US, to abandon Hosni Mubarak in February, looks to have worried the leadership, and its willingness to fill the regional vacuum left by Egypt may come from a fear that if it does not act, its interests will suffer. This is unlikely to translate into any serious intervention outside of the near abroad, despite its historical links to Egypt’s Salafists, except for arenas such as Syria and Iraq where the Iran threat is high. Saudi Arabia is therefore likely to play a somewhat more assertive role than in the past, though mostly to defend itself from Iran in the wake of the collapse of the previously strong US-Israel-Egypt-Saudi axis.

The global powers: The West steps back, the BRICS step up?

Facilitating the shift towards a multi-polar Middle East has been the shift in global context, both before and after the Arab Spring. A combination of military overstretch after the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, an economic slump and a revived isolationism in domestic politics meant that the US was already weakening in the Middle East. The Arab Spring has exacerbated this, costing the US one key ally, Hosni Mubarak, and unnerving another, Saudi Arabia. Despite this, Mr Obama was able to score a few populist victories in the early days of unrest, eventually calling on Mr Mubarak to step down and approving military action in Libya. However, any enhanced goodwill that this might have bought the US was undermined by its approach to Israel, notably Mr Obama’s staunch opposition to the Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN in September, which stripped away any pretence that the US can be a neutral arbiter in the region. Of course, the US is not retreating from the Middle East and with its military bases in the Gulf – though not Iraq – and key economic and diplomatic relations will continue to be an important power. However, the diplomatic hegemony the US enjoyed in the 1990s and the military hegemony it attempted in the 2000s looks unlikely to be a feature of the post-Arab spring world.

The diminishing power of the US leaves space for other powers to fill, although the neighbouring European Union (EU) is unlikely to be one. Despite being the Middle East’s largest trade partner, the EU has rarely made that clout count, and is even less likely to do so now as it faces economic crisis. Individual states, notably Britain and France, have attempted to play a leading role, particularly in the actions taken in Libya and Syria, but without the military support of NATO and the US, their role will be limited. The emerging BRICS on the other hand, do seem likely to enhance their position. Russia under Vladimir Putin has already revived some of the USSR’s former prominence in the region, expanding its economic, military and diplomatic presence in Syria in particular. The reluctance to approve UN resolutions on Libya and the steadfast refusal to do so on Syria suggests that Russia seeks to guard its expanding strategic regional position. The other BRICS, China, India, Brazil and South Africa seem to have restricted their regional involvement to the economic sphere for now. Unlike the western states, these powers seem willing to offer trade and cooperation without the human rights and democratic strings attached. As western influence continues to wane and the economic clout of these states grows further, an enhanced role for the BRICS in the future would seem more appealing. However, a return to patron-client relationships is unlikely. The multi-polar nature of regional relations described above should dictate the shape of international involvement, rather than the superpowers’ grand strategy as in the Cold War or the short-lived War on Terror.

Conclusion

The Arab Spring has unsettled the Middle East’s international relations, by catalyzing existing trends and creating new challenges. The rise of Turkey and Qatar, the isolation of Israel and the diminishment of the US has increased, while the sudden weakness of Egypt and Syria has been unexpected. The Saudi-Iran rivalry continues, although the relative power of each state and the arena in which they compete has been transformed. The bi-polar regional order of the past decade – a Middle Eastern Cold War between a US-led block and an Iranian-led alliance – is coming to an end, making way for a multi-polar arena in which regional and, to a lesser extent, global powers will compete.

Historical parallels have their limitations but shed some light on what this new era might be like. If the 2000s were the second incarnation of Malcolm Kerr’s ‘Arab Cold War’, then perhaps the post Arab Spring Middle East of the 2010s may come to reflect the ‘Struggle for Syria’, outlined by Patrick Seale. Seale noted that in the Syria of 1945-58, a weak Syrian political system came to be the battleground for the leading regional powers of the day, with different political groupings each backed by separate governments. This trend has already been repeated at least twice before, in the Lebanon of 1975-90 and in Iraq from 2003-today. With Syria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen soon likely to join Lebanon and Iraq on the list of weak states in the Middle East, the potential for them to become new arenas of competition for the stronger states, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran and, to a lesser extent, Israel, is increased.

Over-simplification on Syria

There has been a worrying over-simplification by large swathes of the media regarding Syria in recent months. The dominant narrative goes something like this: the regime is finished, it is only a matter of time before the peaceful protestors triumph and the Assads are swept from power. I am more skeptical. The Assad regime, while employing murderous and brutal tactics, has proved surprisingly robust so far. The leadership of the army has remained largely loyal, even though foot soldiers are increasingly defecting, and the key cities of Aleppo and central Damascus, whether through fear or genuine loyalty, have remained quiet until now. Unless Assad suddenly accepts an offer of asylum and flees, or someone in the regime or army decides to launch a coup against him, i can’t see the regime crumbling in the next few months, even if its long-term survival must be in doubt.

However, while a few writers and journalists have been pointing out that the ‘Assad is finished’ narrative is premature, some have lurched too far the other way. Jonathan Steele, for example, seems to think that some kind of mediation is still possible suggesting that the Arab League should appoint,  ”a group of eminent independent Arabs to listen to all sides in the Syrian crisis.” This is a noble idea, but surely the Assad regime has by now shown that it doesn’t care for its neighbours’ advice. If Turkey could not persuade them, surely an Arab delegation can’t either. A delegation from China, Russia and Iran,would be  a different prospect, but even then Assad’s contempt for mediators suggests it would fail.

To a further extreme, Alistair Crooke argues that the whole Syria crisis is part of a wider ‘game’ orchestrated by the West and Saudi Arabia to flip Syria from its alliance with Iran. This is again, an over-simplification. While Saudi and the US may see the benefit of a post-Assad Syria ditching its ties to Iran (although i question if this would happen – unless Israel suddenly surrendered Golan), they have been reactive rather than pro-active throughout this crisis. There is a danger that the Syria crisis is only viewed through the Iran prism, which is a mistake. Mr Crooke does a disservice to the legitimate demands of the Syrian people to end dictatorship and stop the violence by implying that they are simply being manipulated by insidious external forces.

Shocking Twitter abuse of Mid East analyst Nabila Ramdani

Nabila Ramdani has written this moving piece in The Observer about being subjected to racist abuse on Twitter.  As someone who uses Twitter only occasionally I must admit to being truly appalled at the level of, quite frankly, sick sentiment aimed at her.  We all understand the value of Twitter and maintaining its free speech and dialogical approach is important. However, this kind of personal, deliberately hurtful and racist abuse should be condemned by all.  It is therefore even more shocking that the police have done little in response.

She writes:

When I first started receiving critical messages from people – via email, underneath my articles on the internet, or on sites like Twitter – I replied. The democratisation of the global media has created a hugely dynamic debating forum, and the majority of those participating are as courteous as they are articulate. I grew up on a council estate renowned for its lawlessness and have reported from war zones. I know exactly how to stand up for myself in fraught situations and will debate anything with anyone.

But when a “whore” hashtag (the device used to signal a discussion on Twitter) appeared against my name, everything changed. What distinguished the two men using the word (and its variations) was not that they wanted an argument, but that they wanted to attack me as viciously as possible. They spiced up their principal insult with as many sexual allusions as they could fit into the 140 characters that Twitter allows.

The senders were not difficult to track down. One has delivered more than 2,000 tweets to date and is linked to a London university. The other is a Conservative party activist from the home counties. He has only 68 followers after sending more than 4,000 tweets, but that is not the point. Both men are conventionally “respectable”, but consider it permissible to fabricate obscene claims about women they have never met, and to re-tweet them to as many of Twitter’s 200 million users as possible….

…If the police started to deal with this increasingly unpleasant problem quickly and fairly, it could be stigmatised in the way that abusive phone calls have been.

Instead, my exchange with Worthington [The assigned officer to this case]  made it clear that his force’s view of internet hate crimes extends solely to famous people. If prosecutions supporting much-vaunted anti-racism initiatives attract politically correct headlines, so much the better. Ordinary people, meanwhile, are ignored.

Jordan: Abdullah II’s lack of vision

Last week Abdullah II of Jordan sacked the Prime Minister, Marouf Bakhit. He had only been appointed in February this year after the king had fired his predecessor, Samir Rifai, following widespread protests that mimicked demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt. Bakhit’s dismissal was allegedly due to his slow progress in pushing the reforms promised by the King in February. However, as The Economist points out this week, in Jordan Prime Ministers are there to be sacked and the premier is often a scapegoat for the palace’s own faults. Bakhit was certainly no committed reformer, and is accused by Jordan’s opposition of overseeing rigged elections in 2007 when he was previously premier, and of endorsing widespread corruption. However, it is questionable whether the King would have allowed Bakhit to usher in serious political reform even if he wanted to. Abdullah has adopted the language of reform, but the proposals his royally appointed committees have recommended since February are pitiful. They call for constitutional amendments that slightly enhance the power of parliament and for a new electoral law that gives a fraction more proportional representation, but true power remains in the hands of the king.  Moreover, these changes were being pushed forward by Bakhit at the time of his sacking.

Bakhit’s real crime was to alienate the elite that runs Jordan in the past few months. First he intervened heavily in the much-respected Central Bank, forcing the governor to resign after surrounding his building with troops. After that he attempted to split municipalities for the forthcoming elections, despite being advised not to by frustrated senior politicians. The final straw was when 70 MPs from Jordan’s largely ineffective parliament petitioned the king to remove Bakhit. Although Bakhit was unpopular on the street and his resignation was welcomed by many in the opposition this was a move made by the king to appease the elite, not the street.

The new administration, led by Awn Kasawneh, formerly a judge at the International Criminal Court, may have more public support than his predecessor. However, he faces the same problem: that even if he wants to bring about reforms the King is reluctant to make changes that will deprive him of power. As the Economist states, the king has become part of the problem.

In the context of the Arab Spring, Jordan is actually in an interesting position at present. On the one hand, things look bleak: many of its neighbors have seen regime change (Egypt and, earlier, Iraq) or a serious and violent uprising (Syria), while it lacks the resources of its other neighbour, Saudi Arabia, to buy off a large swathe of malcontents with improved welfare provision and jobs. Yet on the other hand, Abdullah remains if not widely popular then respected, and few in Jordan’s opposition are calling for the overthrow of the monarchy, just a reduction in its power. Moreover, the king’s security forces have, by and large, resisted resorting to the levels of violence seen in Syria and Egypt that ultimately turned many against the regimes there.

What is clear, however, is the limited vision that Abdullah II has. Instead of recognizing the way the region is going and pre-empting any major calls for his overthrow by opening up his kingdom to genuine democratic reform, he is persisting  with piecemeal, superficial reforms that leaves true power firmly located in his hands and will ultimately only frustrate the opposition further.

Arab Spring: Coup d’etat or Revolution?

Part of the series ’10 myths about the Middle East’ in this month’s Majalla:

Within days of Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in Egypt, memorabilia of the popular anti-regime protests that preceded his downfall went on sale in Tahrir Square, the scene of the largest demonstrations. Pin badges and T-shirts, embossed with Egyptian flags proudly boasted of the “2011 Egyptian Revolution,” reinforcing the narrative already adopted by the international media that a popular revolution had toppled the Egyptian president, just as it had his Tunisian counterpart a month earlier. Yet such an analysis glosses over the back-room politics and shifting alliances among the elite and their international backers that actually transformed popular unrest into regime change. As has since been seen in Syria and, to a lesser extent, Yemen, in the months after Tahrir, widespread anti-regime popular unrest alone may prove incapable of toppling dictators if it lacks the support of key sections of the elite, notably the military.

The involvement of the military in the ousting of the only leaders to be toppled thus far, raises questions about how “revolutionary” the Arab Spring has actually been. Among the many frustrations voiced by activists who took to the streets against Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak, has been the amount of power wielded by the military in the post-ouster states. Though both the Tunisian and Egyptian militaries have fashioned themselves as the “guardians of the revolution,” activists have subsequently complained that the army has hijacked popular unrest to safeguard their own privileged positions. In Egypt, since Mubarak’s ouster on 11 February, the army has broken up further demonstrations and arrested hundreds, the same as the Mubarak regime did in its final days. With the interim government, guided by the supreme military council, pushing for constitutional changes and elections that aren’t as deep or as transformative as ardent democrats demand, the situation in Egypt appears at times more of a coup d’état than a revolution.

However, it remains too early to write off the revolutionary potential of the Arab Spring in Tunisia, Egypt or elsewhere. That departed leaders were ousted by military coups, albeit under popular pressure, does not delegitimize claims that a revolution has taken place. Many celebrated revolutions in history were the result of coups rather than widespread popular unrest, such as Egypt’s own in 1952, Iraq’s in 1958 and, further afield, the Bolshevik’s October 1917 Revolution. What makes them revolutionary or not is the extent of the political, social and economic change that follows rather than the exact method of regime change. For the Arab Spring it is too early to say. Perhaps the elites of the old regimes will remain in place, under the protection of a military that seeks to pay only lip service to the democratic changes demanded by the street. Alternatively, after this adjustment period, the old pillars of the deposed regimes may be gradually whittled down as widespread political and economic transformations take place.

Syria regime blunders toward self-destruction

A piece I wrote for CNN recently:

The harsh criticism leveled at the Syrian regime by Saudi Arabia and Turkey last week could prove a turning point in the popular uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

Until now Western sanctions have been ineffective in preventing Assad’s violent crackdown on protestors in the last six months. However, the influence of neighboring Turkey and Saudi Arabia is greater than the West, and opens the possibility of damaging diplomatic, economic and even military action.

Yet Assad’s increasing international and regional isolation was far from inevitable, and is one of a growing list of miscalculations by his regime that is bringing about its own destruction.

For months Syria’s security forces, under the command of Assad’s relentless brother, Maher has cracked down with relative impunity while the Arab states and Turkey have said little or remained silent. Assad’s strategy appeared to be to suppress demonstrations while cynically keeping casualties to a “manageable” level, rarely crossing 100 deaths on the worst days.

This has limited Western calls for the kind of urgent intervention seen in Libya, itself becoming a quagmire that few wished to replicate in Syria, and was grudgingly accepted by Syria’s neighbors, who feared sectarian instability were Assad to fall. Assad, however, miscalculated and his heavy assault on the rebellious cities of Hama and Deir Ezzor at the beginning of Ramadan has proven too much to bear.

Such miscalculations have characterized Assad’s response to a crisis that looks increasingly likely to end his decade-long rule over Syria. It need not have been. When the Arab Spring began in Tunisia, Syria appeared well placed to avoid unrest. Yet ever since demonstrations eventually broke out Assad has shown poor judgment and a lack of political skill, perhaps becoming someone who inherited power. One by one he and his regime have undone nearly all of their initial advantages.

Arguably the regime’s greatest asset when unrest first broke out was Assad’s personal popularity. Despite the security apparatus, the ruling Baath party and corrupt regime cronies being widely disliked, many Syrians placed their faith in Assad as a modernizing reformer. Yet his response to the unrest has shattered this carefully constructed image. He rambled in speeches about external conspiracies rather than delivering real change, and the few reforms he belatedly offered have been undermined by continuing regime violence.

Although some core supporters still hope he will deliver, most accept that in reality he is either too weak, being overawed by hardliners such as Maher, or is himself actually as ruthless a dictator as his father, Hafez.

A second factor in the regime’s favor was the weakness of its opponents. Syria’s opposition had been systematically crushed or forced into exile during 40 years of Baathist rule. The first protestors wanted reform rather than regime change. Yet the regime swelled opposition ranks by repeatedly overreacting with brutal force. From the arrest and alleged torture of 15 Deraa teenagers for writing anti-regime graffiti in March to the 1,600 civilians reportedly killed since then, regime brutality has galvanized the previously passive population against it.

Even after unrest broke out in Syria, the regime was offered ample room to maneuver by the international community. Western states have been reluctant to call for Assad’s departure. Even after initiating sanctions, EU and U.S. diplomats held off demanding that Assad step down, a move that Barack Obama will reportedly be making in the coming days.

Russia and China have similarly been staunch supporters, defending Syria from Western condemnation at the U.N.. Yet the regime has shown little willingness to use this time to find a non-military solution to its unrest and has wrongly assumed that such acquiescence will last indefinitely.

Yet despite its self-destructive efforts, the Assad regime still retains some advantages that could prolong its survival. The security forces remain loyal and have shown few signs of fracturing. The Sunni merchant class, whose support is crucial, also remains loyal or at least neutral. The major cities of Aleppo and central Damascus, which between them host half of Syria’s population, remain relatively quiet. Many ordinary Syrians still give the regime the benefit of the doubt, fearing the possibility of a sectarian civil war. The opposition is growing in size, but lacks leaders that could replace Assad.

Furthermore, Syria still retains key diplomatic and economic support from Iran and its key trading partner Iraq and, despite the increased criticism seen this week, is not yet facing anything more than rhetoric, such as organized diplomatic or economic isolation.

However, given its record in the crisis so far, few would bet on the Assad regime maximizing these advantages. If anything, the regime has shown a bewildering ability to make matters worse as it slowly implodes. The great fear is that, in its forlorn struggle for survival, it drags the Syrian people into the void alongside it.

Arabism after the Arab Spring

A short piece i recently wrote on my book topic, Arabism today.

Until recently, Arabism was largely considered a spent force. The defeat of Gamal Abdul Nasser’s Egypt by Israel in the 1967 War, and his subsequent death in 1970, shattered the Nasserite dream of a single unified Arab state. Though leaders who claimed to be Nasser’s heirs continued to employ Arab nationalist rhetoric, such as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein or Syria’s Hafez al-Assad, historians broadly concur that after 1967 state nationalism (Wataniya) outstripped Arab nationalism (Qawmiya) as the driving force behind Arab leaders’ foreign policy. This was seen by the state-first goals of Egypt and Syria in the 1973 war with Israel and the decision by Anwar Sadat, Nasser’s successor as president of Egypt, to sign the Camp David peace treaty in 1979. By the late 1970s, the state system had been consolidated by petro-dollars and a new generation of state-focused Arab leaders, and if anything it was Islamism, inspired by the Iranian Revolution, rather than Arabism, that challenged this status quo. This prompted Fouad Ajami, among others, to declare Nasserite Pan-Arabism ‘dead’.

However, the satellite era of the late 1990s and 2000s caused some scholars to reconsider. While Arab leaders had continued to emphasise the state over the Arab nation with their foreign policy, notably in the 1991 Gulf War that saw several Arab states join the US to take on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, at a popular level satellite television fueled a new form of popular Arabism. Varyingly called ‘New Arabism’, ‘the Arab Public Sphere’ or ‘McArabism’ by Shibley Telhami, Marc Lynch and Khalil Rinnawi respectively, these scholars claimed that transnational Arab media, led by the Qatari satellite news channel, Al-Jazeera, has linked living rooms in a politicized common cultural sphere in a way that Nasser and other politicians never could. Consequently, a ‘new Arab street’ has emerged that challenges the foreign policies of their pro-West state-centered governments, demanding action on areas of common outrage such as Israel-Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon. While few have gone so far as to call this new Arabism ‘nationalism’, as it exists alongside, not in opposition to, increasingly entrenched state identities, it does represent an imagined community in the Andersonian sense. Transnational media encourages viewers to consider themselves as members of a wider, supra-national ‘Arab community’.

Can the Arab Spring be interpreted as the result of this New Arabism? When Mohammad Bouazizi, a young Tunisian street vendor, set himself alight on 17^th December 2010 in frustration at being humiliated by a government official, few expected it to prompt a wave of unrest across the Arab world that would eventually topple the Tunisian and Egyptian governments and threaten many more. Even those who had led scholarship on New Arabism, such as Lynch, admitted to being skeptical that events in Tunisia would spread across the region. However, the contagious nature of protests, from one Arab state to the next, did suggest the importance of a supra-national Arab identity. Why was it that a revolution in Tunisia was able to inspire anti-government unrest in Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Morocco and Jordan, yet similar protests in Iran in 2009, Georgia in 2004 and Ukraine in 2005 had no such effect? The sense of commonality and identification that protestors in other Arab states felt with the Tunisians, stronger than in other non-Arab states, is one possible answer. Another manifestation of Arab identity, intra-Arab competition, also helped spread the protests. Egyptians in Tahrir Square claimed to be both inspired by Tunisia, but also shamed into action. They believed that Egypt, as Umm Dunya (Mother of the [Arab] World) should take the lead in democratising the region, not peripheral Tunisia.

Equally important in the success of the Arab Spring was the role played by new media, part of the collective Arab cultural sphere identified by Lynch. Al-Jazeera played a prominent role, for example, in the Egyptian revolution of January and February 2011. Though the Qatari government ensures that this nominally independent station does not deviate from its own agenda, hence its focus on Egypt but not on unrest in neighbouring ally Bahrain, relaying images of Egyptians gathering in Tahrir Square clearly helped inspire viewers in other Arab states to do likewise. Similarly, the role of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter in the uprisings, in which Arabs from different states swapped methods, stories and tactics to challenge their regimes, further supports the notion that the new Arab public sphere facilitated the Arab Spring.

Even in states that have not witnessed widespread protests, such is the fear that unrest will spread, the governments have acted preemptively to deter calls for regime change. In Algeria and Saudi Arabia, billions of petro-dollars have been spent on welfare measures to buy off any potential opposition, while in Morocco, Oman and Jordan governments were sacked and superficial moves towards democratic reform were made at the first sign of unrest. These moves essentially show the regimes acknowledging that citizens will not believe a state nationalist argument that they are somehow different to other Arab states undergoing democratic transformation. As time goes on and parts of the Arab world begin to elect their own governments, Arabs in the remaining autocracies who feel a commonality with their cousins elsewhere and the freedom they enjoy, may increasingly demand the same.

Yet there is another side to the Arab Spring and its relationship to New Arabism. While Arab identity has clearly played a role in spreading unrest from Tunisia and Egypt to the wider region, this does not necessarily mean Arabism will continue to strengthen after the Arab Spring. Ironically, the reverse may happen, as new governments turn their attention inwards to satisfy the political and economic demands of the protestors that brought them to power. Though Arab identity proved essential in spreading the unrest, the core problems being protested in each state were essentially national. A few Tunisians and Egyptians complained of Ben Ali and Mubarak’s closeness to the West, but most demands were domestic: jobs, freedom and dignity. The proliferation of national flags at most public protests underlines the clearly national agenda desired. Moreover, there is the chance of a backlash against previously popular ‘Arab’ foreign policy issues such as the Palestine conflict, as many previous regimes used this as a justification for the continued repression at home.

New Arabism, as outlined by Telhami and Lynch and others, found space for both qawmiya and wataniya: viewers of Al-Jazeera were allowed to be both proud Arabs and state nationalists. The unionist pan-Arab nationalist goals of Nasser have long been abandoned, they claim, but that does not mean the persistence of a wider supra-national Arab identity that has been amplified by satellite television, should be overlooked. The Arab Spring is in many ways the product of this dual identity. State nationalist grievances in Tunisia and Egypt may have started the fire, but Arab identity helped it spread. We are, however, only at the very beginning of this process and it may yet turn more or less Arabist. For all the importance of Arabism in spreading revolution across the region, it is actually likely that state nationalism will strengthen as new regimes turn their attention inwards to the plethora of post-revolutionary problems they will face.

Will Assad survive?

As the protests in Syria continue despite continued repression (including this monstrous treatment of a 13 year old boy), commentators are beginning to question just how long Assad can hold on for. While the embattled Syrian president looks far more secure than either Qaddaffi in Libya or Saleh in Yemen, where large portions of the army have defected and the regime faces a physical threat, some have questioned how long Assad can withstand the popular, economic and international pressure that is increasing.

My interpretation is that something more still needs to change for Assad to go. This might be defections from the military, or a clear sign from the business community that it  will no longer tolerate the disruption to commerce that the protest-repression-international condemnation cycle is bringing. There are no signs of either yet but the more people join the portests and if (when?) they erupt in Damascus and Aleppo, the chances of this will increase.

Here are a few thoughts on the matter from around the web:

Haaretz: The regime of Syrian leader Bashar Assad will not survive and will eventually collapse under the pressure of demonstrations in his country. This is the assessment of Israel’s military establishment – and this view is gaining strength. A senior security source told Haaretz this week that “Assad is becoming weaker. It may take a few months, or a year or more, but the regime will probably fail to recover. Forty years of rule by the Assad family are on their way to coming to an end.”

Ali al-Hajj (Guardian):  The Syrian people think the time for change has come, and they cannot go back. They do not fear the state violence machine. They will not accept reforms promised by a regime in broad daylight, then disregarded come nightfall. All credibility and legitimacy has been lost. At last, the only legitimacy acceptable to the people of Syria is that to emerge via the ballot box. When you ask Syrians about the west’s stance, they tell you there is no doubt: the civilised world will not leave them isolated; international legitimacy is the strongest path now; and the interests of the west lie in a democratic, peaceful Syria that endeavours for scientific, economic, and societal development.