Friday, April 01, 2011

There is an age-old tradition of explaining everything that happens in the Middle East in terms of external conspiracies. The present-day “Arab revolutionary spring” is no exception.

Here are two such theories purporting to explain current events in the Middle East. One, supported among others by certain Russian analysts, reduces everything to a long-standing plot by the West – the United States and the United Kingdom above all – to impose their control over energy resources.

One can only have a hearty laugh at the allegation that the Americans toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a loyal ally of many years whose regime, however shaky and one-sided, had been a pillar of peace in the Middle East and one of the main recipients of American foreign aid. Incidentally, in Egypt, not to speak of Tunisia, there are no energy resources for the sake of which it would be worth embarking upon such an unbelievable venture. The Americans even pondered long and hard before committing to the overthrow of Washington’s old adversary, the demented Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who is hated by all the Middle Eastern regimes and is a sponsor of terrorism. So much for strange conspiracies.

The second theory explains the Arab spring as an Islamist plot. But the Islamists clearly overlooked the onset of that spring and did not expect the “Facebook youth” to do what they themselves could only dream of. The masses of young people thronging North African cities did not hoist Islamist slogans like “Islam is the solution,” nor did they demand the establishment of an Islamic government. This, of course, does not mean Islamist groups will not try to take advantage of the Arab youth revolution.

There is one more theory, related only to Bahrain: the Iranian conspiracy. It would be odd to expect Tehran not to sympathize with the Bahraini Shiites and lend them political, diplomatic and informational assistance. But it would be odder still for the Shiite population of Bahrain not to try to exploit the revolutionary situation in the region. Though roughly three-fourths of the country’s population, Shiites have long considered themselves discriminated against by the Sunni regime. On both sides there are extremists prone to resorting to force to further their interests. But on the whole, the Shiite movement has so far maintained a peaceful character. And there has been no direct Iranian military involvement.

As for the intervention by Bahrain’s partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council, the question is far from simple. On the one hand, the GCC is a regional organization whose members agreed to help each other in the event of a threat to their security, the more so when a member state itself requests the dispatch of an armed contingent. On the other hand, there was no question here of an external attack; the regime might have tried to cope with the disturbances on its own, using political means. The Saudi intervention antagonized the Shiites even more, adding tension to Saudi-Iranian ties and, finally, sending the wrong signal to Saudi Arabia’s own population. Having said that, fear of the emergence of an Iranian-type Islamic republic in Bahrain is extremely great in the Gulf Arab states (and elsewhere).

In connection with these events, it is also reasonable to pose the question: within what limits does a legitimate, internationally recognized regime have the right to counter rebellious and insurgent or revolutionary movements? Here a more general question arises regarding external intervention in crisis situations, and its forms and limits. In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly approved the principle of “responsibility to protect,” allowing outside players to intervene when necessary to put an end to crimes against humanity. But this requires the sanction of the international community.

A Western observer, Alan Philps, was right when he wrote that the introduction of a no-fly zone over Libya “is the first step in a process that, by the immutable laws of mission creep, led to a full-scale bombing campaign (in the Balkans) and to land invasion.” It is precisely for this reason that, fearing such a turn of events, Russia sought and ensured the insertion into the United Nations Security Council resolution on Libya of a provision on the inadmissibility of foreign occupation of that country in the course of the international military operation. Since certain issues were left unclear, notably the question of the limits of the use of force in that operation, Russia (like other members of the Security Council – China, Germany, India and Brazil – each for reasons of its own) abstained in the voting.

By abstaining, Russia did not prevent the resolution from being approved. A crucial circumstance for Moscow was that for the first time the request for adopting such a resolution came from the Arab states themselves. So this was not a Western operation alone, which against the backdrop of the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan and the unsolved Arab-Israel conflict would have allowed Gadhafi to rally support against an alleged “imperialist and Zionist conspiracy.” This is the operation of a coalition, which to some extent resembles the situation after Saddam Hussein’s 1990 attack on Kuwait. The Obama administration, whose opponents and critics are accusing it of indecision (and even saying that America is today not so much a status quo power as a go-with-the-flow power), has in effect displayed restraint and responsibility worthy of a great power.

A question remains with regard to interventionism: the enlistment by the parties to internal conflict of armed foreign nationals. International law bans mercenary activities. The Libyan insurgents accuse Gadhafi of having placed under arms the citizens of the Sahel states. For his part, the dictator has alleged that Egyptians and even Al-Qaeda militants were fighting with the insurgents. Hopefully, in the near future we shall find out whether this is true or not.

Vitaly Naumkin is director of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. This commentary first appeared atbitterlemons-international.org, an online newsletter.