Threats to a successful “Arab Democratic Uprising” .

The “Arab Democratic Uprising” is going to need the support of people from neighbouring countries, and from ordinary people in long established democracies outside of the region.

In Syria the large scale escalation of violent suppression by Bashir Al-Assad’s security brigades has provoked the usual suspects Russia and China, to signal that they will veto any UN security resolutions against Syria, of the type issued against Libya. Remember it  was Russia and China  who attempted to delay and muzzle UN Security Resolution 1973 against Gaddafi.

In Egypt Robert Frisk says in a recent article….  “Field Marshal Tantawi, the head of the Egyptian army, for example, is now running Egypt. Yet he is not only a close friend of America, but a childhood and lifelong friend of Mubarak, who was allowed to whinge the usual ex-dictator’s self-congratulatory excuses on al-Arabia television (‘my reputation, my integrity and my military and political record’) prior to his own questioning – and inevitable emergency entry into hospital. When the latest Tahrir Square crowds also called for Tantawi’s resignation, the field marshal’s mask slipped. He sent his troops to ‘cleanse’ the square.”[ British Newspaper: The Independent  “A long Time Coming” 15/4/2011 Robert Fisk]

Added to this Saudi Arabia is willing to underwrite any Gulf State in fighting democracy, as it has done in Bahrain. They are also offering help to the Syrian regime, in addition to help from long term ally Iran. While Algeria is suspected of secretly sending arms to Gaddafi’s regime, via it’s 600 miles shared border.

Going back to Robert Fisk’s article “And now let’s go a little further. On 31 March, the Israelis – who have steadfastly opposed the overthrow of the Middle East’s dictators – published a series of photo-reconnaissance pictures of southern Lebanon, supposedly marking the exact locations of 550 Hezbollah bunkers, 300 ‘monitoring sites’ and 100 weapons storage facilities run by Syria’s Lebanese Shia militia allies in the country. They had been built, the Israelis claimed, next to hospitals, schools and public utilities. The documentation was fake. Visits to locations marked on the map uncovered no such bunkers. Indeed, the real Hezbollah bunkers known to the Lebanese are not marked on the map. The Hezbollah quickly understood the meaning. ‘They are setting us up for the next war’, a veteran Hezbollah ruffian from the village of Jibchit told me……. But last week, the Turkish air force forced down an Iranian transport aircraft supposedly flying over Diyarbakir en route to the northern Syrian city of Aleppo with ‘auto spare parts’. On board the Ilyushin-76, the Turks found 60 Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles, 14 BKC machine guns, 8,000 rounds of ammunition, 560 60mm mortar shells and 1288 120mm mortar shells.” Forget Facebook. These are not part of any Arab “reawakening” or “uprising”, but further supplies for the Hezbollah to use in their next conflict with Israel. All of which raises a question. Is there a better way of taking people’s minds off [democratic] revolution than a new war against an enemy which has resolutely opposed the democratisation of the Arab world?”. [The Independent  “The Arab awakening began not in Tunisia this year, but in Lebanon in 2005” 15/4/2011 Robert Frisk]

He  is suggesting there is evidence of immanent  preparations for another Lebanon war, which would simultaneously serve the purposes of Syria, Iran and Israel. It would provide the perfect excuse for the regimes involved to crack down on internal revolt.

In the same article Robert Frisk goes on to warn of the use of the phrase “civil war”, which was  used by Western governments to delay intervention in halting the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Bosnia. Many western media commentators have wanted to apply this concept on the basis of the filmiest evidence to the conflict in Libya, without I think a great deal of success.

Ordinary Arabs have direct  experience of their rulers trying to encourage sectarian conflict to increase their hold on power. The internal colonizers using the same tactics as the external colonizers of empires past. Ordinary people have seen the consequences following the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and learnt the lesson that avoiding sectarian conflict is essential, rather than the  misunderstanding picked up by western media pundits that sectarian conflict is inevitable.

It is the responsibility of people in Western countries to question their governments lack of intervention based on the excuse of “civil war”. It is also our responsibility to stop our government’s foreign polices, returning to the old policy of seeing the Middle East as a region fought over by rival powers using local dictators to secure advantage. This has been the case since the late nineteenth century, and the rivalry continues with the rise of China. In the past undemocratic foreign policies have been pursued by democracies, because their publics have been misinformed and disinterested. This must stop. Helping to secure true democracy abroad is in the interests of ordinary people in Western countries (rather than sometimes immoral elites) . It is evidently moral, and will in the long term secure real advantage over our undemocratic rivals.