Thoughts on the Uprisings in North Africa and Middle East?
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Egyptian protesters storm secret police headquarters
By Patrick Martin
Thousands of demonstrators, many of them former political prisoners and victims of torture, stormed buildings belonging to the State Security Investigations agency in Cairo, Alexandria and other Egyptian cities, after reports that the secret police were burning documents to cover their tracks.
The attacks began in Alexandria, the country’s second-largest city, on Friday night, March 4, and continued over the weekend in Cairo, the capital, and many regional cities. Demonstrators took documents from at least 11 state security offices around the country. They want the documents preserved to provide evidence for the prosecution of officials of the dictatorship of former president Hosni Mubarak.
Yesterday 47 state security officers were arrested on suspicion of burning documents, according to the Prosecutor General’s office. They said they would hold the officials for 15 days, pending investigations.
The SSI was Mubarak’s principal instrument for the suppression of political opposition and dissent, with an estimated 100,000 agents and 500,000 informants. It also served as a torture subcontractor for the American CIA, which regularly “rendered” prisoners to Egypt for interrogation. The release of SSI documents could thus provide evidence of crimes against humanity by American as well as Egyptian officials.
The first attack in Alexandria was the most violent, as demonstrators massed outside the security headquarters during the day, then moved on the building after rumors spread that the security officers were burning their papers. Security police opened fire with tear gas and escalated to live ammunition, after which the crowd stormed the building and overpowered them. Four protesters were wounded and 20 security police badly beaten, according to eyewitness reports to the press. Several police cars were also firebombed.
Army soldiers were called in to rescue the police, but many of the demonstrators refused to leave the building, setting up an occupation while they pored through the documents and sought to recover those that had been shredded.
One demonstrator, Kutb Hassanein, who spoke with the Associated Press, said many of the protesters were former victims of the police. “We all suffered and saw horrible torture at the hands of this agency,” he said, adding that he had himself been detained in the building several times. “There is a huge desire to take revenge. But we would rather see them all put on trial,” Hassanein concluded.
The next evening saw an even larger group, some 2,500 people, attack the national headquarters of the SSI in the Cairo suburb of Nasr City. Protesters reportedly saw trucks being loaded with garbage bags full of shredded documents, and forced their way into the building. The demonstrators grabbed many paper files and computer hard drives, hauled them outside and set up a human wall around them to protect the evidence from destruction. They eventually turned over the material to state prosecutors and military officials.
Among the items recovered were documents on an attack on a Coptic Christian church in January—widely believed to be a state provocation—and one ordering phone taps on people who called in to political talk shows. Both were posted on the Internet before being turned over to the prosecutors.
The whistle-blower web site WikiLeaks issued an appeal to Egyptians not to throw away shredded documents, offering its services to help reconstruct the material and post it for the information of the public.
According to a report by Priyanka Motaparthy of the US-based Human Rights Watch, carried in the Washington Post, the protesters found “the files of well-known Egyptian activists who faced torture,” while some “wandered through the halls of the building, shouting ‘where are the prisoners?’”
The demonstrators found no prisoners in three levels of underground cells, but did recover implements for torture, including electric shock devices.
“We are getting inside, and we are finding the secrets that have haunted us for so many years,” former prisoner Haytham Hassan told the Washington Post. “This feeling is better than anything that has happened so far.”
A crowd also stormed the SSI headquarters in the northwest Nile Delta city of Mersa Metruh, removing documents, then setting the building on fire. According to the report by the French news service AFP, “Residents of the coastal resort then sat at nearby cafes leafing through the documents for evidence of human rights abuses as smoke billowed from the headquarters.”
The Egyptian newspaper Ahram Online reported that the military had taken over the SSI compounds in Alexander and 6th of October City, another Cairo suburb, and that SSI buildings were burning in Qena, Port Said, Zagazig, Domiat and Tanta. Other attacks took place on the SSI building in the Cairo suburb of Sheikh Zayed, where guards fired shots in the air, in the Nile Delta town of Sharqia, and the oasis city of Fayoum south of the capital.
Meanwhile, in an effort to forestall wider protests, the new prime minister, Essam Sharaf, appointed by the military ruling council Thursday, named a new interior minister. Mansur al-Issawi took office Sunday, pledging to take “all necessary measures to restore confidence between citizens and police.” He replaces Mahmud Wagdi, a last-minute appointment by Mubarak just before his resignation February 11.
A new cabinet was sworn in yesterday before Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces—the military regime that took power after Mubarak left office.
New members include Egypt’s former UN ambassador Nabil ElArabi as foreign minister, and Major General Mansour el-Essawy—a former Cairo security chief—as interior minister. Two members of official “opposition” parties took Cabinet posts. The Wafd Party’s Monir Fakhri Abdel-Nour took the tourism portfolio, while the Tagammu party’s Gouda Abdel-Khaliq el-Sayed became minister of social security.
Wagdi was the replacement for Habib al-Adly, a long-time head of the security forces who was widely hated as one of the most corrupt and brutal of Mubarak’s henchmen. Al-Adly became so notorious that the military council has been obliged to order his arrest and trial on charges of money-laundering and abuse of authority, which began Saturday.
Prime Minister Sharaf issued an urgent appeal for “the return of all documents or papers taken from the headquarters of the state security to the army due to the dangerous nature of their contents.”
Violent incidents continued on Sunday, as a crowd formed outside an SSI headquarters in Cairo’s Lazoghly neighborhood. Armed thugs carrying knives and throwing rocks then attacked the protesters and tried to disperse them. After troops intervened and fired warning shots to protect the SSI building, the demonstrators retreated and marched to the central Tahrir Square.
By Patrick Martin
Thousands of demonstrators, many of them former political prisoners and victims of torture, stormed buildings belonging to the State Security Investigations agency in Cairo, Alexandria and other Egyptian cities, after reports that the secret police were burning documents to cover their tracks.
The attacks began in Alexandria, the country’s second-largest city, on Friday night, March 4, and continued over the weekend in Cairo, the capital, and many regional cities. Demonstrators took documents from at least 11 state security offices around the country. They want the documents preserved to provide evidence for the prosecution of officials of the dictatorship of former president Hosni Mubarak.
Yesterday 47 state security officers were arrested on suspicion of burning documents, according to the Prosecutor General’s office. They said they would hold the officials for 15 days, pending investigations.
The SSI was Mubarak’s principal instrument for the suppression of political opposition and dissent, with an estimated 100,000 agents and 500,000 informants. It also served as a torture subcontractor for the American CIA, which regularly “rendered” prisoners to Egypt for interrogation. The release of SSI documents could thus provide evidence of crimes against humanity by American as well as Egyptian officials.
The first attack in Alexandria was the most violent, as demonstrators massed outside the security headquarters during the day, then moved on the building after rumors spread that the security officers were burning their papers. Security police opened fire with tear gas and escalated to live ammunition, after which the crowd stormed the building and overpowered them. Four protesters were wounded and 20 security police badly beaten, according to eyewitness reports to the press. Several police cars were also firebombed.
Army soldiers were called in to rescue the police, but many of the demonstrators refused to leave the building, setting up an occupation while they pored through the documents and sought to recover those that had been shredded.
One demonstrator, Kutb Hassanein, who spoke with the Associated Press, said many of the protesters were former victims of the police. “We all suffered and saw horrible torture at the hands of this agency,” he said, adding that he had himself been detained in the building several times. “There is a huge desire to take revenge. But we would rather see them all put on trial,” Hassanein concluded.
The next evening saw an even larger group, some 2,500 people, attack the national headquarters of the SSI in the Cairo suburb of Nasr City. Protesters reportedly saw trucks being loaded with garbage bags full of shredded documents, and forced their way into the building. The demonstrators grabbed many paper files and computer hard drives, hauled them outside and set up a human wall around them to protect the evidence from destruction. They eventually turned over the material to state prosecutors and military officials.
Among the items recovered were documents on an attack on a Coptic Christian church in January—widely believed to be a state provocation—and one ordering phone taps on people who called in to political talk shows. Both were posted on the Internet before being turned over to the prosecutors.
The whistle-blower web site WikiLeaks issued an appeal to Egyptians not to throw away shredded documents, offering its services to help reconstruct the material and post it for the information of the public.
According to a report by Priyanka Motaparthy of the US-based Human Rights Watch, carried in the Washington Post, the protesters found “the files of well-known Egyptian activists who faced torture,” while some “wandered through the halls of the building, shouting ‘where are the prisoners?’”
The demonstrators found no prisoners in three levels of underground cells, but did recover implements for torture, including electric shock devices.
“We are getting inside, and we are finding the secrets that have haunted us for so many years,” former prisoner Haytham Hassan told the Washington Post. “This feeling is better than anything that has happened so far.”
A crowd also stormed the SSI headquarters in the northwest Nile Delta city of Mersa Metruh, removing documents, then setting the building on fire. According to the report by the French news service AFP, “Residents of the coastal resort then sat at nearby cafes leafing through the documents for evidence of human rights abuses as smoke billowed from the headquarters.”
The Egyptian newspaper Ahram Online reported that the military had taken over the SSI compounds in Alexander and 6th of October City, another Cairo suburb, and that SSI buildings were burning in Qena, Port Said, Zagazig, Domiat and Tanta. Other attacks took place on the SSI building in the Cairo suburb of Sheikh Zayed, where guards fired shots in the air, in the Nile Delta town of Sharqia, and the oasis city of Fayoum south of the capital.
Meanwhile, in an effort to forestall wider protests, the new prime minister, Essam Sharaf, appointed by the military ruling council Thursday, named a new interior minister. Mansur al-Issawi took office Sunday, pledging to take “all necessary measures to restore confidence between citizens and police.” He replaces Mahmud Wagdi, a last-minute appointment by Mubarak just before his resignation February 11.
A new cabinet was sworn in yesterday before Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces—the military regime that took power after Mubarak left office.
New members include Egypt’s former UN ambassador Nabil ElArabi as foreign minister, and Major General Mansour el-Essawy—a former Cairo security chief—as interior minister. Two members of official “opposition” parties took Cabinet posts. The Wafd Party’s Monir Fakhri Abdel-Nour took the tourism portfolio, while the Tagammu party’s Gouda Abdel-Khaliq el-Sayed became minister of social security.
Wagdi was the replacement for Habib al-Adly, a long-time head of the security forces who was widely hated as one of the most corrupt and brutal of Mubarak’s henchmen. Al-Adly became so notorious that the military council has been obliged to order his arrest and trial on charges of money-laundering and abuse of authority, which began Saturday.
Prime Minister Sharaf issued an urgent appeal for “the return of all documents or papers taken from the headquarters of the state security to the army due to the dangerous nature of their contents.”
Violent incidents continued on Sunday, as a crowd formed outside an SSI headquarters in Cairo’s Lazoghly neighborhood. Armed thugs carrying knives and throwing rocks then attacked the protesters and tried to disperse them. After troops intervened and fired warning shots to protect the SSI building, the demonstrators retreated and marched to the central Tahrir Square.
US intensifies military operations in Libya
By Mike Head
Officially, the Obama administration and Washington’s allies are still drawing up “contingency plans” to intervene in the Libyan crisis. In reality, intensive military and intelligence operations are underway within and around the oil-rich country.
Under the hypocritical banner of stopping “unacceptable violence” against the Libyan people, the US and the European powers are seeking to install a regime in Tripoli that will be even more subordinate to their interests than Muammar Gaddafi’s has proven to be over the past decade.
Unlike its response to the revolutionary movements in Tunisia and Egypt—Obama did not once call for the ouster of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali or Hosni Mubarak and is supporting the retention of their regimes headed by new personnel—the US government has openly called for Gaddafi’s removal.
Washington is doing so in the name of democracy and humanitarian concerns even as it backs, and continues to arm, anti-democratic regimes across the region, notably in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Yemen, while they use police-state repression and violence to suppress popular uprisings.
The US is intent on working with top-level defectors from the Gaddafi regime, including those in the opposition interim government in Benghazi, to establish a puppet administration in Libya that will not only protect the substantial oil and gas interests of the US and other Western countries, but also provide a staging post for operations against the revolutionary struggles that are continuing in neighbouring countries.
An indication of the scale of the US-led operation was given by Thom Shanker in the New York Times on Monday. Citing administration officials, he reported: “The latest military force to draw within striking distance of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, is the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard two amphibious assault ships, the Kearsarge and the Ponce. The unit provides a complete air, sea and land force that can project its power quickly and across hundreds of miles, either from flat-decked ships in the Mediterranean Sea or onto a small beachhead on land.
“In this task force are Harrier jump-jet warplanes, which not only can bomb, strafe and engage in dogfights, but can also carry surveillance pods for monitoring military action on the ground in Libya; attack helicopters; transport aircraft—both cargo helicopters and the fast, long-range Osprey, whose rotors let it lift straight up, then tilt forward like propellers to ferry Marines, doctors, refugees or supplies across the desert—landing craft that can cross the surf anywhere along Libya’s long coastline; and about 400 ground combat troops of the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines.”
In addition, he explained, “ample” US planes were based in Europe to strike “valued government or military targets” in Libya, and the aircraft carrier Enterprise and its strike group were “carefully sailing” up the Red Sea, bound for the Mediterranean. Other options being prepared included inserting Special Operations teams to assist the opposition forces, as was done in both Afghanistan and Iraq before the US-led invasions of 2001 and 2003.
Shanker said the expedition was initially being presented as a humanitarian one, helping to airlift international refugees from Libya, but had an unmistakeable objective. “The flotilla can be seen as a modern-day example of ‘gunboat diplomacy’—intended to embolden rebels and shake the confidence of loyalist forces and mercenaries, perhaps even inspiring a palace coup.”
Speaking from the Oval Office in the White House yesterday, President Barack Obama delivered his most explicit statement yet about using military force to oust the Gaddafi regime. He declared: “We’ve got NATO, as we speak, consulting in Brussels around a wide range of potential options, including potential military options, in response to the violence that continues to take place inside of Libya.”
Addressing reporters after a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, he said the two countries “stand shoulder to shoulder” in sending “a very clear message to the Libyan people that we will stand with them.” The Australian government had already publicly called for military intervention, via the imposition of a “no-fly zone”.
Behind the scenes, US and European military and intelligence operations are proceeding apace, as evidenced by the embarrassing detention of eight members of the UK’s Special Air Service (SAS) in Benghazi last Friday, and the earlier capture of Dutch marines by forces loyal to the Gaddafi regime.
Robert Fisk, the Independent’s veteran Middle East correspondent, yesterday reported that US AWACS surveillance aircraft had been flying around Libya, tracking Libyan planes, including Gaddafi’s private jet, for several days. On Sunday night, Al Jazeera television broadcast recordings made by American aircraft to Maltese air traffic control requesting details of Gaddafi’s plane. On Monday, NATO announced that the AWACS mission had been extended to 24 hours a day.
Fisk also reported that the US had asked Saudi Arabia to supply arms to the opposition council in Benghazi, starting with anti-tank rockets and mortars, and then ground-to-air missiles to shoot down Libyan fighter-bombers. Fisk noted that “their assistance would allow Washington to disclaim any military involvement in the supply chain—even though the arms would be American and paid for by the Saudis.”
The Saudi royal family has a track record in this regard. During the 1980s it was involved in the illegal Iran-Contra operation by the Reagan administration to secretly arm rebels in Nicaragua, and it helped the US arm Islamic fundamentalist guerrillas fighting the Soviet army in Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, the Obama administration’s request to the Saudis is extremely revealing. The White House is working hand-in-glove with its despotic ally—even as the Saudi monarchy bans all demonstrations in advance of planned “day of rage” protests—in order to protect strategic US military, diplomatic and oil interests in the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa.
Washington has been reluctant to openly intervene militarily in Libya, which could require a full-scale invasion, for fear of triggering a popular backlash across the region and in Libya itself. There is deep hostility to the neo-colonial role of the US, both for its occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq and its sponsorship of all the Middle East’s repressive regimes, from Egypt to the Gulf emirates.
For that reason, and to attempt to give a fig leaf of legality to its intervention, the Obama administration has asked its European allies to take the lead, publicly at least, via NATO and the European Union. Reports of Libyan military attacks on civilians are being used to justify a more direct military assault, possibly commencing with a no-fly zone, which would require air strikes on Libyan targets.
Yesterday, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said attacks against civilians in Libya may amount to “crimes against humanity,” making it difficult for the world to stand “idly by”. Shortly afterward, British Foreign Secretary William Hague told the British Parliament there were “credible reports” that Libyan government forces had used helicopter gunships against civilians. Hague said Britain and some other countries were working “on a contingency basis” on a United Nations Security Council resolution allowing for a no-fly zone.
As revealed by the abortive British SAS operation, the European powers are also spearheading efforts to liaise with the Gaddafi defectors who led the formation of a self-proclaimed Libyan National Council in Benghazi last Saturday, declaring itself the sole representative body for all of Libya. Despite the setback of the SAS fiasco—it appears that the Benghazi leadership objected to the too naked involvement of foreign troops—Defence Secretary Liam Fox stated that “a small British diplomatic team” was in Benghazi.
On Sunday, the French government hailed the creation of the national council. Paris “pledges support for the principles that motivate it and the goals it has set itself,” French Foreign Ministry spokesperson Bernard Valero said. The next day, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Farttini said Italy—which ruled Libya brutally from 1912 to 1943—had begun discreet talks with the council, boasting that Italy had better contacts in Libya than most countries.
Significantly, one of the first actions of the Benghazi council was to assure the Western powers that it would honour all contracts to supply oil from the east of Libya, where most of the country’s oil reserves are concentred. Saad al-Ferjani, the council member managing economic affairs, told Al Arabiya television on Sunday: “We will cover all of our contracts, they cannot be changed.”
This statement exemplifies the pro-Western and capitalist character of the embryonic regime, whose leading public figures were mostly all serving in the Gaddafi regime until very recently. They include former justice minister Mustafa Mohamed Abud Al Jeleil, who chairs the council, General Abdul Fattah Younis al Obaidi, the former Libyan interior minister and head of Gaddafi’s special forces, Ali Essawi, a former ambassador to India, who heads foreign affairs, and Omar Hariri, another former military officer, who was appointed head of the military.
In another clear statement of the council’s orientation, Jeleil said it would like to be recognised by the Western powers. He told Al Jazeera: “There are official contacts with European and Arab [countries].” Worried that Gaddafi would politically exploit the council’s collaboration with the US and its allies, Jeleil said it was opposed to any foreign military intervention. However, he has backed the imposition of a no-fly zone.
Because of their leading roles in the Gaddafi regime, these figures have many intimate military, intelligence, financial and diplomatic connections with the US and its allies. Over the past decade, Gaddafi provided intelligence to the West, entered into lucrative deals with global oil companies and invested an estimated $65 billion in Europe and the US, via the Libyan Investment Authority alone.
Yesterday, Gaddafi, while accusing his Benghazi-based opponents of aiding and abetting “foreign interference” and the return of “colonialism” to Libya, issued a thinly-veiled plea for a renewed accommodation with the imperialist powers. He invoked his regime’s collaboration in the “war on terrorism” and in preventing African refugees from entering Europe. “Libya plays a vital role in regional peace and world peace. We are an important partner in fighting Al Qaeda,” he stated. “There are millions of blacks who could come to the Mediterranean to cross to France and Italy, and Libya plays a role in security in the Mediterranean.”
On the ground in Libya, fighting continued yesterday between pro- and anti-Gaddafi forces, with both sides focussing on vital oil-related facilities in the Gulf of Sirte and west of Tripoli. The mainstream media, which is reporting the clashes almost exclusively from the Benghazi side, has begun emphasising the incapacity of the opposition forces to match the firepower of Gaddafi’s forces, thereby laying the basis for more open military intervention
By Mike Head
Officially, the Obama administration and Washington’s allies are still drawing up “contingency plans” to intervene in the Libyan crisis. In reality, intensive military and intelligence operations are underway within and around the oil-rich country.
Under the hypocritical banner of stopping “unacceptable violence” against the Libyan people, the US and the European powers are seeking to install a regime in Tripoli that will be even more subordinate to their interests than Muammar Gaddafi’s has proven to be over the past decade.
Unlike its response to the revolutionary movements in Tunisia and Egypt—Obama did not once call for the ouster of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali or Hosni Mubarak and is supporting the retention of their regimes headed by new personnel—the US government has openly called for Gaddafi’s removal.
Washington is doing so in the name of democracy and humanitarian concerns even as it backs, and continues to arm, anti-democratic regimes across the region, notably in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Yemen, while they use police-state repression and violence to suppress popular uprisings.
The US is intent on working with top-level defectors from the Gaddafi regime, including those in the opposition interim government in Benghazi, to establish a puppet administration in Libya that will not only protect the substantial oil and gas interests of the US and other Western countries, but also provide a staging post for operations against the revolutionary struggles that are continuing in neighbouring countries.
An indication of the scale of the US-led operation was given by Thom Shanker in the New York Times on Monday. Citing administration officials, he reported: “The latest military force to draw within striking distance of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, is the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard two amphibious assault ships, the Kearsarge and the Ponce. The unit provides a complete air, sea and land force that can project its power quickly and across hundreds of miles, either from flat-decked ships in the Mediterranean Sea or onto a small beachhead on land.
“In this task force are Harrier jump-jet warplanes, which not only can bomb, strafe and engage in dogfights, but can also carry surveillance pods for monitoring military action on the ground in Libya; attack helicopters; transport aircraft—both cargo helicopters and the fast, long-range Osprey, whose rotors let it lift straight up, then tilt forward like propellers to ferry Marines, doctors, refugees or supplies across the desert—landing craft that can cross the surf anywhere along Libya’s long coastline; and about 400 ground combat troops of the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines.”
In addition, he explained, “ample” US planes were based in Europe to strike “valued government or military targets” in Libya, and the aircraft carrier Enterprise and its strike group were “carefully sailing” up the Red Sea, bound for the Mediterranean. Other options being prepared included inserting Special Operations teams to assist the opposition forces, as was done in both Afghanistan and Iraq before the US-led invasions of 2001 and 2003.
Shanker said the expedition was initially being presented as a humanitarian one, helping to airlift international refugees from Libya, but had an unmistakeable objective. “The flotilla can be seen as a modern-day example of ‘gunboat diplomacy’—intended to embolden rebels and shake the confidence of loyalist forces and mercenaries, perhaps even inspiring a palace coup.”
Speaking from the Oval Office in the White House yesterday, President Barack Obama delivered his most explicit statement yet about using military force to oust the Gaddafi regime. He declared: “We’ve got NATO, as we speak, consulting in Brussels around a wide range of potential options, including potential military options, in response to the violence that continues to take place inside of Libya.”
Addressing reporters after a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, he said the two countries “stand shoulder to shoulder” in sending “a very clear message to the Libyan people that we will stand with them.” The Australian government had already publicly called for military intervention, via the imposition of a “no-fly zone”.
Behind the scenes, US and European military and intelligence operations are proceeding apace, as evidenced by the embarrassing detention of eight members of the UK’s Special Air Service (SAS) in Benghazi last Friday, and the earlier capture of Dutch marines by forces loyal to the Gaddafi regime.
Robert Fisk, the Independent’s veteran Middle East correspondent, yesterday reported that US AWACS surveillance aircraft had been flying around Libya, tracking Libyan planes, including Gaddafi’s private jet, for several days. On Sunday night, Al Jazeera television broadcast recordings made by American aircraft to Maltese air traffic control requesting details of Gaddafi’s plane. On Monday, NATO announced that the AWACS mission had been extended to 24 hours a day.
Fisk also reported that the US had asked Saudi Arabia to supply arms to the opposition council in Benghazi, starting with anti-tank rockets and mortars, and then ground-to-air missiles to shoot down Libyan fighter-bombers. Fisk noted that “their assistance would allow Washington to disclaim any military involvement in the supply chain—even though the arms would be American and paid for by the Saudis.”
The Saudi royal family has a track record in this regard. During the 1980s it was involved in the illegal Iran-Contra operation by the Reagan administration to secretly arm rebels in Nicaragua, and it helped the US arm Islamic fundamentalist guerrillas fighting the Soviet army in Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, the Obama administration’s request to the Saudis is extremely revealing. The White House is working hand-in-glove with its despotic ally—even as the Saudi monarchy bans all demonstrations in advance of planned “day of rage” protests—in order to protect strategic US military, diplomatic and oil interests in the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa.
Washington has been reluctant to openly intervene militarily in Libya, which could require a full-scale invasion, for fear of triggering a popular backlash across the region and in Libya itself. There is deep hostility to the neo-colonial role of the US, both for its occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq and its sponsorship of all the Middle East’s repressive regimes, from Egypt to the Gulf emirates.
For that reason, and to attempt to give a fig leaf of legality to its intervention, the Obama administration has asked its European allies to take the lead, publicly at least, via NATO and the European Union. Reports of Libyan military attacks on civilians are being used to justify a more direct military assault, possibly commencing with a no-fly zone, which would require air strikes on Libyan targets.
Yesterday, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said attacks against civilians in Libya may amount to “crimes against humanity,” making it difficult for the world to stand “idly by”. Shortly afterward, British Foreign Secretary William Hague told the British Parliament there were “credible reports” that Libyan government forces had used helicopter gunships against civilians. Hague said Britain and some other countries were working “on a contingency basis” on a United Nations Security Council resolution allowing for a no-fly zone.
As revealed by the abortive British SAS operation, the European powers are also spearheading efforts to liaise with the Gaddafi defectors who led the formation of a self-proclaimed Libyan National Council in Benghazi last Saturday, declaring itself the sole representative body for all of Libya. Despite the setback of the SAS fiasco—it appears that the Benghazi leadership objected to the too naked involvement of foreign troops—Defence Secretary Liam Fox stated that “a small British diplomatic team” was in Benghazi.
On Sunday, the French government hailed the creation of the national council. Paris “pledges support for the principles that motivate it and the goals it has set itself,” French Foreign Ministry spokesperson Bernard Valero said. The next day, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Farttini said Italy—which ruled Libya brutally from 1912 to 1943—had begun discreet talks with the council, boasting that Italy had better contacts in Libya than most countries.
Significantly, one of the first actions of the Benghazi council was to assure the Western powers that it would honour all contracts to supply oil from the east of Libya, where most of the country’s oil reserves are concentred. Saad al-Ferjani, the council member managing economic affairs, told Al Arabiya television on Sunday: “We will cover all of our contracts, they cannot be changed.”
This statement exemplifies the pro-Western and capitalist character of the embryonic regime, whose leading public figures were mostly all serving in the Gaddafi regime until very recently. They include former justice minister Mustafa Mohamed Abud Al Jeleil, who chairs the council, General Abdul Fattah Younis al Obaidi, the former Libyan interior minister and head of Gaddafi’s special forces, Ali Essawi, a former ambassador to India, who heads foreign affairs, and Omar Hariri, another former military officer, who was appointed head of the military.
In another clear statement of the council’s orientation, Jeleil said it would like to be recognised by the Western powers. He told Al Jazeera: “There are official contacts with European and Arab [countries].” Worried that Gaddafi would politically exploit the council’s collaboration with the US and its allies, Jeleil said it was opposed to any foreign military intervention. However, he has backed the imposition of a no-fly zone.
Because of their leading roles in the Gaddafi regime, these figures have many intimate military, intelligence, financial and diplomatic connections with the US and its allies. Over the past decade, Gaddafi provided intelligence to the West, entered into lucrative deals with global oil companies and invested an estimated $65 billion in Europe and the US, via the Libyan Investment Authority alone.
Yesterday, Gaddafi, while accusing his Benghazi-based opponents of aiding and abetting “foreign interference” and the return of “colonialism” to Libya, issued a thinly-veiled plea for a renewed accommodation with the imperialist powers. He invoked his regime’s collaboration in the “war on terrorism” and in preventing African refugees from entering Europe. “Libya plays a vital role in regional peace and world peace. We are an important partner in fighting Al Qaeda,” he stated. “There are millions of blacks who could come to the Mediterranean to cross to France and Italy, and Libya plays a role in security in the Mediterranean.”
On the ground in Libya, fighting continued yesterday between pro- and anti-Gaddafi forces, with both sides focussing on vital oil-related facilities in the Gulf of Sirte and west of Tripoli. The mainstream media, which is reporting the clashes almost exclusively from the Benghazi side, has begun emphasising the incapacity of the opposition forces to match the firepower of Gaddafi’s forces, thereby laying the basis for more open military intervention
from www.globalresearch.ca
The Return of Pan-Arabism Amidst Upheaval: An end to Balkanization?
The Changing Winds in Iraq and the Growing Threat to Lebanon
by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Global Research, March 14, 2011
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Protests and revolts have swept across the whole of Arabdom, from the Atlantic coastline of Morocco to the shores of the petro-sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf. In this regard, U.S. and E.U. double-standards are being applied to these events. There is a selective focus and condemnation by the White House and the European Union at play in regards to which Arab protests and protest leaders they support.
Regardless of the direction of these revolts and protests and the reaction of outside players, a new dynamic is taking shape. Democracy has not yet emerged, what is beginning to emerge is a new wave of pan-Arabism. This re-invigorated pan-Arabism will prove a challenge to the ongoing efforts to further fragment and weaken the Arab World.
The Categories of Protest and Revolt in The Arab World
In regards to the mass protests and popular revolts, today the states of the Arab World can be categorized into five groupings or categories. These categories are the following:
Group 1 - Arab countries that are in a state of civil war;
Group 2 - Arab countries that have populations that have revolted;
Group 3 - Arab countries where the people are currently protesting and are on the verge of revolt;
Group 4 - Arab countries where the groundwork for revolts are taking shape;
Group 5 - Arab countries where there are no revolts.
Each category will be discussed and summarized. It must be cautioned that these groupings are not static either and likely to evolve.
The Typologies of Benefit
Taking into account U.S., E.U., and Israeli foreign policy these protests and revolts can also categorized within two different typologies. The latter can be used to explain the reactions of the U.S., the E.U., and Tel Aviv and their respective mainstream media coverage of these events.
The typologies are:
(A) Arab countries where the protests and possible outcomes would be beneficial to the interests of Washington, Israel, and the European Union;
(B) Arab countries where the protests and revolts go against the interests of Washington, Israel, and the European Union.
It should, however, also be cautioned that the outcomes of these protests and revolts are unpredictable. The behaviour of Washington and Brussels suggest that they want to cash in on projected outcomes to reinforce their geo-political influence. Both the U.S. and the E.U. seek to"manage democratization" in the Arab World to thier benefit.
The “agency of the Arab people,” namely the grassroots, which the U.S. and its allies underestimate, has a significant role to play in these events. It is this process of an unfolding mass movement that makes these revolts unpredictable. Coupled with pan-Arabism, a potent force is arising.
The Arab people ultimately constitute a major challenge to Washington and its cohorts.
Unlike in Eastern Europe during the colour revolutions, the Arab regimes are supported by Washington. The Arab people are aware of U.S. and E.U. double-standards. Arabs know full well that the U.S. and its E.U. allies are not the vanguards of democracy and liberty.
In regards to Israel, Tel Aviv sees instability and chaos in the Arab World as serving its interests. Israel is not cutting itself off from the events in Arabdom. The Israeli strategy, in seamless alignment with both the U.S. and the older British strategies in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region, has always been to weaken and divide the Arab states. Israel has supported balkanization in the MENA region wherever it can. The Yinon Plan is very much alive today in what can henceforth be called the “Yinon Approach.” The strategy is named after Oded Yinon, a Israeli foreign policy analyst who outlined the “Zionist strategy” for breaking up and balkanizing the Arab World. [1]
The plan operates on two essential premises. To survive, Israel must (1) become an imperial regional power, and (2) must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states. Small here will depend on the ethnic or sectarian composition of each state. Consequently, the Zionist hope is that sectarian-based states become Israeli satellites and, ironically, its source of moral legitimation.
Note: The following map was prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters. It was published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006, Peters is a retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy. (Map Copyright Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters 2006).
Although the map does not officially reflect Pentagon doctrine, it has been used in a training program at NATO's Defense College for senior military officers. This map, as well as other similar maps, has most probably been used at the National War Academy as well as in military planning circles.
Note: The following map was drawn by Holly Lindem for an article by Jeffery Goldberg. It was published in The Atlantic in January/February 2008. (Map Copyright: The Atlantic, 2008).
The “Yinon Approach” in the Middle East and North Africa
While there is a move for unity amongst the people of the Middle East and North Africa, there is also a counter-push seeking their division. Either directly or indirectly, the Yinon Approach has been operational amongst the Arabs and in their region. In the backdrop, it is also a force in the Arab World.
According to the Yinon Plan, Iraq was the largest Arab threat to Tel Aviv. That threat was removed with the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Currently, Iraq is divided alongside Kurdish, Sunni Muslim Arab, and Shiite Muslim Arab lines. Political parties in Iraq are increasingly based on sectarian schemes. The power sharing arrangements in Baghdad increasingly resemble those in Beirut, Lebanon. Since 2003, the U.S. has actively pushed ahead with a soft form of balkanization in Iraq through federalization. Moreover, Israel has been a major supporter of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq.
Along with its U.S. and Western European partners, Israel is working to divide Lebanon and destabilize Syria through the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL). It can even be said that Tel Aviv has its own version of a Zionist lobby in Lebanon within the March 14 Alliance. It should come as no surprise that Bashar (Bachir/Bashir) Gemayal, an Israeli ally and the assassinated former president of Lebanon, wanted Lebanon to become a de-centralized federal state with a canton system modelled on Switzerland. Only in Lebanon the canton system would be based on ethno-religious and confessional lines, rather than on linguistic demarcations as in the Swiss confederation.
Instead of uniting the Lebanese, such a system would further magnify the sectarian atmosphere in Lebanon and play into the hands of Washington and Tel Aviv.
The Israelis have divided Palestine with the instigation of a Palestinian mini-civil war in the Gaza Strip. The Israelis even gleefully began to talk about a “three state solution” after the Hamas-Fatah split in 2007. In Turkey, the Alawis (Alavis in Turkish) are beginning to demand greater recognition by Ankara. In Egypt, there has been a campaign against the Coptic Christians with the objective of creating Muslim-Christian tensions. In Iraq too, Christians have been targeted by unknown forces. Sudan has been balkanized with the secession of South Sudan, which Israel heavily supported and armed. In Libya there is a foreign-supported push to manipulate tribal difference and divide the country along the lines of Eastern Libya and Western Libya. At the same time, the House of Saud has been encouraging a confessional divide between Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims and between Arabs and Iranians.
Israel, like the U.S. and the E.U., is working to take advantage of the upheavals in the Arab World. It has intensified its sporadic attacks on Gaza while the Arab World has been distracted with the events in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and elsewhere. Yet, this Yinon Approach will increasingly be challenged by pan-Arabism. The cooperation between Syria, Turkey, and Iran to form a regional bloc and common market may also prove to defy the Yinon Approach. In this context, Tehran is also working to support the protests in the Arab World and to align Iran with them.
Who Falls into What? Categorizing the Arab States
Group 1
Although the fighting in Libya is being exaggerated and embellished, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya is the only Arab state that falls into the first category of an Arab state undergoing a state of civil war. Yemen may also fall into this group at some point and it can be argued that Yemen is even a part of it too, because of the fighting in 2010 between Yemenite government forces (with the help of the U.S., Britain, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan) and Yemenite rebels.
In Yemen and Libya, however, there is a difference that must be emphasised. It is in the interests of the U.S. and its allies to have President Ali Abdullah Saleh in power. The U.S. has no alternative to Saleh. In Libya, the U.S. is actively working to remove Colonel Qaddafi so that Washington and its allies can appropriate Libyan energy reserves and financial assets.
The alternative in Tripoli to Qaddafi is possibly a divided leadership structure comprised of an alliance of former regime officials who defected and external groups supported by Washington, like the National Front for the Salvation of Libya. On the other hand, a Libya divided into several states or fiefdoms with prolonged fighting could also be a U.S. objective in Libya.
Group 2
Egypt and Tunisia fall into the second category. The mood of the people has changed in both Arab republics, but the political and economic status quo remains unchanged. U.S. and E.U. interests have remained unaffected and are intact.
As mentioned earlier, the “agency of the Arab people,” something that the U.S. and its allies underestimate, does have a significant role to play. The continued protests in Tunisia and Egypt show the continuation of dissatisfaction, because popular demands were not met. The psyches of the Tunisian and Egyptian people have changed. Despite the current status quo and Washington’s aims, the outcomes of the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt will work against the interests of Washington, Brussels, and Tel Aviv in the end.
Group 3
The third grouping of Arab states includes Bahrain, Yemen (if it is not considered a part of the first group with Libya), and Oman. Earlier is could have been said that Iraq could also possibly not fall into this third category. Massive protests and riots have broken out across Iraq from Baghdad and Basra to Sulaymaniah. It can now be said that Iraq is a part of this category too. These respective Arab states could ignite with open revolt and therefore become re-classified into the second group of Arab countries.
The protests in Bahrain, Yemen, Oman, and Iraq all work against the interests of Washington and the European Union. In Iraq the people are demanding that oil deals be cancelled. Both Washington and Brussels specifically support the status quo in the Arabian Peninsula. This is why they have mostly ignored the protests in Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula or presented them in a different light than the events in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.
Group 4
The fourth group includes the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the Israeli-occupied West Bank that is managed for Tel Aviv by Mahmoud Abbas and the corrupt Palestinian Authority. Protests have taken place in all these Arab states and the occupied West Bank at various levels. The groundwork for revolt in these states and the West Bank is being prepared by internet-based social media groups, dissidents, and opposition officials.
The release of the Palestinian Papers by the Qatar-based Al Jazeera Network has also heightened already rising tensions amongst the Palestinians. Palestinians are now pressuring Hamas and Fatah to form a unity government. Fatah is especially under a lot of pressure and scrutiny in the West Bank. Because of the mounting pressure, Mahmoud Abbas is now talking about political change as a means to pre-empt any revolt against him. If a revolt breaks out in the West Bank, the U.S. and Israel could work to position Mustafa Barghouti into the presidency of the Palestinian Authority. Despite their high fanfare in Washington and Brussels, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Hanan Ashrawi would be too unpopular. Mohammed Dahlan and other ranking Fatah members, except for Marwan Barghouti, would not be well received either.
It is a matter of time before protests and revolt emerge in these places of Arabdom. Protest and popular revolt in these places would also be against the interests of the U.S., the E.U., and Israel. Algeria may prove to be the exception in the fourth group. Like Libya, Algeria also exercises a degree of autonomy in regards to the U.S. and the European Union.
Group 5
The fifth and last group of Arab states includes Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates. Qatar and Syria could also be included in this group. In comparison to the other Arab states, both Qatar and Syria have been peaceful, although there is potential unrest and the possibility of protests in both Qatar and Syria.
In the case of Qatar the agitation appears to be internal and aimed at the Emir of Qatar, Sheikha Mozah bint Naser Al-Missned, the autocratic political structure in Qatar, and Qatari ties to Israel. In the case of Damascus the agitation widely appears to be driven externally by Syrian expatriates. With the recent appointment of a new U.S. ambassador to Syria, Washington is also set on a path towards eventually instigating and supporting revolt in Syria against President Bashar Al-Assad.
Mauritania, Kuwait, and Sudan do not qualify for this group either, because protests have broken out in these states. In Kuwait protests have already taken place that could place it in the third grouping. One set of protests was launched by Kuwaiti Bedouins that demanded that they be recognized and given legal rights as Kuwaiti citizens. Additional protests have been against the Kuwaiti state structure and against the discrimination of Shiite Muslims.
The Changing Winds in Iraq
In Iraq, after months of negotiations with Prime Minister Nouri Al-Malaki, Ayad Allawi has refused to accept a position of power as the chair of the Iraqi National Council for Strategic Policy. The position of the head of the Iraqi National Council for Strategic Policy is meant to counter-balance the role of the prime minister of Iraq. Ayad Allawi announced that he would not take the position at a press conference in Najaf alongside Moqtada Al-Sadr on March 3, 2011.
Whereas Allawi is known for being aligned to U.S. and British interests, Moqtada Al-Sadr is known for his opposition to the U.S. and Britain. At the press conference Allawi made an interesting, if not pragmatic, statement: “We are not seeking [state or government] positions, but looking for the interests of the people, the progress of Iraq and [the] stability [of Iraq.]” [2] In this context, Ayad Allawi can be seen as a weather vane or windsock in regards to the political situation and the mood of the people in Iraq. Revolt may inflame Iraq and Allawi may be positioning himself accordingly.
Since the protests in Iraq are being discussed it should be pointed out that Iraq sits at the borders of the Iranic World and the Arab World, as well as the Turkic World to a much lesser degree. These three conceptual realms can also be compounded and distinguished as the Turko-Arabo-Iranic World. Getting to the point, Kurdish sensitivities must be addressed. The Iraqi protests, like Iraq itself, cannot simply be characterized as Arab in nature. While the protests are purely Iraqi, they are characterized as partially Arab and partially Kurdish.
The Threat of Foreign Intervention in Lebanon
A storm is gathering over Beirut. Lebanon could join the first grouping of Arab states with Libya. Although weaker, Saad Hariri and his March 14 Alliance are itching for confrontation with Hezbollah and its political allies in Lebanon. This itch is far more than mere politicking.
Over the years the Hariri-led March 14 Alliance has worked with the U.S., the E.U., Saudi Arabia, Mubarak, Jordan, and even Israel to pave the way for foreign intervention in one form or another in Lebanon against the Lebanese Resistance. Hariri and the March 14 Alliance have also been very close allies to all the Arab dictators and absolute monarchs. The support that the March 14 Alliance receives from the U.S., Britain, France, and Saudi Arabia is not due to any self-styled democratic values that its members talk about, but due to its willingness to transform Lebanon into a colony.
In 2006, Hariri and his allies covertly supported Israel in its war against Lebanon. When Lebanon was being attacked, they ordered the Lebanese military to stand-down in the face of Israeli aggression. After the Israeli defeat in 2006, they went on to import Fatah Al-Islam into Lebanon in the hopes of using it as an armed option against Hezbollah and its allies; they would later shamelessly try to blame the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon for the materialization of Fatah Al-Islam. They also tried to dismantle the vital communications network used by Hezbollah in 2008.
Now, Hariri and his political allies loudly criticize the Lebanese Resistance with their renewed political acquisition about its weapons. This is ironic, because the March 14 Alliance themselves have been arming their own militias over the years. This was proven during the fighting of May 2008 when both sides brandished guns. The groups within the March 14 Alliance have also been the ones who used militias in the past exclusively for fighting their own Lebanese countrymen. They have a history of fighting other Lebanese and a disregard for democracy.
A pause is in order to consider the reasons why Hariri and his crew have armed themselves. It has not been to defend Lebanon from the external threat of Israel, but they have been arming themselves for internal fighting in Lebanon. Hariri and the March 14 Alliance only talk about democracy, because they do not have enough force to impose themselves in Lebanon.
Today, they are attempting to use the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) as a snare to internationally indict Hezbollah. Once an indictment is made at the international level, the U.S. and its allies could intervene on the pretext of international justice. Washington and Brussels could also be called upon for help in bringing Hezbollah to justice by Hariri and the March 14 Alliance.
Hariri did not foresee the plug being pulled by Hezbollah and its political allies on his government and his own impotence to regain power. This has been a crushing blow to the Hariri family. They have run out of cards and are working to keep the STL alive. As long as the STL remains, it leaves an open option for some form of foreign intervention for the U.S. and its E.U. cohorts into Lebanon.
Increasingly, the language of Hariri is that of confrontation and sectarianism. Even without the STL, Hariri and the March 14 Alliance may yet ignite another civil war in Lebanon. They can also still play the sectarian card and Hezbollah and its political allies are well aware of this. This is why Najib Al-Mikati and Hezbollah are moving forward cautiously in an effort to dismantle the sectarian card. Through starting a civil war the Lebanese could risk inviting a U.S. and NATO intervention in Lebanon.
Double-Standards Are at Play
Washington and the E.U. have little regard for real democracy and freedom as is evident from their reaction to the outcome of the democratic elections in the occupied Palestinian Territories. In 2006, Hamas won the Palestinian elections. The U.S., the E.U., and Israel immediately refused to recognize the Palestinian elections.
Despite the fact that Fatah lost the elections, Washington and its allies also forced Hamas to allow Fatah to co-manage the Palestinian government. Democracy is only acceptable when it works in the interests of the U.S. and Brussels. Today, these powers have let Mahmoud Abbas run the occupied West Bank as their agent and as a quasi-dictator.
In Sudan, Washington and Brussels have put undue pressure on Khartoum, while supporting the balkanization of the country. Yet, they have said nothing about the continued occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco.
Western Sahara is a case of outright occupation, which has been widely ignored. The Sahrawis or the Western Saharans have also faced attacks from Morocco for wanting independence. Even during the referendum in South Sudan the Sahrawis were attacked by Moroccan forces during their protests, but there was no widely publicized condemnation by the U.S. or Brussels. [3] No big Hollywood stars have taken up their cause either in major public campaigns.
In Iraq major protests by Iraqi Arabs and Iraqi Kurds are underway, but they have been ignored by the European Union and the U.S. government. Amongst the demands of Iraqi protesters is a key one that Iraqi oil wealth be redistributed and under the control of the Iraqi people. In Bahrain blatant brutality was used against the Bahraini protesters, which were not just Shiite Muslims as unknowledgeable people and propagandists claim. Yet, the reaction of Washington and Brussels towards the Al-Khalifa family was diametrically different than their reaction towards Colonel Qaddafi in Libya.
In summary, the U.S. and the E.U. continue to apply double-standards. Their policies towards the Arabs are riddled with hypocrisy. Their actions are based on their own interests. Even in the midst of the Egyptian protests, U.S. Vice-President Joseph Biden refused to even refer to Mohammed Husni Mubarak as a dictator in what can only amount to a display of utter hypocrisy. [4]
Pan-Arabism versus the Yinon Approach
Tel Aviv, Washington, and Brussels all oppose Arab unity. Historically, they have worked to divide the Arabs. In the past, the British separated Kuwait and Iraq, Palestine and Jordan, and Egypt and Sudan from one another, while the French separated Algeria and Tunisia in the Maghreb and Lebanon and Syria in the Levant from one another. The Yinon Approach is a continuation of this project.
U.S. policy is part of this continuum. The White House has worked with Israel and the House of Saud to divide and isolate the Palestinians through a Hamas-Fatah split. In Iraq the process of national estrangement has been a major endeavour for Washington and its allies. Sudan has been fractured and now a civil war is being fuelled in Libya. Arab League member Somalia has also been divided into Puntland, Somaliland, and South Somalia. South Somalia has also been divided to an even greater extent.
The interests of the U.S. government, Brussels, and Israel are to keep the Arabs divided in separate “feeble states.” There is, however, a new dynamic that is emerging in the Arab World. This new dynamic emerging from the upheavals and protests potentially challenges the Yinon Approach, which is being applied against the Arab people.
Pan-Arabism is a new dynamic, which constitutes a potent force. The trend of decades of divisions can eventually be reversed. Nor will the issue of Palestine be left in the hands of outside powers for much longer.
The plurality of Arabdom was constructed on the basis of inclusiveness and multi-culturalism. The Arab identity is a very open and inclusive one that has a wide embrace. According to the Arab League’s 1946 definition or description: “An Arab is a person whose language is Arabic, who lives in an Arabic speaking country, [and] who is in sympathy with the aspirations of the Arabic speaking peoples.” [5] This has brought different civilizations, ethnicities, creeds, traditions, and lands together and united them under one roof, from the pre-Arabized Levantine peoples to the pre-Arabized Egyptians, Nubians, and Berbers.
Pan-Arabism gives a political will to this inclusive Arab identity and paves the way for a political project amongst the Arab peoples. Thus, regardless of the initial successes or failures of these revolts, the Arab march towards unity as a political and popular project is an eventual assurance. Nor can its tides be contained for long as a new geo-political and sociological reality begins to take shape for the Arab Nation.
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya specializes on the Middle East and Central Asia. He is a Reseach Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
NOTES
[1] The Yinon Plan is a strategic Israeli policy put forward by Oded Yinon that advocates that Israel act as an imperialist power and fracture the countries of the Middle East and North Africa into tiny and feeble states.
[2] Alice Fordham, “Allawi backing away from the Iraqi government deal,” Los Angeles Times, March 4, 2011.
[3] “Deadly clashes as Morocco breaks up Western Sahara camp,” British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), November 8, 2010.
[4] Daniel Murphy, “Joe Biden says Egypt’s Mubarak no dictator, he shouldn’t step down...,” Christian Science Monitor, January 27, 2011.
[5] William D. Wunderle, Through the Lens of Cultural Awareness: A Primer for US Armed Forces Deploying to Arab and Middle Eastern Countries (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2006), p.25.
Global Research Articles by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
The Return of Pan-Arabism Amidst Upheaval: An end to Balkanization?
The Changing Winds in Iraq and the Growing Threat to Lebanon
by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Global Research, March 14, 2011
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Protests and revolts have swept across the whole of Arabdom, from the Atlantic coastline of Morocco to the shores of the petro-sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf. In this regard, U.S. and E.U. double-standards are being applied to these events. There is a selective focus and condemnation by the White House and the European Union at play in regards to which Arab protests and protest leaders they support.
Regardless of the direction of these revolts and protests and the reaction of outside players, a new dynamic is taking shape. Democracy has not yet emerged, what is beginning to emerge is a new wave of pan-Arabism. This re-invigorated pan-Arabism will prove a challenge to the ongoing efforts to further fragment and weaken the Arab World.
The Categories of Protest and Revolt in The Arab World
In regards to the mass protests and popular revolts, today the states of the Arab World can be categorized into five groupings or categories. These categories are the following:
Group 1 - Arab countries that are in a state of civil war;
Group 2 - Arab countries that have populations that have revolted;
Group 3 - Arab countries where the people are currently protesting and are on the verge of revolt;
Group 4 - Arab countries where the groundwork for revolts are taking shape;
Group 5 - Arab countries where there are no revolts.
Each category will be discussed and summarized. It must be cautioned that these groupings are not static either and likely to evolve.
The Typologies of Benefit
Taking into account U.S., E.U., and Israeli foreign policy these protests and revolts can also categorized within two different typologies. The latter can be used to explain the reactions of the U.S., the E.U., and Tel Aviv and their respective mainstream media coverage of these events.
The typologies are:
(A) Arab countries where the protests and possible outcomes would be beneficial to the interests of Washington, Israel, and the European Union;
(B) Arab countries where the protests and revolts go against the interests of Washington, Israel, and the European Union.
It should, however, also be cautioned that the outcomes of these protests and revolts are unpredictable. The behaviour of Washington and Brussels suggest that they want to cash in on projected outcomes to reinforce their geo-political influence. Both the U.S. and the E.U. seek to"manage democratization" in the Arab World to thier benefit.
The “agency of the Arab people,” namely the grassroots, which the U.S. and its allies underestimate, has a significant role to play in these events. It is this process of an unfolding mass movement that makes these revolts unpredictable. Coupled with pan-Arabism, a potent force is arising.
The Arab people ultimately constitute a major challenge to Washington and its cohorts.
Unlike in Eastern Europe during the colour revolutions, the Arab regimes are supported by Washington. The Arab people are aware of U.S. and E.U. double-standards. Arabs know full well that the U.S. and its E.U. allies are not the vanguards of democracy and liberty.
In regards to Israel, Tel Aviv sees instability and chaos in the Arab World as serving its interests. Israel is not cutting itself off from the events in Arabdom. The Israeli strategy, in seamless alignment with both the U.S. and the older British strategies in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region, has always been to weaken and divide the Arab states. Israel has supported balkanization in the MENA region wherever it can. The Yinon Plan is very much alive today in what can henceforth be called the “Yinon Approach.” The strategy is named after Oded Yinon, a Israeli foreign policy analyst who outlined the “Zionist strategy” for breaking up and balkanizing the Arab World. [1]
The plan operates on two essential premises. To survive, Israel must (1) become an imperial regional power, and (2) must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states. Small here will depend on the ethnic or sectarian composition of each state. Consequently, the Zionist hope is that sectarian-based states become Israeli satellites and, ironically, its source of moral legitimation.
Note: The following map was prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters. It was published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006, Peters is a retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy. (Map Copyright Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters 2006).
Although the map does not officially reflect Pentagon doctrine, it has been used in a training program at NATO's Defense College for senior military officers. This map, as well as other similar maps, has most probably been used at the National War Academy as well as in military planning circles.
Note: The following map was drawn by Holly Lindem for an article by Jeffery Goldberg. It was published in The Atlantic in January/February 2008. (Map Copyright: The Atlantic, 2008).
The “Yinon Approach” in the Middle East and North Africa
While there is a move for unity amongst the people of the Middle East and North Africa, there is also a counter-push seeking their division. Either directly or indirectly, the Yinon Approach has been operational amongst the Arabs and in their region. In the backdrop, it is also a force in the Arab World.
According to the Yinon Plan, Iraq was the largest Arab threat to Tel Aviv. That threat was removed with the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Currently, Iraq is divided alongside Kurdish, Sunni Muslim Arab, and Shiite Muslim Arab lines. Political parties in Iraq are increasingly based on sectarian schemes. The power sharing arrangements in Baghdad increasingly resemble those in Beirut, Lebanon. Since 2003, the U.S. has actively pushed ahead with a soft form of balkanization in Iraq through federalization. Moreover, Israel has been a major supporter of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq.
Along with its U.S. and Western European partners, Israel is working to divide Lebanon and destabilize Syria through the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL). It can even be said that Tel Aviv has its own version of a Zionist lobby in Lebanon within the March 14 Alliance. It should come as no surprise that Bashar (Bachir/Bashir) Gemayal, an Israeli ally and the assassinated former president of Lebanon, wanted Lebanon to become a de-centralized federal state with a canton system modelled on Switzerland. Only in Lebanon the canton system would be based on ethno-religious and confessional lines, rather than on linguistic demarcations as in the Swiss confederation.
Instead of uniting the Lebanese, such a system would further magnify the sectarian atmosphere in Lebanon and play into the hands of Washington and Tel Aviv.
The Israelis have divided Palestine with the instigation of a Palestinian mini-civil war in the Gaza Strip. The Israelis even gleefully began to talk about a “three state solution” after the Hamas-Fatah split in 2007. In Turkey, the Alawis (Alavis in Turkish) are beginning to demand greater recognition by Ankara. In Egypt, there has been a campaign against the Coptic Christians with the objective of creating Muslim-Christian tensions. In Iraq too, Christians have been targeted by unknown forces. Sudan has been balkanized with the secession of South Sudan, which Israel heavily supported and armed. In Libya there is a foreign-supported push to manipulate tribal difference and divide the country along the lines of Eastern Libya and Western Libya. At the same time, the House of Saud has been encouraging a confessional divide between Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims and between Arabs and Iranians.
Israel, like the U.S. and the E.U., is working to take advantage of the upheavals in the Arab World. It has intensified its sporadic attacks on Gaza while the Arab World has been distracted with the events in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and elsewhere. Yet, this Yinon Approach will increasingly be challenged by pan-Arabism. The cooperation between Syria, Turkey, and Iran to form a regional bloc and common market may also prove to defy the Yinon Approach. In this context, Tehran is also working to support the protests in the Arab World and to align Iran with them.
Who Falls into What? Categorizing the Arab States
Group 1
Although the fighting in Libya is being exaggerated and embellished, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya is the only Arab state that falls into the first category of an Arab state undergoing a state of civil war. Yemen may also fall into this group at some point and it can be argued that Yemen is even a part of it too, because of the fighting in 2010 between Yemenite government forces (with the help of the U.S., Britain, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan) and Yemenite rebels.
In Yemen and Libya, however, there is a difference that must be emphasised. It is in the interests of the U.S. and its allies to have President Ali Abdullah Saleh in power. The U.S. has no alternative to Saleh. In Libya, the U.S. is actively working to remove Colonel Qaddafi so that Washington and its allies can appropriate Libyan energy reserves and financial assets.
The alternative in Tripoli to Qaddafi is possibly a divided leadership structure comprised of an alliance of former regime officials who defected and external groups supported by Washington, like the National Front for the Salvation of Libya. On the other hand, a Libya divided into several states or fiefdoms with prolonged fighting could also be a U.S. objective in Libya.
Group 2
Egypt and Tunisia fall into the second category. The mood of the people has changed in both Arab republics, but the political and economic status quo remains unchanged. U.S. and E.U. interests have remained unaffected and are intact.
As mentioned earlier, the “agency of the Arab people,” something that the U.S. and its allies underestimate, does have a significant role to play. The continued protests in Tunisia and Egypt show the continuation of dissatisfaction, because popular demands were not met. The psyches of the Tunisian and Egyptian people have changed. Despite the current status quo and Washington’s aims, the outcomes of the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt will work against the interests of Washington, Brussels, and Tel Aviv in the end.
Group 3
The third grouping of Arab states includes Bahrain, Yemen (if it is not considered a part of the first group with Libya), and Oman. Earlier is could have been said that Iraq could also possibly not fall into this third category. Massive protests and riots have broken out across Iraq from Baghdad and Basra to Sulaymaniah. It can now be said that Iraq is a part of this category too. These respective Arab states could ignite with open revolt and therefore become re-classified into the second group of Arab countries.
The protests in Bahrain, Yemen, Oman, and Iraq all work against the interests of Washington and the European Union. In Iraq the people are demanding that oil deals be cancelled. Both Washington and Brussels specifically support the status quo in the Arabian Peninsula. This is why they have mostly ignored the protests in Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula or presented them in a different light than the events in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.
Group 4
The fourth group includes the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the Israeli-occupied West Bank that is managed for Tel Aviv by Mahmoud Abbas and the corrupt Palestinian Authority. Protests have taken place in all these Arab states and the occupied West Bank at various levels. The groundwork for revolt in these states and the West Bank is being prepared by internet-based social media groups, dissidents, and opposition officials.
The release of the Palestinian Papers by the Qatar-based Al Jazeera Network has also heightened already rising tensions amongst the Palestinians. Palestinians are now pressuring Hamas and Fatah to form a unity government. Fatah is especially under a lot of pressure and scrutiny in the West Bank. Because of the mounting pressure, Mahmoud Abbas is now talking about political change as a means to pre-empt any revolt against him. If a revolt breaks out in the West Bank, the U.S. and Israel could work to position Mustafa Barghouti into the presidency of the Palestinian Authority. Despite their high fanfare in Washington and Brussels, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Hanan Ashrawi would be too unpopular. Mohammed Dahlan and other ranking Fatah members, except for Marwan Barghouti, would not be well received either.
It is a matter of time before protests and revolt emerge in these places of Arabdom. Protest and popular revolt in these places would also be against the interests of the U.S., the E.U., and Israel. Algeria may prove to be the exception in the fourth group. Like Libya, Algeria also exercises a degree of autonomy in regards to the U.S. and the European Union.
Group 5
The fifth and last group of Arab states includes Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates. Qatar and Syria could also be included in this group. In comparison to the other Arab states, both Qatar and Syria have been peaceful, although there is potential unrest and the possibility of protests in both Qatar and Syria.
In the case of Qatar the agitation appears to be internal and aimed at the Emir of Qatar, Sheikha Mozah bint Naser Al-Missned, the autocratic political structure in Qatar, and Qatari ties to Israel. In the case of Damascus the agitation widely appears to be driven externally by Syrian expatriates. With the recent appointment of a new U.S. ambassador to Syria, Washington is also set on a path towards eventually instigating and supporting revolt in Syria against President Bashar Al-Assad.
Mauritania, Kuwait, and Sudan do not qualify for this group either, because protests have broken out in these states. In Kuwait protests have already taken place that could place it in the third grouping. One set of protests was launched by Kuwaiti Bedouins that demanded that they be recognized and given legal rights as Kuwaiti citizens. Additional protests have been against the Kuwaiti state structure and against the discrimination of Shiite Muslims.
The Changing Winds in Iraq
In Iraq, after months of negotiations with Prime Minister Nouri Al-Malaki, Ayad Allawi has refused to accept a position of power as the chair of the Iraqi National Council for Strategic Policy. The position of the head of the Iraqi National Council for Strategic Policy is meant to counter-balance the role of the prime minister of Iraq. Ayad Allawi announced that he would not take the position at a press conference in Najaf alongside Moqtada Al-Sadr on March 3, 2011.
Whereas Allawi is known for being aligned to U.S. and British interests, Moqtada Al-Sadr is known for his opposition to the U.S. and Britain. At the press conference Allawi made an interesting, if not pragmatic, statement: “We are not seeking [state or government] positions, but looking for the interests of the people, the progress of Iraq and [the] stability [of Iraq.]” [2] In this context, Ayad Allawi can be seen as a weather vane or windsock in regards to the political situation and the mood of the people in Iraq. Revolt may inflame Iraq and Allawi may be positioning himself accordingly.
Since the protests in Iraq are being discussed it should be pointed out that Iraq sits at the borders of the Iranic World and the Arab World, as well as the Turkic World to a much lesser degree. These three conceptual realms can also be compounded and distinguished as the Turko-Arabo-Iranic World. Getting to the point, Kurdish sensitivities must be addressed. The Iraqi protests, like Iraq itself, cannot simply be characterized as Arab in nature. While the protests are purely Iraqi, they are characterized as partially Arab and partially Kurdish.
The Threat of Foreign Intervention in Lebanon
A storm is gathering over Beirut. Lebanon could join the first grouping of Arab states with Libya. Although weaker, Saad Hariri and his March 14 Alliance are itching for confrontation with Hezbollah and its political allies in Lebanon. This itch is far more than mere politicking.
Over the years the Hariri-led March 14 Alliance has worked with the U.S., the E.U., Saudi Arabia, Mubarak, Jordan, and even Israel to pave the way for foreign intervention in one form or another in Lebanon against the Lebanese Resistance. Hariri and the March 14 Alliance have also been very close allies to all the Arab dictators and absolute monarchs. The support that the March 14 Alliance receives from the U.S., Britain, France, and Saudi Arabia is not due to any self-styled democratic values that its members talk about, but due to its willingness to transform Lebanon into a colony.
In 2006, Hariri and his allies covertly supported Israel in its war against Lebanon. When Lebanon was being attacked, they ordered the Lebanese military to stand-down in the face of Israeli aggression. After the Israeli defeat in 2006, they went on to import Fatah Al-Islam into Lebanon in the hopes of using it as an armed option against Hezbollah and its allies; they would later shamelessly try to blame the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon for the materialization of Fatah Al-Islam. They also tried to dismantle the vital communications network used by Hezbollah in 2008.
Now, Hariri and his political allies loudly criticize the Lebanese Resistance with their renewed political acquisition about its weapons. This is ironic, because the March 14 Alliance themselves have been arming their own militias over the years. This was proven during the fighting of May 2008 when both sides brandished guns. The groups within the March 14 Alliance have also been the ones who used militias in the past exclusively for fighting their own Lebanese countrymen. They have a history of fighting other Lebanese and a disregard for democracy.
A pause is in order to consider the reasons why Hariri and his crew have armed themselves. It has not been to defend Lebanon from the external threat of Israel, but they have been arming themselves for internal fighting in Lebanon. Hariri and the March 14 Alliance only talk about democracy, because they do not have enough force to impose themselves in Lebanon.
Today, they are attempting to use the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) as a snare to internationally indict Hezbollah. Once an indictment is made at the international level, the U.S. and its allies could intervene on the pretext of international justice. Washington and Brussels could also be called upon for help in bringing Hezbollah to justice by Hariri and the March 14 Alliance.
Hariri did not foresee the plug being pulled by Hezbollah and its political allies on his government and his own impotence to regain power. This has been a crushing blow to the Hariri family. They have run out of cards and are working to keep the STL alive. As long as the STL remains, it leaves an open option for some form of foreign intervention for the U.S. and its E.U. cohorts into Lebanon.
Increasingly, the language of Hariri is that of confrontation and sectarianism. Even without the STL, Hariri and the March 14 Alliance may yet ignite another civil war in Lebanon. They can also still play the sectarian card and Hezbollah and its political allies are well aware of this. This is why Najib Al-Mikati and Hezbollah are moving forward cautiously in an effort to dismantle the sectarian card. Through starting a civil war the Lebanese could risk inviting a U.S. and NATO intervention in Lebanon.
Double-Standards Are at Play
Washington and the E.U. have little regard for real democracy and freedom as is evident from their reaction to the outcome of the democratic elections in the occupied Palestinian Territories. In 2006, Hamas won the Palestinian elections. The U.S., the E.U., and Israel immediately refused to recognize the Palestinian elections.
Despite the fact that Fatah lost the elections, Washington and its allies also forced Hamas to allow Fatah to co-manage the Palestinian government. Democracy is only acceptable when it works in the interests of the U.S. and Brussels. Today, these powers have let Mahmoud Abbas run the occupied West Bank as their agent and as a quasi-dictator.
In Sudan, Washington and Brussels have put undue pressure on Khartoum, while supporting the balkanization of the country. Yet, they have said nothing about the continued occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco.
Western Sahara is a case of outright occupation, which has been widely ignored. The Sahrawis or the Western Saharans have also faced attacks from Morocco for wanting independence. Even during the referendum in South Sudan the Sahrawis were attacked by Moroccan forces during their protests, but there was no widely publicized condemnation by the U.S. or Brussels. [3] No big Hollywood stars have taken up their cause either in major public campaigns.
In Iraq major protests by Iraqi Arabs and Iraqi Kurds are underway, but they have been ignored by the European Union and the U.S. government. Amongst the demands of Iraqi protesters is a key one that Iraqi oil wealth be redistributed and under the control of the Iraqi people. In Bahrain blatant brutality was used against the Bahraini protesters, which were not just Shiite Muslims as unknowledgeable people and propagandists claim. Yet, the reaction of Washington and Brussels towards the Al-Khalifa family was diametrically different than their reaction towards Colonel Qaddafi in Libya.
In summary, the U.S. and the E.U. continue to apply double-standards. Their policies towards the Arabs are riddled with hypocrisy. Their actions are based on their own interests. Even in the midst of the Egyptian protests, U.S. Vice-President Joseph Biden refused to even refer to Mohammed Husni Mubarak as a dictator in what can only amount to a display of utter hypocrisy. [4]
Pan-Arabism versus the Yinon Approach
Tel Aviv, Washington, and Brussels all oppose Arab unity. Historically, they have worked to divide the Arabs. In the past, the British separated Kuwait and Iraq, Palestine and Jordan, and Egypt and Sudan from one another, while the French separated Algeria and Tunisia in the Maghreb and Lebanon and Syria in the Levant from one another. The Yinon Approach is a continuation of this project.
U.S. policy is part of this continuum. The White House has worked with Israel and the House of Saud to divide and isolate the Palestinians through a Hamas-Fatah split. In Iraq the process of national estrangement has been a major endeavour for Washington and its allies. Sudan has been fractured and now a civil war is being fuelled in Libya. Arab League member Somalia has also been divided into Puntland, Somaliland, and South Somalia. South Somalia has also been divided to an even greater extent.
The interests of the U.S. government, Brussels, and Israel are to keep the Arabs divided in separate “feeble states.” There is, however, a new dynamic that is emerging in the Arab World. This new dynamic emerging from the upheavals and protests potentially challenges the Yinon Approach, which is being applied against the Arab people.
Pan-Arabism is a new dynamic, which constitutes a potent force. The trend of decades of divisions can eventually be reversed. Nor will the issue of Palestine be left in the hands of outside powers for much longer.
The plurality of Arabdom was constructed on the basis of inclusiveness and multi-culturalism. The Arab identity is a very open and inclusive one that has a wide embrace. According to the Arab League’s 1946 definition or description: “An Arab is a person whose language is Arabic, who lives in an Arabic speaking country, [and] who is in sympathy with the aspirations of the Arabic speaking peoples.” [5] This has brought different civilizations, ethnicities, creeds, traditions, and lands together and united them under one roof, from the pre-Arabized Levantine peoples to the pre-Arabized Egyptians, Nubians, and Berbers.
Pan-Arabism gives a political will to this inclusive Arab identity and paves the way for a political project amongst the Arab peoples. Thus, regardless of the initial successes or failures of these revolts, the Arab march towards unity as a political and popular project is an eventual assurance. Nor can its tides be contained for long as a new geo-political and sociological reality begins to take shape for the Arab Nation.
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya specializes on the Middle East and Central Asia. He is a Reseach Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
NOTES
[1] The Yinon Plan is a strategic Israeli policy put forward by Oded Yinon that advocates that Israel act as an imperialist power and fracture the countries of the Middle East and North Africa into tiny and feeble states.
[2] Alice Fordham, “Allawi backing away from the Iraqi government deal,” Los Angeles Times, March 4, 2011.
[3] “Deadly clashes as Morocco breaks up Western Sahara camp,” British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), November 8, 2010.
[4] Daniel Murphy, “Joe Biden says Egypt’s Mubarak no dictator, he shouldn’t step down...,” Christian Science Monitor, January 27, 2011.
[5] William D. Wunderle, Through the Lens of Cultural Awareness: A Primer for US Armed Forces Deploying to Arab and Middle Eastern Countries (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2006), p.25.
Global Research Articles by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
^^^
The concept of arab unity is pure B.S. If Israel and EU and US ceased to exist immediately the Sunni's and Shi'ites would be at even further at each other throats.
The only imperial force in the region is Iran, and they despise being called Arabs. They don't care about pan-arabism. Plus a big HA to the idea that they support protests around the region, B.S. Iran has more to gain than any other power in the region, which is why for 5+ yrs it has been growing cells to continue to destabilize the region. By U.S. going into Iraq, we did a bigger favor by taking out their biggest threat to expand their imperial fundamentalist ideals.
The concept of arab unity is pure B.S. If Israel and EU and US ceased to exist immediately the Sunni's and Shi'ites would be at even further at each other throats.
The only imperial force in the region is Iran, and they despise being called Arabs. They don't care about pan-arabism. Plus a big HA to the idea that they support protests around the region, B.S. Iran has more to gain than any other power in the region, which is why for 5+ yrs it has been growing cells to continue to destabilize the region. By U.S. going into Iraq, we did a bigger favor by taking out their biggest threat to expand their imperial fundamentalist ideals.
Surprise, revolution in Egypt does not apply towards women.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-kno...new-egypt-a-cyber-activists-perspective/8058/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-kno...new-egypt-a-cyber-activists-perspective/8058/
