The Arab Spring is dead: News analysis

Richard Engel, NBC News chief foreign correspondent

ISTANBUL — I called an old friend the other day, a senior adviser to the Iraq government. I said I had been busy with the Arab Spring. “The Arab Spring?” he said. “What’s that? There’s no Arab Spring anymore. That’s over. It is now a big struggle for power.”

He was right. The Arab Spring is over. The days of the protesters with laptops and BlackBerrys in Tahrir Square are gone. Instead, a much bigger struggle is underway, one that goes back centuries that is both a regional battle for dominance and an epic tug of war between Sunnis and Shiites for control of the Middle East and the prophet Muhammad’s legacy.

The front line is now in Syria, where the United Nations says more than 20,000 people have been killed since pro-democracy protests started in March 2011. But it goes back in modern history at least to Iraq — and the United States bears a large part of the responsibility for reopening this Pandora’s Box.

A major factor in the rise of the present struggle came when U.S. troops invaded Iraq in 2003, thus pitting Sunnis against their rival Shiites, who many Sunnis consider infidels who turned against Islamic leaders about 1,400 years ago and have been on the wrong side of Allah’s path since then.

For decades, Saddam and his Sunni minority had imposed their will on Iraq, carrying on a 14-century tradition of Sunnis controlling Mesopotamia despite a Shiite majority. Not surprisingly, in most Sunni regions there has been little appetite for free U.S.-sponsored elections. They knew they would end up being ruled by their enemies.

And that’s what happened. The lasting legacy of America’s involvement in Iraq is essentially an Iranian-allied Shiite government that also happens to be one of the most corrupt on the planet. And Iran is the biggest and most powerful Shiite-majority nation. The Shiites were, of course, delighted.

I remember the moment U.S. troops left their last base in southern Iraq in December 2011. The Iraqis changed its name as the Americans rolled out the gate. It had been called Camp Adder; the Iraqis renamed it “the Imam Ali base,” after the patriarch of Shiite Islam. The Shiites — in both Iraq and Iran — won, and won big.

President George W. Bush, in his now-rare public appearances and interviews, still refuses to acknowledge he did anything to help Iran. But it doesn’t really matter what he thinks. The 200 million people in the Middle East understand that there is a new reality — and that’s what they are battling about now.

Iraqi Sunnis are still seething and sometimes fighting in their stronghold cities of Ramadi and Fallujah. They can’t accept what they consider the tragedy that has befallen their community and don’t understand even now why Washington sent troops across the Atlantic and Indian oceans to help Iran expand a buffer zone beyond its borders.

Enter al-Qaida. Back in the Iraq war days, the radical Sunni group, saw an opportunity to expand. Al-Qaida militants flowed to Iraq to help fellow Sunnis fight Shiites and the Americans who were propping them up. But al-Qaida abused its hosts. Al-Qaida killed Sunni tribesmen because they weren’t fundamentalist enough. The wild-eyed militants flogged Sunnis in Ramadi and Fallujah for minor infractions. It was hardly the behavior of someone who’s claiming to help.

The U.S. military eventually used al-Qaida’s misbehavior against the group, forming a militia of Sunnis who were fed up with the fanatics, often referred to as the “Sons of Iraq.” Al-Qaida lost in Iraq and the Shiite government won. Iran won, too. After the Shiites came to power in Baghdad, Iran increased tourism and business ties with its new Shiite-controlled neighbor.

Of course, concerned observers of the Middle East now have their minds on another Shiite government just to the northwest of Iraq —the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad. The Assad family isn’t actually Shiite, but Alawite, a secretive Shiite-linked offshoot that makes up about 13 percent of the population. There’s also a sizable Christian community. Iran has effectively adopted the Alawites into their family by forging a long-standing alliance with Assad and his father, Hafez, before him, who ruled Syria from 1971-1990.

In addition, moving further west from Syria, there’s Lebanon. It’s Sunni in the north, Christian in the middle, and Shiite in the south, with each making up about a third of the population. As any Lebanese person will tell you, it’s a volatile mix that has produced recurring cycles of civil war.

Topping the heap in Lebanon are the Shiites, emboldened by their powerful and skilled militia, Hezbollah. Hezbollah is heavily armed and has thousands of rockets pointed at Israel. The weapons mostly come from Iran through Syria or from Syria itself.

So, there it is. The previously isolated Shiite regime in Iran was emboldened by the emergence of a Shiite-dominated government in Iraq. In reaction, the Sunni world became concerned about the upstart Shiite powers, complete with their considerable oil resources and weaponry. And the region, already a tinderbox, became primed for a power struggle.

At first, the current unrest was unrelated to the Sunni-Shiite divide. The Arab regimes in 2011 were, in many ways, legacies of Israel’s victories in 1948 and 1967. Faced with the catastrophic defeats, military strongmen grew in power. Over time they became corrupt. By 2011, most Arab governments were brutal, uncreative and thoroughly uninspiring.

The Egyptian regime was similarly inflexible and out of touch. Hosni Mubarak had been an effective president in his early years and relatively popular. But by the time protests began in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, he was 82 years old, his military cohorts and family had become increasingly corrupt, he had been president for nearly three decades, and he was insistent that his bland son take over from him.

The region’s dictators were caught off guard by the student demonstrators, who had mobile communications and could communicate directly with hundreds of millions of supporters though social media. The first eruption came in Tunisia, which exploded in protests in December 2010. In Tunisia, lawyers, students and women’s groups protested because of the country’s secret prisons and because the former president’s wife was taking a cut of nearly everyone’s business. Then came Egypt, Bahrain, Libya and Yemen.

 The Arab Spring put the Middle East back in flux and put religious divides back into the spotlight. The rise of religious tensions started in Egypt, where the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni organization, mobilized and easily hijacked the 2011 revolution started by liberals, anarchists, socialists, students, artists and techno-nerds who were joined by millions of the unemployed and disenfranchised. Sunni Islamists, albeit moderate, took over in Tunisia, too. But it is Syria that has become the epicenter of the historic battle between Sunnis and Shiites.

A rebel in Syria about a month ago explained the religious calculation: “We lost Iraq to the Shiites and Iran. We’re going to take Syria for us,” he said. Nearly all of the rebels in Syria are Sunnis and the fighting in Syria remains almost exclusively in Sunni areas. The worst massacres have taken place in Sunni villages surrounded by Alawite towns that remain generally supportive of the Assad regime.

The Syrian government has long found Iran and Hezbollah to be useful allies. Hezbollah is a way to maintain influence in Lebanon, which Syria claims (with some reason) was historically part of Syria before the horribly planned British and French division of the Middle East during and after World War I. But war changes the dynamics between allies.

While Assad’s grip on power weakens, Iran and Hezbollah’s position in Syria grows stronger as their advisers become increasingly dominant. It’s no longer a situation where Hezbollah is just providing arms and intelligence, but appears to have mobilized and is fighting alongside Syrian forces.

And al-Qaida is trying to do in Syria what it failed to accomplish in Iraq. Al-Qaida has learned from its Iraq experience. Sensing an opening, al-Qaida fighters are going into Syria offering money and arms to the rebels, their Sunni brothers. They are going in politely, or at least as politely as al-Qaida can be. They are offering rebels cash, at first with no strings attached. Initial payments tend to be small, around $5,000. It is tiny sum in a war zone, but enough to give strapped rebel units a taste of what’s to come. Al-Qaida also has RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades), the weapon rebel commanders seem to value above all others.

What happens next? Syria is likely to become an even bigger battleground for a proxy war between Hezbollah, Sunni rebels, government troops, Iran and al-Qaida. And once Syria collapses, or even before, Lebanon could ignite as well.

My Iraqi friend was right. The Arab Spring no longer exists.

Richard Engel has just returned from his third trip inside Syria since the uprising there began. His article is edited from NBC News, Sept. 7, 2012, and reprinted in PeaceMeal, Sept/October 2012.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Saudi warns of Mideast nuclear arms race

DAVOS, Switzerland — An influential member of the Saudi royal family warned January 25 that unless the Middle East becomes a nuclear weapon-free zone, a nuclear arms race is inevitable and could include his own country, Iran, Iraq, Egypt and even Turkey. Prince Turki Al Faisal said the five permanent U.N. Security Council members should guarantee a nuclear security umbrella for Mideast countries that join a nuclear-free zone — and impose “military sanctions” against countries seen to be developing nuclear weapons. “I think that’s a better way of going at this issue of nuclear enrichment of uranium, or preventing Iran from acquiring weapons of mass destruction,” the former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to the U.S. and Britain said. “If it goes that route, I think it’s a much more equitable procedure than what has been happening in the last 10 years or so.”

The Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions against Iran, mainly targeting its defense and nuclear establishment, but Tehran has refused to suspend uranium enrichment and enter negotiations on its nuclear activities. It maintains its nuclear program is peaceful, aimed solely at generating electricity, but the U.S. and European nations believe Iran’s goal is to produce nuclear weapons.

Turki’s proposal could impose sanctions against Iran if there is evidence it is pursuing weapons of mass destruction, which include chemical and biological as well as nuclear weapons. But it could also put Israel under sanctions if it doesn’t come clean on its undeclared nuclear arsenal. Israel is widely believed to have an arsenal of hundreds of nuclear weapons but has avoided confirming or denying their existence.

Israel is not a party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has long said a full Arab-Israeli peace must precede such a weapons ban. But at the 2010 NPT review conference, the United States, Israel’s most important ally, said it welcomed “practical measures” leading toward the goal of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East. An Arab proposal for a weapons of mass destruction-free zone was initially endorsed by the 1995 conference reviewing the NPT, but never acted on.

Turki said his answer to American and British diplomats who say Israel won’t accept a nuclear weapons-free zone is “So what?” He cautioned, however, that actually establishing a WMD-free zone will take negotiations in which all the underlying issues in the region, from the establishment of a Palestinian state to the future of the Golan Heights, “will have to be dealt with to make the zone workable.”

Turki warned that if there is no WMD-free zone in the Mideast, “inevitably” there is going to be a nuclear arms race “and that’s not going to be in the favor of anybody.” The Gulf states are committed not to acquire WMD, he said, “but we’re not the only players in town. You have Turkey. You have Iraq, which has a track record of wanting to go nuclear. You have Egypt. They had a very vibrant nuclear energy program from the 1960s. You have Syria. You have other players in the area that could open Pandora’s box.”

Asked whether Saudi Arabia would maintain its commitment against acquiring WMD, Turki said: “What I suggest for Saudi Arabia and for the other Gulf states ... is that we must study carefully all the options, including the option of acquiring weapons of mass destruction. We can’t simply leave it for somebody else to decide for us.”

– edited from The Associated Press, January 25, 2012
PeaceMeal, Jan/February 2012

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Mideast governments fail to see the scale of change

Most Middle Eastern governments are failing to recognize the significance of the Arab Spring and are responding with repression or merely cosmetic change, Amnesty International reports. Reform movements show no sign of flagging despite bloodshed on the streets and arrests last year. “With few exceptions, governments have failed to recognize that everything has changed,” Philip Luther, Amnesty’s interim Middle East and North Africa director, said in a report.

“The protest movements across the region, led in many cases by young people and with women playing central roles, have proved astonishingly resilient in the face of sometimes staggering repression,” Luther said. “They want concrete changes to the way they are governed and for those responsible for past crimes to be held to account. But persistent attempts by states to offer cosmetic changes, to push back against gains made by protesters, or to simply brutalize their populations into submission betray the fact that, for many governments, regime survival remains their aim.”

In Syria, there were more than 200 cases of reported deaths in custody by the end of last year, more than 40 times the recent average annual figure, Amnesty said. In Yemen, more than 200 people had been killed in connection with protests while hundreds more died in armed clashes. In Bahrain, it was unclear how committed the government was to implementing reform recommendations.

Amnesty’s report also said that despite the optimism that had greeted the fall of long-standing rulers in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, concern remained that the gains had yet to be cemented by key institutional reforms. In Egypt, Amnesty found that the military rulers had been responsible for abuses that were “in some aspects worse than under Hosni Mubarak.” About 84 people had died under violent suppression between October and December last year, while more civilians had been tried before military courts in one year than under 30 years of his rule, it said.

Amnesty also criticized international powers and regional bodies for inconsistencies in their response to the situations in Libya, Syria and Bahrain, and of failing to grasp the depth of the challenge to entrenched repressive rule. Luther said, “Support from world powers for ordinary people in the region has been typically patchy.”

– edited from Reuters, January 8, 2012
PeaceMeal, Jan/February 2012

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Archbishop Elias Chacour speaks of peace in the Middle East

Lauren DeRosa

Elias Chacour is a Melkite Catholic archbishop, an educator and Israeli citizen. He has dedicated himself totally over the last thirty-plus years to efforts for reconciliation between Jews and Palestinians in Israel. He is the founder and president of Mar Elias Educational Institutions, which serves as a site for developing understanding between youths of different religions and ethnic backgrounds. Many students have graduated from the Institutions imbued with a love of peace and justice. Archbishop Chacour has received many international peace awards and been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on three occasions.

Archbishop Elias Chacour is an Arab Palestinian Christian and citizen of Israel, who grew up walking the hillsides. Chacour is the archbishop of the Melkite Catholic Church of Haifa, Akko, Nazareth and the Galilee. As a Christian Palestinian, he has a unique perspective on the difficult and complex situation facing the Middle East.

Chacour is working for reconciliation and peace in the region, especially by building schools — preschool through college — in the Galilean village of Ibillin, where the students and faculty include Christians, Muslims, Jews and Druze. He said that at the schools, “We want to open our doors for all of them — Jews, Palestinians, Muslims, Christians, Druze. We want them to get to know each other as children, as students and to solve problems together.”

His message is one of peace and said he deeply wishes to see the end of violence in the region. “There is no way that peace and security will come without pursuing justice and integrity,” he said.

As he spoke of the region, he touched on both the suffering of Jews during the World War II-era Holocaust, along with the genocide of the Palestinians during the formation of Israel. He does not believe anything can be done to make up for those horrible events, but he believes we must remember them to prevent them from occurring in the future.

He named his first book “Blood Brothers” because the Jews and Palestinians “both pride themselves on being the descendants of an Iraqi citizen, Abraham.” He also wrote, “We Belong to the Land,” which is an urgent appeal for Jews and Palestinians to start learning how to belong together to that land. According to Chacour, neither group accepts that they do not have sole right to the land, and this has led to 63 years of war and unrest in the region.

Chacour tries to be positive, but he does not claim to have a solution to the problem. “I am not a politician,” he said. He sees the role of Palestinian Christians as one of mediation and moderation.

While he is a Palestinian, he believes most importantly in friendship and respect between Israelis and Palestinians. He said, “I want to appeal to every American: if he is a friend of the Jews, he should remain a friend of the Jews, but no more conclude that he has to be an automatic enemy against the Palestinians, and vice versa.”

He spoke of suicide bombers from the Gaza Strip as committing a deplorable act “against themselves, against God and against humanity.” However, he said that the situation in the Gaza Strip is such that “the only thing they can achieve is to grow up in misery, to get married if they can, make children and die, with no future. And that’s what makes an explanation, without any justification, of the suicide bombers.”

 Although he was pained to discuss this fact, he said, “We have to understand the motivations so we can give them the reasons why they should not commit suicide.”

His message that there is an alternative to violence and war in Israel is an important idea he wants to spread in the United States. “I am not making a political speech,” he said in making an argument for mutual respect.

In addition to his many peace awards, Archbishop Chacour was Rotary’s Man of the Year in Israel in 2000.

– edited from Dover-Sherborn Press, August 4, 2011
PeaceMeal, Nov/December 2011