By Vitaly Naumkin
There is an age-old tradition of explaining everything that happens in the Middle East in terms of external conspiracies. The present-day “Arab revolutionary spring” is no exception.
I shall cite two conspiratorial theories purporting to explain current events in the Middle East. One, supported among others by certain Russian analysts such as Sergei Kurginyan, reduces everything to a long-standing plot by the West — the United States and Britain above all — that is presumably aimed at imposing their control over energy resources. One can only have a hearty laugh at Kurginyan’s allegation that the Americans toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a loyal ally of many years whose regime, however shaky and one-sided, had been a pillar of peace in the Middle East and one of the main recipients of American foreign aid. Incidentally, in Egypt, not to speak of Tunisia, there are simply no energy resources for the sake of which it would be worth embarking upon such an unbelievable venture. The Americans even pondered long and hard before committing to the overthrow of Washington’s old adversary, the demented Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, who is hated by all the Middle Eastern regimes and is a sponsor of terrorism. So much for strange conspiracies.
The second theory explains the Arab spring as an Islamist plot. But the Islamists clearly overlooked the onset of that spring and did not expect the “Facebook youth” to do what they themselves could only dream of. The masses of young people that thronged the squares and streets of North African cities did not hoist Islamist slogans like “Islam is the solution”, nor did they demand the establishment of an Islamic government. This, of course, does not mean that Islamist organizations will not subsequently try to “saddle” the Arab youth revolution.
There is one more theory, related only to Bahrain: the Iranian conspiracy. It would be odd to expect Tehran not to sympathize with the Bahraini Shias and lend them political, diplomatic and informational assistance. However, it would be even odder to expect the Shia population of Bahrain not to try to exploit the revolutionary situation in the region. It constitutes roughly three-fourths of the country’s population, has long considered itself a majority discriminated against by the Sunni regime, and believes it deserves a greater share in running the country. Certainly, on both sides there are groups of extremists prone to resort to force to further their interests. But on the whole, the Shiite movement has so far maintained a peaceful character. And there has been no direct Iranian military involvement here.
As for the intervention by Bahrain’s partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council, the question is far from simple. On the one hand, the GCC is a regional organization whose members agreed to help each other in the event of a threat to their security, the more so when one of the member states itself requests the dispatch of an armed contingent. On the other hand, there was no question here of external attack; the regime might have tried to cope with the disturbances on its own, using political means. In this case, too, the Saudi intervention antagonizes the Shia even more, creates added tension in Saudi-Iranian relations and, finally, sends the wrong signal to Saudi Arabia’s own population. Having said that, fear of the emergence of an Iranian-type Islamic republic in Bahrain is extremely great in the Gulf Arab states (and elsewhere as well).
In connection with these events, it is also reasonable to pose the question: within what limits a legitimate, internationally-recognized regime has the right to counter rebellious and insurgent or revolutionary movements. Here a more general question arises regarding external intervention into crisis situations, its forms and limits. In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly approved the principle of “responsibility to protect”, allowing outside players to intervene in cases where it is necessary to put an end to crimes against humanity. But this requires the sanction of the international community.
One western observer, Alan Philps, is right when he considers that the introduction of a no-fly zone “is the first step in a process that, by the immutable laws of mission creep, led to a full-scale bombing campaign (in the Balkans) and to land invasion.” It is precisely for this reason that, fearing such a turn of events, Russia sought and ensured the insertion into the UN Security Council resolution on Libya of a provision on the inadmissibility of foreign occupation of that country in the course of the international military operation. Since certain issues were left unclear, notably the question of the limits of the use of force in that operation, Russia (like other members of the Security Council — China, Germany, India and Brazil — each for reasons of its own) abstained on the vote for the resolution.
By abstaining, Russia did not prevent the resolution from being approved. A crucial circumstance for Moscow, I imagine, was that for the first time the request for adopting such a resolution came from the Arab states themselves, which will take part in its realization. So this is not an operation of the West alone, which against the backdrop of the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan and the unsolved Arab-Israel conflict could only rally Libyans round Qaddafi as he plays the card of “imperialist and Zionist conspiracy”. This is an operation of a coalition, which to some extent resembles the situation after Saddam Hussein’s 1990 attack on Kuwait. It seems to me that the Obama administration, whose opponents and critics are accusing it of indecision (and even saying that America is today not so much a status quo power as a go-with-the-flow power), has in effect displayed restraint and responsibility worthy of a great power.
One more question remains with regard to interventionism: the enlistment by the parties to internal conflict of armed foreign nationals. International law bans mercenary activities. The Libyan insurgents accuse Gaddafi of having placed under arms the citizens of the Sahel states. For his part, the dictator has alleged that Egyptians and even al-Qaeda militants were fighting on the side of the insurgents. Hopefully, in the near future we shall find out whether this is true or not.
Professor Vitaly Naumkin is director of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. This commentary is published by DAILY NEWS EGYPT in collaboration with bitterlemons-international.org
