by ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH,Counterpunch WEEKEND EDITION APRIL
13-15, 2012
Within the first few months of 2011, the U.S. and its allies lost
three loyal “friends”: Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Zine el-Abbidine Ben Ali in
Tunisia and Saad Hariri in Lebanon. While Mubarak and Ali were driven out of
power by widespread popular uprisings, Hariri was ousted by the parliament.
Inspired by these liberating developments, pro-democracy
rebellions against autocratic rulers (and their Western backers) soon spread to
other countries such as Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
As these revolutionary developments tended to politically benefit
the “axis of resistance” (consisting of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas) in
the Middle East, the US-Israeli “axis of aggression” and their client states in
the region mounted an all-out counterrevolutionary offensive.
Caught off-guard by the initial wave of the Arab Spring in Egypt
and Tunisia, the US and its allies struck back with a vengeance. They employed
a number of simultaneous tactics to sabotage the Arab Spring. These included
(1) instigating fake instances of the Arab Spring in countries that were/are
headed by insubordinate regimes such as those ruling Iran, Syria and Libya; (2)
co-opting revolutionary movements in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and
Yemen; (3) crushing pro-democracy movements against “friendly” regimes ruling
countries such as Bahrain, Jordan and Saudi Arabia “before they get out of
hand,” as they did in Egypt and Tunisia; and (4) using the age-old divide
and ruletrick by playing the sectarian trump card of Sunnis vs. Shias, or
Iranians vs. Arabs.
1. Instigating Fake Arab Springs, or post-modern coup
d’états
Soon after being caught by surprise by the glorious uprisings in
Egypt and Tunisia, the counterrevolutionary forces headed by the United States
embarked on damage control. A major strategy in pursuit of this objective has
been to foment civil war and regime change in “unfriendly” places, and then
portray them as part of the Arab Spring.
The scheme works like this: arm and train opposition groups within
the “unfriendly” country, instigate violent rebellion with the help of covert
mercenary forces under the guise of fighting for democracy; and when government
forces attempt to quell the thus-nurtured armed insurrection, accuse them of
human rights violations, and begin to embark openly and self-righteously on the
path of regime change in the name of “responsibility to protect” the human
rights.
As the “weakest link” in the chain of governments thus slated to
be changed, Gadhafi’s regime became the first target. It is now altogether
common knowledge that contrary to the spontaneous, unarmed and peaceful protest
demonstrations in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain, the rebellion in Libya was
nurtured, armed and orchestrated largely from abroad. Indeed, evidence shows
that plans of regime change in Libya were drawn long before the overt onset of
the actual civil war [1].
It is likewise common knowledge that, like the rebellion in Libya,
the insurgency in Syria has been neither spontaneous nor peaceful. From the
outset it has been armed, trained and organized by the US and its allies.
Similar to the attack on Libya, the Arab League and Turkey have been at the
forefront of the onslaught on Syria. Also like the Libyan case, there is
evidence that preparations for war on Syria had been actively planned long
before the actual start of the armed rebellion, which is branded as a case of
the Arab Spring [2].
Dr. Christof Lehmann, a keen observer of geopolitical developments
in the Middle East, has coined the term “post-modern coup d’états” to describe
the recent NATO-Zionist agenda of regime change in the region. The term refers
to an elaborate combination of covert operations, overt military interventions,
and “soft-power” tactics a la Gene Sharp:
“A network of think tanks, endowments, funds and foundations,
which are behind the overt destabilization of targeted sovereign nations. Their
narratives in public policy and for public consumption are deceptive and
persuasive. Often they specifically target and co-opt progressive thinkers, media
and activists. The product is almost invariably a post-modern coup d’état.
Depending on the chosen hybridization and the resilience of government, social
structures and populations perceived need for reform, the product can be more
or less overtly violent. The tactics can be so subtle, involving human rights
organizations and the United Nations that they are difficult to comprehend.
However subtle they are, the message to the targeted government is invariably ‘go
or be gone’” [3].
It is no secret that the ultimate goal of the policy of regime
change in the Middle East is to replace the Iranian government with a “client
regime” similar to most other regime in the region. Whether the policy will
succeed in overthrowing the Syrian government and embarking on a military
strike against Iran remains to be seen. One thing is clear, however: the
ominous consequences of a military adventure against Iran would be
incalculable. It is bound to create a regional (and even very likely global)
war.
2. Co-opting the Arab Spring (in Egypt, Tunisia and
Yemen)
When the Arab Spring broke out in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, the US
and its allies initially tried to keep their proxy rulers Hosni Mubarak, Ben
Ali and Abdullah Saleh in power as long as possible. Once the massive and
persistent uprisings made the continued rule of these loyal autocrats
untenable, however, the US and its allies changed tactics: reluctantly letting
go of Mubarak, Ali and Saleh while trying to preserve the socioeconomic
structures and the military regimes they had fostered during the long periods
of their dictatorial rule.
Thus, while losing three client dictators, the US and its allies
have succeeded (so far) in preserving the three respective client states. With
the exception of a number of formalistic elections that are designed to co-opt
opposition groups (like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt) and give legitimacy to
military rulers, not much else has changed in these countries. In Egypt, for
example, the NATO/Israel-backed military junta of the Mubarak era, which now
rules Egypt in collaboration with Muslim Brotherhood, has become increasingly
as repressive toward the reform movement that gave birth to the Arab Spring as
it was under Mubarak.
Economic, military and geopolitical policies of the new regimes in
these countries are crafted as much in consultation with the United States and
its allies as they were under the three autocratic rulers that were forced to
leave the political scene. The new regimes are also collaborating with the US
and its allies in bringing about “regime change” in Syria and Iran, just as
they helped overthrow the regime of Gadhafi in Libya.
3. Nipping Nascent Arab Springs in the Bud
A third tactic to contain the Arab Spring has been the withering
repression of peaceful pro-democracy movements in countries headed by U.S.
proxy regimes in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and other kingdoms in the
Persian Gulf area before those movements grow “out of hand,” as they did in
Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen. Thus, in collaboration with its Western patrons,
Saudi Arabia has over the past year cracked down viciously against peaceful
protesters not only within its own borders but also in the neighboring country
of Bahrain. Leading the invasion militaries of the Persian Gulf kingdoms into
Bahrain last spring, the armed forces of Saudi Arabia continue with the support
of Western powers to brutalize peaceful pro-democracy protesters there.
While the Saudi, Qatari and other Persian Gulf regimes have been
playing the vanguard role in the US-Israeli axis of aggression against
“unfriendly” regimes, NATO forces headed by the Pentagon have been busy behind
the scene to train their “security” forces, to broker weapons sale to their
repressive regimes, and to build ever more military basses in their territories.
“As state security forces across the region cracked down on
democratic dissent, the Pentagon also repeatedly dispatched American troops on
training missions to allied militaries there. During more than 40 such
operations with names like Eager Lion and Friendship Two that sometimes lasted
for weeks or months at a time, they taught Middle Eastern security forces the
finer points of counterinsurgency, small unit tactics, intelligence gathering,
and information operations—skills crucial to defeating popular uprisings. . . .
These recurrent joint-training exercises, seldom reported in the media and
rarely mentioned outside the military, constitute the core of an elaborate,
longstanding system that binds the Pentagon to the militaries of repressive
regimes across the Middle East” [4].
These truly imperialistic policies and practices show, once again,
that the claims of the United States and its allies that their self-righteous
adventures of “regime change” in the Greater Middle East are designed to defend
human rights and foster democracy are simply laughable.
4. Employment of the Divide and Conquer Tactic:
Sunni vs. Shia
One of the tactics to crush the peaceful pro-democracy movements
in the Arab-Muslim countries ruled by the US client regimes is to portray these
movements as “sectarian” Shia insurgences. This age-old divide-and-rule tactic
is most vigorously pursued in Bahrain, where the destruction of the Shia
mosques is rightly viewed as part of the regime’s cynical policy of
“humiliating the Shia” in order “to make them take revenge on Sunnis,” thereby
hoping to prove that the uprising is a sectarian one [5].
Quoting Nabeel Rajab, who describes himself as secular with both
Sunni and Shia family relatives, reporter Finian Cunningham writes: “The
government is attempting to incite divisive sectarian tensions, to intimidate
Sunni people into not supporting the pro-democracy movement because it is being
presented as a Shia movement.”
Cunningham further writes: “The targeting of the Shia is a tactic
by the regime to distort the pro-democracy movement from a nationalist one into
a sectarian one. It is also a way of undermining international support for the
pro-democracy movement by trying to present it as an internal problem of the
state dealing with ‘troublesome Shia’. In this way, the Bahraini uprising is
being made to appear as something different from the uprisings for democracy
that have swept the region” [5].
In brief, the magnificent Arab Spring that started in Egypt and
Tunisia in the early 2011 has been brutally derailed, distorted and contained
by an all-out counter-offensive orchestrated by Western powers and their allies
in the Greater Middle East, especially Israel, Turkey and the Arab League. How
long this containment of democratic and national liberation aspirations of the
Arab/Muslim masses will continue, no one can tell. One thing is clear, however:
the success of the Arab (or any other) Spring in the less-developed, semi-colonial
world is integrally intertwined with the success of the so-called 99% in the
more-developed, imperialist world in achieving the goal of defeating the
austerity policies of the 1%, reallocating significant portions of the colossal
military spending to social spending, and enjoying a standard of living worthy
of human dignity.
In subtle and roundabout ways, imperialist wars of choice and
military adventures abroad are reflections, or proxies, of domestic fights over
allocation of national resources: only by inventing new (and never ending)
enemies and engaging in permanent wars abroad can the powerful beneficiaries of
war and militarism fend off the “peace dividends” and enjoy the substantial
“war dividends” at home.
In the fight for peace and economic justice, perhaps the global
99% can take a cue from the global 1%: just as the ruling 1% coordinate their
policies of military aggression and economic austerity on an international
level, so can (and should) the worldwide 99% coordinate their response to those
brutal policies internationally. Only through a coordinated cross-border
struggle for peace and economic justice can the workers and other popular
masses bring the worldwide production of goods and provision of services to a
standstill, and restructure the status quo for a better world—a world in which
the products of human labor and the bounties of Nature could benefit all.
© Ismael Hossein-zadeh is Professor Emeritus
of Economics, Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa. He is the author of The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism (Palgrave
– Macmillan 2007) and the Soviet Non-capitalist Development: The Case of
Nasser’s Egypt (Praeger Publishers 1989). He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion,
forthcoming from AK Press.
References:
[1] Michel Chossudovsky, “When War Games Go Live.”
[2] See, for example, Dr.
Christof Lehmann, “The Manufacturing of the War on Syria.”
[3] Dr. Christof Lehmann, “The National Counsel of Syria and U.S. Unconventional
Warfare.”
[4] Nick Turse, “Did the Pentagon Help Strangle the Arab Spring?”
[5] Finian Cunningham, “Bahraini Rulers Play sectarian card in Bid to Trump
Pro-democracy Movement.”
