Inching forward

President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen has finally signed the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) agreement that provides him with immunity in exchange for turning his powers over to Vice President Hadi, who in turn is supposed to form a new government that includes the political opposition and hold new presidential elections within three months.  This is good news, even if the protestors in Sanaa don’t like the immunity provision and are vowing that Saleh must be tried.  Their unhappiness is understandable, but they are going to have to win some elections to get their way.  I trust Saleh won’t hang around if they do.  When the postponed parliamentary elections are to be held is not yet clear to me.

Yemen still has a long way to go.  It faces continuing political protest,  rebellions both in the north and in the south, an active Al Qaeda franchise, severe water shortages, declining oil revenue, endemic poverty and a significant portion of the population addicted to qat.  But let us pause to thank Jamal Benomar, the UN envoy who helped negotiate the agreement and its signing, as well as the GCC for managing a difficult process and bringing it finally to fruition.  Not to mention the Saudis, the Americans and whoever else deserves some of the credit.

Meanwhile Egypt is in big trouble.  Its military government is clearly reaching the end of its useful life span as both Islamists and secularists have taken once again to the streets for the past week to protest its abuses and push for a quicker turnover of authority to civilians.  The authorities (it sounds more like the Interior Ministry and not the Defense Ministry to me) responded with clearly excessive police and secret service violence.  While some commentators have called as a result for postponement of the November 28 start to parliamentary elections, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is planning to go ahead and possibly to accelerate holding of presidential elections.

I won’t try to second-guess Egyptians on when they should go to the polls.  I would only note that the important thing, as son Adam Serwer said to me this morning, is that these be only the first elections and that once the new constitution is in place new elections should be held in a timely way.  Secularist Egyptians tremble at the prospect of an Islamist victory, but this is an illiberal sentiment, as Marina Ottaway has underlined.  The focus needs to be on putting into place a democratic system, one that can survive any election outcome and offer a next opportunity for those who lose the first polls.

Meanwhile, publication of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (Bassiouni) report on the February/March violence in Bahrain is providing a boost to the protest movement there.  King Hamad has acknowledged the excessive use of force and promised prosecutions and reforms.  This could represent a major turn in the Sunni monarchy’s attitude, which for months has inclined toward the more repressive, anti-Shia end of the spectrum.  In any event, the report finds no Iranian role in the initial protests and thereby removes the monarchy’s main excuse for its hard crackdown.

I don’t know whether to count as progress France’s apparent move towards consideration of military intervention in Syria.  Humanitarian corridors and human rights monitors without Damascus’ agreement are nonsense.  I am all for asking Bashar al Assad to cooperate in such efforts, knowing full well he is likely to refuse.  But there is no way even to begin talking about a non-permissive intervention without triggering more violence.  A false Western promise to help Syrians would be a cruel and destructive trick on people who are already suffering far too much.  Instead we need to think about how to help them sustain a protest effort that is flagging due to regime repression.  Syria still has a long, hard role ahead.

PS:  For one version of the Tahrir protesters’ demands from yesterday, see here.