Syrians need even more courage
AJ English is doing what it can to cover events in Syria from nonprofessional footage, as journalists have been kept out:
Brian Whitaker, whose al-bab.com is one of the best blogs covering the Arab world, is being widely cited today for saying about Syria:
For the regime, the only tool left now is repression, and in the long run that will seal its fate. The question is how long.
Of course in the long run we are all dead, but I wish I shared his confidence that repression will not succeed. One need only recall popular rebellions that did not succeed in Burma, Thailand, Belarus, Venezuela and elsewhere to be reminded that autocratic regimes sometimes do manage to repress their opponents. The outcome in Syria is not yet obvious to me, much as I might wish Whitaker correct.
As President Obama has suggested, Bashar al Assad is being egged on and assisted by Tehran, which will regard the Syrian repression as a quid pro quo for Saudi intervention in Bahrain. This is cynical and ugly, but sometimes cynical and ugly succeeds. As Babak Rahimi says in a piece for the Jamestown Foundation yesterday:
If successful in its reaction to the events in Syria, Tehran will be able to reinforce its national interests and expand its reach in the region. If Syria is unsuccessful in subduing its revolt and goes the route of Egypt, then Iran will lose a major strategic ally and access to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which could have a major impact on Iran’s position in the Middle East.
If Babak is correct, and I think he is, it is puzzling that the Americans have waited so long to express their displeasure with the repression in Syria.
Of course it may well be that the demonstrators are better off without overt American assistance, which the regime would no doubt use to tar them as foreign stooges. But that label for the moment seems more appropriate for Bashar al Assad, who is clearly getting Iranian encouragement and support.
The Syrian demonstrations yesterday were widespread, but not overwhelming in numbers, and the regime showed little hesitation in mowing down its opponents, killing upwards of 75. That however is a smallish number in the history of repression in Syria. Bashar is trying desperately to prevent Damascus from erupting. It is not pre-ordained that he will fail–a lot of people in Damascus owe their jobs to the regime, which has husbanded the spoils less greedily than Gaddafi in Libya.
Syrians still need to decide how much they want change, and how much change they want. No one should presume to tell its citizens that they have to risk their lives. That is for them to decide, I hope in numbers so large that the outcome Whitaker predicts will come sooner rather than later.
PS: Courage does not appear to be lacking. This crowd chanting “the people want to topple the regime” is in Zabadani, near the Lebanese border, tonight:
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Not so Good Friday
I had originally said it was best in Syria, but as the news of dozens of deaths at the hands of security forces comes out that would be wrong. The demonstrations were not massive (thousands rather than hundreds of thousands) but widespread. Wissam Tarif circulated this from Zabadani, a Damascus Suburb, with demonstrators chanting “people want to topple the regime”:
President Bashar al Assad seems unlikely to fall right away, but the protests have already gone farther in Syria than many people anticipated. As I noted originally, what they lack still is mass–they are too small for safety, which of course discourages more people from joining them. The security forces have already killed a dozen or more today. PS (note added at noon): it looks like at least two dozen now. PPS (note added at 3:30 pm): it looks like more.
In Yemen, President Saleh is still playing rope-a-dope, seeming to accept proposals for transition while imposing conditions he knows the opposition won’t accept. The GCC is proving ineffective in mediating, but there is no surprise in that. But the demonstrations today are big in both Sanaa and Taiz.
Today’s big news in Libya is the American introduction of Predator drones into the fight, a unique capability some believe will make a difference by enabling more precise targeting in built-up areas. I do hope it will work, but Admiral Mullen is talking stalemate. Jeffrey White at the Washington Institute argues well that stalemate favors Gaddafi. NATO needs to end this war successfully, and soon.
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Has the time come for Syria?
It is hard to do better the day before a showdown in Syria than spending an hour with Joshua Landis and Ammar Abdulhamid of the Tharwa Foundation:
Landis has not been thinking the regime would crumble now. But these things are difficult to predict. Ammar is right that nonviolence is the way to go.
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DC lunch: women of courage
Yes, I did make it to both lunchtime events today, Mona Makram-Ebeid at the Middle East Institute and Shirin Ebadi at the Carnegie Endowment. Hard to beat that for a ringside seat to observe the changing Middle East.
A former member of the Egyptian parliament now at the University of Cairo, Professor Makram-Ebeid was at pains to underline the liberal, democratic, non-sectarian, non-religious character of the Egyptian revolution, which sought “dignity, justice, freedom and human rights.” The problem is that in the aftermath Egyptian institutions are still fragile, the constitution is still one that gives the president the power to eliminate freedom, and the forces competing for influence include the army, the Muslim Brotherhood and the various liberal democratic opposition forces, which are notably less strong and more fragmented than the other two.
The liberal democratic opposition wants a date certain for constitutional reform as well as a new electoral law that makes the system more proportional (rather than majoritarian). They did not like the army’s insistence on amending the old constitution and submitting it to referendum, but that is water under the bridge. What they need to do now is to prevent a “rift between the people and the army” while they prepare themselves for elections by unifying and attracting Muslim moderates. No strong liberal democratic force can emerge without Islamic elements within it. The older secular parties are weak. Turkey and Indonesia provide examples of democratic Islamic states, but Egypt will develop its own model.
The Muslim Brotherhood, she thought, would be more manageable within the system than outside it. The National Democratic Party of Hosni Mubarak is still a serious threat, as are the Salafists and jihadists who have suddenly emerged. The Army is the key to ensuring these elements do not disrupt the transition to democracy.
What does Egypt need from the U.S.? Moral support and economic assistance, the latter in the form of renegotiation of Egypt’s debt (with generous forgiveness) and retrieval of stolen assets. This will be larger than the official aid package, which should focus on promoting democratic civil society. Egypt will try to resuscitate tourism and hopes Egyptian expatriates will help. Cairo will have to be careful in rooting out corruption not to damage the productive economy.
Professor Makram-Ebeid finished with a flourish, quoting MLK:
The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.
The second game of my lunch time double header was a conversation with Iranian Nobel Prize Winner Shirin Ebadi. She would have appreciated that arc of history bending towards justice, but started off with another bon mot:
If you can’t eliminate injustice, at least tell everyone about it
Living now in exile in Atlanta, she has done just that in The Golden Cage. But today’s event was more about Iran than about the book.
Bottom line: Iran is like the fire under embers.
By which I took her to mean that it may burst into flame at any moment, even though it seems under autocratic control at the moment. She still believes, and works for, the motto of the revolution: “independence and freedom.” But that is not what the current government is delivering. Iranians have lost freedom since the time of the Shah. They don’t freely elect their representatives and their government is busy helping Bolivia and rebels in Senegal, things that have nothing to do with the welfare of Iranians.
Women, who have a high level of culture in Iran and constitute 65% of university students, face discrimination: the testimony of two women is required in court to equal the testimony of a man, their lives are compensated at half the rate of a man’s, they need written permission of their husbands to travel. It is no surprise that many women are found in the Green Movement opposition.
She prefers nonviolence as the means in Iran; the goal is democracy and human rights. It is not yet clear whether this can be achieved within the current constitutional regime or will need a new one. Many rights are guaranteed in the constitution in word, but not implemented in practice by the government. The government uses violence against the citizens; governments that do this will fall.
Asked whether she would opt for peace or justice in a post-revolution Iran, she replied it would depend on circulstances. She was vigorous in denouncing the Iraqi government’s attack on the Mujahadeen el Khalq (MEK) at Camp Ashraf, insisting they are refugees and should not be forced back to Iran, where they would be mistreated. She refused to be drawn out on whether the MEK is a terrorist organization, saying only a court could decide that.
U.S. sanctions, she thought, are not really “sanctions,” i.e. punishments. The U.S. has the right to regulate its trade. Iran may not like it, but Washington is within its rights.
The nuclear program is not a particular source of pride for Iranians, who view it as hurting them because of sanctions and in any event don’t want to see another Fukushima reactor incident in Iran. Besides, they’ve got more important things to worry about. Like private internet access, which is nominally allowed by the law but not yet implemented.
She was in no mood to give advice to President Obama (and I imagine would prefer to give it privately), but did say that she appreciated his Nowruz (New Year’s) message, which had the right approach.
I admit: lunch took more than an hour. But it was worth it! It would be hard to find two more eloquent exponents of a revolution in progress and one not yet quite started.
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Disingenuous is the polite term
President Omar al Bashir of Sudan is, to put it politely, disingenuous in this attempt at a straight-up interview by The Guardian. He manages to underestimate the number of displaced people in Darfur by more than a factor of 10, suggests that demonstrations in Sudan failed only because the opposition had no support in the country, claims the International Criminal Court indicted him for political reasons and in the concluding moments offers to come to the aid of Southern Sudan to help it deal with its instability (no doubt caused in part by Khartoum). He wants only peace, not war.
It is only fair to note that he also declines the privilege of hosting Gaddafi in Sudan, noting the importance of friendship with the Libyan people. That’s about the clearest indication I’ve seen this week that Gaddafi is in real trouble.
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Lessons from Serbia applied in Middle East and North Africa
The press has caught on to some of the connections between Serbia’s Otpor legacy and popular rebellions in the Middle East and North Africa. Srdja Popovic is one of the links. Here is his presentation at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies on April 1, 2011. A powerpoint is no substitute for Srdja, but I can’t figure out (yet) how to upload him to a blog post!
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