To Proceed as a Responsible Adult

As a year passes by, the Arab Spring is a far cry from its finish although the winter has already come. But the overall direction does not bode well for the West and Israel.

By Oded Granot

The first anniversary of the “Arab Spring” almost overlaps with the hour when the American military folded their flag in Iraq and returned home. After nine years, 4,500 killed, 30,000 wounded and more than 100,000 Iraqis who met their death.

What had begun nine years ago as an American blitz designed to depose Saddam, the dictator who possessed, ostensibly, weapons of mass destruction, to establish a genuine democracy in Iraq and turn it into Washington’s confederate in the Middle East – has shrunk under the Obama administration into a single focused goal: “to get out of Iraq with dignity” and a minimum of degradation, in a fashion that would facilitate Obama’s re-election for the second term.

Weapons of mass destruction, as all know, have not been found in Iraq. The American army detachments leave behind a not really stable Iraq with a decrepit political infrastructure and ethnic tension, exposed to growing subversion and strong influence from the side of the Shiite neighbor Iran. The conclusion: it’s easier to cut off by military means the head of an Arab dictator than to change by an outsider intervention the internal power balance of a country, and create a solid basis for democracy and respect for human rights.

We’ve already said that had the American administration internalized this Iraqi lesson, perhaps it wouldn’t hurry a year ago to stab a knife in the back of the dictator Mubarak and resolutely insist on his immediate dismissal before it made sure the foundation was cast for the formation of a true democracy in Egypt, where all the citizens, including minorities, would enjoy full rights and equality.

Because what has happened so far in Egypt is that in the two rounds of seemingly democratic elections to parliament that were held in the past couple of months, the first place was actually taken by the Muslim Brotherhood, who do not count among America’s fans, while the second place was snatched by those even worse: the extremist Salafis. These guys postulate that in our world, there’s no place for somebody who is a non-Muslim. They believe that burning down churches of the Coptic Christians should be started within Egypt and then carried on to the infidels overseas.

But the White House spokesman still stands on his own: “The democratic process is what's important. Principles matter to this president, not parties,” asserted the press secretary. How naïve. How sad. You should just watch the pictures of an Egyptian TV network that documented Muslim Brotherhood activists explaining to veiled women how to choose “the right list,” in order to understand that not only could the election results be faked, but the “process” itself could be stolen as well.

That’s how it goes when one interferes from outside

And you can see things also this way: the discharge of Saddam Hussein by the Americans released the “Shia jinn” in Iraq from the bottle and startled the Sunni minority. Mubarak’s ouster under the American pressure let out the “Salafi jinn” in Egypt and currently imposes horrors on the Coptic minority. This is how it goes when someone butts in from outside.

And maybe, there’s no better way to fathom the bloody clash last weekend in Cairo between the army and the protesters except for the realization by the military council governing in Egypt that under no circumstances can it surrender to the pressures of the street – that which demands to transfer the authorities to uncertain civilian hands – and bail out Egypt to anarchy under the aegis of democratic elections or duress of external factors.

With a year passed, the Arab Spring is, as stated, far from its ending; yet despite this the winter has already shown up. The state of affairs in Libya, in Tunisia, and in Yemen are still fragile. In Egypt, there’s still a long way to go until the situation stabilizes. In Syria, there’s bloodshed. To Iran, the “spring” hasn’t made it yet, for the reason that the powers of the street are still groaning under the dread heel of the Revolutionary Guards and the security forces.

But the general direction promises no good for the West and Israel. The American engagement in de-crowning dictators in the Middle East and replacing them with democratic regimes has yet to prove itself as effective, with the ascent of Islamic streams failing to make America into a darling of the Arab street. The flight from Iraq, and Washington’s avoidance of a firm action against Iran going nuclear have severely damaged the United States’ image as a strong [super] power determined to defend at any cost its interests and its regional allies.

Saudi Arabia, America’s best ally in the Middle East, has already understood that it has no one to count on in a confrontation vis-à-vis Iran and began to behave as a responsible adult in the region: it dispatched troops to Bahrain in order to prevent it falling into the hands of the pro-Iranian forces; it incorporated Jordan, as a part of the moderate element in the region, in the defensive alliance of the Gulf countries; and it completely dissociated itself from Bashar Assad who hooked up to the axis of evil.

Sooner or later, Israel too may reach a conclusion according to which it pays to rely less on the American interference to protect its vital interests, and more to pursue the course of cooperation with the moderate entities in the Arab world, headed by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries that view Iran as a grave threat. The price Israel is going to need to pay will involve improvement of relations with Jordan, and aiming for a peace arrangement with the Palestinians – and that would be also the response to the strengthening of the Islamist anti-Israeli forces in the Arab world.

The author is a commentator on Arab affairs for the Israeli Channel 1.