It's Morning in Arabia

 (The Gold Standard for political advertising, dammit. No wonder Mondale/Ferraro got stuffed.)

(Without apologies to the Gipper.)

Firstly, Happy 2012!

It's hard to believe that less than 12 months ago, I posted a tongue-in-cheek piece about autocrats' egomania after the thunderclap of Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution. Yet less than a year on, brave people are protesting (and dying) in Syria,  three dictators have gone, with Tunisia, Libya Egypt and Yemen all standing at the dawn of a new and vibrant cacophony of politics and social change, with only Bahrain's regime looking like it has successfully suppressed popular anger. But it is unlikely to end here, as the siren calls of fresh air continue to echo around the Arab world, with unpredictable, but likely positive long-term effects. And crucially, an acceptance in the West that we can't reverse this tide even if we wanted to, so it's much better to be on the right side of history rather than having history's wave crash over you. 

Just before Christmas, Chatham House published a really interesting paper on Saudi Arabia's medium term economic and fiscal position which is fascinating (and for Saudis facing a demographic explosion, terrifying). Accountability is going to be key in making the choices that such a fiscal transition will require, so pressure for change will only increase. Interesting times ahead!

Three-and-a-half down....

 

(No risk of running out of red paint.....)

Back in January, I put up a tongue-in-cheek post on the Arab world's dictators, taking the chance to laugh at the cults-of-personality that have blighted the governance of the region since decolonisation in the 1950s. All good clean fun, provided that you don't have to live in any of the more-or-less authoritarian states they ran (badly).

I certainly never expected to be recording the final defeat of Gaddaffi's forces in Sirte at the same time as Tunisia is preparing for its first-ever democratic elections - with an astonishing and inspiring 11,000 candidates running for 218 seats - this Sunday. Hence, we are witnessing a zone of democratic opportunity running from Tunisia to Egypt - absolutely excellent news. Moreover, given the UN vote due today, it seems impossible that Ali Abdullah Saleh will be able to revert to running Yemen in the same manner as he has since 1978, bringing the winds of change to Yemen. And Syria? Well, I'd be a seller of shares in Asad Inc., were they publicly traded.

The legal bit
But the process of revolutions matters, and in Libya there was clearly an International Armed Conflict (IAC) between NATO and Gaddaffi's forces, sanctioned by UNSCR 1973, and a Non-International Armed Conflict (NIAC) between the National Transitional Council and the Gaddaffi regime; the ruling law was clearly some flavour of LOAC in places where conflict was actually taking place.

(Gaddaffi's last redoubt)

In the last 24 hours, it has also become clear that Gaddaffi was alive - though injured - at the time of his capture, and that he was subsequently shot dead, apparently in cold blood. Let's be clear - killing Gaddaffi was the execution of a presumptive PoW (presumptive in that Gaddaffi would have had PoW rights until an a GC III Article 5 Tribunal - which doesn't appear to have been held - decided that he did or didn't qualify), which itself is a War Crime contrary to Article 8(2)(b)(vi) of the International Criminal Court's Rome Statute.

As Elham Saudi of Lawyers for Justice in Libya (LFJL) pointed out on the UK's Channel Four news last night, it would have been much better for him to have faced trial, both from notions of justice and for the victims to have their day in court. What is interesting now is how the new Libyan authorities choose to deal with these important legal issues - as the Rome Statute makes clear, crimes committed by both sides of an armed conflict need addressing.

Formula 1 as predictive revolutionary yardstick

(Sakhir Circuit, Bahrain. A really, really, dull modern F1 track.)

Don't laugh. When you hear that Bernie Ecclestone is thinking of cancelling a Grand Prix, then you know it's got to be serious - this last happened.... when? And so in Bahrain we face another bit of history in the making - or for the reality tv addicts "History - Live, Innit?!" Or perhaps "Arab Authoritarians Lack Talent"?

It's easy to see why Egypt matters - it's been a cultural, economic and political fulcrum for much of the the last 6,000 years, and it remains the most populous Arab nation, and the home of the one of the most influential Islamic centres of learning in Al Azhar. Indeed, arguably the period in which it has mattered least regionally was from the signing of Camp David Accords in 1978 to Gulf War I 1990-91 when it was persona non grata with the rest of the Arab world due to recognising and agreeing a peace treaty with Israel.

(Oil and oppressed Shias. Lots of both in and around Al Jubayl, Dammam. And next to Bahrain - interesting.)

But in many ways I would argue that what's happening in Bahrain is significantly more important. As an absolute monarchy with an efficient police state, with a Sunni ruling elite and majority Shia population, Bahrain has important similarities with both Qatar and Kuwait, but crucially with eastern Saudi Arabia, especially around the oil production centres at Dahran / Dammam. 

Does this mean that the Saudi monarchy is under direct threat? No, not yet. But the really revolutionary point over the last six weeks in the Arab world seems to have been the people understanding that if enough protest together, the authoritarians cannot kill enough of them to suppress them - at which point the regime is finished in practical terms. So Bahrain as the first of the Arab monarchies to start shooting its citizens is going to prove an interesting litmus test - if people power works here, then where the dominoes fall next becomes very strategically interesting.

So, if they end up cancelling this year's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in November, then 2011 will have been a truly revolutionary year. And no, I don't see predictive causality in Formula 1. At least not yet.

I'm in charge. Let there be billboards!

Ok, so after Tunisia, and now in Egypt, we see riots of repressed people shouting for freedom and the possibility of overthrowing authoritarian regimes. But freedom and democracy, whilst instinctively attractive, would have certain downsides, including the loss of the principal point of one-party states: the cult of the Maximum Leader, Imperator, Man of Destiny, and with it, his image everywhere. (I can't think of a female dictator. Margaret Thatcher could only dream of this level of sycophancy...) Let there be billboards!

Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi was always a reticent wallflower....

Whereas in Yemen, you get to buy your own Ali Abudallah Saleh. ("Buy one, get one, free?"; soon enough, "Buy one, get one, flee..")

Hosni Mubarak smiles benignly from Egyptian streetlamps...

...but no-one compares with Gaddafi-as-multifaceted-visionary

Royalists don't need to feel left out - here's Jordan's King Abdullah II bin al-Hussein keeping an eye on things in Amman...

 

... but in this selection, only Syria's Bashir al-Assad gets to watch over his people night and day.

You say you want a Revolution? Well you know, we all want to change the world.

I'm the President. I love me. No, no, really, I do.

(With apologies to The Beatles).

Tunisia.

At the end of last year, it was not the most obvious place for an Arab revolution. Yemen has an active tribal and Islamist insurgency, Syria was slightly more oppressed in the 2010 Freedom House index, and Egypt was heading for another illegitimate election in which President Mubarak's amusingly ironically entitled "National Democratic Party" would save everyone the trouble of having to decide between too many qualified candidates.

The self-immolation of Muhammad Bouazizi in the main square of Sidi Bouzid last December 17th was a visceral cri-de-coeur, but in even a moderately effective police state should have posed no major threat to an entrenched regime. So why did it lead to a snowball of protest that led to the President and his cronies fleeing by jet without anywhere to go - until Saudi Arabia accepted them after France demurred?

More importantly, will this herald a wave of liberalisation across the Middle East, and should western policy evolve - and if so, how?

It's easy to be wise after the event. Yes, President Ben-Ali's wife's Trabelsi clan was "intensely disliked" according to a July 2009 US Embassy cable leaked to wikileaks , yes it was madly corrupt, with few opportunities for young graduates like the unfortunate Mr. Bouazizi, yes it was politically oppressive with lots of Presidential portraits around and about (see picture above). But in these things it was hardly alone, and compared with the autocracy of Morocco or the two decades of war / near war next door in Algeria, Tunisia was a bastion of stability in an unstable region.

And that's the point. The west, led by France, supported a kleptocratic regime largely, it seems, for fear of something worse. But in so doing, we connived in blocking the legitimate aspirations of the Tunisian people to have a say in their governance, whilst the West (rightly) pushed other despotic regimes towards democracy and human rights, with sanctions if necessary (e.g. Zimbabwe). In short, we abandoned the people to their Government to promote short-term stability. The historians amongst you may detect certain similarities to western policy in Persia in the late 1970s.

Zhou Enlai, Mao's first Premier of the People's Republic famously opined that "It is too soon to tell" the impact of the French Revolution, and so it is here. But the challenge to the West is simple: do we repeat the mistakes of Iran and support oppressive regimes because they happen to be vaguely pro-Western, driving our natural allies in the educated and middle classes into the arms of other - often virulently anti-Western Islamist - opposition? Personally, I'd be much happier if we were more overt in helping our allies democratise now before something potentially much worse takes over. Let's start with Egypt - and be prepared to take aid off the table if the NDP aren't willing to have a free and fair election.

That, and free and fair elections in Tunisia, would be a fitting epitaph for Mr. Bouazizi. May he rest in peace.