The North African-Middle East Uprisings from Tunisia to Libya

HERBERT P. BIX The North African-Middle East Uprisings from Tunisia to Libya REVOLUTIONARY WAVE OF UPRISINGS has swept Over North A Africa and the Middle East, and the United States and its allies are struggHng to contain it. To place current US actions in Arab countries across the region in their proper context, a historical perspective, with events hned up chronologically, is useful. The US remains the global hegemon: it frames global debate and pos- sesses an unrivaled military machine. Few Arab rulers can remain unaf- fected by its policies. But far from being the sort of hegemon that can dominate through latent force, it must continually fight costly air and ground wars. The inconclusive character of these wars, and the decaying character of its domestic society and economy, reveals a weakened, over- extended power. Because of America's decade-long, unending wars and occupations massive numbers of MusHm civilians have died, while the productive sector of the US economy has steadily contracted. What foHows is a brief sketch, starting with how the European powers shaped the Middle East and North Africa until the United States displaced them, then jumping to the present in order to survey the authoritarian regimes in the non-Western societies of Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, and Libya as they confront the rage of anti-regime forces. My central aim is to show that contemporary American-European interventions are best understood not as attempts to protect endangered civihans, as official US rhetoric holds, but as an extension of the logic of empire—continuous with the past and with the ethos of imperiahsm. In each of these instances, control over oil and gas resources is a factor of supreme importance even when their proven reserves are small, as in Tunisia, or rapidly dwindHng, as in Yemen. , Although the Arab peoples' democracy movements this winter and spring may sweep away the current generation of dictators, their out- comes are far less clear than is the dangerous precedent that the US, France, and Britain have once again set by resorting to war without first having exhausted all diplomatic alternatives—and without having been 329 THE MASSACHUSETTS REVIEW given "an objective analysis of tbe situation on tbe ground" from the UN Secretary-General's envoy to Libya.' Wbere tbe civil and armed resistance to dictatorsbips in various Arab states is headed at this stage cannot be known. But wbat motivates Arab government and anti-government forces and wbat motivates American and European interventionists are critical questions.^ Can tbis moment teacb us anytbing about democracy- deficiency witbin our own system of class rule and economic injustice? FROM THE EARLY I88OS to tbe end of World War II, British and French colonial rulers, among others, held the Arab peoples of tbe Middle East in subjugation. The only partial exception was Iraq, which Britain granted nominal independence in 1932, then reinvaded in 1941.Weakened by tbe war against Germany, the European imperialists retreated under pressure from the United States, which stepped in to take their place. The creation of Israel as the last "colonial-settler state" (1948) and Israel's expulsion of the indigenous population of Palestine from tbeir land and homes framed one side of the European retreat; the failed Anglo-French invasion of Egypt in collaboration witb Israel, known as tbe Suez Canal crisis (1956), framed the other. European colonialists held on longest in several oil-rich Persian Gulf states and in North Africa. That region was of particular interest to the French, British, and Italians because of its many European settlers and close proximity to Europe. During World War II the US moved decisively to secure the oil fields of Saudi Arabia and transfer tbe desert kingdom from the British sphere of influence to the emerging hegemony of the US — and of privately owned American oil corporations. President Franklin D. Roosevelt en- tered into a collaboration with the reactionary King (and former desert bandit) Ibn Saud. It was a "lethal embrace" tbat bis successor. President Tru- man, deepened in 1947 by signing secret agreements witb Saud.''Tbere- after Eisenbower, Johnson, and Nixon steadily developed the relationship.'' During the early 1950s,Aramco—the Arabian-American Oil Company, a consortium of oil majors tbrougb wbicb tbe US government acted—tried to break strikes by Saudi oil workers, wbo were petitioning for improved working conditions as well as estabhshing prospectors' claims to oil in the British protectorates of the Persian Gulf.^ In Iran in 1953 the CIA, aided by Britain, overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh and installed Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. Over the next twenty-six years the Shah ruled with US 330 Herbert P. Bix support, making some economic reforms but, in the process, crushing domestic resistance and aU remnants of Iranian democracy. Iranian clerics branded him an American puppet. When, in 1979, the Iranian people overthrew the Shah and moved to estabUsh a clerical state, they took their revenge, depriving the US of its Persian Gulf poUceman. In short, the overaU framework for MidcUe East order that American policy planners constructed was essentiaUy a continuation of the Euro- pean model, based on support for absolute monarchs like the Shah of Iran, miUtary dictators, and Saudi Islamist extremism as embodied in the Saudi state with its official reUgion of intolerant, misogynistic Wahhabism.*^ Israel fit into this picture because Pentagon officials considered it a possible base from which to project US power throughout the region— a prospect that Saudi Arabia found unobjectionable. In 1967, Israel cap- tured the West Bank from Jordan, the Gaza Strip, Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, and Syria's Golan Heights, and soon began building iUegal settlements on Palestinian land that it implicitly resolved never to return. Washing- ton's commitment to Israel went hand in hand with its hostiUty to the secular nationalism of Egypt's Gamal Abdel-Nasser, an outspoken enemy of the House of Saud but also a critic of US poUcies. Around this time the US and Israel estabUshed their relationship in its present form, with the US giving it annuaUy biUions of doUars in military and economic aid—amounts that can never satisfy Israel's demands. Two years after the 1967 war. Colonel Muammar Qaddafi seized power in Libya; Hafez Assad instaUed himself in Syria, where his son Bashar al-Assad now rules; the Baathist party took power in Iraq; and in 1970 Nasser died. His successor, Anwar Sadat, moved quickly to implement policies of "peace with Israel and conversion of Egypt into an American client state."^ Israel at first rejected Sadat's 1972 peace offer but after the 1973 war, under pressure from Washington, made concessions. Thus, the Arab military defeats in 1967 brought a new generation of dictators to the fore while strengthening Israel's appetite for colonizing occupied Palestinian land, even though it officiaUy acknowledged the legitimacy of a future Palestinian state. GLANCE AHEAD FOUR DECADES and more to the aging of these dictatorial regimes. The spontaneous uprisings of the past three months have toppled some dictators and shaken the regimes of others. The revolts now stretch from North Africa and Egypt to Jordan (6.5 million resi- 331 THE MASSACHUSETTS REVIEW dents) and densely populated Syria (22 million residents), and from tbe beartland of tbe Arabian Peninsula to tbe Gulf states, wbere tbey tbreaten tbe older dictators ofYemen and Babrain and deepen Saudi King Abdul- lab's insecurity.Tbe protesters bave suffered tbousands of casualties bnt, by continuing to make progressive, democratic demands, tbey bave bad tbe positive effect of undermining America's imperial arcbitecture of Middle East control, which rests ultimately on military force. Tbe uprisings started in Tunisia, wbicb bas a modest liberal tradition dating back to tbe nineteentb century, wben its rulers were tbe first in Africa to abolisb slavery (1841) and later were tbe first to adopt a written constitution (1864).^ Tunisian bberabsm, bowever, existed alongside a mucb stronger state-police tradition. Tunisia gained its independence from France peacefully in 1956, and tbereafter its citizens endured two reformist dictatorsbips: tbat of Habib Bourguiba and tbe racketeer wbo replaced bim in 1987, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. During tbese decades, Tunisia registered steady economic growtb, wbile indigenous social, economic, and psycbological processes prepared tbe sou for tbe eventual overtbrow of dictatorial rule. Leading tbe way were educated students, lawyers belonging to tbe Tunisian Bar Associa- tion, and small progressive parties wbo bad continually protested Ben Ali's rule. Tben tbe grassroots activists of Tunisia's General Union of Labor joined in, followed at tbe very last minute by tbe federation's national leaders. Tbe local unionists witb tbeir radical economic demands made a buge difference.'' Ben Ali transmitted power tbrougb bis secret pobce and tbe national- ist party, tbe Constitutional Democratic Rally. But tbe resistance of tbe vanguard, wbo bad mastered new tecbnologies of communication, faued to ignite a mass cbain reaction untu December 2010, wben a poor street vendor, Mobamed Bouazizi, wbo bad been slapped in tbe face not by a policeman but by a policewoman, later immolated bimself to protest bis mistreatment by tbe government.'" As journalist Steve CoU noted, Bouazizi's self-sacrifice was tbe precipitating event; a few weeks after be died (Jan. 4, 2011) and sbortly after tbe army bad deserted Ben Ali, tbe dictator was on bis way to exile in Saudi Arabia. Galvanized by Ben Ali's departui-e and joined by middle-class profes- sionals, tbe unemployed, and Islamist Ennabda party, tbe young Tunisian revolutionaries continued tbeir peaceful public protests and sit-ins until tbey bad forced tbe elderly prime ministers of two interim governments (Mobamed Gbannoucbi and Fouad Mebazaa) to resign.

Load more