Friday Protests and Iranian Influence in the Persian Gulf

STRATFOR
March 19, 2011

March 18 was to be a test of the strength of Iran’s covert destabilization campaign in the Persian Gulf region, as it provided the first Friday prayers following the decision by Saudi Arabia to send troops into Bahrain with the blessing of the al-Khalifa regime. The Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) Peninsula Shield Force entered the country March 14, representing a sharp escalation of the long-running Saudi-Iranian competition that for the past month has been primarily fixated upon the small island nation just off the coast of eastern Saudi Arabia.





Bahrain



The decision to send troops to Bahrain — and the violence that ensued shortly thereafter — led to an outpouring of displays of solidarity with the country’s majority Shiite population from Shia across the region, from Iran, to Iraq, to eastern Saudi Arabia. The decision was also met by continued demonstrations in Bahrain. But while the scenes on the streets throughout the Shiite world were far from calm March 18, there was not a significant increase in unrest across the Persian Gulf region, either.



The majority of Bahraini citizens view the presence of Saudi troops as a Sunni invasion, and while the Bahraini Shiite opposition is internally fragmented, all have condemned the presence of GCC forces, especially after the March 15-16 violence. This could not only consolidate and galvanize the fractured opposition, but also create an opportunity for Iran to use its covert assets in Bahrain to exploit public outrage and further fuel sectarian tensions. This would both place pressure on the al-Khalifa regime and increase the chances for significant unrest to spread to other Shiite areas in the Persian Gulf — most importantly in eastern Saudi Arabia.



However, the March 18 demonstrations showed an opposition movement that has lost steam for the moment. Manama’s Pearl Roundabout, the main protest site in Bahrain, has been empty since a March 16 GCC crackdown. An 8 p.m.-4 a.m. curfew remains in effect in this part of the capital, and Bahraini troops are in control of the main hospital in Manama, anticipating that it may become a new rally point. At least two demonstrations took place in the greater Manama area on March 18: one in the village of Diraz, consisting of more than 1,000 people, and a smaller one in the village of Sitra. But none were on par with the ones seen earlier in the week.



One major reason for this was the arrest of hard-line Shiite opposition leaders on the morning of March 16, a day after the Bahraini government declared a state of emergency. Two of those arrested were the Haq Movement’s Hassan Mushaima and Wafa leader Abdulwahab Hussein, who together founded the Coalition for a Republic on March 7, which advocates the overthrow of the monarchy and is seen as having close links to Tehran. Meanwhile, leaders of the mainstream Shiite opposition movement Al Wefaq were not detained. Al Wefaq political leader Sheikh Ali Salman and spiritual leader Sheikh Isa Qassim have harshly condemned the regime’s use of violence, but continue to caution their adherents not to follow suit. Importantly, Al Wefaq has continued to press its platform of eschewing violence while pushing for political reforms, but not an overthrow of the monarchy. Qassim repeated this position during his Friday prayers sermon March 18, and Al Wefaq reportedly has been sending text messages to followers along the same lines.



These actions bode well for the government’s prospects of engaging the mainstream opposition, though Al Wefaq would still face political difficulties in entering into negotiations with the government as long as Saudi forces remain in the country. Such negotiations would serve Iranian interests, though it is unclear how much influence Tehran has in Al Wefaq. The Bahraini and Saudi regimes, meanwhile, have shown no signs of being close to ordering the withdrawal of GCC forces: Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa said in a news conference March 18 that security remains the regime’s priority — meaning that the crackdowns and curfew will continue. He said more GCC forces had arrived in Bahrain to protect vital installations while leaving internal security to Bahrain-led forces.





Saudi Arabia



Saudi Shiite protesters demonstrated March 18 in the oil-rich Eastern province cities of Qatif, al-Hasa, Awamia, al-Sanabis, Saihat and Safwa, using solidarity with their Bahraini counterparts as a rallying cry. Reports of the numbers of protesters ranged from a few hundred to up to 5,000 — though several of these estimates come from Saudi Shiite media outlets.



So far, Saudi security forces have been able to put protests down without much difficulty — though live rounds have reportedly been fired — but Riyadh is taking the issue very seriously, especially as it does not feel it can count on the United States to firmly stand behind the regime should things begin to spiral out of control. In a March 18 speech on state-run television, Saudi King Abdullah announced a series of measures aimed at buying the loyalty of several elements of Saudi society. He issued several royal decrees, including promises to increase the minimum wage; hand out two months’ salary to all state, civil and military employees; hand out money to the unemployed; build 500,000 new housing units; establish an anti-corruption body directly under the king; create 60,000 new jobs in the Ministry of Interior; and give all military personnel a promotion. He also announced measures that sought to give the clergy more control over the citizenry, urged the media to show greater respect for the clerics and promised the establishment of a Higher Islamic Authority within five months, as well as new Fatwa centers throughout the country. However, he warned in the speech that security forces will “hit” whoever considers undermining the kingdom’s security and stability, showing that while he is willing to bend, he also is trying to quash dissent.





Iraq



Demonstrations also occurred in several Shiite-populated regions of Iraq March 18, but they were focused less on the Iraqi government (which, unlike those of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, is not run by Sunnis) and more on support for the Bahraini Shia. Up to 5,000 people reportedly were in the streets in the Diyala province cities of Jadidat al-Shat, Khales and Baquba, the provincial capital, where banners proclaiming a willingness to “volunteer to defend the soil of Bahrain” were on display. In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, where thousands came onto the streets, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani ordered a day of Hawza study in solidarity with the Bahraini people. There were also protests in the southern city of Basra, as well as in Diwaniyah and Missan provinces and Baghdad, where several thousand people took to the streets in Sadr City.





Regional Implications



All these events play into a larger strategic struggle involving the United States, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iran has significantly benefited from the spread of the unrest from Tunisia into the Persian Gulf. While Tehran still faces significant constraints in further aggravating sectarian tensions in the region — especially in U.S.-allied Bahrain and Saudi Arabia — it appears to have made some progress in reshaping the terms of the negotiations with Washington over spheres of influence in the Persian Gulf region. The United States has taken a public position in recent days that both condemns the use of force by Saudi Arabia in Bahrain and calls for accommodation between the Bahraini Sunni royals and the Bahraini Shia.



The United States shares strategic concerns with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the other GCC states over the potential for Iran to shift the balance of power in eastern Arabia toward the Shia, but it also is severely militarily overstretched and does not wish to risk derailing its planned withdrawal from Iraq by falling into a confrontation with Iran. In a strategic sense, this represents a convergence of interests for Washington and Tehran: The United States needs to free up its military forces from Iraq, and Iran needs the United States to leave Iraq so it can secure its western flank by filling the resultant power vacuum.



Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, faces a much more immediate issue. Bahrain is a red line for Riyadh because ongoing Shiite unrest there threatens its Eastern province. Bahrain is close enough to Saudi Arabia for the Saudis to project military force with relatively little effort, allowing Riyadh to demonstrate a show of force to counter Tehran, but it fears that Washington would not fully support it if it were to use excessive levels of force to put down unrest at home, as it has already faced criticism for its actions in Bahrain. The Saudis see the United States slowly moving toward an accommodation with Iran and view it as a direct threat to their security.



This dynamic has been a source of much tension between the Saudis and the Americans in recent days — likely what Iran was hoping for. For Iran to compel the United States and/or Saudi Arabia to come to Tehran seeking an understanding — which Iran will want on its own terms — it needs to show it has the ability to foment unrest in the Persian Gulf using its Shiite proxies. However, the relatively mild March 18 protests show the constraints to Iran’s capabilities.

Libya and the U.N. No-Fly Zone

STRARFOR
March 18, 2011

The U.N. Security Council voted on Thursday to authorize “all necessary measures … to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory.” The resolution banned “all flights in the airspace of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya in order to help protect civilians,” essentially setting up a no-fly zone. The resolution — and specifically the U.S. administration — are calling for the participation of Arab League members, with diplomatic sources telling AFP hours before the resolution passed that Qatar and the United Arab Emirates might take part. Five Security Council members abstained from the resolution: Russia and China (both permanent members holding veto power) joined by Germany, India and Brazil.




The Security Council resolution clearly invites concerned member states to take the initiative and enforce a no-fly zone over Libya. The most vociferous supporters of the resolution — France and the United Kingdom from the start and the United States in the last week — will now try to build a coalition with which to enforce such a zone. Including members of the Arab League appears important to all involved to give the mission greater legitimacy — and to keep the intervention from appearing like another Western-initiated war in the Muslim world.



As U.S. defense officials have repeatedly stated — and as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated on Thursday while in Tunisia — enforcement of the no-fly zone will require more than just combat air patrol flights and will have to include taking out Libyan air defenses on the ground. With the nearest U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise, still in the Red Sea and the French carrier Charles de Gaulle in port in Toulon — both some two days from Libya — French forces in southern France and potentially select air assets using Italian NATO bases, as well as six Marine Harriers aboard the Kearsarge (LHD-3), would have to make any initial strikes if actual military action is to happen soon. Italy has reversed course from its ambiguity on whether it would allow its air bases for enforcement of the no-fly zone, making available the U.S. Naval Air Station at Sigonella, Sicily, and the U.S. Air Base at Aviano. The U.N. support for airstrikes has made it difficult for Italy to keep hedging its policy on Libya.



“A hastily assembled no-fly zone with a clear limit to its mandate might simply push Gadhafi into a more aggressive posture toward the rebels and sow the seeds for long-term conflict in Libya.”

The question now is how quickly the United States, France and the United Kingdom can array their air forces in the region to make a meaningful impact on the ground in Libya. An anonymous French government official told AFP earlier on Thursday that bombing missions could begin within hours of the resolution’s passage. Whether this actually will be the case remains unclear, however. Gadhafi loyalists apparently are closing in on Benghazi and Tripoli has offered the international community a deal under which it would not engage rebels in Benghazi militarily, but instead would move police and counterterrorist forces into the town to disarm the rebels “peacefully.” Considering that Gadhafi’s forces have crossed the long stretch of desert between Tripoli and Benghazi and are threatening the rebel’s de facto capital, it is not clear how quickly any potential array of forces might rapidly assemble to change the situation on the ground from the air alone.



In fact, a hastily assembled no-fly zone with a clear limit to its mandate — no boots on the ground — might simply push Gadhafi into a more aggressive posture toward the rebels and sow the seeds for a more aggressive or long-term conflict in Libya. The rebels’ defensive lines have crumbled in the face of the loyalist onslaught, so the prospect of taking the already fractured rebels and forming a coherent offensive force from them is questionable at best. Even arming them better (and arms are not their primary problem) might well not change anything. If the no-fly zone and airstrikes fail to push Gadhafi’s forces back (and the prospects of that are also questionable), any alliance of air forces will have to begin targeting Gadhafi’s armored and infantry units directly, rather than just limiting themselves to striking air assets and air defense installations if there is to be any meaningful impact on the ground. This could rapidly draw the West deeper into the conflict, which could easily spur Gadhafi into a more violent approach against the rebels in Libya’s east. The no-fly zone thus might prevent Gadhafi from winning but not unseat him either, potentially drawing the conflict into a longer and deadlier affair. With the coalition, the mission and the degree of commitment by each contributor still so far unclear, there is also the real problem of how far each individual member wants to take this.



Another open question relates to Western unity on the decision. While France and the United Kingdom have been eager for such a step throughout, Italy and Germany have not.



For Italy, the situation is particularly complex. Rome has built a very strong relationship with Gadhafi over the past eight years. The relationship has been based on two fundamental principles, namely, that Italy would invest in Libyan energy infrastructure and that Tripoli would cooperate with Rome to ensure migrants from North and sub-Saharan Africa do not flood across the Mediterranean toward Italy. When it seemed as if Gadhafi’s days were numbered, Rome offered the use of its air bases for any potential no-fly zone. Italy was hedging to protect its considerable energy assets in Libya in case Gadhafi was overthrown and a new government formed by the Benghazi-based rebels took power. But as Gadhafi’s forces scored several successes over the past week, Rome, before the vote at the United Nations, had returned to its initial tacit support for the legitimacy of the Tripoli regime while still condemning human rights violations so as not to be ostracized by its NATO and EU allies. That Italian energy major ENI continues to pump natural gas to — as the company has alleged — provide the Libyan people with electricity, highlights this careful hedging. Now that Rome has thrown its support for the U.S.-French intervention, the stakes will be high for Italy. Gadhafi will have to be removed, as his continued presence in the country would put Rome’s considerable interests in Libya at risk.



For Germany, the issue is simple. Three German state elections are coming up in the next 10 days, with another three later in the year. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing an electoral fiasco, with a number of issues — from resignations of high-profile allies to mounting opposition over the government’s nuclear policy — weighing down on her government. With German participation in Afghanistan highly unpopular, it makes sense for Berlin to be cool toward any intervention in Libya. Germany abstained from the resolution, and its ambassador to the United Nations reiterated Berlin’s line, refusing to participate in the operations and calling any military operation folly that may go beyond airstrikes. This creates a sense that Europe itself is not entirely on the same page in Libya. Considering that the sinews that hold the NATO alliance together have begun to fray, it is not clear that a French-American intervention without clear support from Berlin is the best thing for the alliance at the moment.



Furthermore, it is not clear that Tripoli really needs an air force to reach the rebels, nor that Gadhafi’s forces are sufficiently exposed, enabling surgical airstrikes to cripple them. Airstrikes are not a tool with which one can resolve urban warfare, and Gadhafi may very well decide to precipitate such warfare now that the West is bearing down on him. This may mean that for the U.S.-French intervention to work, the West would have to become far more involved.



Now that the West has decided to square off with Gadhafi, it may not be able to disengage until he is defeated. A Libya — or even only Western Libya or even just Gadhafi stewing in his Tripoli fortress — ruled by a Gadhafi spurned by his former “friends” in Western Europe could be quite an unstable entity only few hundred miles from European shores. Gadhafi already has threatened to turn the Mediterranean into a zone of instability for Western military and civilian assets if foreign forces attack him. He has a history of using asymmetrical warfare — i.e., supporting terrorism throughout the 1980s — as a strategic tool. A belligerent Gadhafi looking to strike across the Mediterranean is not something Europe can permit. The decision to enforce the no-fly zone may therefore very quickly devolve into a need to remove Gadhafi from power via more direct means.

William Burns Senate Testimony on Middle East Developements March 17, 2011

http://foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Burns_Testimony_Revised.pdf

U.S.-Saudi Tensions Intensify With Mideast Turmoil

NYtimes

March 14, 2011

By DAVID E. SANGER and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON — Even before Saudi Arabia sent troops into Bahrain on Monday to quell an uprising it fears might spill across its own borders, American officials were increasingly concerned that the kingdom’s stability could ultimately be threatened by regional unrest, succession politics and its resistance to reform.
So far, oil-rich Saudi Arabia has successfully stifled public protests with a combination of billions of dollars in new jobs programs and an overwhelming police presence, backed by warnings last week from the foreign minister to “cut any finger that crosses into the kingdom.”
Monday’s action, in which more than 2,000 Saudi-led troops from gulf states crossed the narrow causeway into Bahrain, demonstrated that the Saudis were willing to back their threats with firepower.
The move created another quandary for the Obama administration, which obliquely criticized the Saudi action without explicitly condemning the kingdom, its most important Arab ally. The criticism was another sign of strains in the historically close relationship with Riyadh, as the United States pushes the country to make greater reforms to avert unrest.
Other symptoms of stress seem to be cropping up everywhere.
Saudi officials have made no secret of their deep displeasure with how President Obama handled the ouster of the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, charging Washington with abandoning a longtime ally. They show little patience with American messages about embracing what Mr. Obama calls “universal values,” including peaceful protests.
When Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton were forced to cancel visits to the kingdom in recent days, American officials were left wondering whether the cause was King Abdullah’s frail health — or his pique at the United States.
“They’re not in a mode for listening,” said one senior administration official, referring to the American exchanges with Saudi officials over the past two months about the need to get ahead of the protests that have engulfed other Arab states, including two of Saudi Arabia’s neighbors, Bahrain and Yemen. In recent days, Washington has tried to focus on the areas where its strategic interests and those of Saudi Arabia intersect most crucially: counterterrorism, containing Iran and keeping oil flowing.
The Americans fear that the unrest sweeping the Middle East is coming at a bad time for the Saudis, and their concerns have increased in recent weeks, partly because of the continued tumult in Bahrain. Many of the issues driving the protests elsewhere are similar to those in Riyadh: an autocratic ruling family resistant to sharing power, surrounded by countries in the midst of upheaval. At the same time, Saudi Arabia’s leadership is in question. King Abdullah, 87, is, by all accounts, quite ill, as is the crown prince.
The latest tensions between Washington and Riyadh began early in the crisis when King Abdullah told President Obama that it was vital for the United States to support Mr. Mubarak, even if he began shooting protesters. Mr. Obama ignored that counsel. “They’ve taken it personally,” said one senior American familiar with the conversations, “because they question what we’d do if they are next.”
Since then, the American message to the Saudis, the official said, is that “no one can be immune,” and that the glacial pace of reforms that Saudi Arabia has been engaged in since 2003 must speed up.
But the Saudi effort to defuse serious protests appears to take a different approach: a huge police presence, which smothered relatively small demonstrations in Riyadh and the Eastern Province last Friday; an appeal to the innate religious conservatism of the country; and an effort to throw more cash at Saudi citizens, who have become accustomed to the ultimate welfare state.
This month, Prince Nayef bin Abdel Aziz, the interior minister and No. 2 in the line of succession, publicly underscored the kingdom’s ban on demonstrations. The government called in top Saudi newspaper editors to dictate how to report on protests foreign and domestic. The country’s senior religious clerics condemned public protests for not conforming to Islamic law. These steps built on $36 billion in pay raises, housing support, unemployment benefits and other subsidies that King Abdullah promised to keep the peace.
“All this is about social control in Saudi Arabia,” said Christopher Boucek, who studies the Middle East at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “People have been forecasting the fall of Saudi for a long time, and they’ve always been proved wrong. It’s a pretty resilient place.”
One of President Obama’s top advisers described the moves as more in a series of “safety valves” the Saudis open when pressure builds; another called the subsidies “stimulus funds motivated by self-preservation.”
Saudi officials, who declined to comment for this article to avoid fueling talk of divisions between the allies, said that the tensions had been exaggerated and that Americans who criticized the pace of reforms did not fully appreciate the challenges of working in the kingdom’s ultraconservative society.
Even as Libya has occupied much of the public debate, White House officials have said they have been focused most intently on the two Arab allies whose fates are most tied to American strategic interests: Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In a briefing for reporters last Thursday, Thomas E. Donilon, the national security adviser, said that “the success of the democratic transformation under way in Egypt is absolutely critical,” and described his own conversations with its interim leadership. Mrs. Clinton will be visiting Cairo this week.
But Mr. Donilon, like other administration officials, said very little about the conversations they have held with Saudi leaders. Those have been strained in part by the slow-motion transition of power: King Abdullah, a popular monarch who just returned to the country after months of medical treatment in New York and Morocco, has been described by Saudi specialists as reform-minded but constrained by more conservative family members; the country’s next in line, Crown Prince Sultan, is also severely ill.
“We’ve focused on Nayef and a next generation, who seem to understand a lot better what’s got to happen,” said one American official, referring to the Saudi interior minister, whom some Saudi experts view as a conservative who would take the kingdom backward, while others say that is a misreading and that he is more aligned with members of the next generation of Saudi princes who favor reforms.
In a relationship where the United States hardly has the upper hand, so far the discussions have largely steered clear of democratization and focused on safer subjects: energy and foreign threats.
Saudi Arabia has helped stabilize world energy prices by increasing its crude-oil production to make up for the loss of Libya’s oil.
In the case of Bahrain, the senior official said, the administration’s goal has been to enlist the Saudis’ help to open up the Bahraini political system without overthrowing the government. Instead, the arrival of the Saudi-led troops underscored the approach advocated by Riyadh: Crack down and allow no room for dissent.
At a press briefing on Monday, the White House spokesman, Jay Carney, carefully avoided direct criticism of the Saudi-led entry of gulf forces into Bahrain, telling reporters that, in the view of the White House, “this is not an invasion of the a country.” But he added: “We’re calling on the Saudis, the other members of the G.C.C. countries, as well as the Bahraini government, to show restraint. And we believe that political dialogue is the way to address the unrest that has occurred in the region in Bahrain and in other countries, and not to, in any way, suppress it.”
Some officials say that in some ways the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia may grow closer, particularly on security and counterterrorism issues, where there has been increased cooperation in the months before the protests began in the Middle East.
John O. Brennan, President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, speaks regularly with Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, his Saudi counterpart and the son of the interior minister, most recently last week about the political tumult in Yemen and the threat from Al Qaeda, an administration official said.
In the past several months, the Saudis have played a pivotal role in helping to thwart several terrorist plots. Prince Nayef alerted the Obama administration last October that bombs might be on cargo flights bound for the United States. A frantic search turned up two shipments containing printer cartridges packed with explosives, sent from Yemen by a Qaeda affiliate, and addressed to synagogues in Chicago.
The American military’s longstanding ties to the Saudi armed forces have also weathered the recent diplomatic tempest. More than 4,100 Saudi and American soldiers conducted a training exercise in northwestern Saudi Arabia last week.
Demonstrating to Iran that the Saudi-American alliance remains strong has emerged as a critical objective of the Obama administration. King Abdullah, who was widely quoted in the State Department cables released by WikiLeaks as warning that the United States had to “cut off the head of the snake” in Iran, has led the effort to contain Iran’s ambitions to become a major regional power. In the view of White House officials, any weakness or chaos inside Saudi Arabia would be exploited by Iran.
For that reason, several current and former senior American intelligence and regional experts warned that in the months ahead, the administration must proceed delicately when confronting the Saudis about social and political reforms.
”Over the years, the U.S.-Saudi relationship has been fraught with periods of tension over the strategic partnership,” said Ellen Laipson, president of the Stimson Center, a public policy organization. “Post-September 11 was one period, and the departure of Mubarak may be another, when they question whether we are fair-weather friends.”

Iran Rebukes Saudis for Moving Troops Into Bahrain

NYtimes

March 15, 2011

By ETHAN BRONNER and MICHAEL SLACKMAN

MANAMA, Bahrain — A day after Saudi Arabia’s military rolled into Bahrain, the Iranian government branded the move “unacceptable” on Tuesday, threatening to escalate a local political conflict into a regional showdown with Iran.
“The presence of foreign forces and interference in Bahrain’s internal affairs is unacceptable and will further complicate the issue,” Ramin Mehmanparast, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman told a news conference in Tehran, according to state-run media.
Even as predominantly Shiite Muslim Iran pursues a determined crackdown against dissent at home, Tehran has supported the protests led by the Shiite majority in Bahrain.
“People have some legitimate demands and they are expressing them peacefully,” Mr. Memanparast said. “It should not be responded to violently.”
“We expect their demands be fulfilled through correct means,” Mr. Mehmanparast added. Iran’s response — while anticipated — showed the depth of rivalry across the Persian Gulf in a contest that has far-reaching consequences in many parts of the Middle East.
On Monday, Iranian state-run media went so far as to call the troop movement an invasion. Saudi Arabia has been watching uneasily as Bahrain’s Shiite majority has staged weeks of protests against a Sunni monarchy, fearing that if the protesters prevailed, Iran, Saudi Arabia’s bitter regional rival, could expand its influence and inspire unrest elsewhere.
The Saudi decision to send in troops on Monday could further inflame the conflict and transform this teardrop of a nation in the Persian Gulf into the Middle East’s next proxy battlefield between regional and global powers. On Tuesday, there was no immediate indication that the Saudi forces were confronting protesters in the central Pearl Square — the emblem of the Bahrain protest much as Cairo’s Tahrir Square assumed symbolic significance in the Egyptian uprising.
Several hundred protesters camped out there on what seemed initially to be a quiet day with little traffic on the streets as the details of the deployment by Bahrain’s neighbors — and their mission — remained ill-defined.
On Monday, about 2,000 troops — 1,200 from Saudi Arabia and 800 from the United Arab Emirates — entered Bahrain as part of a force operating under the aegis of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a six-nation regional coalition of Sunni rulers that has grown increasingly anxious over the sustained challenge to Bahrain’s king, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa. “This is the initial phase,” a Saudi official said. “Bahrain will get whatever assistance it needs. It’s open-ended.”
The decision is the first time the council has used collective military action to help suppress a popular revolt — in this case a Shiite popular revolt. It was rejected by the opposition, and by Iran, as an “occupation.” Iran has long claimed that Bahrain is historically part of Iran.
The troops entered Bahrain at an especially combustible moment in the standoff between protesters and the monarchy. In recent days protesters have begun to move from the encampment in Pearl Square, the symbolic center of the nation, to the actual seat of power and influence, the Royal Court and the financial district. As the troops moved in, protesters controlled the main highway and said they were determined not to leave.
“We don’t know what is going to happen,” Jassim Hussein Ali, a member of the opposition Wefaq party and a former member of Parliament, said in a phone interview. “Bahrain is heading toward major problems, anarchy. This is an occupation, and this is not welcome.”
Rasool Nafisi, an academic and Iran expert based in Virginia, said: “Now that the Saudis have gone in, they may spur a similar reaction from Iran, and Bahrain becomes a battleground between Saudi and Iran. This may prolong the conflict rather than put an end to it, and make it an international event rather than a local uprising.”
An adviser to the United States government, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press, agreed. “Iran’s preference was not to get engaged because the flow of events was in their direction,” he said. “If the Saudi intervention changes the calculus, they will be more aggressive.”
Though Bahrain said it had invited the force, the Saudi presence highlights the degree to which the kingdom has become concerned over Iran’s growing regional influence, and demonstrates that the Saudi monarchy has drawn the line at its back door. Oil-rich Saudi Arabia, a close ally of Washington, has traditionally preferred to operate in the shadows through checkbook diplomacy. It has long provided an economic lifeline to Bahrain.
But it now finds itself largely standing alone to face Iran since its most important ally in that fight, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, has been ousted in a popular uprising. Iran’s ally, Hezbollah, recently toppled the Saudi-backed government of Lebanon — a symbol of its regional might and Saudi Arabia’s diminishing clout.
But Bahrain is right at Saudi Arabia’s eastern border, where the kingdoms are connected by a causeway.
The Gulf Cooperation Council was clearly alarmed at the prospect of a Shiite political victory in Bahrain, fearing that it would inspire restive Shiite populations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to protest as well. The majority of the population in Saudi Arabia’s eastern provinces, where the oil is found, is Shiite, and there have already been small protests there.
“If the opposition in Bahrain wins, then Saudi loses,” said Mustafa el-Labbad, director of Al Sharq Center for Regional and Strategic Studies in Cairo. “In this regional context, the decision to move troops into Bahrain is not to help the monarchy of Bahrain, but to help Saudi Arabia itself .”
The Bahrain government said that it had invited the force in to help restore and preserve public order. The United States — which has continued to back the monarchy — said Monday that the move was not an occupation. The United States has long been allied with Bahrain’s royal family and has based the Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain for many years.
Though the United States eventually sided with the demonstrators in Egypt, in Bahrain it has instead supported the leadership while calling for restraint and democratic change. The Saudi official said the United States was informed Sunday that the Saudi troops would enter Bahrain on Monday.
Saudi and council officials said the military forces would not engage with the demonstrators, but would protect infrastructure, government offices and industries, even though the protests had largely been peaceful. The mobilization would allow Bahrain to free up its own police and military forces to deal with the demonstrators, the officials said.
The Gulf Cooperation Council “forces are not there to kill people,” said a Saudi official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press. “This is a G.C.C. decision; we do not violate international law.”
But the officials also acknowledged that it was a message to Iran. “There is no doubt Iran is involved,” said the official, though no proof has been offered that Iran has had anything to do with the political unrest.
Political analysts said that it was likely that the United States did not object to the deployment in part because it, too, saw a weakened monarchy as a net benefit to Iran at a time when the United States wants to move troops out of Iraq, where Iran has already established an influence.
The military force is one part of a Gulf Cooperation Council effort to try to contain the crisis in Bahrain that broke out Feb. 14, when young people called for a Day of Rage, fashioned after events in Egypt and Tunisia. The police and then the army killed seven demonstrators, leading Washington to press Bahrain to remove its forces from the street.
The royal family allowed thousands of demonstrators to camp at Pearl Square. It freed some political prisoners, allowed an exiled opposition leader to return and reshuffled the cabinet. And it called for a national dialogue.
But the concessions — after the killings — seemed to embolden a movement that went from calling for a true constitutional monarchy to demanding the downfall of the monarchy. The monarchy has said it will consider instituting a fairly elected Parliament, but it insisted that the first step would be opening a national dialogue — a position the opposition has rejected, though it was unclear whether the protesters were speaking with one voice.
The council moved troops in after deciding earlier to help prop up the king with a contribution of $10 billion over 10 years, and said that it might increase that figure. But if the goal was to intimidate Iran, or the protesters, that clearly was not the first response.
Bahrain’s opposition groups issued a statement: “We consider the entry of any soldier or military machinery into the Kingdom of Bahrain’s air, sea or land territories a blatant occupation.”

Dennis Ross Remarks at J Street Conference 2011 , Feb. 28

http://www.politico.com/static/PPM187_jstreet.html

Obama seeks a new approach on Mideast

latimes.com

President Obama has asked his aides to formulate a Mideast foreign policy that emphasizes democratic reforms without alienating longtime allies.

By Peter Nicholas and Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times
3:35 PM PST, February 25, 2011
Reporting from Washington

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President Obama is challenging his administration to formulate a new Middle East policy that emphasizes political and economic reforms to bolster U.S. allies now threatened by the protest movements sweeping the region.

Administration officials say Obama is urging beleaguered governments to enact reforms that would satisfy the popular craving for change while preserving valuable partnerships on crucial U.S. interests, from oil security to counter-terrorism and containing Iran.

With those allied governments under pressure from their citizens, the U.S. is confronting the likelihood of having diminished influence over whatever political order emerges. But a greater risk is that Washington could be seen as trying to prop up crumbling regimes and could alienate the rising pro-democracy leaders.

Diplomats say it would be difficult for the president to openly call for sweeping political change in such key countries as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Jordan, which are run by royal families allied with the West. Direct criticism of longstanding, friendly monarchs could be seen as an abandonment and encourage even more protests.

Administration officials who spoke on background because they were not authorized to discuss policy-making said the president and other key White House figures have pushed reforms in private calls, making the case that such changes are for the leaders' own good.

They have told the Saudis they should support efforts by the Sunni royal family in neighboring Bahrain to work out a new power-sharing arrangement with Shiite Muslims, who make up the majority of the country's population and who have been leading the street protests in the tiny kingdom.

Mindful that Bahrain hosts the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, which, among other tasks, protects oil shipments through the Persian Gulf, the U.S. has pressed Saudi Arabia to encourage Bahrain to make a deal, and has asked it to chip in money to help make sure the reforms satisfy the Shiites, a senior administration official said.

"We have the same objective — we want stability in Bahrain," the official said.

The official said the administration's scramble to persuade leaders to implement reforms was partly defensive. "If the leaders who've promised things don't deliver, you've got the possibility of further unrest and deeper violence" that would further imperil U.S. interests, he said.

The White House also has told diplomats to expand their outreach to the allies' opposition leaders, rising political figures and others who operate outside official government circles. Though some outreach already exists, the administration failed to anticipate the scale of the unrest.

Aides said Obama recognized the need to shift gears soon after the Egyptian street protests began Jan. 25. He warned national security aides that they should anticipate further upheaval "not just in countries where there are protests, but in countries where there have not yet been protests," said a senior administration official who was at the meeting in the White House Situation Room.

Obama spoke for about 10 minutes, telling staff members they were facing a fundamental change in the region and that the U.S. needed a new policy.

"The president concluded by telling us … we wouldn't be simply responding to protests in individual countries, but revisiting our entire approach to take into account the changes that are taking place," the aide said. Obama directed them to elevate democracy and the expansion of political and economic rights "as core interests of ours in the region."

The new strategy was also a reaction to disappointing results from the administration's original policy. Obama came to office determined to avoid the appearance of interfering in other nations' affairs. The goal was to distinguish his administration from that of predecessor George W. Bush, who had lectured Arab states and others on the need to democratize.

But Obama has lived through nearly two years of foreign policy setbacks. When Iran cracked down on street protests that erupted after its 2009 elections, he was criticized for not doing enough to support the demonstrators and losing an opportunity to pressure Iran's theocracy.

The president has made muted statements about China's violations of human rights, giving higher priority to disputes with Beijing over currency and trade.

Yet the paltry results of that approach and the ascendance of a team of pro-democracy advisors at the National Security Council appear to be having a pronounced influence on the president's actions and rhetoric. Younger aides including Samantha Power, Ben Rhodes and Michael McFaul, a Stanford University professor on leave, have been strong internal voices for pro-democratic movements in the Middle East.

As evidence of the evolving approach, administration aides cite Obama's September speech to the United Nations General Assembly, in which he stated that his allegiance was not to particular rulers but to whole populations. "The idea is a simple one — that freedom, justice and peace for the world must begin with freedom, justice and peace in the lives of individual human beings," he told the U.N.

Two weeks before the protests began in Egypt, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave a notable speech in Qatar, warning that Arab populations were tiring of "corrupt institutions and a stagnant political order."

"The region's foundations are sinking into the sand," she said.

But no one appeared ready when Tunisia erupted into protests that toppled longtime strongman Zine el Abidine ben Ali. And the administration appeared caught flat-footed again when demonstrations spread to Egypt.

"They were advised by a number of people that there could be a problem in Egypt," said Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former deputy national security advisor under George W. Bush. "No one foresaw exactly what came, but they didn't seem prepared for anything. The succession crisis for an 82-year-old, ill [Hosni] Mubarak was obviously around the corner."

In part that was because counter-terrorism had become the driving force for the Washington security establishment. Friendly but autocratic governments like Mubarak's were considered essential allies, partly because those governments also feared the rise of Islamic extremists.

Administration officials acknowledge that the U.S. wants to preserve that cooperation by maintaining close ties to traditionally moderate Arab countries. That was part of the reason U.S. officials first tried to stand by Mubarak, and why their criticism of the Bahraini royal family has been lukewarm.

Democracies have been less responsive to U.S. priorities. Turkey, for example, is nominally friendly to the West but declined to allow U.S. ground forces to move through its territory before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Part of the challenge has been tactical. In Libya, the U.S. has needed to evacuate hundreds of American citizens without provoking a violent response from Moammar Kadafi.

Since the crises erupted in Tunisia and Egypt, the National Security Council staff has been meeting six, sometimes seven, days a week.

At the request of national security advisor Thomas Donilon, a team at the National Security Council that includes Power and McFaul prepared a report on democratic transitions throughout history to see "what worked and what didn't," according to an NSC official.

The group's advice is finding its way into Obama's speeches. A constant warning from the president during the Egyptian crisis, for example, was that the Mubarak regime needed to meet with opposition leaders. That message was rooted in the NSC team's research.

"The big lesson learned from the literature on transitions from autocratic rule is, if you begin a dialogue with the opposition, you can craft the evolutionary path to a democratic transition," McFaul said in an interview. "If you wait and don't take those steps, there's polarization — and that leads to revolutionary change."

McFaul and others are also preparing basic democracy-building materials to help Middle Eastern governments, including primers on proportional representation and presidential elections.

If the U.S. wants stability in the Middle East, democratic government is a better bet than some of the autocratic regimes now teetering, McFaul said.

"The most stable regimes in the world are democratic regimes," he said.

Could the next Mideast uprising happen in Saudi Arabia?

By Rachel Bronson
Friday, February 25, 2011; 1:00 PM


Tunisia. Egypt. Yemen. Bahrain. And now the uprising and brutality in Libya. Could Saudi Arabia be next?
The notion of a revolution in the Saudi kingdom seems unthinkable. Yet, a Facebook page is calling for a "day of rage" protest on March 11. Prominent Saudis are urging political and social reforms. And the aging monarch, King Abdullah, has announced new economic assistance to the population, possibly to preempt any unrest.
Is the immovable Saudi regime, a linchpin of U.S. security interests in the region, actually movable?
Revolutions are contagious in the Middle East - and not just in the past few weeks. In the 1950s, when Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser swept into power, nationalist protests ignited across the region, challenging the leadership in Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and eventually Libya and beyond.
A shocked Saudi royal family watched helplessly as one of its members, directly in line to become king, claimed solidarity with the revolution and took up residence in Egypt for a few years. That prince, Talal bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, a son of the kingdom's founder and a half-brother of the king, is now reintegrated into the Saudi elite - and on hand to remind the monarchy that it is not immune to regional revolts. "Unless problems facing Saudi Arabia are solved, what happened and is still happening in some Arab countries, including Bahrain, could spread to Saudi Arabia, even worse," Prince Talal recently told the BBC.
The unrest in Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain and Yemen (to the kingdom's west, east and south) plays on the Saudis' greatest fear: encirclement. The Saudis aligned with the United States instead of colonial Britain in the early 20th century in part to defend against creeping British hegemony. During the Cold War the monarchy hunkered down against its Soviet-backed neighbors out of fear of being surrounded by communist regimes. And since the end of the Cold War, the overarching goal of Saudi foreign policy has been countering the spread of Iranian influence in all directions - Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and Yemen.
When King Abdullah returned to Saudi Arabia last week after three months of convalescence in the United States and Morocco, one of the first meetings he took was with his ally King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain to discuss the turmoil in his tiny nation. Sunni-ruled Bahrain, less than 20 miles from Saudi Arabia's oil- and Shiite-rich Eastern Province, has been a longtime recipient of Saudi aid. It has also been a focus of Iranian interests. The meeting was a clear signal of support for reigning monarchs, and an indication that the Saudi leadership is concerned about the events unfolding in Bahrain and throughout the region.
Further emphasizing that concern, Saudi leaders were reportedly furious that the Obama administration ultimately supported regime change in Egypt, because of the precedent it could set. Before Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak left office, the Saudis offered to compensate his faltering regime for any withdrawal of U.S. economic assistance - aiming to undermine Washington's influence in Egypt and reduce its leverage.
As Saudi leaders look across the region, they have reason to believe that they won't find themselves confronting revolutionaries at their own doorstep. The upheaval in Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and elsewhere is driven by popular revulsion with sclerotic, corrupt leadership. These countries do not have clear succession plans in place. They do have organized opposition movements, both inside and outside their borders, that are exploiting new means and technologies to challenge the governments. Their leaders are vulnerable to independent militaries. Their economies are weak, and educational opportunities are few.
These conditions seem to be present in Saudi Arabia, too, but the country is different in some important ways. First, its economic situation is far better. Egypt's per capita gross domestic product is slightly more than $6,000, and Tunisia's is closer to $9,000. For Saudi Arabia, it is roughly $24,000 and climbing (up from $9,000 a little more than a decade ago). The Saudi regime also has resources to spend on its people. Oil prices are high and rising. On Wednesday, the king announced massive social benefits packages totaling more than $35 billion and including unemployment relief, housing subsidies, funds to support study abroad and a raft of new job opportunities created by the state. Clearly the king is nervous, but he has goodies to spread around.
Poverty is real in Saudi Arabia, but higher oil prices and slowly liberalizing economic policies help mask it. When I met then-Crown Prince Abdullah in 1999, he told a group of us that unemployment was "the number one national security problem that Saudi Arabia faced." He was right then and remains right now. According to an analysis by Banque Saudi Fransi, joblessness among Saudis under age 30 hovered around 30 percent in 2009. Still, many of the king's key policy decisions - joining the World Trade Organization, creating new cities with more liberal values, promoting education and particularly study abroad - have sought to solve these problems. The country may be on a very slow path toward modernization, but it is not sliding backward like many others in the Middle East.
Another difference between Saudi Arabia and its neighbors is that the opposition has been largely co-opted or destroyed. For the past 10 years, the Saudi government has systematically gone after al-Qaeda cells on its territory and has rooted out suspected supporters in the military and the national guard, especially after a series of attacks in 2003. Key opposition clerics have been slowly brought under the wing of the regime. This has involved some cozying up to unsavory people, but the threat from the radical fringe is lower now than it has been in the recent past. And the Saudis have been quite clever about convincing the country's liberal elites that the regime is their best hope for a successful future.
The loyalty of the security services is always an important predictor of a regime's stability, and here the Saudis again have reason for some confidence. Senior members of the royal family and their sons are in control of all the security forces - the military, the national guard and the religious police. They will survive or fall together. There can be no equivalent to the Egyptian military taking over as a credible, independent institution. In Saudi Arabia, the government has a monopoly on violence. Indeed, the Saudis are taking no chances and have arrested people trying to establish a new political party calling for greater democracy and protections for human rights.
Finally, a succession plan is in place. Saudi Arabia has had five monarchs in the past six decades, since the death of its founder. There is not a succession vacuum as there was in Egypt and Tunisia. Many Saudis may not like Prince Nayaf, the interior minister, but they know he is likely to follow King Abdullah and Crown Prince Sultan on the throne. And there is a process, if somewhat opaque, for choosing the king after him.
The United States has a great deal at stake in Saudi Arabia, though Americans often look at the Saudis with distaste. As one senior Saudi government official once asked me: "What does the United States share with a country where women can't drive, the Koran is the constitution and beheadings are commonplace?" It's a tough question, but the answer, quite simply, is geopolitics - and that we know and like Saudi's U.S.-educated liberal elites.
The Saudis have been helpful to us. They are reasonably peaceful stalwarts. They don't attack their neighbors, although they do try to influence them, often by funding allies in local competitions for power. They are generally committed to reasonable oil prices. For example, although their oil is not a direct substitute for Libyan sweet crude, the Saudis have offered to increase their supply to offset any reduction in Libyan production due to the violence there. We work closely with them on counterterrorism operations. And the Saudis are a counterbalance to Iran. We disagree on the Israel-Palestinian issue, but we don't let it get in the way of other key interests.
Washington does not want the Saudi monarchy to fall. The Obama administration would like it to change over time and should encourage a better system of governance with more representation and liberal policies and laws. But revolutions aren't necessarily going to help those we hope will win.
It is dangerous business to predict events in the Middle East, especially in times of regional crisis. It's hard to block out flashbacks of President Jimmy Carter's 1977 New Year's Eve statement that Iran under the shah was an island of stability in a troubled region - only months before that stability was shattered. Still, the key components of rapid, massive, revolutionary change are not present in Saudi Arabia. At least, not yet.
Rachel Bronson is the author of "Thicker Than Oil: America's Uneasy Partnership with Saudi Arabia" and is the vice president of programs and studies at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

The ‘Long War’ May Be Getting Shorter

NYtimes

February 20, 2011

By NATHANIEL FICK and JOHN NAGL

Washington
IT is hard to tell when momentum shifts in a counterinsurgency campaign, but there is increasing evidence that Afghanistan is moving in a more positive direction than many analysts think. It now seems more likely than not that the country can achieve the modest level of stability and self-reliance necessary to allow the United States to responsibly draw down its forces from 100,000 to 25,000 troops over the next four years.
The shift is most obvious on the ground. The additional 30,000 troops promised by President Obama in his speech at West Point 14 months ago are finally in place and changing the trajectory of the fight.
One of us, Nathaniel, recently flew into Camp Leatherneck in a C-130 transport plane, which had to steer clear of fighter bombers stacked for tens of thousands of feet above the Sangin District of Helmand Province, in southwestern Afghanistan. Singly and in pairs, the jets swooped low to drop their bombs in support of Marine units advancing north through the Helmand River Valley.
Half of the violence in Afghanistan takes place in only 9 of its nearly 400 districts, with Sangin ranking among the very worst. Slowly but surely, even in Sangin, the Taliban are being driven from their sanctuaries as the coalition focuses on protecting the Afghan people in key population centers and hubs of economic activity, and along the roads that connect them. Once these areas are cleared, it will be possible to hold them with Afghan troops and a few American advisers — allowing the United States to thin its deployments over time.
A significant shift of high-tech intelligence resources from Iraq to Afghanistan, initiated by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former top commander, is also having benefits. The coalition led by the United States and NATO has been able to capture or kill far more Taliban leaders in nighttime raids than was possible in the past.
The United States certainly can’t kill its way to victory, as it learned in Vietnam and Iraq, but it can put enough pressure on many Taliban fighters to encourage them to switch their allegiance, depriving the enemy of support and giving the coalition more sources of useful intelligence.
Afghan Army troop strength has increased remarkably. The sheer scale of the effort at the Kabul Military Training Center has to be seen to be appreciated. Rows of new barracks surround a blue-domed mosque, and live-fire training ranges stretched to the mountains on the horizon.
It was a revelation to watch an Afghan squad, only days from deployment to Paktika Province on the Pakistani border, demonstrate a fire-and-maneuver exercise before jogging over to chat with American visitors. When asked, each soldier said that he had joined the Army to serve Afghanistan. Most encouraging of all was the response to a question that resonates with 18- and 19-year-old soldiers everywhere: how does your mother feel? “Proud.”
These changes on the ground have been reinforced by progress on three strategic and political problems that have long stymied our plans.
The first is uncertainty about how long America and its allies will remain committed to the fight. The question is still open, but President Obama and the NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, have effectively moved the planned troop withdrawal date from July 2011 to at least 2014, with surprisingly little objection. Congress and the American public seem to have digested without a murmur the news that far fewer troops will be withdrawn in 2011 than will remain. NATO is not collapsing because of Afghanistan. In fact, the International Security Assistance Force continues to grow, with one-quarter of the world’s countries on the ground in Afghanistan with the United States.
Two more vexing problems are the corruption of the Afghan government and the complicity of some Pakistanis with the insurgency. While it is safe to assume that neither the Afghan nor Pakistani leaders will fundamentally alter their policies any time soon, we are changing ours. Previously, our policy options with Presidents Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Asif Ali Zardari were limited to public hectoring and private pleading, usually to little effect.
Now, however, the coalition’s military and civilian leaders are taking a new approach to the Afghan and Pakistani governments. We are establishing a task force to investigate and expose corruption in the Afghan government, under the leadership of Brig. Gen. H. R. McMaster. We are also shoring up the parts of the border that the Taliban uses by thickening the line with Afghan forces, putting up more drones and coordinating more closely with Pakistani border guards.
Not since the deterioration in conditions in Iraq that drew our attention away from Afghanistan have coalition forces been in such a strong position to force the enemy to the negotiating table. We should hold fast and work for the day when Afghanistan, and our vital interests there, can be safeguarded primarily by Afghans.
That day is coming, faster than many Americans think.

Egypt key to future of Mideast revolts

miamiherald.com

 By Trudy Rubin

The Internet and the airwaves are clogged with contradictory predictions of what the Mideast upheavals will mean to the region — and to us.
I have conservative readers calling me an idiot for not understanding that the Egyptian revolution is a huge victory for the Islamists, even as Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., extols the hope for secular democracy in Cairo alongside his buddy, Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain.
Some pundits insist the Mideast revolts are a victory for al Qaeda, or Iran, while others say the revolts undercut both. So, after 11 days in Cairo, I guess I should take a stab at prognostication.
Here goes: In the foreseeable, I don’t think these upheavals will present a clear-cut victory for either democracy or Islam, as each shaken country will be dealing with very different internal circumstances. But the overall trend — including the impact on America’s Mideast policy — will be set by what develops in Egypt.
And in Egypt, there’s a decent chance that a more democratic government could emerge — including Islamists, but in a minority role.
A more-democratic Egypt is crucial. In the other countries undergoing upheavals, the odds for a transition to stable democracy are far, far slimmer.
If Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi falls, he will leave a huge territory bereft of institutions and rent by tribal conflicts. In Yemen, the fall of Ali Abdullah Saleh could usher in tribal wars and a greater sway by radical clerics. This could pose a worrying threat to Saudi Arabia next door.
Tunisia may muddle through, although its economy is reeling. Bahrain may find some compromise solution — but its protests, based on grievances by the emirate’s Shiite majority against Sunni rulers, can easily be manipulated by Shiite Iran.
So, the outcome of Egypt’s revolution is crucial, and not just because of its size and its historic role as leader of the Arab world. If the Egyptian youth revolt leads to a non-Islamist democracy — even one with flaws — it would provide a counterpoint to the claim that “Islam is the answer.”
A democratic Egypt would challenge the Iranian narrative that clerical rule is the future. It would help stabilize a post-Gadhafi Libya and a weak Tunisian democracy. It would provide a Sunni ally for Lebanese democrats who are trying to hold out against the pressures of Hezbollah.
Of course, a democratic Egypt would not be as unquestioning an ally — or as quiescent a peace partner to Israel — as was Hosni Mubarak. Public pressure would force it to push much harder for a Palestinian state. But, based on many interviews in Cairo, I don’t believe the peace treaty with Israel would be breached. Egyptians don’t want war, and the Egyptian military would still have a key say in foreign affairs.
This brings us to the question of whether an Egyptian democracy can emerge.
The argument against this possibility assumes that the Muslim Brotherhood will hijack the revolution. Yet the organizers of the demonstrations — and the vast bulk of the crowds — have not been Islamists. This revolution sought an end to corruption, and a representative government.
That said, the outcome of the revolution is far from certain.
The army has called for parliamentary elections in June. This fails to allow enough time for the groups that made the revolution to organize new political parties and mobilize the 80 percent of the public that usually doesn’t vote.
Such an early ballot will benefit the Brotherhood — which is already organized — as well as the former governing party, which will no doubt return under a new name. Many of the young rebels believe the military wants to recreate the previous political scenario whereby there were only two political alternatives: the ruling elite and the scary Islamists. This makes the elite look preferable.
This would be a tragic error. Egypt is ripe for democratic change that could help steady a region in dizzying transition. Those who have the Egyptian military’s ear — including its benefactors in Washington — should be sending this message loud and clear.

In Mideast, the kings are all right

Boston Glob
By Juliette Kayye March 7, 2011 

I WAS born in Los Angeles, so I grew up believing that there was deep meaning in Hollywood awards ceremonies. It’s part of the genetic disposition there; think Red Sox nation with tighter abs.
So, at the same time the world watched the social media phenomenon help bring down autocrats in the Middle East, and stir unrest throughout the region, the powerful story of King George VI of Britain and the speech therapist who helped him overcome a stutter swept the Oscars and took home the Best Picture award. “The King’s Speech’’ trounced “The Social Network.’’

Take a closer look, though, and the first Best Picture Oscar awarded to a film about royalty may have actually been prescient. The social network revolutions have yet to dethrone the kings. In the Arab world, monarchies may be the most stable alternative to ruthless dictators, military juntas, or simple chaos currently available. For now they have been serving as a much-needed anchor for a US foreign policy seeking to be on the right side of history without undermining our strategic or economic interests.

As the dictators in Tunisia and Egypt were summarily ousted and Khadafy in Libya tries to hang on, the Arab monarchies are (for now) weathering the storm, aided by their own political responsiveness and a healthy dose of US support. In Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Morocco, and Jordan, the royals are adapting to calls for modernity with steps towards reform, not defensiveness.

As the world watches Libya’s leader crack up, the Arab royals are making quiet concessions on their own: Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud’s reform-minded oped last month in the New York Times, King Abdullah of Jordan’s suggestion that he will cede some power to parliament, and Abu Dhabi’s crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan hosting Obama-style town hall meetings to hear from constituents.

This is not to say that the survival of the monarchs represents anything close to the triumph of democracy sought by Arab youthful protestors. But jobs, food, education, and a voice to build a pathway towards a less-shameful future are the real demands, and monarchies, especially ones that seem to be more responsive to constitutional reforms and the sharing of power, may provide a path there.

While any analysis of the unfolding events could be in error by the end of today, the royal leaders (for now) do have some common characteristics.

■ Monarchs aren’t hypocrites: Say what you want about a king, he doesn’t pretend to be a man of the people. And perhaps that is why the Arab monarchs still enjoy a certain amount of respect by their subjects. Indeed, the fact that royals do not pretend to be democratic ironically protects them from any notion that they are representatives of the people. It puts the royal families above the political fray, so that they can present themselves as steering a path for their nation without getting caught up in bureaucratic wrangling. After all, democratically elected Arab leaders such as Egypt’s Mubarak were a farce; though elected, he never was legitimate. Royals have no such pretense.

■ Monarchies are rich: The fact that many of the royal leaders reign in oil-rich countries doesn’t hurt. Only in Saudi Arabia could King Abdullah recently announce a $10 billion investment for young people to buy houses, start businesses, and support families. Many of the Gulf nations, tax-free zones for citizens, already support the equivalent of a royal welfare program. Royal wealth is obscene, but it’s also more readily shared.

■ Monarchs take the long view: Maybe because they imagine themselves to be serving a family line more than their own personal interest, monarchs seem more willing to do what is necessary to respond to popular unhappiness. They seem less attached to the fiction that their people love them than those who claim power by virtue of a mythical popular assent.

Arab monarchs are not saints; they can be as ruthless as their autocratic counterparts. But as the dynamics in the Arab world continue to unfold, it’s essential (for now) that success be measured in economic reforms, peaceful political participation, and responsive government. It should not be considered a failure if, at the end of the day, the royals still stand. Change may not take the form of a democratically elected president. Mubarak had that title, and see where it got Egypt. Our goal is for these Arab leaders to reflect the needs of their people and to respect their goals, regardless of the government structure. The administration’s quiet diplomacy to move the royals — who are often young and accessible enough to be responsive — toward reform serves the Arab people, and ours, very well.

U.S. Escalates Pressure on Libya Amid Mixed Signals

NYtimes

March 10, 2011

By DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON — The White House announced a five-point program on Thursday of steps to isolate Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and ultimately drive him from power, all stopping well short of military action, but distanced itself from the assessment of the nation’s top intelligence chief, who said Thursday that “over the longer term” Colonel Qaddafi’s superior firepower “will prevail” over the opposition.
The steps that the White House announced include a partial embrace of the opposition movement as well as threats to track and prosecute, in international courts, loyalists to Mr. Qaddafi who commit atrocities. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she would meet with Libyan opposition leaders next week, and President Obama’s national security adviser made it clear that Washington was looking for ways to aid the Libyan leader’s opponents.
“We’re coordinating directly with them to provide assistance,” said the adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, though the United States has stopped short of recognizing them as the legitimate government of Libya. The help, he added, consisted of humanitarian aid and advice on how to organize an opposition government.
But on a day when military momentum moved back toward Mr. Qaddafi’s forces, it was not evident that the efforts the White House announced would be enough to ensure an end to Mr. Qaddafi’s 41-year-long rule, or even to slow the pace of his attacks.
In Brussels, NATO deferred until at least next week any decision on establishing a no-flight zone over Libya, amid hesitations in Washington and several European capitals over being drawn into a civil war in a country the West does not consider critical to its security. Both Mrs. Clinton, speaking in Washington, and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, in Brussels, warned about the potential dangers of American military involvement, unless it was authorized by the United Nations and unless neighboring countries joined in the effort.
“It’s not enough for them to just cheer us on,” one senior administration official said Thursday. “They have to put some skin in the game. The president has made clear it can’t just be us.”
The White House campaign to convince both Colonel Qaddafi’s loyalists and NATO allies that the Libyan dictator’s days are numbered were undercut by a military assessment given earlier in the day by the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper. Responding to questions, Mr. Clapper told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that Colonel Qaddafi had a potentially decisive advantage in arms and equipment that would make itself felt as the conflict wore on.
“This is kind of a stalemate back and forth,” he said, “but I think over the longer term that the regime will prevail.”
Mr. Clapper also offered another scenario, one in which the country is split into two or three ministates, reverting to the way it was before Colonel Qaddafi’s rule. “You could end up with a situation where Qaddafi would have Tripoli and its environs, and then Benghazi and its environs could be under another ministate,” he said.
The White House was clearly taken aback by the assessment that Mr. Qaddafi could prevail, and Mr. Donilon, talking to reporters a few hours later, suggested that Mr. Clapper was addressing the question too narrowly.
“If you did a static and one-dimensional assessment of just looking at order of battle and mercenaries,” Mr. Donilon said, one could conclude that the Libyan leader would hang on. But he said that he took a “dynamic” and “multidimensional” view, which he said would lead “to a different conclusion about how this is going to go forward.”
“The lost legitimacy matters,” he said. “Motivation matters. Incentives matter.” He said Colonel Qaddafi’s “resources are being cut off,” and ultimately that would undercut his hold on power.
A senior administration official, driving home the difference in an e-mail on Thursday evening, wrote, “The president does not think that Qaddafi will prevail.”
Such differing assessments rarely surface in public in the midst of a crisis, although in the early days of the Egypt uprising there were conflicting assessments of the stability of President Hosni Mubarak’s government. Mr. Clapper’s job, created in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, was intended to conduct exactly the kind of all-source analysis that Mr. Donilon talked about. But the White House said later Thursday that it retained full confidence in Mr. Clapper.
One prominent Republican senator, however, said that the intelligence director should lose his job. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a member of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that Mr. Clapper’s assessment “will make the situation more difficult for those opposing Qaddafi,” adding, “It also undercuts our national efforts to bring about the desired result of Libya moving from dictator to democracy.”
In Brussels, meanwhile, NATO all but rejected a no-flight zone over Libya and agreed only to reposition warships in the region and plan for humanitarian aid.
Mr. Gates, who has been resistant to a no-flight zone, said in a news briefing after a two-hour meeting of NATO defense ministers that planning for a possible no-flight zone would continue, “but that’s the extent of it.”
Both Mr. Gates and the NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, stressed that NATO would agree to a no-flight zone only with “a clear legal basis” — in short, authorization from the United Nations. Both also said in nearly identical statements that NATO would not take military action unless there was “a demonstrable need” and strong support from neighboring Arab nations.
Europe is also riven by disagreements on how to force Mr. Qaddafi out. When France stepped ahead of the rest of the military alliance on Thursday morning to become the first country to recognize the rebel leadership in Benghazi, Britain took exception. In comments at the European Union in Brussels, Britain’s foreign secretary, William Hague, said that the Libyan rebels “are legitimate people to talk to, of course, but we recognize states rather than groups within states.”
Mrs. Clinton held her first meeting with one of Colonel Qaddafi’s opponents later on Thursday when she met at the State Department with Libya’s ambassador to the United States, Ali Suleiman Aujali. Mr. Aujali previously announced that he no longer recognized the Libyan government, leaving him in a diplomatic limbo after Libya’s foreign ministry effectively fired him in a fax sent to the State Department.

Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting from Washington, and Elisabeth Bumiller from Brussels.

Obama Seeks a Course of Pragmatism in the Middle East

NYtimes

March 10, 2011

By MARK LANDLER and HELENE COOPER

WASHINGTON — In the Middle East crisis, as on other issues, there are two Barack Obamas: the transformative historical figure and the pragmatic American president. Three months after a Tunisian fruit vendor set himself aflame and ignited a political firestorm across the Arab world, the president is trumping the trailblazer.
With the spread of antigovernment protests from North Africa to the strategic, oil-rich Persian Gulf, President Obama has adopted a policy of restraint. He has concluded that his administration must shape its response country by country, aides say, recognizing a stark reality that American national security interests weigh as heavily as idealistic impulses. That explains why Mr. Obama has dialed down the vocal support he gave demonstrators in Cairo to a more modulated call for peaceful protest and respect for universal rights elsewhere.
This emphasis on pragmatism over idealism has left Mr. Obama vulnerable to criticism that he is losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the Arab street protesters. Some say he is failing to bind the United States to the historic change under way in the Middle East the way that Ronald Reagan forever cemented himself in history books to the end of the cold war with his famous call to tear down the Berlin Wall.
“It’s tempting, and it would be easy, to go out day after day with cathartic statements that make us feel good,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, who wrote Mr. Obama’s soaring speech in Cairo to the Islamic world in 2009. “But ultimately, what’s most important is achieving outcomes that are consistent with our values, because if we don’t, those statements will be long forgotten.”
On Thursday, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, deflected calls for more aggressive action in Libya, telling reporters what American officials have been saying privately for days: despite pleas from Libyan rebels for military assistance, the United States will not, at least for now, put its pilots in harm’s way by enforcing a no-flight zone over the country.
Not only is intervention risky, officials said, but they also fear that in some cases, it could be counterproductive, provoking a backlash against the United States for meddling in what is a homegrown political movement.
A senior administration official acknowledged the irony of Mr. Obama’s dilemma; he is, after all, the first black president, whose election was hailed on the Arab street, where many protesters identify their own struggles with the civil rights movement.
“There is a desire for Obama — not the American president, but Obama — to speak to their aspirations,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. But, he added, “his first job is to be the American president.”
So Mr. Obama has thrown his weight behind attempts by the royal family of Bahrain, the home of the Navy’s Fifth Fleet, to survive, although protesters say their demands have not been met. He has said little about political grievances in Saudi Arabia, a major oil supplier, where there were reports on Thursday of a violent dispersal of Shiite protesters. And he has limited White House critiques of Yemen, where the government is helping the United States root out a terrorist threat, even after that government opened fire on demonstrators.
The more cautious approach contrasts sharply with Mr. Obama’s response in North Africa, where he abandoned a 30-year alliance with Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and has demanded the resignation of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya. But Mr. Obama is balancing his idealistic instincts against his reluctance to use military action in Libya, where the United States does not have a vital strategic interest. Mr. Donilon noted that the administration needed to keep its focus on the broader region, where allies like Egypt loom large.
The time is coming, administration officials said, for Mr. Obama to make another major speech taking stock of the upheaval. But its central message is not yet set, and there is likely to be lively debate about questions like whether the president should admit American complicity in propping up undemocratic governments in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.
“I don’t honestly think it would change much,” said a second senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. “It isn’t going to change the perception of the United States one way or the other. What will continue to affect the perception of the United States is what we do now.”
The White House will send Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to Egypt and Tunisia next week, where officials said she would congratulate the protesters for sweeping out their leaders peacefully and offer aid to revive the nations’ economies. She had planned to stop in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, but canceled, officials said, because King Abdullah is too ill to meet her.
This underscores one of the difficulties the United States faces in dealing with Saudi Arabia, a crucial ally that is run by an aging, infirm ruling family that has refused to open the political system. Instead, the king tried to mollify his people by doling out $36 billion worth of pay raises, unemployment checks and housing subsidies.
Bahrain poses a different problem. There, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa has pledged to enter a dialogue with the protestors, after having unleashed its security forces on them. Officials said Mr. Obama persuaded King Hamad to pull back his forces, which they said won the United States goodwill from the mostly Shiite demonstrators. But the talks have failed to get off the ground, and now some Shiites feel the Americans have sided against them.
“There is a sense among many Bahraini reformers that the U.S. is a bit too eager to praise progress toward dialogue and reform that has not yet happened, and that the premature praise is easing pressure on the government,” said Tom Malinowski, the head of the Washington office of Human Rights Watch.
“Striking a very balanced, and in many ways, neutral approach is recognized by many people in the region as not being with them, or on their side,” said J. Scott Mastic, the head of Middle East and North Africa for the International Republican Institute. “It’s very important that we be seen as supporting the demands of the people in the region.”
How Mr. Obama manages to do that while also balancing American interests is a question that officials acknowledge will plague this historic president for months to come. Mr. Obama has told people that it would be so much easier to be the president of China. As one official put it, “No one is scrutinizing Hu Jintao’s words in Tahrir Square.”