Arab Spring and International Relations

Nikolay Tyan, OSCE Academy in Bishkek

The uprisings started in Tunisia in 2010 and quickly spread to other countries of the Arab
world have been labeled as the “Arab Spring”. The consequences of the upheavals are serious
and significant: in some countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Libya, the regime was
overthrown, in other Arab states, governments launched political reforms. The situation in
Syria is still complicated and far from a resolution. Events in Arab world have provoked wide
range of questions and discussions among politicians and academia: from theoretical
approaches to the conducting of foreign policy and from effectiveness of intelligence services
to the causes of the events and interests of external powers in the region. Among all these
discussions, we have to pay special attention to several key points: the roots of revolutions
are within the Arab society and were not organized and led by external forces; rise to power
of Islamist groups after the overthrow of regimes; interests of Russia and the U.S. in the
region. In this paper I will examine these issues in an attempt to prove why they are of
extreme importance.

The Reasons Are Internal

According to several scholars, the Arab uprisings which began in 2010 in Tunisia were
caused by internal problems only, without any intervention from the side of external powers.
For example, Hazran maintains that 85 percent of factors that provoked uprisings and further
overthrow the regime are domestic (Hazran 2012). Also he claims that the power that led the
uprisings was “popular will to reformulate the relationship between the people and the state”
(Hazran 2012, 116). This opinion coincides with the Henry Kissinger’s point of view that the
U.S. foreign policy is not the cause of the events (Kissinger 2012). In addition Jeferey
Mankoff claims that “the Arab Spring is not a Western-led plot” (Mankoff 2012, 263).

Other facts that proves the internal character of revolutions is the difficulties in
prediction the said events. The New York Times claims that the “Obama administration
appeared to be surprised” (2011) when the pro-democratic demonstrations quickly spread in
the whole region and converted into revolutions. The newspaper provides some reasons as to
why the U.S. intelligence services failed in predicting the uprisings. The first is difficulty in
predicting revolutions in general. For example, Peter Bergen, the director of the national
security studies program at the New America Foundation, states that the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA). did not predict the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1970s
although it had studied Iran pretty well (Ibid 2011). The Middle East region is a dynamic
region where it is complicating to foresee every dynamic, revolutions in particular.

Another reason for the uprisings’ unpredictability, according to Jennifer Sims,

director of Intelligence Studies at Georgetown University, is the fact that “political change in
the [region] has been largely sustained by social networking” where the U.S. intelligence
service was not established well. The last reason of the failure is reliance on the foreign
intelligence services and their opinion about situation in the region (Ibid 2011). In other
words, internal character of reasons caused the unpredictability of the events in the Middle
East.

The next important point to take into consideration in relation with the Arab Spring is
the Islamist factor. Islamist groups appeared in political arena as an opposition to the existing
authoritarian regimes. Although those groups did not seek power they were elected to the
presidency through the democratic elections (Kissinger 2012). In the case of Syria this fact
could “lead either to the exclusion of minorities or to Syria’s territorial disintegration”
(Hazran 2012, 119). According to some, the reign of Islamist groups like Muslim
Brotherhood in the Middle East, is dangerous because radical Islamism could spread to other
countries and regions: Niger (Kuperman 2012), Central Asia and Russia (Mankoff 2012;
Groneburg 2012).

Why Russia is preoccupied?

The possible dispersion of Islamist ideas and overthrow of existing regimes in unstable
Central Asian states are one of the most important Russian concerns in the Middle East. This
determines Russian aspiration to save the status quo, because successful revolution against
authoritarian regime in the Middle East could encourage revolutionary movements within
Russia and be threat to the authoritarian regime of Mr. Putin (Mankoff 2012). Also Russia
did not want the imperative that “allows for international intervention in response to
government repression of domestic protests or violent uprisings” (Groneburg 2012) to
become a norm. From the other hand, radical Islamist groups could become more active in
the Central Asian states that could provoke overthrow of authoritarian regimes in those
countries (Ibid). This contradicts with the interests of Moscow in the region because it has
well-established relations and ties with authoritarian Central Asian leaders.

The Arab world was always important for the Soviet Union and its successor Russia.
After the collapse of the USSR, independent Russia’s government lost its political positions
in international arena, including the Middle East. To save its presence in the region is
symbolically important for Russia. The Mediterranean port Tartus in Syria where Russia has
its naval facility is a “source of prestige, and a reminder of the Soviet/Russian military’s
global reach” (Mankoff 2012, 259). To stay in Tartus is possible for Russia only if actually
ruling President Assad will save his post (Ibid) Otherwise, Moscow will lose this facility, and
that’s why its position about Syria is so strict.

Another significant issue that determines Russian behavior with regard to

demonstrations and revolutions in Arab countries is economic interest. Before the Arab
Spring, Algeria, Syria, and Libya were among the biggest consumers of Russian military-
industrial complex production. New regimes that came into power after revolutions
established cooperation with other states. Libya, for example, concluded agreement of
cooperation in military sphere with France (Groneburg 2012). Moreover, after the uprisings
many arms contracts remained unfulfilled. Syria paid less than half of the arms that received
(Mankoff 2012), while Libya broke the negotiations about the contract on $2 billion
(Groneburg 2012). These concerns led Russia to maintain the status quo in order to protect its
economic interests in the region.

U.S. approach to the Middle East

The position of the U.S. with regard to the Arab Spring is opposite to that of Russia. If the
latter seeks remaining the status quo, the former wants change. The most outstanding
example is Libya. The U.S., as leading NATO power, invaded this country being determined
by two concerns: “responsibility to protect” (R2P) and promotion of democracy in the Arab
world. From the very beginning of NATO’s invasion in Libya, it was clear that their goal
“was to enable the rebels to overthrow Qaddafi” (Kuperman 2012, 12). Mankoff claims that
once NATO was in Libya its mission transformed “from protecting civilians to essentially
acting as the rebels’ air force” (Mankoff 2012, 261).

The concept of R2P was used by Western countries as a ground for humanitarian
intervention and Libya is considered as a model of such kind of intervention. The common
wisdom provided by Western media was the NATO intervention prevented genocide in
Libya, reinforced the democracy and rule of law, and promoted human rights in the country
(Kuperman 2012). Alan J. Kuperman, Associate Professor of Public Affairs at University of
Texas, maintains the opposite view. He attempts to prove that the NATO invasion of Libya
was not successful as it worsened the situation that was already complicated. After the
comparison of intervention outcomes and prognoses as to what would be in Libya without
intervention –counterfactuals--, Kuperman concludes that the war lasted 36 weeks instead of
6 weeks. The number of killed according to prognosis should not exceed 1,100 people,
whereas in reality this number varies between 8,000 and 30,000 people (Kuperman 2012).

The U.S. emphasis on promotion of democracy and establishment of governments

based on democratic principles led to contradictory results. As it was mentioned above,
democratic elections in Arab states brought to power radical Islamist groups. Their
understanding of democracy we may see on the example of Syria where democracy
proclaimed by Muslim Brotherhood could be defined as “aggressive majoritarianism”
(Hazran 2012, 120) and rule of Sunni majority. It could mean civil war in Syria where the
ruling group is “Alawites, backed by many of the other Syrian minorities” (Kissinger 2012)
and Sunnis are not represented in the government. In other words, although Muslim
Brotherhood is democratically elected government that purported seeks establishment of
modern democratic state in Egypt, its actions could lead to dangerous consequences. Also
Kissinger underlines that the U.S. should not excessively emphasize democratic principles
because it may make the same mistake that it made emphasizing security element during the
Cold War.

Conclusions

The internal character of Arab Spring reasons and failure of intelligence services to predict
the events showed us that this region is unstable and needs to be studied and investigated with
more attention. NATO intervention did not cause but intensified the processes that led to
toppling the authoritarian regimes. The election of Islamist groups to the Presidency is of
special concern to Russia not only because of possible affect on Central Asia but of possible
consequences in Northern Caucasus, especially Chechnya. Different approaches to conduct
foreign policy in the region – U.S. idea of “responsibility to protect” and Russian
international legitimacy – impeded stopping the violence and peaceful resolution of conflict.
The U.S. emphasis on democracy and democratic principles gave the results that are opposite
to expected ones. Arab Spring still leaves more questions than answers.

References

Kuperman, Alan J. 2012. “NATO Intervention in Libya: A Humanitarian Success?” Draft

paper, LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas, 17 October.

New York Times. 2011. “Why Didn't the U.S. Foresee the Arab Revolts?” 24 February,
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/24/why-didnt-the-us-foresee-the-arab-
revolts

Kissinger, Henry. 2012. “Meshing Realism and Idealism in Middle East.” New York Times, 2
August, http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/henry-kissinger-meshing-realism-
and-idealism-in-syriamiddle-east/2012/08/02/gJQAFkyHTX_print.html

Groenburg, Dmitry. 2012. “Why Russia Supports Repressive Regimes in Syria and the
Middle East.” PONARS Eurasia, Policy Memo 198, June.

Mankoff, Jeferey. 2012. “Why Moscow Fears Arab Unrest.” Current History, October: 258-
63.

Hazran, Yusri. 2012. “The Arab Revolution: A Preliminary Reading.” Middle East Policy 19
(3): 116-23.

Paper grade: A-