After the Tunisian and Egyptian revolution protests and calls for genuine reforms have now spread to Bahrain, Iran and Libya, which are all ruled by autocrats. The unrest we are witnessing in these countries poses a huge challenge to the West which needs a coherent, consistent and bold strategy to address this volatile situation.
The message the US and Europe needs to send out is simply this: people should have the right to protest peacefully and demands for political reforms must be adhered to.
The response of the authorities in Bahrain to the protests in the capital Manama in the early hours of Thursday morning – sending in tanks and the security forces – was both wrong and counter-productive. A number of protesters have been killed, aggravating the situation and radicalising the demonstrators.
The unrest in Bahrain is being looked upon with some trepidation in the West because most protesters are Shia Muslims and a link is automatically made to Iran, although there is no evidence to suggest that Teheran is behind the protests. Two thirds of the population are Shia, who have long complained of discrimination at the hands of the rulingSunni al-Khalifa family.
Bahrain, however, is of strategic interest to many countries and events there are being carefully watched in both Washington and Saudi Arabia. Bahrain is a regional financial centre, headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet and is strategically located between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran.
Furthermore, Bahrain is located close to part of Saudi Arabia which has a sizeable Shia minority, who also have their share of grievances, so the Saudi ruling family in Riyadh must be very nervous indeed.
The fact remains, however, that the protesters’ concerns in Bahrain are certainly legitimate and while it is true that a certain amount of political reform has taken place over the last decade, much more needs to be done.
Although Parliament was restored in 2002, gerrymandering has prevented the Shia opposition from getting more than 18 out of 40 seats, King Hamad bin Issa Al Khalifa appoints the Cabinet (11 of whom are from the ruling family), and both the unelected Upper House and the King can veto any legislation passed in the Lower House.
So far, it looks like the rule by the Al Khalifas in Bahrain is not under threat and the protesters are demanding a constitutional monarchy, but of course time is running out. The only way to save the monarchy is by introducing real political reform; crushing the protesters will have the opposite effect, and this is the message the West should be sending out. Bahrain offers a real challenge, particularly because of the Shia element, and, as always, a delicate balancing act is needed.
Iran is the first non-Arab country to be affected by the drive for democracy sweeping the Muslim world. One can argue that the opposition protests in Iran after the disputed presidential election in 2009 – which was rigged in favour of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – encouraged the protests we are witnessing in the Arab world this year.
The Iranian leadership greeted the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia as being “Islamic” but this is absolute nonsense. The revolutions there were uprisings against dictatorships, and Iran is a dictatorship, so its government is definitely under threat.
Iran’s response to opposition protests, which were held to support the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions, was, as expected, hardline and brutal.
Demonstrators were attacked by security forces, resulting in deaths and injuries and pro-government MPs actually called for opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, who have been placed under house arrest, to be hanged.
There is only so much the international community can do to influence the situation in Iran. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rightly expressed her support for Iran’s opposition supporters, saying they deserved to have the same rights as Egyptians. However, the US – because of its past involvement in Iranian affairs – must tread carefully and not allow the Iranian regime to portray the country’s opposition as being stooges of the US.
If the protests in Iran intensify and get out of hand, any possible change will depend a lot on the behaviour of the army. However, Iran is a brutal police state and the regime uses both the Revolutionary Guards as well as the ultra-loyal religious militia, the Basij force, to suppress any opposition.
If the Iranian regime really feels threatened I wouldn’t be surprised if it creates some sort of confrontation with the West, either over its nuclear programme or through its allies such as Hizbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in Gaza, in order to boost its domestic support.
Protests have also rocked the Libyan cities of Benghazi, al-Bayda and Tobruk and some reports have claimed at least 20 people have been killed by the security forces.
Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi is the Arab world’s longest-serving leader, having ruled oil-rich Libya since a military coup in 1969, and events in neighbouring Egypt and Tunisia must surely have shaken the regime in Tripoli.
Although over the past few years Libya has opened up its economy to the West and dismantled its chemical and nuclear weapons programmes, it undertook absolutely no political reforms whatsoever and remains a police state where opposition parties are banned and a free press is non-existent.
Even though Gaddafi is surrounded by loyal security forces, the extent of the unrest we are witnessing – a first for Libya – suggests things will never be the same in this country.