Arab Spring

This article consists of: - the summary below; a chronology of main events; notes on individual national movements; notes on the international response; and, notes on the major persona involved.

Although there have been other interpretations, the term Arab Spring is now taken to refer to the sequence of protest movements that started with the successful uprising in Tunisia that began in December 2010. The subsequent protest movements in other Arab countries were mainly motivated by a wish to put an end to what was perceived as government oppression, corruption and incompetence. Many sought to do so by introducing a measure of democratic accountability, but the various national movements had little else in common, apart from confidence inspired by the Tunisian success. The protests have so far resulted in uncertain regime change in Tunisia and Egypt, and promises of limited democratic change in Algeria, Jordan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. They have met a violent response in Libya, Syria and Bahrain, and the outcome in Syria is particularly uncertain.

Background: the Arab condition

The political structures of the countries involved in the Arab uprisings have (with the exception of Lebanon) been categorised as "authoritarian" (with Syria, Libya and Saudi Arabia ranking among the 15 least democratic countries). Five of them have suffered unusually high levels of corruption (Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Libya and Yemen appear among the upper half in the ranking of Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index) . Their populations are predominately ethnically Arab with small native Berber minorites. They include two mixed oil economies (Algeria and Libya); three oil economies (Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia); six diversified economies (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria and Tunisia); and one primary export economy (Yemen). The oil-producing countries of Oman, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Libya are among the world's more prosperous countries. The prosperity of each the others is below, or well below the world average in terms of GDP per head, with Syria ranking 153rd out of a total of 228. According to an estimate based upon data from Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia and Yemen, at least 19% of the Arab population lived below the poverty line at the end of the 1990s.

The development of the national movements

The violent mass protest movements in Tunisia and Egypt succeeded in ousting existing regimes with the intention of achieving democracy, but the true nature of their replacement regimes has yet to be established. The governments of Morocco, Algeria, Jordan and Oman responded to more limited protests with promises of political and constitutional reform. Saudi Arabia's administration sought to avoid confrontation by announcing a major programme of infrastructure investment. Elsewhere, in Bahrain and Yemen - and particularly in Syria - the protest movements met with military opposition, and in Libya there is little doubt that opposition to Gadaffi's government would have been violently crushed had NATO not intervened.

Civil war in Libya

In mid-February, government forces opened fire on demonstrators in the Libyan second city of Benghazi. A bitter conflict ensued in which the rebels took control of the city. The government responded with an aerial bombardment that caused thousands of casualties. There was international outrage at the brutality of its actions and, on 18th March, the United Nations Security Council responded to the Arab League's request for the imposition of a no-fly zone with a resolution that authorised member states to to take all necessary measures to protect civilians under threat of attack. In the course of the following week, air attacks by US, British and French aircraft destroyed the Libyan air force. In the following months there developed a civil war between government forces based in Tripoli in the west of Libya and rebel forces based in Benghazi in the east. After six months of fighting, rebel forces entered the government's Tripoli, hitherto the principal remaining government-held city. In July 2011, the USA formally recognised Libya’s the National Transitional Council , Libya's main opposition group, as the country’s legitimate government, but doubts about its integrity were subsequently raised by the killing by a local militia of its chief of staff, General Abdel Fattah Younis.

International reactions

The British Ambassador to the United Nations remarked in June 2011 that the international community had, until recently, devoted too much attention to the Israel/Palestine issue, and not nearly enough to the issues raised by the lack of political and economic reform in the Arab countries . He noted, however that the UN Secretary-General had recently made a series of bold statements on the situations in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain despite criticisms by some major powers. More significantly, the resolutions passed by the Security Council had been the most wide-ranging that it had passed for more than 20 years. It had referred Libya to the International Criminal Court, adopted widespread sanctions in its resolution 1970; and authorised military action to protect civilians in its resolution 1973.

In June 2011 the European Council declared its commitment to "the full implementation" of Security Council Resolutions 1970 and 1973, although several EU goverments had expressed their opposition to military intervention.

While there is no evidence of non-Arab influences upon the Arab Spring uprisings, and every indication that they came as a sudden surprise to all who were not directly involved, some human rights workers have suggested that the leaks of candid diplomatic cables by the whistleblower organization WikiLeaks served as a trigger for the uprising.

Projected outcomes

A May 2011 assessment by the Economist Intelligence Unit put the most probable outcome as the creation of functioning democracies in Tunisia and Egypt, tgether with some relaxations of authoritarianism in the other Arab countries. Much lower probabilities were assigned to the equally likely outcomes of comprehensive maintenance of authoritarianism, or a widespread trend toward significant democratic accountability. Neither the persistence of the Syrian protest nor the ferocity of its army's response were fully evident at that time. The BBC's security correspndent, Frank Gardner, has since reported that most analysts doubt that President Assad can survive in the long term, although his prospects may be improved by misgivings about his possible successors.