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The Arab Spring Ten Years Later

Dec 17, 2020 Shlomo Ben-Ami

From the return of Russia to the normalization of relations between Israel and a growing number of Arab states, the decade since the Arab Spring continues to redraw the Middle East's geopolitical map. The outcome will depend on a several factors, not least whether – or when – the goal of democracy mobilizes Arab populations again.

TEL AVIV – When the struggling street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, on December 17, 2010, he could not possibly have imagined how consequential his desperate protest would be. By sparking a wave of civil unrest across the Arab world, he touched off the region’s most profound transformation since decolonization.

First, Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution erupted, leading to the ouster of the country’s longtime president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Protests quickly engulfed other Arab countries, and more autocrats – namely, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Libya’s Muammar el-Qaddafi, and Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh – were toppled.

In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad managed to hold onto power – at the cost of plunging his country into a brutal civil war that has killed more than a half-million people, forced millions to flee the country, and left millions more internally displaced. The conflict returned Syria to the Russian fold, and turned its territory into an Iranian-Israeli battlefield.

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j. von Hettlingen Dec 18, 2020

Shlomo Ben-Ami says when Mohamed Bouazizi, a young fruit seller struggling to support his mother and siblings, set himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, on December 17, 2010, “he could not possibly have imagined how consequential his desperate protest would be.” He had complained about police bullying and corruption, and his suicide sparked “a wave of civil unrest across the Arab world,” touching off “the region’s most profound transformation since decolonization.”
Today the heady dreams of 2011 seem history. In Tunisia the protests forced its dictator to flee the country. A decade on, Tunisians are freer, but many are miserable and disillusioned, saying the Arab Spring ultimately made their lives worse than before. In Egypt, protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square toppled the regime of president-for-life Hosni Mubarak. First elections were held in 2012. A year later the military removed the democratically elected government led by Mohammed Morsi’s Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ran for president, returning the country to tyranny.
A Saudi military intervention on behalf of the regime in Bahrain ended the hopes of protesters there. The civil wars in Libya, Syria and Yemen had not brought visions of a new era of democracy. These countries had become failed states and created ungoverned spaces for terrorist groups like ISIS, Al Qaeda et al, that exploit ethnic, sectarianian, and tribal divisions etc. to thrive. Gulf monarchies used oil wealth to smother any revolutionary fire and back reactionary powers. Russia, Iran, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates waded into the region’s wars with military forces and arms for allies.
In Algerica protests began in February 2019 after the then president Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced he was going to seek a fifth term in office. As the protests grew, the 82-year-old scrapped his plans and stood down from power. For over a year, demonstrators continued to fill the streets every Friday, demanding democratic change and the departure of those in the army and close to the presidency who are said to hold the real power in Algeria.
The author says, the Arab Spring “exposed the innate fragility of many of the affected states. While some leaders managed to hold onto power, and some repressive military apparatuses remain robust, weak legitimacy, often based on rigged elections, leave them highly vulnerable, especially in the face of tribalist and Islamist sentiment.” However Arab monarchies – Morocco, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia – “which derive their legitimacy largely from religious sources, fared much better than the pseudo-presidential republics.”
For a while “people seem to be pinning their electoral hopes on political Islam, which has emerged as the main alternative to secular autocracy over the last decade. Wherever free elections took place, Islamist parties won power.” Two ideas have shaped the Middle East for decades, Arab nationalism and political Islamism. The Arab Spring itself highlighted the power of Arab nationalism. However, Libya, Syria and Yemen had painfully proved that Arab identity itself is not enough to unify.
Regional leaders blamed Obama for sacrificing “America’s two closest regional allies, Mubarak and Ben Ali, opening the way for a redrawing of the Middle East’s strategic map.” Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, clashed with Obama, over “allowing Mubarak’s ouster and accepting Morsi’s electoral victory,” and doubted if the US were still “a reliable long-term partner.”
The “sense of betrayal” was deeply felt “among America’s Arab partners,” when Obama s”ubsequently negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, and rebalanced US strategic priorities toward Asia, thereby opening the way for Russia to expand its influence in the Middle East.” With Iran, Russia and Turkey fighting proxy wars in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen, and a new wave of protests sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa, observers fear that Arab Spring 2.0 could be more violent, as protesters would be met with more brutal crackdowns from autocrats.
“As 2021 begins, the geopolitical terrain in the Arab world will continue to shift. The outcome will depend on a number of factors, not least whether – or when – the goal of democracy mobilizes Arab populations once again.”
Yet regional leaders see Iran as a bigger threat than protests. They hope that stronger ties with Israel - to the detriment of the Palestinians’ aspiration of statehood - would enable Israel to take on Iran and rein in its nuclear ambition. As long as Iran and Saudi Arabia - the two bitter enemies - can not resolve their political differences, and in the absence of democratic reforms throughout the region, the Middle East will remain a ticking time bomb.
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venze chern Dec 18, 2020

The Arab Spring Ten Years Later :
Why keep harping on the misnomer 'Arab Spring' when it never actually took place? Perhaps it is more of "Arab dignity is real, so is its failure".
One may have to think deeper, analyze further..
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venze chern Dec 18, 2020

Why keep harping on the misnomer 'Arab Spring' when it never actually took place? Perhaps it is more of "Arab dignity is rea, so is its failure".
One may wish to think deeper and clearer..
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Zeid O. Dec 17, 2020

I seriously don't understand the necessity of this piece. It is as if the writer is on payroll and has to fill some space without any interest in coming up with something that is reasonably rigorous.
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Tamer Kirac Dec 17, 2020

Ben Ami is right descriptively. However, causal rationale and addressing the on-going political tremors in most Arab states needs historical perspective. Such a perspective can help them articulate future choices for stepping into the modern world, secularism, democracy and peace.
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Jonathan Engel Dec 17, 2020

So Mr. Ben-Ami considers "the most shocking outcome" in his broad description of dreadful bloodletting related to the "Arab Spring" to be an outbreak of peace and friendship ! One agrees that it's a rather different perspective, but the use of an expression such as "wonderful surprise", or "in happy contrast" would have been nicer from a self describe peace advocate... Of course an outbreak of peace puts peace advocates out of a job... and that might be a consideration....
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