2012: Arab Spring or Fall Back?

During 2011, the Arab political world was transformed as hard-line dictatorships were removed by a movement fronted by a new generation of well-educated, communicative and assertive citizens. Tired of inherent corruption, police brutality and economic mismanagement, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets with a will for change and democracy. In a matter of weeks, decades-old autocracies fell in both Egypt and Tunisia. Whilst across the border, a popular armed rebel movement, backed by NATO, dethroned a former Arab revolutionist turned tyrant, Colonel Muammar Gadaffi.

Yet a year after the start of these successful rebellions there is an increasing amount of uncertainty across the region, and worryingly beyond. New fault lines are developing within these new democracies and the avenues of new media are being stifled by the traditional realms of international diplomacy. In Bahrain, little support has been given to the oppressed Shia majority, whilst in Yemen, the West was reluctant to see President Ali Abdullah Saleh replaced. All the while in Syria, the death toll continues to rise as the international community struggles to deal with the brutal excesses of the Assad regime.

Assad: Belligerent

When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, a youthful generation looked forward to a new set of ideals at home and abroad. Yet that generation, now part of the political elite, find themselves coupled with an economic crisis and an ever-mutating world.  The tide of the past two decades has made them increasingly fraught and reluctant to react. They have come to learn, with great expense and millions of deaths, that the succession of democracy and elections does not necessarily lead to economic growth or security. A decade of war in Afghanistan has caused no ends of trouble and still no long-term solution lies in place. Iraq, Pakistan and Syria are all issues that could easily explode beyond borders. Sclerotic institutions such as the UN hold legitimacy, but lack authority. Whereas regional bodies like the African Union (AU) and the Arab League remain divided by stasis and affliction.

The Arab Spring appeared different because the uprisings were led by an internal opposition. International voices highlighted their commitment to human rights, political reform and democracy, but nothing beyond. The memories of Algeria and Iraq meant that the West was reluctant to commit to anything other than rhetoric. Yet here were revolutions that were relatively bloodless and demanded change with so called ‘Western values’. The Libyan revolution required NATO help and incurred losses, but with an ultimate desire for freedom.

However, the flourishing hope appears to be diluting. Syria is fast turning into a cauldron. The UN ceasefire appears to exist purely as a memorandum. Russia and China indignantly reject any action towards President Assad, whereas other Western powers remain divided on whether to arm his opponents. Meanwhile; Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar are concerned at the subversive role played by Iran and Hezbollah. In the past year alone, over 9,000 people have died due to the violence, if this turns into a regional war then who knows how big the death toll will become.

In Africa, unrest is dispersing across several countries. Guinea-Bissau suffered a coup d’état, Nigeria is dealing with a violent insurgency in the north. Tuareg mercenaries, armed by Colonel Gadaffi, have captured the northern half of Mali, including the town of Timbuktu, and have declared independence from Bamako. Whilst in the east, the bloodless secession of South Sudan from Sudan is fast turning ugly. Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir recently called his former countrymen ‘the enemy’. Already factional fighting and bombing has occurred across this fragmented, yet, oil-rich region. The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) ended over 50 years of civil war, a legacy that left over two million dead. Former South Africa President Thabo Mbeki has been unable to get the leaders of Khartoum and Juba to sit down for talks. As Mbeki says, both countries are trapped in the ‘logic of war’.

A year after independence are the Sudanese heading for war again?

As combat operations in Afghanistan wind down and the bite of defence cuts hits NATO nations, the prospect of future interventions remains doubtful. Unless organisations like the UN are willing to reform then who is to stop anything? The lessons after the Cold War have made industrial nations wary of change. If these countries lack the foundations and institutions of a democracy, then who’s not to say that it won’t fall apart in years to come?

2011 was a year that brought change for the Arab world, bringing hope and prospects for a new generation. We will see whether 2012 will continue to bring those fortunes or just the hangover from hell.

Serbs you right?

The capture of the former Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic is perhaps more significant than many people estimate. Mladic, who was arrested yesterday in northern Serbia, has been arrested on 15 counts of crimes against humanity and is expected to be extradited to The Hague where he will be tried.

It is only three years since the first Serbian President Radovan Karadzic was arrested. Karadzic by all accounts was charming and garrulous, performing to the world’s media and statesmen when Yugoslavia was being savaged by war. Whilst Mladic (or the ‘Butcher of Bosnia’ as he became ordained) was inflicting the misery of war on millions. Small, yet tough, the indignant and ruthless general, was behind the massacre at Srebrenica where over 8,500 Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) were killed in mass graves whilst the UN stood by, this was genocide in Europe sixty years after the Holocaust. He also oversaw the bombardment of Sarajevo. A place that became a poetical term for misery, death and destruction. This was a war that spilt blood on a continent that had been ravaged by so many conflicts earlier in the century. It brought us the inaction and inertia of diplomats and introduced the chilling phrase ‘ethnic cleansing’ into the English language.

After twenty years of hostilities, this may finally end a chapter of toil and unrest in the South Eastern corner of Europe. Since the bombing of Belgrade by NATO and the indictment (but later death) of the former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, the region is transforming economically and politically. Many of the new republics that once formed Yugoslavia like Croatia are now attracting tourists and are close to agreeing European Union membership. Many of the world’s best sportsmen and women also come from the region with footballers like Serbia’s Nemanja Vidic and Croatia’s Luka Modric to the tennis players Novak Djokovic and Anna Ivanovic.

Many commentators have speculated that Mladic’s arrest may have been induced through diplomatic circles that would quicken up Serbia’s membership to the European Union. Yet many Serbs feel aggrieved by their national perception of those around Europe. And do they have a right to be? The Yugoslavian break up and subsequent war did not stem from a couple of years of uncertainty. There have been ethnic tensions between Yugoslavs for many centuries, a country composed of Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox. In World War 2 over 1.2 million Yugoslavs were killed, but not by Hitler’s war machine, but mainly through ethnic violence. The Communist dictatorship of Marshal Tito brought decades of stability; but his death only saw those underlying tensions come to a head at the beginning of the 1990s. The all-out war saw all men conscripted and all families suffer, yet the perception is that it was instigated by Serbs. Despite the bloodshed inflicted by the likes of militant criminals like Arkan and Mladic, it is wrong to simply pigeon hole the entire nation of Serbia as the only aggressors, many were murderous and acted with impunity; but like most wars it was subject to history. The Serb victimhood was used by politicians to fuel Serb nationalism. It ultimately inflamed Milosevic to attack Kosovo at the end of the century, bringing NATO and Russia to the verge of war.

History has unfolded in front of us with new nations with strong cultures, and Europe has yet again learnt to move on from its troubled past. The capture of Mladic may finally end an era of aggression and insularity for Serbia and now allow it to evolve politically, economically and socially.

Iraq off our backs.

History came and went yesterday as US combat troops left Iraq seven years after they embarked on removing Saddam Hussein. After losing over 3000 men and women, many questions will be asked whether America, military, economically and psychologically has the appetite for intervening or fighting in foreign fields. The departure is part of a wider planned exit strategy to reduce America's footprint in the world, particularly the Middle East, and though admittedly hurried, Iraq has improved over the past few years from the democratic process seeing a decline in militia violence and economic boosts from the oil industry. Despite America's full withdrawal at the end of 2011, Iraq is still a violent place, where simmering religious and ethnic tensions could potentially destabilise future political progress. It is still too early from an American military perspective to conclude whether combat operations were successful or not but America and Barack Obama will need to continue the fight in Afghanistan.

The problem with exit strategies as General David Petraeus recently said is that they should be settled on military grounds, not by political decisions. NATO forces have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001, yet strategists believe the country's future can only be resolved with the Taliban around the negotiating table; yet to what extent is this desirable? The historical precedents of Somalia, Sudan and Yemen must not lie comfortably with historians. Surely all that time invested would appear futile if Afghanistan descended into the midst of its recent history. What about all the soldiers who have died for a better place for young Afghanis, it would appear all in vain for a quick fix exit. Last week, nine aid workers (including several women) were murdered by the Taliban, as a new UN report illustrated that violence against woman and children has increased by 30 per cent; three quarters of these acts have been committed by the Taliban.

Political impetus seems to take precedence over these matters. Maintaining a fighting army costs billions of pounds and heavy casualties does not enhance the war's popularity. With an enemy that is increasingly using abhorrent tactics and a political situation that seems neither effective or evolving, a withdrawal seems hopeless when there is no plan in place which surely means Afghanistan will dot our futures' for some time to come.