When I joined theForeign Office in 1979it was engaged in asoul-searching reviewinto why it had failed

to predict the fall of the Shah of Iran. Ourambassador in Iran, Anthony Parsons, hadembarrassingly written to the foreignsecretary David Owen on the eve of therevolution that: ‘The Shah remains incomplete control of the country and of thegovernment . . . I do not foresee any serioustrouble in the near future.’

Some 30 years later we failed again, thistime to predict the Arab Spring. And againthere has been soul searching. Meir Dagan,the former head of Mossad, said defensively:‘We didn’t anticipate the timing and wedidn’t anticipate the magnitude, but we didthink there were severe structural problems.It is important to say that in terms of theintelligence agencies, their principal focus isnot the people but what the governmentsthink. If the governments are surprised, wetoo are going to be surprised.’

But why should we be able to predictsuch events? The Shah didn’t know therevolution was coming, despite the factthat Savak, his secret police force,penetrated every corner of the country. In Egypt, Mubarak didn’t know hisdownfall was imminent. Gaddafi didn’trecognise the serious challenge he wasfacing in Libya even after the uprising inBenghazi had begun. So why should we?Revolutions are intrinsically difficult to predict.

Back in the 1970s, we were also wrong inpredicting how the Iranian revolutionwould play out, and in all probability wewill be wrong in our predictions of howthe Arab Spring will develop. In my viewwe were too starry-eyed at the beginning of2011, not envisaging the obvious problemsthat would arise, and we are too gloomynow, expecting the whole enterprise tocollapse into chaos just because the votersin Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia have optedfor Islamic parties in free and fair elections.The process is going to be difficult, withfrequent setbacks, but the fact that theArab peoples have begun to throw offlong-established tyrannies is unalloyedgood news for us and for them. Theydeserve our support, not least to avoidmaking the mistakes that bedevilled thecountries of central and eastern Europewhen they threw off the yoke ofcommunist dictatorship.

The Arab Spring started when an illegalstallholder in a small town in Tunisia waspersonally humiliated by an official and ©

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A lasting glow Seizing the optimism of the Arab Spring

Jonathan Powell predicts that we will see the seeds of the Arab Spring spreading across the Middle East, withregime change on the way in Syria and possibly even Iran.The west should not rule out intervention if there is localand regional support for military action.

The process is going to bedifficult, but the fact that theArab peoples have begun tothrow off long-establishedtyrannies is unalloyed goodnews for us and for them

subsequently burned himself to death. Thatsingle, desperate act inspired uprisingsacross the region. Many Arab governmentswere rotten and hollowed out, held up onlyby hubris. Experts told us that we didn’tunderstand, that the Egyptian people lovedMubarak and the army would never lethim be brought down, or that the Libyanpeople, apart from those in Benghazi andthe east of the country, loved Gaddafi. Butactually the people hated the dictators, andparticularly their attempts to make theirreigns hereditary. No new blood wascoming into the system to revivify thesecountries. There were no democraticelections to let people change theirgovernments peacefully and no freedom of expression to allow people to let offsteam. The choice was between no changeat all and revolution – and the people chose revolution.

It is important however to understandthat the revolutions were not just aboutdemocracy and fundamental rights. Thecauses were multiple and complex. Peoplewere equally fed up with the corruptionand the incompetence of the regimes andtheir inability to provide jobs or food fortheir people.

It is still uncertain how far therevolutions will spread. Algeria hasundergone the most searing experience ofviolence in a decade-long civil warbetween Islamic extremists and a viciousmilitary regime. The public are not surewhether they really want to risk thatsuffering again by opting for a revolution,and yet it is hard to believe that the ricketyregime will remain in place for long. Thekings in Morocco and Jordan have tried toget ahead of the revolutionary spirit byintroducing democratic reforms which maylead to constitutional monarchies, but itremains to be seen whether these reformswill succeed in taking the heat out of therevolutionary zeal. In the gulf states, withthe exception of Yemen and Bahrain, therehave been only minor skirmishes so far.

In Yemen, the effort to remove PresidentSaleh has been complicated by inter-tribalrivalries, the desire of many in the south to

separate once again into two countries,and a battle in the north between the Shia,Houthis and Salafists. In Bahrain, there isan unstable standoff between a Shiamajority and a ruling Sunni minority.

The most important remaining front isSyria. I asked a leading official in the regionhow soon Assad would fall. He thought fora moment and replied, ‘somewhere betweenone week and three years’. A rather widetimeframe, but it is clear to me that the Assadclan will have to go sooner or later, given thatthe people on the streets have brokenthrough the fear barrier. Bashar al-Assad’sfather killed 25,000 people in one go, an actthat quelled a previous rebellion. The policyof unconvincing concessions combined withthe murder of a handful of people at a timeneither offers a peaceful road to change norscares people out of demonstrating. No oneknows when the Assad regime will fall but,as in Libya, at some point in the comingmonths it will reach the tipping point andgo quite suddenly.

After it has gone, Iran will be next, in myview. The Iranians have been helping theSyrians with their techniques of suppression.Once the young people of Iran see that thosemethods do not work and that the corruptAssad regime can be overthrown, they willfeel emboldened to take up their unfinishedrevolution once again.

The question of interventionThe uncomfortable question that Syriaraises for the west is whether or not tointervene. After Iraq, the commentariatannounced that liberal interventionismwas over. No one would ever make thatmistake again. Yet only a few years laterthe west has intervened once again,successfully, in Libya in support of therebels. Cameron and Sarkozy didn’t securea UN resolution in favour of regimechange any more than the Blair andClinton administrations did in Kosovo, butNato’s military intervention did help bringabout a change of regime. The primeminister deserves considerable credit forgoing out on a limb to do so.

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Should the west do the same thing inSyria? Can we just stand by while the regimemurders its people? Can we risk the civil warthat the Assad regime, in a desperate attemptto survive, is trying to provoke between theminority Allawite community from which itcomes and the Sunni majority? If such a civilwar spreads across the whole arc in theMiddle East where Sunni and Shiacommunities rub up alongside each other,from Lebanon and Iraq to Iran, SaudiArabia and Bahrain, then the consequencesfor all of us will be truly profound.

The best criteria for making a judgmenton intervention are the five tests set out inTony Blair’s 1999 Chicago speech, made inthe context of Kosovo:

1. Are we sure of our case? 2. Have we exhausted all diplomatic options? 3. Are there military options that we can

sensibly and prudently undertake? 4. Are we prepared for the long term? 5. And do we have national interests

involved?

In Syria, our case would only be viable ifthe rebels clearly wanted us to intervene,and so far the rebels are divided on theissue, with some calling for internationalmilitary support and others opposing it. Inany case military action would only bepracticable with the support of Syria’sneighbours. While Turkey, Saudi Arabiaand Jordan are calling on Assad to go, theyare still ambivalent about military action.And there is still a large segment of thepopulation loyal to Assad, so we wouldneed to think about the consequences andthe aftermath of conflict carefully beforeintervening. So now is not the time formilitary intervention in Syria, but weshould not rule it out if the suffering goes onand on unchecked and if the people appealfor international assistance.

Even if we do not intervene militarily wedo need to start thinking now about thepolitical situation in a post-Assad Syria. InIraq, we made the mistake both of leaving ittoo long before starting a proper dialoguebetween the Sunni minority and the Shia

majority and of pressing ahead too rapidlywith de-Baathication, just as we did withde-Nazification in Germany after thesecond world war. In Libya, we took a riskby backing the National TransitionalCouncil and making no effort to organise awider political dialogue so that all forcescould feel included, and are now paying theprice with sporadic fighting with theTouareg and with different regional armedmilitias. In Syria, the challenge is evengreater because of the differences betweenthe internal and external oppositions, andthe sectarian and ethnic divisions betweenthe Sunnis, Allawites, Christians, Ismaelis,Druze and Kurds. This time we do need toensure that such a dialogue starts early andincludes those elements within the regimewhich will be necessary for continuity oncethe small circle around the Assads leave.We will also need to be prepared for thefurther radicalisation of Hezbollah, whichwill feel cut off in Lebanon by the collapseof their crucial ally.

Democracy unleashed The west has been accused, understandably,of double standards in the Middle East, ofturning a blind eye to regimes that did not share our values because they were strategic allies or because of the depend-ence of our societies on the hydrocarbonsthey produced.

We have also been accused – wrongly inmy view – of double standards in openingrelations with Gaddafi when he abandonedhis chemical weapons and the ambition todevelop nuclear weapons. In that case,reaching out to a reformed sinner was theright thing to do. It is crucial to offerincentives to regimes that abandonaggressive intentions and capabilities,even if we do not approve of their lack ofdemocracy or human rights. In the wordsof President Roosevelt’s favourite proverb:‘When a river you reach and the devil youmeet, with the devil do not quarrel untilthe bridge you cross.’ The one proviso isthat we should not in the act of welcominga reformed sinner make it more difficult for ©

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their citizens to rise up against them. Thevery fact that Gaddafi fell to a popularrevolution just seven years after wereopened relations demonstrates that thewest did not entrench him in power bywelcoming him back into the internationalcommunity after he disavowed weapons ofmass destruction.

Even if there is some truth to theaccusation of western double standards inthe region, we cannot be neutral aboutwhat is happening in Syria and in otherArab countries. Particularly for a centre-leftparty, the party of internationalism, theparty that supported the republicans in theSpanish civil war, the Labour party shouldbe absolutely clear where its heart lies.

We cannot be ambivalent aboutwhether or not we favour democracy. Andif we are in favour of free elections then wedon’t get to choose who wins them – theArab people do. We must accept theoutcome of those elections even if, as inEgypt, that leads to the election of theMuslim Brotherhood and the Salafists asthe two biggest parties. The west made agrave mistake in 2006 when it rejected theoutcome of the Palestinian electionsbecause the people voted for Hamas. Weshould not repeat that mistake.

Some right-wing commentators,particularly in Israel, are suggestingotherwise. One wrote recently: ‘Obamawill be remembered forever for betrayingstability and national leadership in theArab world. Jimmy Carter did it in Iran.Obama is doing it in the rest of the MiddleEast as the US topples it allies.’ Anotherwrote that ‘democracy is the shortest path

to sharia’ and argued that the US, inopening Pandora’s box to steal a glance atdemocracy, had released all the demonsthat would destroy them, as the Arab worldreturns to the middle ages.

It is natural that many in Israel should bedisoriented by the dramatic changes goingon all around them and uncertain aboutwhat the future holds. But the cult ofstability is overdone. I lost count of the timesas a diplomat that colleagues told me weshould hang on to familiar leaders for fear of something worse, the most ludicrousexample being ‘he is the best Brezhnevwe’ve got’. Evil regimes are a threat to, notdefenders of, long-term stability andprosperity – and they are best overturned.Israel was never going to be able to dependon the acquiescence of dictators for theirstability. The notion that the spread ofdemocracy in the Arab world couldundermine a democracy like Israel is acurious notion. Indeed, history tells us thatdemocracies are far less likely to pose a threatto their neighbours than dictatorships.Removing the dichotomy that separates viewson the Arab street from the private views oftheir rulers should be a good thing for Israeland should yield more honest diplomacy.Interestingly, recent opinion polls show thatthe people in the newly free Arab countries,like the people of Israel, overwhelmingly seeIran as the biggest threat. The revolutions inthe Arab world may actually make progresson a Middle East peace process more ratherthan less likely, by shaking the kaleidoscope inthe region and breaking up the stasis that hasprevented real negotiations for so long.Certainly, the more proactive and morepositive role played by the Arab League inthe case of Syria, something unheard ofbefore, may be a harbinger of what is to come.

Addressing the remainingchallengesThat is not to say that elections bythemselves will solve the huge challengesthat Egypt and its neighbours face. Therevolutions were not just about freedoms andabout voting, but also about corrupt and

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The revolutions were not justabout freedoms and aboutvoting, but also about corruptand incompetent governmentsthat could not provide for their people

incompetent governments that could notprovide for their people. If the new demo -cratically elected governments cannot deliverbetter lives for their people they will bethrown out at the subsequent elections. Thiscould result in the sort of political instabilitywe saw in central and eastern Europe, wherea succession of weak and incom petentgovernments followed each other in theaftermath of communism. It is very much inour interest to support new democraticgovernments in the Arab world to ensurethe same does not happen, both with aprogramme of aid of the sort the Marshallplan provided for western Europe after theend of the second world war, and even moreimportantly with training and expertise. Weshould offer help in applying the rule of lawto prevent corruption and provide strong, faircourts to administer justice equally. Weshould also support govern ment structuresthat can deliver both in terms of food andjobs for the burgeoning young population.This challenge is above all one for the EU:we cannot expect the US to lead in ourneighbourhood on recovery and rebuildingany more than it did in the war in Libya.

One outcome of the Arab revolutionshas been to make al-Qaida lookincreasingly irrelevant. It played no part inthe Arab Spring and indeed was wrong-footed by it. Most of the grievances fromwhich they derived their support have nowbeen met in the countries where regimechange has taken place and Islamic partieshave been freely elected without any threatof violence. It may turn out that 9/11, farfrom being the beginning of a new threat ofglobal jihad, instead marked the high-watermark of al-Qaida influence.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia,Egypt, Morocco and Syria is taking amoderate stand. Instead of looking toHamas as a role model, they are lookingincreasingly to Turkey’s AKP (the centre-right ‘Justice and Development’ party).They see a religiously devout party thathas also been economically and politicallysuccessful, and many of them are keen toemulate that success. In fact, one of theaspects of the new world order to emergemost clearly out of the Arab Spring isTurkey’s leading role in the region, aphenomenon sometimes facetiouslydescribed as the ‘re-Ottomanisation’ of theArab world. In a recent opinion poll in fiveArab countries, Turkey was seen as thecountry to have played the ‘most constructiverole’ in Arab events and, in all five countries,the people said that after elections theywanted their president to look like Erdoğan�anand their country to look like Turkey.

For the west, the Arab Spring is asignificant challenge and one we should riseto – but we shouldn’t exaggerate our ownimportance in events. The decisions will betaken by the peoples themselves, andregional powers like Turkey and SaudiArabia – and even minnows like Qatar –will have more influence than we do.

We have, however, good reason to careabout what happens. Prophylatically, wedon’t want a series of failed states close toEurope gestating terrorism or violence,like the piracy in Somalia; we don’t wantextremism to spread as it has from al-Qaida in the Maghreb to Boko Haram inNigeria; and we don’t want more andmore waves of boat people arriving inItaly, Malta and Spain. More positively, we have an opportunity to contribute tothe reformation of a part of the world thathas a significant impact on our lives.

As I mentioned at the start of this essay,we were too euphoric at the beginning ofthe Arab Spring, overlooking the obviousproblems, and we are too gloomy now,seeing only how things could go wrong.By contrast, opinion polls show that the Arab people themselves are over -whelmingly optimistic about their own ©

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We were too euphoric at thebeginning of the Arab Spring,overlooking the obviousproblems, and we are toogloomy now, seeing only how things could go wrong

future. Ordinary people are seekingdignity, freedom and a better life in anextraordinary way.

There is every reason to believe the MiddleEast can make the journey from dictatorshipto democracy and market economy in thesame way that Latin America has from the

1970s to today. It won’t be easy but weshould not be neutral. We have to help.

And there is a clear message to dictatorsand despots in the rest of the world, shakenby the Arab Spring – they face the samechoice as those in the Middle East did:evolution or revolution.

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To date, much of the commentary on the Arab Spring has focused on the high-level political

implications of the uprisings, both for countries in the Middle East and north Africa and for

the western powers that they engage with. However, it is equally important to understand

what these profound developments mean for the ordinary people living through them, so we

asked two young researchers from the MENA region to give us their perspectives on how their

countries have changed over the past year. Manar Rachwani from Jordan and Amany Soliman

from Egypt give a ‘view from the ground’, reflecting on what has happened since January

2011 and looking ahead to what 2012 may bring.

The Egyptian revolution: between new waves ofprotest and calls for stability

Amany Soliman scans a potentially bumpy road ahead for an Egyptian societydivided between groups supportive and skeptical of the country’s interimmilitary rulers.

For almost a year, the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) – a council of senior mili-

tary officers – ran Egypt following the overthrow of President Mubarak in February 2011.

Indeed, the military had been leading the country for nearly six decades, with Mubarak’s

three predecessors having all been military men. Many governors, ministers and CEOs of

major companies also have a military background.

When protests broke out in Egypt early in 2011, the military described the popular

demands that fuelled them as legitimate, and promised to meet the wishes of the people.

Mubarak was ousted while the populace was chanting ‘the people and the army are one

hand’. In the following weeks the military earned respect and gratitude, while in Yemen,

Bahrain, Libya and Syria armies were either defecting or fighting against their own people.

Many Egyptians thought that the main reason for the success of their revolution was the

fact that their national military was neither tribal nor sectarian – and it sided with them.

By the end of that year, the scene looked different. The SCAF had not done enough to

address deterioration in the Egyptian economy, and had disappointed popular expectations

that the military would bring security back to the streets, help the different political powers

to reach a point of national consent, and meet or at least work to find a solution for the

various workers’ strikes and to ease sectarian tensions. This is why the second wave of the

Egyptian revolution started on 19 November, after clashes between the military police and

families of the martyrs. Most of the angry youth who took to the streets in November and

December had come to see the army as an extension of the old regime – this time they

were chanting ‘down down with SCAF … down down with military rule’.

The SCAF appear genuine when they talk about handing power over to an elected civilian

government. They do not want to stay involved in everyday governance issues, especially

given Egypt’s poor economic situation, as well as their responsibilities in terms of improving

law enforcement and supporting the reluctant police. However, the SCAF do want guarantees

before leaving power regarding their decision-making powers, their finances, and their immu-

nity from prosecution for violations committed during the transitional period. Without these, it