Saudi Arabia’s Policy Of Stability At All Costs May Backfire

By Bernard Haykel

Saudi Arabia is widely perceived as leading the counter-revolution against the Arab Spring uprisings. In reality, the kingdom’s response is centered, as its foreign and domestic policy has long been, on “stability.” The Saudis don’t want anti-Saudi forces, including such enemies as Iran and Al-Qaeda, to increase their influence in the Middle East.

Some of the older Saudi leaders have seen this movie before. The nationalist revolutions of the 1950s and 1960s, inspired and galvanized by Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt, nearly toppled the House of Saud. Nonetheless, today’s Saudi princes appear to recognize that something has genuinely changed in the Middle East: The younger generation of Arabs is no longer prepared to accept unaccountable, corrupt and brutal governments.

Saudi Arabia, a self-proclaimed bulwark of Islamic conservatism, where popular democracy has never been considered a legitimate form of rule, has been more aggressive in some arenas than in others. Domestically, the royal family struck quickly, adopting a ban on public demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience. The kingdom’s traditional interpretation of Islam construes political legitimacy in terms of a ruler’s proper application of Islamic law. In return, his subjects owe him obedience within the constraints of Shariah religious law.

Dissent, should it arise, must always take the form of well-intentioned advice given to the ruler in a private setting. Public demonstrations of dissent are regarded as contrary to Islam, because they foster divisiveness and lead to civil strife. The highest council of Saudi religious scholars recently declared demonstrations to be categorically un-Islamic. Confronted with the possibility of mass demonstrations on March 11 – the so-called Day of Rage on a Facebook page – the Saudi rulers enforced that ruling by deploying massive numbers of security forces in the streets.

They also played the Shiite card, an effective trump in Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia. The rulers argued that public protests throughout the region were being orchestrated by Shiite Iran, and were anti-Sunni and sectarian. The threat of chaos, evident now in Libya, Syria and Yemen, also weighed in the royal family’s favor. The House of Saud has a long historical claim on rule in Arabia, and its promise of stability remains key to its durability.

A massive government subsidy package also accounted for domestic calm. Abruptly, some $130 billion was added to spending projections over the next five years. Salaries for all public servants, a majority of the national work force, were raised, as was the total number of public-sector jobs. King Abdullah pledged large numbers of new housing units, an important gesture in a country where young people, especially young married couples, cannot easily access the housing market.

In neighboring Bahrain, the Saudis also moved quickly to bolster the Sunni-minority regime against a rising tide of protest led by the island kingdom’s Shiite majority. Saudi troops marched into Bahrain under the banner of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and the Saudi rulers issued clear instructions to adopt an iron-fisted policy with the demonstrators, again arguing that Iran’s nefarious hand was at play in subverting the country.

No doubt, the Saudis believe that a Shiite-led Bahrain would lead to Iranian dominance at their very doorstep. Here, too, the kingdom employed its policy of largesse through the GCC, promising Bahrain $10 billion over the next decade. Other large-scale financial commitments were made to Oman and Jordan, both Saudi allies that have managed to silence early whispers of mass protest.

Farther away, in Libya and Syria, the Saudis have said little, perhaps to avoid picking the losing side in uncertain circumstances. The kingdom has no love for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who tried to assassinate King Abdullah and has waged a concerted anti-Saudi propaganda campaign for at least a decade. The Saudis would surely like to see Gadhafi deposed, but they have no real stake in the Libyan uprising’s outcome.

Closer to home, the kingdom despises Syrian President Bashar Assad for his alliance with Iran and duplicity in Lebanon. But his fall would present the Saudis with the risk of a country led by the Muslim Brotherhood. Even worse is the prospect of Syria falling into chaos, dragging Lebanon – and maybe the broader region – with it.

The Assad regime’s use of excessive force, especially the deliberate killing of thousands of mainly Sunni civilians, has nonetheless recently spurred a tougher stance. King Abdullah has called the killings unacceptable, and has withdrawn his ambassador from Damascus. The actual policy implications, however, remain to be determined.

Neighboring Yemen is a more immediate threat. The opposition is hopelessly divided, and the tribal and military leadership is utterly compromised. Ominously, the south is being taken over by hardcore Islamists, some allied with Al-Qaeda. Throwing money around won’t work in Yemen, which is too large and complex to be pacified. In fact, the country is on the verge of total collapse.

Today, the Saudis see 24 million Yemenis – hungry, heavily armed and envious of Saudi wealth – looking across the border. If civil war erupts, the Saudis will not be able to stop the waves of refugees. But the kingdom remains paralyzed, still wavering on whether to allow President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is convalescing in Riyadh from injuries sustained in a bomb attack, to return to Sanaa to resume his rule.

For all of their wealth and planning, the Saudis remain vulnerable to the turmoil surrounding them. At home, the legacy of Saudi family rule, fear of chaos, increased public spending and abundant security forces have produced calm. But a modest political opening and economic diversification away from state-owned industry have been sacrificed. In Bahrain, things are quiet now as well, but the chances of further radicalization of the country’s Shiite majority have increased, possibly benefiting Iran in the long run.

Great change is coming to the Middle East. It is far from clear that a Saudi policy of stability at all costs will strengthen the regime.

-This commentary was published in The Daily Star on 19/08/2011
-Bernard Haykel is a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University. THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration with Project Syndicate © (www.project-syndicate.org)

Spring Or Revolution?

By Rami G. Khouri

One of the fascinating aspects of the current wave of citizen revolts that are toppling, challenging or reforming regimes across the Arab world is that people around the world use different terms to describe the phenomenon.

The term that seems to have gained much currency across the Western world is “Arab Spring”. I find this term totally inappropriate, and have banished it from my own writing and speaking, and I urge my fellow journalists across the world to consider doing the same.

The most important reason for this is that the term is not used at all by those brave men and women who have been on the streets demonstrating and dying for seven months now.

Every time I run into a Tunisian, Egyptian, Libyan, Syrian, Bahraini or Yemeni, I ask him how he refers to his people’s political actions. The answer is an almost universal, “revolution” (thawra, in Arabic), to describe what they are doing.

When referring to the collective activities of Arabs across the region, the plural, “revolutions”, (thawrat) is often used.

Also used are descriptor nouns, such as Arab “uprising” (intifada), Arab “awakening” (sahwa), or Arab renaissance (nahda), the latter mirroring the initial Arab awakening against Ottoman and European domination in the early years of the 20th Century.

I personally like the term “Arab citizen revolt”, which captures the common demand among all Arab demonstrators to enjoy full citizenship rights with appropriate constitutional guarantees.

The terms Arabs use to describe themselves are far stronger and more substantive than “Arab Spring”. Inherent in the term “spring”, for sure, is the idea of an awakening after the winter slumber, but it also denotes a brief or limited transitional moment that soon gives way to the next season. It mirrors Czechoslovakia’s brief “Prague Spring” liberalism of 1968, which the Russians quickly halted, and also the European revolutions of 1848.

Tellingly, the “spring” metaphor was not applied to the revolutions that swept the Soviet Empire in the 1980s and early 90s. When real change happens, the world tends to describe this as a revolution, not a spring, except, it seems, in the Arab world.

Perhaps I exaggerate, but I am troubled by the unspoken connotations that accompany calling this phenomenon a “spring”, which downplays the severity of the challenge to existing regimes and downgrades the intensity and depth of the courage that ordinary men and women summon when they dare to take on their often brutal, well-armed national security services.

“Spring” is a passive phenomenon, something that happens to people, helpless people who have no power and no say in the process. The terms Arabs use to describe themselves are the epitome of activism, will, empowerment, determination and agency, denoting citizens who have the power to change their world and are going about that business with diligence and perseverance.

I suspect that the popularity of the “Arab Spring” term across the Western world quietly mirrors some subtle Orientalism at work, lumping all Arabs as a single mass of people who all think and behave the same way. It might also hide another troubling factor: Many quarters of many Western lands remain hesitant in fully acknowledging - let alone embracing or supporting - the implications of free and self-determinant Arabs who have the power to define their countries and shape their national policies.

Western powers for the past century and a half or so have assumed they can shape and control most aspects of power and policy across the Arab world, whether due to imperial interest, energy issues, economic need, or pro-Israeli biases.

As Arab citizens now shed docility and threaten to take control of their own societies, many in the West are not sure how to deal with this possibility.

Perhaps some in the West also do not want to acknowledge the full reality of Arabs reconfiguring their power structures because Western powers (including Russia) enthusiastically supported those old, failed authoritarian systems that are now being challenged and changed.

An Arab “spring” conveniently removes the element of culpability and foreign complicity in the dark, bitter and endless “winter” that we endured for three generations of incompetent Arab police and family mafia states.

Revolutionary, self-determinant, self-assertive Arabs frighten many people abroad. Softer Arabs who sway with the seasons and the winds may be more comforting. However, if in their greatest moment of modern historical self-assertion and nationalist struggle assorted Arab citizenries find that major Western quarters (politicians, media) refer to them in the vocabulary of the wind and tides, we are certain to continue feeling the century-long impact of the great battle of colonialism vs. nationalist resistan?e that seems still to define the Arab region’s relations with many Western powers.

Language may be the easiest place to start reversing this troubling legacy. Dropping the term “Arab Spring” for something more accurate is my suggested starting point.

This commentary was published in The Jordan Times on 19/08/2011

Strong Case For Lebanon

The special tribunal for Lebanon needs backing of the international community and the government has to honour its obligations for justice to be done

By David M. Crane

The past month has brought milestones but also new challenges to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. The tribunal recently released the names of four men wanted for the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri and 22 others in 2005. The suspects are Mustafa Ameen Badr Al Deen, a senior figure in Hezbollah who is suspected of making the bomb that blew up the US Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983; Salim Ayyash; Assad Sabra; and Hassan Anise.

The unsealing of the long-awaited indictments triggered a 30-day period during which the Lebanese government is required to serve arrest warrants, but Lebanese authorities informed the court recently that they are unable to arrest the four or serve the indictments. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has vowed to thwart the suspects' arrest, and this opposition is no small threat. The previous Lebanese government, led by Sa'ad Hariri, son of the slain prime minister, collapsed in January after Hezbollah ministers and their allies left the cabinet to protest the government's support for the tribunal.

The special tribunal was established in 2007 by the UN Security Council at the request of Lebanon's then prime minister. The court is charged with rendering justice for the massive bombing that rocked the nation in February 2005. Hariri's assassination rekindled the tension between Lebanon's various factions that had been seething just under the surface. Lebanon sought to recover by turning a corner from political violence to the rule of law. It established a tribunal based in Lebanese law, with judges from Lebanon and other countries, that operates with a UN mandate.

Knowing how perilous this project would be, the government signed on to an internationally sanctioned court that could transcend taint or accusations of sectarian partiality. As the tribunal's president, the noted Italian jurist Antonio Cassese, pointed out in a column last month, Lebanon's government has aimed "to uphold and to practice the principle of judicial accountability for those who grossly deviated from the rules of human decency" and "to entrench the notion that democracy cannot survive without the rule of law, justice and respect for fundamental human rights."

This is the first time an international tribunal has been created to deal with an act of terrorism. We served as chief prosecutors of international tribunals established since the mid-1990s. We are intimately familiar with the challenges pointed up by the mere existence of such courts. We have closely followed the tribunal's work and challenges, and understand that this tribunal will need the unwavering support of the international community.

International courts such as this tribunal have no capacity to arrest their suspects; they must rely on individual countries to do so. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, for example, would not have been able to deliver justice to survivors of ‘ethnic cleansing' and genocide if individual governments had not made concerted efforts to ensure that suspects were found, arrested and delivered to trial.

One of us served as chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, a tribunal that, like the Lebanon tribunal, is a blend of national and international elements. When the Sierra Leone court's indictment of Liberia's then-president, Charles Taylor, was unsealed in 2003, some predicted that step would derail peace negotiations.

They were wrong: Although not its aim, the indictment of Taylor facilitated peace in war-torn Liberia and maintained peace in Sierra Leone. Earlier, the indictment of Radovan Karadzic by the tribunals for the former Yugoslavia was an essential precursor of the 1995 Dayton Agreement that silenced the guns in that region of Europe. We know what it means to face long odds and extraordinary defiance in the pursuit of international justice. We succeeded in beating those odds, with historic results, because the international community supported us and governments honoured their obligations despite formidable pressures. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon deserves no less.

-This commentary was published in The Washington Post on 19/08/2011
-David M. Crane, a professor at Syracuse College of Law, is a former chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Carla Del Ponte is a former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda

Window To Save Syria Is Closing

Al Assad regime must acknowledge the problem and address injustice instead of accusing the media of bias

By Marwan Al Kabalan

Regardless of how the protest movement is presented by different media organisations, Syria is facing its most serious internal crisis in three decades. So far, the government remains in a state of shock and denial, precipitating contradictory statements. While it describes the demands of the protest movement as legitimate and promises to address them, it continues to portray demonstrations as part of a foreign plot aimed at weakening Syria's pan-Arabist stands and its support for resistance movements in Lebanon and Palestine.

It was apparent, however, particularly after the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, that grievances and protracted socio-economic crises will ultimately lead to a wave of social unrest in various parts of the region.

In Syria, the government was not quick to recognise this, relying instead on a deceptive picture that the adoption of a popular foreign policy will enable it to weather the storm. The rising cost of living, failing state services, unemployment, rampant corruption and a legacy of abuse by security services have all hence been dismissed as minor issues that do not constitute a credible challenge to the legitimacy of the regime.

Indeed, the Syrian protest movement consists of two parts, as all protests do. The first is genuine grievances of the majority of the population. The second is the interests of the regime's enemies. The regime's many hardcore enemies have naturally seized the opportunity to finish some unfinished businesses; yet, ascribing much of the strife to the exiled opposition, home-grown Salafist elements, and hostile foreign parties was an unfortunate mistake. The current blend of a heavy-handed security approach, disinformation, and minor concessions has hence been the regime's incoherent and tragic response.

The Syrian government has repeatedly stated in recent months that it intends to undertake genuine steps towards reforms that would eventually meet the demands of the protest movement as well as the still-silent majority of Syrians. Nothing of that sort has so far materialised; and the window for changing the current dynamics is closing quickly as the world's powers prepare the grounds for intervention on a humanitarian basis.

National reconciliation

The Syrian government must act quickly and swiftly to avert such probability. It must first admit publicly and openly that there is a problem; something that has not been so far done. It must also acknowledge that this problem is bigger than a few mistakes that have been committed here and there by individuals.

Although holding those individuals accountable for their deeds would show that the regime is serious about reform, this will not be enough to lift the country from its current crisis. Hence, a national reconciliation process followed by national dialogue is required. Halting violence against protesters, withdrawing the army from the cities, releasing all political prisoners and the authorisation of peaceful demonstrations are prerequisites to defuse the crisis. Other political and economic reforms must indeed follow. They include holding early parliamentary and presidential elections. This requires a new constitution that opens the way for a multi-party political system and ends four decades of single party rule.

The state bureaucracy and the judiciary must be restructured and purged of corruption in order to regain the public's trust in them. The power of the security services must be curtailed and their jurisdiction must be limited to national security. Private media must be allowed with a new law that guarantees the rights and outlines the duties of journalists.

The introduction of these changes will be the alternative to spiralling confrontation and would guarantee a peaceful transition to a more open and democratic political life. Alternatively, repression will increase public anger, making constructive action all the more difficult.

From a realistic point of view, however, nothing indicates that these changes will be introduced anytime soon. On the contrary, Syria seems to be heading towards a more acute crisis. The regime still believes that the problem is with the coverage of the Arab and international media and is spending a lot of time and efforts to undermine its credibility.

The coverage of the world's media is often described as vitriolic and irresponsible, referring specifically to the broadcasting of amateur video clips or stories by "eyewitnesses" of protests calling for reform. Indeed, reporting by Arab satellite channels has some flaws.

There have been exaggerations, prejudices and insufficient investigation. Some have fallen victim to unverified stories by unidentified sources. Yet, the problem is not with the media coverage no matter how inaccurate it might be, but with the injustice that has affected most Syrians. Until the government recognises that, it might then be too late to save Syria or prevent a Libyan-style foreign intervention.

-This commentary was published in The Gulf News on 19/08/2011
-Dr Marwan Kabalan is a lecturer in media and international relations at Damascus University's Faculty of Political Science and Media in Syria

Jordan's Reform Agenda Is A First Step Of Many

Jordan's reform agenda, as set out by the king, is a good first step. But managing epectations of change is always tricky, and Jordan's case is no exception.

The National Editorial

Across the region, those in power have responded to the uproar of the Arab revolts in different ways, from hightailing it out of the country to forcing a damaging civil war.

In Jordan, King Abdullah II is offering a third approach with a series of measured, top-down reforms. If done correctly the proposed constitutional changes could expand some rights and open up the political process a little. But sceptics are rightly wary.

Even Jordan's fiercest critics would have to concede that the kingdom has been moving in the right direction for years. The question now is whether the proposed amendments would mark the end of that road or the beginning of a new one. Even this step does not come close to the true democracy some of Jordan's 6.5 million people are demanding.

In tense times, managing change requires managing political risk. Leaders from Mikhail Gorbachev to Barack Obama could testify to the dangers that high public expectations bring. Now King Abdullah, whose 12-year reign has shown him to be a capable economic moderniser, faces a test of his attempt to manage political reform.

The fundamental problems of corruption and a resource-poor economy have created a strong public appetite for reform. But democracy-minded Jordanians are not the only ones applying pressure. Tribal leaders, who now hold disproportionate influence in parliament, have little interest in changing that. They have long backed the king but would not welcome certain changes for which others clamour.

So what changes make sense? And at what pace? The focal point of that debate is a list of proposals, published last Sunday, from a constitutional-reform study group the king set up in April.

King Abdullah II has promised reforms before but they have never amounted to much beyond a new prime minister of his choosing. Now the king has welcomed the proposals from the committee he created, and he does seem to understand that this time is different.

The measures would, if enacted, offer some important shifts: the crown could no longer postpone elections; voting would be overseen by an independent commission; parliament and not the king would choose a prime minister; parliament would acquire the power to approve or reject treaties; torture would be banned and freedom of speech strengthened; and more. Yet most royal prerogatives remain untouched.

In all, these proposals are a respectable first step. It remains to be seen if they will be sufficient.

This editorial was published in The National on 19/08/2011

Tunisia Grapples With Economic Strains

By Eileen Byrne

As Tunisia nears its first post-revolutionary elections, the social and economic problems that helped trigger the ousting of President Zein al-Abidine Ben Ali remain and are likely to play a big part in the poll.

High expectations for speedy change among hard-pressed families in poorer urban neighbourhoods and villages across the country have left the interim government scrambling to keep tensions at manageable levels before October’s ballot to elect an assembly that will rewrite the constitution and pick a new cabinet.

The surge in employee protests that followed the end of the authoritarian Ben Ali regime is causing concern among foreign investors as well as local companies, while no immediate solution is in sight to the high levels of youth unemployment that sparked the revolution.

In the immediate aftermath of Mr Ben Ali’s toppling in January, commentators spoke of the relative homogeneity of Tunisian society, emphasising that it is a country with no gaping economic divides. This assumption is being put to the test as months pass and the rural poor particularly continue to mobilise to keep their grievances on the national agenda.

In July, there were in total 184 protest roadblocks across Tunisia, up from 103 in June, officials say. There were 156 protests blocking access to industrial sites, including oil company operations, up from 78 in June.

Common grievances expressed in rural protests are lack of jobs; lack of transport, roads, or running water; dilapidated housing; poor healthcare and pollution from nearby industrial plants. As recently as 2009, a family living in a Tunisian town was three times more likely than a rural family to be connected to the public water and sewage network.

While inflation had been relatively docile in recent years, the local media has begun to note a sharp increase in meat and other food prices, as well as shortages of some basic foodstuffs such as sugar, for which clandestine exports to war-torn Libya are blamed. Consumer price inflation is estimated at about 4.5 per cent this year, up from 3.5 per cent in 2010.

At the same time, jobs and wages are being squeezed by the post-revolutionary fallout. The number of holidaymakers visiting Tunisia is down more than 60 per cent on last year as a result of the revolution and also because of the war in neighbouring Libya, while an estimated 3,000 jobs have been lost in the sector.

The Tunisian Hoteliers’ Federation complains that the tour operators who are insisting on cut-price packages to entice Europeans to Tunisia this year are squeezing margins in an industry where most employees’ pay packets are already modest.

“One step further and they’ll be asking us to throw tourists’ pocket money into the deal also,” said the federation’s Faouzia Belajouza.

Other businesses have more nebulous worries about the continued discontent. A recent survey of more than 50 members of the German-Tunisian Chamber of Commerce and Industry found that – while many were broadly upbeat about prospects – 92 per cent cited the lack of stability in the country’s politics and labour relations as a problem.

The government and employers have responded with wage increases for some public and private-sector workers and a new allowance for some graduate jobseekers. The social affairs ministry announced on August 4 that 185,000 low-income families would receive a one-off cash payment of $55 to tide them over during the ongoing holy month of Ramadan, while 430,000 school and college students will receive cash pay-outs of between $22 and $73.

In towns in the centre and west of the country, work-creation schemes have taken more of the unemployed on to their books – although allegations of corruption and nepotism, like so many other ugly features of the Ben Ali regime, still persist as the landmark elections approach.

This article was published in The Financial Times on 15/08/2011

Ali Saleh… When He Speaks

By Zuheir Kseibati

Opportunists, bandits, thieves who stole the revolution, beneficiaries, Marxist remnants, war traders, Taliban, Al-Qaeda and Salafi elements, brainless people with chronic diseases who are mutilating Islam…

All of the latter are quite simply the oppositionists of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who - as soon as the reports circulated in regard to his recent submission to Western pressures and especially American ones to transfer power - chose to break the good news to his supporters and tell them he will soon finish his treatment in Saudi Arabia and return to Sana’a.

Saleh is always announcing he does not want power and is not insisting on it. But his random attacks against all the opposition movements in Yemen while he is still abroad provoked those who – a few days ago – detected signs of “modesty” in the president after he miraculously survived the explosion which targeted the presidential palace’s mosque and underwent numerous surgeries.

The “ascetic” president is promising his supporters he will return, not to run in elections to ensure the extension of his term, but to salvage “constitutional legitimacy” from the fanatics of “coups”. Whoever listens to Ali Saleh would almost believe that Yemen’s entire crisis is mere misleading exercised by the “traditional” opposition and the youth. And when he adds the talk about the political money “pumped by international powers,” the characteristics of the “conspiracy” become complete with international funding to “hijack” the revolution and topple “constitutional legitimacy.” But what is left for Yemen without a rule or a revolution?

While the literature of the president who miraculously exited the rubble of the explosion is extensively tackling this incredible alliance between Marxists, Taliban elements, Salafis, Nasseris and Reformists (from the Yemeni Congregation for Reform), that same alliance was joined by Al-Qaeda in Zinjibar!

The unhappy Yemen toward what was produced by bitter months of divisions in the military and tribal ranks is back to square one, in parallel to the surprise of Ali Abdullah Saleh’s escalation and mobilization of the tribes against each other to prevent the birth of a “national transitional council.” Nonetheless, this step was also delayed under international and especially American pressures in the hope that the president would sign the Gulf initiative and surrender power.

Ali Saleh’s recorded speech to confuse his oppositionists - a few hours before the proclamation of the council - eliminated all doubts and featured escalatory expressions leading all the sides back to square one. Moreover, the president did not lose the ability to plant the seeds of conflict between the Hashid and Bakil tribes, in light of all that was said about the “secret” articles of a settlement that would stop Yemen’s collapse and slide toward civil war. And while Ali Saleh’s supporters considered the formation of the “transitional council” as being a merciful killing of the Gulf initiative, all his opponents perceived his ongoing refusal to “surrender power to the opportunists” and his insistence on the staging of early elections as being a continuous depletion of the opposition and an attempt to create division between it and the “duped” revolutionary youth.

Hence, Yemen will remain trapped between two trenches – that of the wounded “constitutional legitimacy” in light of the explosion that targeted the presidential mosque, and that of popular legitimacy as it was dubbed by the oppositionists when they joined the revolution. It is worth mentioning at this level that some of the latter were among the most prominent allies of the regime, namely the Yemeni Congregation for Reform whose leaders and sheikhs are now considered by Ali Saleh as being “claimants of Islam.”

Some among the Yemenis perceive Muammar al-Gaddafi’s senseless acts and insane stubbornness in dealing with NATO and the revolutionaries and the expansion of the military option on the Syrian domestic arena – despite the disastrous losses – as being a source of encouragement to the Yemeni president to stand fast and rely on time. However, no one in Sana’a or abroad can speculate about the outcome of the incitement of confrontation between Yemen’s tribes following the preliminary testing of the street by street option and the lifting by the presidential guards of their weapons in the face of those who were the protectors of the regime for many years.

The wall of trust with Ali Saleh cannot be mended. This was said by the oppositionists who – a few months ago – succumbed to the revolution of the street in the hope it would rid them of the lost game with a regime that has always mastered the subjugation of its opponents. Today, it is speaking about dialogue, as though only they were responsible for the blood swamps.

And between a “constitutional legitimacy” claiming to be wise and pure, a “misled” innocent revolution and the “bandit” politicians, Yemen is remaining in the same location, i.e. at the top of the volcano of strife.

-This commentary was published in al-Hayat on 18/08/2011
-Zuheir Kseibati is the managing editor of al-Hayat in Beirut