I wrotean article called “Arab Spring - Success or Failure?” Now, eight months later, the Arab Spring in Tunisia is viewed as a great failure by most people. To add insult to injury, I keep reading reports from honest friends, whose names I will not divulge for good reasons, complaining that the situation in Tunisia worsens day by day. In small towns and villages people are scared, as there is no security anymore.

Many in the Arab World saw the revolutions as a spontaneous event. However, knowing the country very well, I who was born in Tunisia have never believed this version. There are some political adventurers who wanted to change the world as they see it in their dream. Those who sided with this version have not taken into consideration the consequences and the damage caused to the people. They believed that shortly after the revolution democracy would be instituted. Now we can say for sure, the opposite happened. Instead of the existing democracy, theocracy was established. Now we can see that the result of those revolutions brought only damage to the people involved and to the countries in question. As far as I can see, instead of bringing hope and improvement to the lives of the people, the revolution brought theocracy and more suffering to the population.

 

The revolution in Libya was even worse. The US left it to France to manage the support for the rebels, and “lead from behind” by sending Tomahawks from the US fleet in the Mediterranean, to help those groups which were highly infiltrated by the Al Qaeda. Nobody supervised the entire arsenal of arms, consisting of a military fleet, tanks, air planes, canons, mortars, ammunition for all these, and chemical weapons. No one can tell us today where they are. The US lost track as they were not there to supervise; France who was supposed to be there didn’t do its job. The entire military hardware went from place to place and finally surfaced in the Middle East in the hands of Hamas and the Syrian rebels, thanks to Qatar which is selling them to Iran for Hamas. Until today, we do not have the facts of what happened in Benghazi.

 

In Egypt, Mubarak was a great friend of America and Israel, and ensured 30 years of stability in the entire Middle East, which now is in complete disarray. Until now I do not understand why Obama was so eager to get rid of him in a very insulting way. We succeeded to oust him in a very bad manner. Until recently he was in jail for no reason. And what did Egypt get out of the revolution? A theocracy with the Muslim Brotherhood at its helm and constant revolts, because we neglected the moderate part of the population and the Christians, who were under attack by the Muslim Brotherhood. Furthermore, Morsi did not care to control the Sinai, where American troops are stationed and are now in danger. He also neglected to control the creation of hundreds of tunnels from the Sinai Peninsula into Gaza, where tons of arms and other goods are smuggled. Hundreds of groups are constantly roaming in the Sinai Peninsula, some armed, some not, some belonging to Al Qaeda, without interference of the Egyptian Army and some are crossing over into Israel. As far as I know, in the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt the US guarantees that these two countries do not get into a conflict again, by placing radars and American troops there.

 

Meanwhile the Egyptian Army discovered that Morsi was a traitor as he cooperated with different terror groups in Sinai and was arming them as he never believed in democracy and his main goal was to strengthen the Muslim Brotherhood in the entire Middle East.

 

As for Syria, since its inception two years ago, the revolution caused an enormous loss of lives, according to the press, which reports that since the beginning almost hundred thousand died and almost half a million civilians are wounded, not counting the armies’ dead and wounded through fight on both sides. There are over a million of homeless and refugees. Is this the dream that political people wished for? Do we have the right to take on such an irresponsible adventure?

 

Without knowing where the wind leads us, we can tell for sure that the Arab Spring was a man-made disaster. In fact, we are the ones who encouraged the revolutions and the exile of the leadership of existing governments which helped the US, such as Ben Ali of Tunisia, who, like Mubarak of Egypt was an ally of the US. Those revolutions created general damage to our country, such as loss of credibility and trust.

 

The USA without ever getting to see real democracies in that part of the world must admit that the Arab Spring has changed the situation in different regions and we don’t know what the future has in store. The Arab countries were not ready for a change in regime. We have indirectly induced them to go ahead. There is a difference between a speech that entices people and a bloody revolution that kills people.

 

By abandoning Iraq after so many of our bravest gave their life and billions of dollars were spent, we should not forget that much of our hardware was left for the Iraqi army and much was abandoned and fell into the hands of al-Qaida. In fact we strengthened al-Qaida by giving them an advantage. It now became a substantial power which spans from Bagdad to Syria and from the northern Sinai, where Hamas is located, to North Africa, helped by the Muslim Brotherhood. Some newspapers say that the Muslim Brotherhood was the one who was involved in Benghazi, Mali, and at the Algerian gas installations. The Lebanese border became more dangerous since the Hezbollah is active in Syria to help Assad’s army and battle the groups of insurgents.

 

Jordan and Lebanon find themselves in a difficult situation, having to accommodate fighters and thousands of refugees. Jordan is hanging on a thread, in an unknown situation, as it became a refugee place for the Syrians and serving as a center for Qatar and Saudi Arabia which are supplying weapons for the Syrian insurgents.  

 

Meanwhile in Tunisia, the new religious government, Ennahda can neither secure the country nor satisfy the population, as most of the government members are unable and incapable to govern, as they came directly from jail where they were incarcerated by the former government for all kinds of criminal activities.

 

It is not wise to mix ourselves in other countries’ problems unless it is indispensable and can save lives and enhance the life of the population. We should forget about revolutions which only kill innocent people. In my view we could help only if the people of a country initiated the revolution to have more freedom and the economic situation can improve.

 

While we abandon the Middle East, another group was formed, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Gulf States. Now the Russians are offering them all kinds of goodies to win them over.  

At this moment we are rushing to solve the problem with Iran without having any solid base, similar to Chamberlain, when he came back from Germany after meeting Hitler, with a great piece of paper with Hitler’s signature, who broke his promise immediately.

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Copyright 2013 Emile Tubiana