Washington is caught between its public rhetoric in support of democracy and universal rights and its long-standing regional allies that are largely autocratic regimes, writes Ayman El-Amir As the revolutionary spring unfolds in the Arab world, the United States finds itself at a new crossroads. Protest movements that have swept nine Arab countries targeted diverse regimes, including pseudo- republican autocracies such as Egypt and Tunisia, Libya and Yemen, and conventional monarchies as Bahrain, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. The process of long- suppressed Arab transformation is taking its inevitable course. For the US it poses a dilemma of navigating between the support of what President Barack Obama called universal rights and the protection of US interests, historically guarded by oppressive Arab regimes. The revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt were America's easier challenge. It was not until the regimes in both countries showed signs of vulnerability that the Obama administration pronounced that it would side with the choice of the people. Tunisia's Zein Al-Abidine bin Ali and Egypt's Mubarak felt betrayed by the ally they had served so loyally for so many years. After decades of dictatorial rule perpetuated by fraudulent elections and police state repression they discovered that Western support was not an ironclad guarantee against mass revolt by the people. The reluctance of the military in both countries to intervene on behalf of the regimes left the leaders with no option but to step down. And Western powers could not save them without entering into direct conflict with the masses of the people. For Libya the situation is different. Maverick Colonel Gaddafi enjoys very little sympathy anywhere in the world, particularly in the Gulf Arab states that pushed for UN action against him. Gaddafi had been accused of fomenting a plot to assassinate King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and his record of supporting terror does not endear him to Western countries. They have, in time, forgiven his crimes in return for generous compensation packages and lucrative oil contracts. However, the tide of the Libyan rebellion turned the odds against Gaddafi. It turned out that he had no compromise to offer except using his army and hired African mercenaries to kill his people or use them as human shields. In the words of a rebel leader, Gaddafi told his opponents, "I will either rule you, or kill you." In the early days of the Western coalition's military strike against his forces, Gaddafi made the primitive threat of unleashing a tide of illegal immigration to flood European shores. Yemen and Bahrain fall into another category. Like Tunisia, Egypt and Libya they have fulfilled the two cardinal preconditions for a full-scale revolution: assembly of the critical mass demanding change and the spilling of blood in confrontation with the ruling regime. However, Yemen's proximity to Saudi Arabia, the big oil apple, makes violent regime change a direct threat to the entrenched Saudi dynasty. That may be a critical line for the US and its Western allies, not only for ensuring the stability of oil supply and prices but also in the fight against terrorism and for curbing the influence of Iran. What made the protest in Bahrain more dangerous is that it was cast as a Shia-versus-Sunni sectarian strife, a tone that the government did little to discourage. The bloody confrontation in Pearl Square in Manama was further exacerbated by the government's strong pronouncement of Iran as the agent provocateur of the majority Shia population's unrest. To block a perceived Iranian threat to the ruling Sunni dynasty, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates sent troops to support the monarchy. In a further escalation, Bahrain ordered the Iranian charge d'affaires out of the country, accusing him of interfering in its internal affairs. Iran reciprocated. President Ali Abdullah Saleh, like Egypt's Mubarak before him, was confident of the continuity of his 32- year-old rule of corrupt and impoverished Yemen. He counted on his full cooperation with the West in the fight against terror, including his tribal opponents that he painted as Al Qaeda operatives, on his sheltered position in the shadow of Saudi Arabia and on last- minute manoeuvres to save his regime. Taking a leaf from the Egyptian Revolution's textbook, Saleh first ordered his security forces to shoot protesters, most recently killing 52 and wounding 120 in Sanaa. When that failed he contrived a cabinet change. Then he sent his foreign minister to Saudi Arabia to seek support and mediation. However, the Yemeni critical mass had gathered so much momentum that it reached the point of no return, as Egypt did on 28 January 2011, codenamed the Friday of Wrath. His days in power seem to be numbered as the rebels reach their last stretch and the army is divided. Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Syria are also facing rebellious stirrings, some more serious than the others. The Saudi regime was quick to pre-empt a protest movement by doing what it does best: throw money at it. The government of King Abdullah Ibn Abdel-Aziz stymied the tide of discontent by dispensing approximately $35 billion in social and economic donations to all Saudi nationals -- a bonanza that neither Syria nor Morocco could emulate. However, the social and political roots of rebellion remain unresolved. Should President Saleh flee to Jeddah too, Saudi Arabia will earn the unflattering reputation of being the safe haven for bloody dictators. The US is facing a kaleidoscopic situation in a region where, until recently, regimes seemed to be carved in stone. Its long-time allies are being chased out of power by hundreds of thousands of determined protesters or are under pressure to leave. Countries of the region as well as Western allies are contending with a very complex agenda, depending on the depth of interest, the political perspective and traditional friendly relations or hostilities. There is little disagreement on what should be done with Gaddafi's rogue regime. He is a megalomaniac dictator who does not mind to rule half of the Libyan people who are terrorised into submission to his whims while expending the other half who are in opposition. Arab regimes and people, joined by the world's public, would like to see him disappear and the Libyan people released from his grip. However, the same consensus does not extend to other regimes, particularly those that are strategic to Saudi Arabia, like Yemen, or those that are sustained by monarchic affinity, like Bahrain, Morocco, Jordan and most Gulf Arab states. The fundamental problem is that most countries have been mired in semi-feudal and despotic regimes for so long that the demands of the protesters for reform far exceed the limits of the rulers' tolerance. In this situation the US is walking a tightrope. It has some close allies that have served its interests for decades, including in the invasion of Iraq, and it would reluctantly part with them. However, its most cherished values, as publicised, rest with the adamant opponents of these very regimes. The cool reception accorded to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by the masses in Tunisia and Tahrir Square in Egypt reflected the people's sentiments towards the big power that supported their tormentors. Sentiments, however, do not make policy, and the US will have to reshape its political perspective on the Middle East to take into consideration the changing realities. The Obama administration has embraced the principle of universal rights to position itself between the practices of its old-time allies and the aspirations of the new nationalist forces. After the resolution of the Libyan crisis, the US and its Western allies will find it difficult to go around the Arab world supporting rebellious masses against their oppressive regimes. So, as was the case in Tunisia and Egypt, it will adopt a wait-and-see position while developments unfold. It will still be left with the agonising question of how many hundreds of civilian casualties have to fall before the US could take serious political action to support revolutions and denounce murderous regimes like that of President Saleh in Yemen, even at the expense of alienating Saudi Arabia which is still smarting from the overthrow of its close ally, Hosni Mubarak. The writer is former Al-Ahram correspondent in Washington DC. He also served as director of United Nations Radio and Television in New York.
