The following article by Italian MP Fiamma Nirenstein was first published by the Italian newspaper 'Il Giornale' on 29 March 2011. Nirenstein recently co-sponsored with the World Jewish Congress a major conference on the future of the Middle East in Rome.
Not all revolutions are the same. We'd better learn it quickly
By Fiamma Nirenstein
It was so far away from us; the corrupt, Islamic panarabist Middle Eastern dictators, the clash between Shiites and Sunnis, the spurious alliances between this and that group, their plans for the area egemony… What did we care, after all? But now that the Middle East and Africa are so close to us, we better get a look at the camps, preferences and expectations. The West must take an accelerated course in Islamic studies.
Where is all this leading us, what should we hope for, what side should we be on? For the time the answer has only been humanitarian, but soon we will be forced to ask ourselves which dictators we’d rather see toppled, and which we’d rather see survive at least a little longer. We can rightly feel relieved about the fact that the Egyptian army declared it wants to stay in power a bit longer now that the Muslim Brotherhood has revealed its Hydra head and is ready to take Egypt. Today the greatest challenge is posed by the inevitable battle taking shape since Syria Nothing is as decisive as Bashar Assad when it comes to the new balance of power ambitiously mapped out by Iran in recent years, is on the move.and, to some extent, even by Turkey.
Whilst Gaddafi is an important yet distant player, and Yemen simmers away without really taking shape, whilst Jordan looks to an uncertain future, Syria on one hand and Bahrain on the other are creating a clash of interests between the two greatest Shiite and Sunni players, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The latter is bent on halting the Shiite revolution on the little island guarding the petrol gulf, an island which Teheran considers its own.
It is no coincidence then that Assad, who is now taking a step backward with the appointment of a new fake government, is accusing the revolution of being an artificial Sunni move. Nor is it a coincidence the rebels claim according to which the security forces that are suppressing the demonstrators include guards speaking Farsi and Hezbollah militants. Nor indeed is it a coincidence that Nasrallah advised his men to put off their monthly religious pilgrimage to the Sayyeda Zainab sanctuary in Syria. And in the last few days, just to round things off, Bahrain has protested to the Lebanese government for Nasrallah’s incitement against Manama’s government. Indeed its Foreign Minister, Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed al Khalifa stated, and “not without the approval of the Gulf States” that his country will not use kid gloves with those that promote terrorism “not just in Bahrain, but also in other Arab countries”. One can imagine that the list Al Khalifa refers to is headed by its friend Saudi Arabia, hated by Iran and its allies, which has rushed to assist the sovereigns. And here what springs immediately to mind is the attack hurled by Gaddafi: the uprising against me is the result of a Saudi plot. There are many interests involved and many internal clashes…
Turkey in turn is involved in a great Ottoman game: while being a democracy makes it different from the other Muslim States, in recent years it has persecuted the press, the military, the judges and the secular middle classes to the point that, even in its own squares, we have seen demonstrations in favor of press freedom. Erdogan's Turkey also acquired relations without precedents with Syria, with which it had been in conflict to the point of military threats. And since June 2010, the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea have seen a close-knit network of strategic and economic treaties being drafted by Turkey, Syria, Iran and Russia. There have been many reciprocal visits between Ahmadinejad and Erdogan, with a number of treaties drafted, and Turkey’s support to Iran against the nuclear sanctions has been as clear-cut and firm as has its incitement against Israel, comparable only to that of the Ayatollah’s regime. Now Turkey has attempted to halt the belligerent coalition against Gaddafi, but has nonetheless been forced to surrender to avoid losing face in the West.
It seems just yesterday that 25 February 2010, when Bashar Assad hosted a meeting of enormous strategic importance in Damascus: the guest of honour was Iranian President Ahmadinejad, welcomed like an ancient Persian king. An extremely rare encounter, starring also Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, who never leaves his bunker in Beirut. But this time he was there together with his sponsors and with Khaled Mashaal, head of Hamas. A few days later, the same meeting moved to Teheran: it also saw the participation of the head of the Islamic Jihad, Abdullah Sellah, whilst the Palestine Liberation Front was represented by Ahmad Jibril and Maher Al Taheri. A summit which the Ayatollahs must be looking back on fondly, now that Syrian power has been shaken to its core.
For years Iran has been weaving its large-scale cobweb, with Syria at its centre. How much it is enjoying the new revolutions appeared clearly a few days ago, when two Iranian ships made their entrance into the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal, landing in a Syrian port, probably with a load of weapons. Thousands of guerrillas have reached Iraq through Syria. And Syria has also delivered 40,000 missiles to Hezbollah to destroy Israel, and money and missiles to Hamas…
In short, the revolutions underway have several strategic interests, and it is increasingly evident they will be falling into two opposing camps in the future: the Iranian and the Saudi Arabian. Now that the dictators are dropping like autumn leaves, we are forced to take stock and form an opinion that is both the result of our sacrosanct interest as democratic countries and of our admiration for the young people taking to the squares. Syria and Bahrain, Egypt and Libya, are not the same thing, and we'd better learn it quickly.
