Bastards in Bahrain.

Well the Grand Prix maintained its record of holding races in horrible regimes. The little island of Bahrain is just the most recent example, but there were the races in Apartheid South Africa and Fascist Spain of yesteryear. It was good to find updates in the mainstream, just a glimpse at the courageous pro-democracy movement: particularly the ongoing hunger strike by Abdulhadi al-Khawaja. The most recent protests and deaths at the hands of the police forces have received much more attention than they would have otherwise. The repression in Bahrain now has John Yates, once a candidate for the top job in the Met, to defend the House of Khalifa. Well, you've got to pay the mortgage somehow! On top of this, King Hamad has been invited to dine at the celebrations of the Queen's Jubilee. All of this comes over a year since the Saudi intervention in Bahrain was waged. The intervention embodied the West's anxiety at the prospect of democracy in the Middle East.

First it was Bahrain, then it was Libya. By then, Ben Ali and Mubarak had been swept away by the revolutionary contagion spreading rapidly from country to country. You can say it was oil in Libya, but you can't simply say that about Bahrain. The island isn't simply a major oil-producer unlike it's neighbours. There is a reason that the US Fifth Fleet is stationed in Bahrain, it is well situated to defend the status quo. In the West the fear was that the uprising would establish a Shi'ite dominated state in the Gulf. This would go far to undermine the Arab facade of US client-states which keep a friendly hand on the oil spigot. It could mean a new ally for Iran, not to mention give ideas to the Shi'ite dominated eastern province of Saudi Arabia. This is at a time when the Iraqi government is looking to avoid another war with Iran and instead wants stable relations. Meanwhile a civil war rages in Syria with the Ba'ath Party just about clinging to power, its talons bloody as ever.

As with the violent repressions in Syria and Libya, the reason given in Bahrain was to defend the nation from 'foreign interference'. Similarly, in Egypt, Mubarak had anti-Semitic propaganda distributed as he called on Bibi Netanyahu to send the IDF into Tahrir Square. By then it was too late to save the tyrant, the military shunted Mubarak out of office hoping to buy-off the opposition. Meanwhile the Israeli political class watched with great unease as the US gave up on blocking elections in Egypt after it became impossible to save the dictator. And for good reason, Egypt has been a vital US proxy since Sadat dragged the country into a tacit alliance with Israel in the 1970s. By then Sadat had already imposed market reforms which destroyed the country's middle-class and opened the door to corruption. After the rebellions of 2011 suppressed, the serious question for the House of Khalifa is how to reformulate the old order.

Ironically, it was in eastern Arabia that a esoteric Ismaili sect set out to build a society based on reason and equality. By 899 the Qarmatians had established a utopian republic in what is now Bahrain. Its system of governance consisted of a council of six with a chief who was the first among equals. Out of a millenarian fervour the Qarmatians sacked Mecca in 930, stealing the Black Stone and dumping dead pilgrims in the Well of Zamzam. The Qarmatians may have first attempted to redirect the pilgrimage away from Mecca before holding it for ransom. Whatever the case, over 20 years later, the Black Stone was left shattered in the Great Mosque of Kufa in Iraq. The opportunity to seize control had come for the Qarmatians from the aftermath of the slave rebellion in Basra, which raged from 869 to 883 and had left Baghdad diminished in power. Hundreds of thousands of slaves participated as the rebels held that the most qualified man should reign - even if he is a black slave.

Even in recent history, Bahrain has seen uprisings and significant protest over the last 20 years for democracy with the state managing to fend-off each successive wave of opposition. Given that Bahrain is an important artery to the heart of capitalism in the Middle East, it may mean that the GCC itself has to been shaken up sufficiently to bring about democratic change. This would mean serious change in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and the UAE.  Notice there has been no regime change and no reform in any of these states. The repression was swift to prevent any serious opposition from even appearing on the streets. This is where most of the power in the region is concentrated, the epicentre of capital accumulation from an unsustainable energy trade. The Arab Spring has shaken a rotten status quo in the region to its core, but has yet to fundamentally change the Middle East. This isn't to say that it has been a failure, far from it, it means that it has to go further.

Libya without Gaddafi.

"I am the one who created Libya, and I will be the one to destroy it." - Muammar al-Gaddafi

The personalised regime of Colonel Gaddafi has taken a page out of the Israelis' book and resorted to using cluster bombs against the population. The 1.2 million people who have been maimed, mutilated or murdered under him is a long way from the reforms delivered in the 1970s which provided the Libyan people with free health-care and free education. Nasser said of Gaddafi shortly before his death "I rather like Gaddafi. He reminds me of myself when I was that age." By the end of the decade Gaddafi had emerged as the dominant figure from a power struggle in the regime with a faction seeking to embark on greater socio-economic development. With the rival faction crushed, Gaddafi moved to support terrorist groups abroad until he became a scapegoat for the US government and Libya endured a US bombing campaign. The evidence which ties the Libyan regime to the Lockerbie bombing and the disco bombing in Germany is highly questionable. But it is undoubtedly true that Gaddafi supported the IRA and other groups.

And yet we know that the US and the UK, among other states, have intervened to block attempts to charge Gaddafi with the crimes he has committed against his own people. This is just after the international tribunal on crimes committed in Sierra Leone and the trial of Charles Taylor came to an end. All the while the media focus in Britain is still on the matter of al-Megrahi and David Cameron talks as if Gaddafi will face a war crimes tribunal. Keep in mind that it would seem that the Obama administration are bailing out the regime in Tripoli. The Central Bank of Libya has been exempted from the sanctions imposed on the country by the US. Though it is not that the US is looking to prop up the Colonel, the regime is to be reconstituted including the bourgeois tendencies of Benghazi that have agreed to respect old oil arrangements and may have even agreed recognise the state of Israel. It should also be noted that the military leadership of the rebels have links with the CIA.

The National Council in Benghazi is not totally representative of the rebellion as a grass-roots movement for democracy. The National Council consists of professional politicians and military officials, mostly defectors from the Gaddafi regime. As many of the rebels have been maimed and killed in battle, the rebellion overall has lost it's "popular character" in that the real decisions are being made in Benghazi. The rebel forces are being armed with weapons from Qatar and there have been moves to export Libyan oil through Qatar. These are the reasons that the recent summit was held in Doha, it had nothing to do with what might be best for Libyans. Though the possibility of recognising the National Council as the official government of Libya was discussed. It should also be noted that Qatar has been in bed with the US for many years. Qatar was on board with the intervention from the beginning and was one of the biggest advocates of a no-fly zone.

The way in which Qatar has acted is not a simple expression of self-interest, it should be understood as a part of the GCC as well as an extension of US-Israeli interests in the region. The major issues are oil and the tacit alliance between Israel and many Arab states. The fall of Gaddafi is welcome because he has outlived his usefulness, the rebels have seized control of the oil fields in the country and have produced a government which is even more insidiously pro-Western than before. It may even be under this leadership that the country could undergo further neoliberal reforms, which would continue the decline of health-care, education and standards of living. All of which began as Gaddafi sought to improve relations with the West after the collapse of the Soviet Union and had succeeded by the early 2000s. But as the rebel forces might be able to take Tripoli there has been talk of a "boots on the ground" intervention and a partitioned country as previously mentioned.

Whether or not the rebels can actually take Tripoli is the most important factor, a fractured nation could be the result of this conflict and a Gulf emirate model could emerge in the oil-rich east whilst western Libya descends into poverty. This might be seen as a pragmatic solution by the US, Britain and France. A further inflammation of tensions between rival tribes, as well as religious sects, as class interests relate to the geographic situation of particular tribes. This is a serious possibility as a great deal of the oil fields have been secured. A partition along such lines would be a disaster, as similar partitions have been in Ireland, Cyprus and Palestine. Even if Tripoli is taken Libya might only emerge as a bourgeois democracy, at best, with the regime only fragmented and the Colonel deposed. This might make it a wonderful holiday destination for white people, whether or not it would improve health-care in the country is another matter.

When War Pigs Fly.

The revolution in Libya has "stalled" as the revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries are battling it out. The point of no return has been passed in Libya, it's live free or die, Gaddafi is clinging onto Tripoli and some areas which are dominated by his tribe, but the revolution snatched over 90% of Libya from his manicured fingers in recent weeks. The vehemence of the Colonel's death squads procured from Chad, Niger and Serbia have failed to restore Gaddafi's power. The "passionate" support for Gaddafi in Tripoli is really the result of a recent bribe and a concentration of wealth in the capital. Though the Libyan elite has been split down the middle by Gaddafi's actions, which has been reflected by the defection of numerous officials and soldiers, out of megalomania the Colonel thinks he can hold on. But Uncle Sam has other ideas, the Obama administration have taken the first steps to funnel cash and weapons to the revolutionaries in liberated Benghazi.

The middle-men are the House of Saud of course, who hate Gaddafi for ideological as well as personal reasons. The secular model offered by Arab nationalism has been the traditional threat to the Saudi Royals, who rely on a fundamentalist establishment to prop up their corrupt monarchy. This is without the constant insults Gaddafi has hurled at King Abdullah and the attempt to assassinate the King last year. The surface reasons for an intervention in Libya are that Gaddafi has resorted to brute force in the face of a democratic uprising. But at another level the West is worried about the flow of oil and the impact of the upheval on oil prices. The concern that we might see another oil shock amongst the British elite was reflected in Cameron's hubristic talk of a no-fly zone and funds for rebels. For which the Obama administration slapped David Cameron on the hand, opting for a more subtle approach. Notice that the British government only condemned Gaddafi after the US and began talking of intervention soon after the American neocons turned up in revolutionary garb to call for a US-led strike on Libya.

The mistake made by the pro-American administration in Whitehall was that they attempted to dutifully follow pre-empted decisions made in Washington. The Prime Minister then had to back away from calls that Washington believes in, but will not pursue so openly which is why the US has deployed four warships for "humanitarian" purposes and "military objectives". At the same time, £1 billion of the Gaddafi fortune has been frozen in Britain. An occupation at LSE is calling for the return of every penny of Gaddafi's investment in that institution and has succeeded in prompting a resignation... Sadly, the British government continues to follow dutifully on behind Washington, in foreign as well as domestic affairs. From the Iraq war to paying for nuclear weapons, which are a part of the American nuclear command system, let alone shipping off numerous wanted"terrorists" around the world sometimes for a trial over a burst condom and sometimes simply a spot of waterboarding.

The coalition government formed in "Free Libya" has made agreements to respect old arrangements with oil giants. The uprising and counter-revolutionary violence has caused oil prices to rise. Britain has a great deal of assets and invested interests in Libya, as we have in Egypt. If the military had struck against the demonstrations in Tahrir Square there would have been a similar schism as seen in Libya and Egypt would have been torn apart, the British and the Americans may have even invaded in such a scenario. It would seem that the Colonel has outlived his usefulness to Western powers as a "reformed" dictator, who might one day transform Libya into the Norway of North Africa as Anthony Giddens hoped. At this point it is practical for the Americans to supplant the old Arab nationalist order with a new regime that would have the enthusiasm of the people behind it - for now at least. The little embarrassment over selling arms to Libya felt by the British and the Americans seems to have evaporated. The traditional means of redemption are being sought, ultra-violence.

There are good reasons to oppose neoconservatives on the issue of military intervention, as there is a long and ignoble list of atrocities. The Reagan administration turned a blind eye to CIA-sponsored trafficking in drugs and guns in order to arm the Contras, a group of right-wing terrorists in Nicaragua, though this actually armed the Iranians and created a crack epidemic in California the spectre of "Communism" had to be defeated apparently. The Contras ended up killing thousands. Similarly in Afghanistan the US poured money into arming the Mujahideen, who would later carry out mass-rapes and slaughter 50,000 people in the 1990s. The preference of the Democratic Party for sanctions kept the Iraqi people under the heel of Saddam throughout the 1990s, while a no-fly zone was set up Saddam was still given the opening to crush an uprising through air-strikes. So we are right to be worried about where the sanctions against Libya and a no-fly zone may lead.

The wave of sanctions imposed under Clinton led to the deaths of over half a million people through starvation. The less "subtle" method of the Bush administration, favoured by neoconservatives,  ended up killing 1 million more people and left 4 million displaced. This leaves out the countless millions who have been dispossessed by the economic "shock therapy" Iraq was put through, which privatised and deregulated all public services over night. Efforts were then made to ensure that multinational corporations would not have to worry about paying any taxes in Iraq. All rammed through by a coterie of unelected bureaucrats and officials, mostly American, who also redrew the Iraqi Constitution. The occupation of Iraq stood in firm opposition to democratic elections for 2 years before finally giving in. Notably the artful oik (our current Chancellor) and Michael Gove both fawned over Blair, Gove declared "I love Tony Blair" in The Times just prior to the war.


Intervention in such cases as Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam and Nicaragua (among a lot of other places) was immoral. But the Libyan revolutionaries are not the Mujahideen nor are they the Contras. It would seem that to support the revolution would be to oppose Gaddafi's counter-revolution. There are parallels between Libya and Iraq. The old nationalist order versus an uprising, sanctions are pursued. In the case of Iraq it was a disaster and we have yet to see what will come of the sanctions against Libya. Importantly, there is a distinction between the kind of intervention led by hawks, in Washington and Whitehall, and the kind of intervention which might actually help the revolution. A no-fly zone could keep Gaddafi's forces on the land, apart from helicopters, and give the rebels a good chance of victory. Without a no-fly zone Gaddafi still has the capability to launch air-strikes against the rebels.

Although there may be a case to be made for a specific kind of intervention, an ideal no-fly zone, as there was in the Balkans in the 90s or in Iraq when Saddam gassed the Kurds. It must be conceded that the rebels do not want foreign interference and that there is a convergence of self-interest behind the calls for intervention. To support the attempt by the SAS to meet with rebels or the deployment of warships by the US on these grounds would be idiotic. We should have no illusions about the intentions behind American and British policy-makers looking to topple Gaddafi. The fall of Gaddafi is only preferable to them because he has outlived his usefulness and a freed up political system will be less of an embarrassment. But it could only be a softer, and more insidiously pro-American, version of Gaddafi and harder to drive out. But that does not justify Gaddafi's rule, the Colonel has to go, it should be for the Libyan people that he go and not Western economic interests.

No Exit for Gaddafi?

 Mad Dog in Free-Fall.

At an alarming pace - alarming for Western leaders, ultra-nationalists in Tel Aviv and neocons everywhere - the revolutionary contagion has spread across North Africa and the Middle East. First taking down Ben Ali and then Mubarak, as demonstrations popped up in Jordan, Iran, Algeria, Yemen and Syria among other places. To compare this to the breakdown of the Eastern Bloc in 1989 would not be outlandish, though there is no Gorbachev and the West has only an old principle to cling to. The principle which holds that democracy is only favourable when it conforms to objectives of the socio-economic and strategic kind. Thus, the "fear" that the Muslim Brothers might rush to power if Mubarak was to be removed and free elections held in Egypt immediately. Really there is no chance of an Islamist state emerging in Egypt from the democratic process as the base of the Brotherhood accounts for 20% of the population at most. The real fear is that the Egyptian people will pursue independence, as Nasser had in the 1950s and 60s. It looks like the revolution has hit Libya and the regime led by the Colonel has been significantly weakened by it.

Oh the irony as it was the shamelessly extravagant Colonel who was so eager to condemn the uprising in Tunisia. It is even more ironic considering that Colonel Gaddafi had once dreamed of a pan-Arab state consisting of Libya, Tunisia, Egypt and Syria. The state could not rely on the police and the military to crush protesters, instead opting to deploy the most vicious forms of counter-revolution. The internet, landlines were cut-off and foreign journalists banned to try and keep the slaughter a secret. The death squads have led hundreds slaughtered, including women and children. Nevertheless Benghazi was lost to demonstrators who quickly began flying the flag of pre-Gaddafi Libya, the country's second city had fallen as government officials defected. Pilots sent to carry out air-strikes to suppress the revolt have refused and some have landed in Malta. At a protest outside the Libyan embassy in London, the staff of the embassy joined the protesters. It would appear that the regime is in free-fall and the "Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution" will be the first to hit the ground.

Soon police stations in Tripoli were burning and the Colonel had fled to a military base in the South of Libya. The dictator's son Saif al-Islam, a friend of Prince Andrew and Lord Mandelson, issued threats through the media and warned of a "civil war" if the protesters did not hault. There were rumours that Gaddafi had fled to Venezuela or even France, so in an appearance lasting less than 30 seconds the "Mad Dog of the Middle East" assured everyone that he was still in Tripoli. The move was as impotent as all the anti-imperialist rhetoric he has pumped out in recent years. Just as the use of death squads, referred to as "militias" in the press, is in part a sign of desperation. These squads are made up of armed killers contracted from places like Niger, Chad and even Serbia. As the military is not totally reliable anymore, Gaddafi has had to hire "foreign help" whilst still calling on the cops and the soldiers to crush the revolt. It is notable that Mubarak spent 3.12% of GDP on the Egyptian army and in Libya the military receives just 1.2% of GDP. Most of the weapons being used against the people of Libya have been gained through arms deals with the US and Britain.

 A Reformed Revolutionary.

The rise to power of Gaddafi is reminiscent of the Egyptian revolution in 1952 in which a group of Free Officers seized the state from King Farouk. Similarly Gaddafi was a member of a similar coterie of military officials who removed a pro-American monarchy in a bloodless coup in 1969. Muammar al-Gaddafi quickly began to rail against the European colonial powers, the United States and Israel. The young Colonel, at the time he was only 27, acted to craft his regime on the Egyptian model of pan-Arabism and secular nationalism. With the slogan "socialism, freedom and unity" one chapter ended and another began for the people of Libya. Before his death in 1970 Nasser said "I rather like Gaddafi. He reminds me of myself when I was that age." Gaddafi had admired General Nasser since childhood, he would try to fill Nasser's shoes and converted Tripoli's Cathedral into the Gamel Abdel Nasser Mosque. In 1975 Anwar al-Sadat, the man who succeeded Nasser, would later describe Muammar al-Gaddafi as "100 percent sick and possessed by the devil." Thanks to Sadat and Gaddafi, Egypt and Libya are both corrupt autocracies.

In 1970 the new regime had expelled somewhere between 15,000 and 25,000 Italians who had settled there during the colonial decades from 1911-1941. Military bases for the US and Britain were closed and sent home. Gaddafi led the country into an abortive invasion with Chad in 1972, which he would later "re-attempt" in 1980 only to abort once more. During the oil crisis of 1973, as OPEC cut production and raised prices Gaddafi supported the oil embargo on the US. Throughout the 1970s Gaddafi would propel himself forward with anti-imperialism and welfarism which he claimed was part of a system of Islamic socialism. With the use of Libyan oil reserves to construct a welfare state to provide free education, health-care and affordable housing as part of a "cultural revolution". All the while the Gaddafi regime supported radical Palestinian groups, the IRA and Muslim secessionists in the Philippines. Libya soon became a pariah state as the US led the way in implementing economic sanctions against the state, which would be intensified over the years.

Not long after Ronald Reagan came to power in 1981 the "War on Terror" was declared and Libya became a "punching bag" for the US. In that same year, Libyan fighter-jets were shot down in disputed waters by the US military. Before the year was out the Reaganites led the American people to believe that the Colonel's killers were in Washington looking to whack the President as well as George HW Bush. Not that the regime was not responsible for real crimes, the 1984 shooting of PC Yvonne Fletcher by a gunman in the Libyan embassy immediately comes to mind but Gaddafi has also had Libyan dissidents murdered. A climate of jingoism was mobilised by the US government to justify an aggressive foreign policy. For Libya it culminated in 1986, when the bombing of a West Berlin disco packed with American servicemen was "linked" to Gaddafi. The chickenhawks at the Pentagon leapt on the opportunity to bomb Libya and the poodles of Whitehall quickly gave Washington permission to launch the attack from British military bases.

Since then it looks like it was Iran or Syria that was behind the regime, not that it would have justified an air-strike on either of those countries. In the case of the Lockerbie Bombing of 1988 it also looks as though the bombing was retaliation by Iran for the "accident" earlier that year, in which the USS Vincennes shot down an Iran Air Flight 665 over the Persian Gulf and killed 290 passengers. It would be an "accident" which President Bush rewarded the ship's captain for in 1990. It has been theorised that the real culprits were not al-Megrahi but a free-lance Palestinian group contracted by Tehran. If the Colonel falls and the regime caves in we could see the Libyan side of this story and compare it to the accepted version prevalent in the Western media. A collapse of the Libyan regime is not a "welcome" result of the Tunisia Effect in the West. For as Gaddafi has become a "reformed" figure in recent years and increasingly friendly to the powers, which he still lambasts from time to time as imperialists. Thus, the black and white picture of Omar Mukhtar with the Fascists who caught him appeared on Gaddafi's military garb in Italy not too long ago.

 Escape to Hell.

Around the same time that Bush was rewarding murderers, with the Medal of Legion, the Eastern bloc fell apart and soon the Soviet Union also fell. A major source of support that Gaddafi had fallen back on in the 80s was gone as Egypt became a client state for the US. In the 1990s Gaddafi's Libya became isolated and an easy target for economic sanctions. Eventually relations with the West began to "thaw" as Gaddafi jumped to condemn al-Qaeda after 9/11 and urged Libyans to give blood for the victims of the atrocity. Gaddafi was soon on board with the redeclared "War on Terrorism", which he used to crush the threat of Islamism to his regime. The Colonel was soon rehabilitated in the Western media as al-Megrahi was put on trial and billions in compensation was paid out to the families of the victims of the Lockerbie Bombing, large-scale arms contracts and oil deals worth billions would follow. Tripoli was soon flooded with European capital as the state imposed neoliberal structural reforms whilst hanging "radical Islamists" in public.

Over the years the Colonel has become increasingly excessively ostentatious to the point of farcical displays of anti-imperialist rhetoric and impotent spectacles, let alone the ridiculous costumes and titles. This narcissist is not only the "Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution" but also the King of Kings in Africa and Imam to all Muslims apparently. The oppression and brutality on which Gaddafi has sustained his megalomania over the years has gone on long enough for the Libyan people. The erratic behaviour of the "Mad Dog" does not have many allies left in the world, he won't be joining Ben Ali in Saudi Arabia any time soon. The Libyan elite has been split over the recent massacres, which is the reason that some military personnel, government officials and even important tribes have abandoned Gaddafi. As the isolation of the Colonel increases and his options continue to dwindle, one cannot help but feel this man is most deserving. After all he has killed around 700 people in recent days to stop the movement from seizing the East and liberating Benghazi.

Libya has a per capita income of $12,000 which is the highest in Africa, though the regime favours the West of the country where the majority of capital is concentrated. The revenue from the 1.7 million barrels of oil exported every day accumulate in Western Libya, while a third of Libyans live in poverty. Tripoli has yet to fall to the movement for a free Libya, but a nearby city has reportedly fallen. Days ago at the Presidential Palace, Muammar al-Gaddafi blurted out "I am the one who created Libya, and I will be the one to destroy it." In his most recent speech he has talked of martyrdom. Hopefully this means he is up for being fired out of a cannon aimed at Silvio Berlusconi, especially as he evoked the resistance of the Libyan martyrs to the Italians. From where Gaddafi stands, with nowhere to flee, would it be better to burn out than fade away? A nihilistic stand-off by the Colonel would look more like a parody of the last days Hitler spent in the Führerbunker determined to take Germany with him. As Libyans are being killed in the streets of Tripoli and elsewhere.