American Assaults on the Arab Revolutions

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

The West in general provokes Arab feelings with its commentary on the Arab popular movements, with its threats against rulers who are relics of the dark ages, and with the sanctions it sometimes imposes on this or that person, or this or that state. The Western states, foremost among them the United States, speak with clear arrogance and haughtiness, as though the Arabs were helpless minors incapable of standing on their own, or as though they were slaves extending a hand for rescue to the master residing in Washington or Paris. No sooner does a demonstration break out here or there in the Arab world than the Americans and those Western states clustered around them appear before us with statements about human rights, warning against violence and escalation, and so on. The people of the West have violated the honor of the Arab popular movements and revolutions, and through their repugnant, malicious endorsement they have worked to sully the purity of the Arab nation’s masses. Our rulers are hateful and have subjected their peoples to the worst suffering, and bringing them down is a sacred duty, but the West is no less hateful — indeed, it is more so.

It is a great mockery that Ashton should stand there giving us sermons on politics and ethics, or that Juppé should appoint himself guardian of the interests of the Arab peoples, or that Obama should continue threatening measures and sanctions so that internal Arab relations might be set right. Of course, we are not innocent of this mockery, because we endured injustice and enslavement for so long, and threw the door wide open to foreign intervention.

Facts of American Policy

Before turning to America’s meddling policy, it is worth putting a finger on the fundamentals of American policy in the Arab region over the past decades, in order to establish the dialectical link between the past and the present, in which America now tries to appear as though it cares about the human rights of Arabs. These facts can be summarized under the following broad headings:

First: America worked to support Zionist immigration to Palestine in the nineteenth century, and this support continued during the British Mandate. It would be mere repetition to speak again of America’s continuous support for the Zionist entity in every field and at every level.

Second: America inherited domination over Arab political regimes that British colonialism had created and installed as tribes owing it loyalty and obedience. America has preserved these regimes despite their being despotic, repressive, and self-indulgent, squandering Arab wealth, denying their peoples money, education, and freedom, and spreading ignorance, terror, submission, and subjugation in their ranks. America guards the Gulf regimes and enables them to hold their peoples by the throat; it guards the Jordanian and Moroccan regimes; and it has managed, through its various capacities and because of the rulers’ baseness, to control several republican regimes as well. It was America that brought in Zine El Abidine Ben Ali; it was America that installed Ali Abdullah Saleh; it was America that pressured for Hosni Mubarak to become vice president under Sadat; it was America that felt comfortable with the silence of the Golan front, and comfortable with the Algerian regime, which found itself allied with America in its war against so-called terrorism; it was America that incited Iraq against Iran and kept the two states occupied in a long war that drained their energies; it is America that continues to meddle in the Lebanese arena; and it is America that supports the Palestinian Authority standing guard at Israel’s gates.

Third: America has been keen to keep the Arab world fragmented, and has worked to break up the nation-state so that the Arabs grow ever weaker.

Fourth: America does not hold to principles at the expense of interests. All its talk about human rights and democracy collapses before its interests, and we experienced this in 1992 when it endorsed the rejection of the results of the Algerian local elections, and in Palestine when Hamas won the 2006 legislative council elections. We experience it constantly, too, in its support for Israel in killing Palestinians and in its persistent refusal of the return of Palestinian refugees, in its destruction of Iraq and its killing of people en masse and individually, and in its killing of Afghans and Pakistanis. Principle is good only when it walks in step with interest, and it is discarded under ugly pretexts when it contradicts interest.

Fifth: America continues to plunder Arab wealth, particularly in the Gulf region, and gives rulers free rein to squander what remains of that wealth. Arab rulers, foremost among them the rulers of the Gulf, waste Arab money outrageously, and America has not uttered a single word on behalf of the wronged Arab citizen. It steals Arab money from wealthy Arab regions in order to control other Arab states through it. America facilitates the theft of Arab money by Arab rulers, and has never tried to stop these rulers’ assaults on public funds, even though they take their orders from it. Of course this is to be expected, since America’s interest lies with the corrupt and the thieves, not with the respectable.

Riding the Wave

America tried resisting the popular movement in Iran in 1979, and it clearly learned that riding the wave of popular revolutions is better than opposing it, for the sake of preserving its interests. This is why America has followed these policies toward the Arab revolutions since they began:

Glorifying the Revolutions in the Media

America gave media backing to the youth revolution in Tunisia, and likewise to the youth revolution in Egypt, and called on the two deposed presidents to respect the peoples’ will for freedom and the establishment of democracy. This actually harmed the popular movement in both countries, because, according to the convictions of the Arab street, whoever America praises cannot be sound or respectable. I believe this has been a popular conviction since the era of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who said that Egypt is in the wrong whenever America says Egypt is in the right, and that Egypt is on the right path whenever America says Egypt is in the wrong. When America and Israel say that so-and-so is a moderate, that means he is a traitor, and when they say he is an extremist, that means he is a patriot.

A high proportion of Arab citizens are convinced that America has no objective standard of right and wrong, but that its interests alone govern its policies — so that wrong is whatever harms or threatens its interests, and right is whatever serves its interests. So when America says that the Arab revolution is in the right, the Arab begins to wonder whether the revolution is genuine or fabricated by the United States. This is why we found many people turning their faces away from these revolutions, on the assumption that America has grown tired of its client rulers and wants to replace them, because the coming stage requires a new kind of agent and traitor.

Threats to Rulers

… loyal to the West, such as the regimes of Bahrain, Jordan, and Morocco, while at the same time it moved to threaten the regimes of ignorance that imagined themselves revolutionary and proved to be repressive and tyrannical. It was extremely soft and dishonest regarding demonstrations against the client regimes, while it was harsh toward the regimes of ignorance to the point that it and its Western allies waged war on Qaddafi. This double standard confirms the mendacity of the United States, and confirms that it truly wants to mount the popular revolutionary movements in order to steer them, in the end, toward complete subservience to its will.

Using the United Nations

The escalation did not stop at threats; America and its Western allies went so far as to use the United Nations to pass resolutions of condemnation, intervention, or the imposition of sanctions. The international organization decided on military intervention in Libya, and it is working to impose sanctions on Syria along the lines of the sanctions imposed by the European states. America has imposed unilateral sanctions of its own, but it seeks to generalize this internationally, whereas America did not try to use the United Nations regarding Yemen or Bahrain.

Direct Intervention

American intervention in the affairs of states witnessing popular movement is the most dangerous kind of all, because it involves direct policies aimed at eating away at the popular movements from within and diverting them from their national paths aspiring to freedom and independence. This intervention can be classified as follows:

American officials, foremost among them the Secretary of State, visited Tunisia and Egypt after the victory of the two revolutions, bringing with them expressions of admiration for the new Arab who had finally found his way toward liberation from despotism. They tried to meet with the youth of the revolution in both countries, but the Egyptian and Tunisian youth were highly conscious, and refused to meet with any American official. Officials also intervened in Yemen, where the American ambassador inserted himself directly into the internal conflict, and likewise in Jordan under cover, and in Bahrain, and certainly in Libya, where intervention reached the military level.

America is stirring up internal strife, particularly in Tunisia and Egypt, and will do so in Syria and Yemen just as it did in Libya, through its agents and the agents of the Zionist entity. America has planted huge numbers of agents in the Arab countries; they infiltrate the state apparatus and its various institutions, official and unofficial alike; they are present in the security services, the police, the gendarmerie, and non-governmental organizations; they are present among intellectuals, in universities, institutes, and hospitals, in the army, and also at the very summit of the political pyramid. There are Arab leaders installed, as I said earlier, originally by colonialism, some of whom draw salaries from the American treasury, and some of whom enjoy certain carnal gifts that compensate them for their vigil in the service of America’s and the Zionists’ comfort. Israel has done the same, infiltrating Arab ranks from the ocean to the Gulf, and time is gradually revealing to us the scale of this security, intellectual, and cultural penetration. Israel has spies throughout the Arab world, and it is capable of recruiting easily within regimes subordinate to the West because of its friendship with them, and capable of planting agents within the regimes of ignorance because of the rashness and stupidity of their rulers and their preoccupation with thuggery at the expense of state-building and security vigilance.

This is why America and Israel are easily capable of stirring strife between Copts and Muslims, between Arabs and Kurds, between Arabs and Amazigh, between north and south, and between Sunni and Shia, between Sunni and Alawite, and so on. They are also capable of infiltrating the ranks of the revolutionary youth and stirring confusion within the new leaderships that elections will bring. America and the Zionist entity possess broad skill and experience in intelligence, sabotage, and infiltration, and they do not hesitate to use various methods to sow division, corruption, and internecine fighting.

America also uses money for enticement, co-optation, and interference in internal affairs. It has promised financial assistance to Egypt to enable the interim military council to meet expenses, and has urged the Gulf states to provide economic aid to lift Egypt’s economy. As for Tunisia, the Europeans have spoken of aid to compensate, even partially, for the damage done to the Tunisian economy. This economic and financial game is nothing new; it is a game America has used to gain a foothold, and to entangle states in debts and loans they cannot repay, forcing them into submission and compliance. So even if Egypt and Tunisia have escaped, or refuse foreign intervention, America never stops trying, under the guise of humanitarian slogans and love between peoples.

America also uses money to enable agents and spies to carry out sabotage, destruction, and the sowing of strife. It gives hundreds of millions of dollars annually to Arab intellectuals across the various Arab fiefdoms so that they can take the lead in the media landscape, and always occupy positions of planning, guidance, and decision-making. America and Israel will work to create confusion in the Arab countries in revolt, so that the Arab comes to look back fondly on the days of the deposed presidents and kings.

American Goals

America has used, over time, multiple and varied methods and means to achieve dominance, exploit wealth, and secure the subordination of the Arab states, in order to achieve the following principal goals:

Preserving the flow of Arab oil to Western markets, and at what the West considers reasonable prices. America is prepared to wage wars to keep its hold on Arab oil, and it does not hesitate to mobilize armies toward this goal.

Preserving Israel’s existence and security, and its military dominance, and ensuring that it is capable of defeating the Arabs individually and collectively.

Persisting in the fragmentation of the Arab world, because in that lies its weakness, whereas its strength lies in its unity.

Pursuing the Islamic spirit and fighting the various Islamic movements, so that no rival ideology to capitalist thought can develop, and no Arab power can develop that would give the Arabs a global standing.

The continuation of its military dominance over the region, and keeping Arab skies, seas, and lands a theater for American and Zionist military operations.

Continuing the Revolution

The Arabs have been very slow to rise up against injustice, enslavement, and tyranny, despite their rulers’ persistence in showing contempt for their peoples and for the future of coming generations. The series of Arab revolutions must not stop until all these tyrants have been brought down, so that they serve as a lesson to future rulers whose souls might tempt them to humiliate their peoples. And if America intervenes, this must not deter us from continuing; rather, it means we must reject every attempt at direct and indirect American intervention, and reject all foreign intervention of every kind. The Europeans and the Americans have committed crimes against the Arabs as a whole, and their various assaults on the nation have never stopped, and I do not see their hearts having suddenly grown wide enough to embrace Arab sorrows.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “الاعتداءات الأمريكية على الثورات العربية” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.