Arab Spring and the French Revolution: The Longue Durée of Transformation

 

By Dr Adil Rasheed

 

In keeping with the statement attributed to Zhu Enlai on the French Revolution, it would be too early to call the Arab Spring a misnomer. Notably, the establishment of a stable democracy in France came about nearly a hundred years after the storming of the Bastille in 1789. This paper studies the period following the Arab Spring, which charts a somewhat similar course of counter-revolutions and ‘Reign of Terror’ and the recent resurgence of popular revolts across the region as countries like Saudi Arabia gradually introduce telling socio-economic reforms.

 

The season of spring does not last long in the arid, tropical climate of West Asia. It soon gives way to soaring temperatures and violent sandstorms. A similarly unpleasant fate awaited the popular political uprising commonly known as the ‘Arab Spring’, which spread almost simultaneously across many countries of the region over a decade ago. Even to the more educated detractors of this unrest, the coinage “Arab Spring” was thus never a misnomer, as it refers to the Prague Spring — a short-lived democratization process in former Czechoslovakia under the leadership of Alexander Dubcek in 1968, which was soon crushed by the Soviet forces.[1]

Likewise, the crackdown against this widespread and mostly non-violent, civil uprising by the several entrenched authoritarian states in West Asia was swift and brutal, which in turn whipped up a perfect storm of self-righteous rage and violent religious extremism, leaving in its train a bevy of weak, failing and failed states. Thus, the simple aspirations of the early protestors – who desired relief from poverty, unemployment as well as greater freedom and political rights– withered away in the heat of sectarian conflict and civil wars.

The banner of popular revolt – which once emblazoned individual liberty, human rights and democratic reform – was replaced by firebrand jihadist slogans, causing widespread death and havoc and the wholesale annihilation of state institutions and even ancient, pre-Islamic heritage.[2]

However, the disappointment caused by the Arab Spring in immediately delivering the desired outcomes for its early supporters does not imply that the revolutionary process for a democratic transformation has already run its course. The transition from authoritarian dispensation to a more representative polity is often an overlong, tortuous and complex process, riddled with many setbacks and reversals. For instance, Europe’s most defining democratic uprising, namely the French Revolution, set off a chain of events in the pursuit of its political ideals that are considered fundamental to liberal democracy, which only fructified in the Constitution of 1875, almost a century after the Fall of Bastille.[3]

Analogous Political Convulsions

There is no denying that any kind of analogy of different revolutions would never be entirely congruent, but there are striking similarities between the outbreak of popular discontent in the French Revolution that led to the removal of King Louis XVI and the successful overthrow by Arab masses of four Arab potentates - Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen. The fact that the Arab Spring did not produce liberal democratic governments in the immediate aftermath of these popular revolts sweeping across the region should not be considered a failed attempt as a revolution on its 10^th anniversary because as Zhu Enlai once purportedly claimed it may be “too early to tell”.[4]

The series of anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s, not unlike the French Revolution, came in response to the entrenched nepotism, rampant corruption and economic stagnation in several countries of the region. A major slogan of the demonstrators across the Arab world was ‘ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam’ (“the people want to bring down the regime"), which seems in sync with the revolutionary refrain of ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité’ (“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity) against the feudal and monarchical order of France in the late 18^th century.[5]

In spite of their mass appeal, both movements were too spontaneous to sustain themselves for long because it is quite difficult for leaderless revolts to stage a systemic socio-political overhaul within a few years. Just as it took several decades for the French Revolution to bring about a full social and political transformation to realise its ideological goals, forces of change unleashed by the Arab Spring continue to operate at subterranean levels and make surface manifestations with visible changes only sporadically.

Notwithstanding Islamist co-option, old guard crackdowns and counter-revolutions, the rise in collective consciousness has since alerted even the kingdoms and monarchies of West Asia to be more responsive toward the aspirations of their populations, in order to survive an increasingly integrated and globalised order of the future.

Revolutions are often followed by opposing forces staging their counter-revolutions. In fact, Crane Brinton’s celebrated 1965 book titled The Anatomy of Revolution,[6] claims major revolutions often pass through four phases before successfully achieving their goals, namely the initial phase of moderate leadership; the reign of terror and virtue (or the rule of radical and violent extremists); Thermidorian reaction (or counter-revolution by the opponents); and the end of the revolution (which brings about the final adoption of revolutionary ideals). Therefore, one needs to take a longue duree approach while studying the still unfolding impact of a revolution in bringing about lasting socio-political change in its region.

There are many interesting parallels in the French Revolution and Arab Spring that conform to the stages suggested by Brinton. After the ouster of Louis XVI, France was ruled by the moderate group of Girondins. Similarly, Egypt’s Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) — the statutory body of senior Egyptian military officers — followed the demands of protestors and deposed Hosni Mubarak’s from power on 11 February 2011 and paved the way for elections.

The actions of SCAF at this point can be equated to the “Rule of the Moderates.”  It carried out the transition until the general elections of 2011 and 2012 were conducted without much political upheaval. The same phase was evident in Tunisia when the Army asked the prime minister Mohamad Ghannouchi to form a caretaker government.

The Islamist governments under the Ennahda party in Tunisia and President Mohamad Morsi in Egypt who won elections on the ticket of the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), ushered in the Islamist ‘Reign of Purity’, which was not accepted by the liberals and minority communities in Egypt.

The Reign of Terror

The French Revolution also saw a phase of terrorism under the reign of the Jacobin politician Maximillien Robespierre, who took power on 10th August 1793 and installed a “Reign of Terror and Virtue,” which has been mentioned by Brinton as the second phase of revolution.  Under “The Incorruptible” Robespierre, every violator of revolutionary principles was supposed to be guillotined. Around 19,000 people were eventually executed. Alongside the “Reign of Terror,” there was also the “Reign of Virtue.” Members of the Jacobin presented themselves as highly religious and held ceremonies dedicated to the “Supreme Being.” They took repressive action against those indulging in gambling, drunkenness, sexual promiscuity and even “ostentatious displays” of wealth. Robespierre’s revolutionary forces waged a war in the Vendée, west-central France, against royalist forces, a civil war which caused 200,000 deaths.

Not surprisingly, we find an even gruesome parallel in the violent extremism of the terror group like ISIS, which like Robespierre, installed a “Reign of Terror and Virtue” in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and other parts of the world. It conducted ethnic cleansing of Shiite, Christians and Yazidis as well as killed many of their Sunni adversaries by claiming them to be apostates.[7]

However, the “reign of terror” following the Arab Spring is in relative decline following the decimation of territories held by ISIS and Al-Qaeda from much of West Asia in recent years. It seems the second phase of the prolonged revolutionary journey, just as it happened after the first decade of the fall of Bastille, is gradually petering out.

Statistics from the recently published Global Terrorism Index (2020) provide us with evidence on this major shift. Figures show that fatalities from terrorism fell for the fifth consecutive year in 2019 to 13,826 deaths. This represents a 15 per cent decrease from the prior year and a 59 percent fall from 2014 till the end of 2019.[8] The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Russia and Eurasia, South America and South Asia regions all recorded falls in deaths from terrorism of at least 20 per cent. In fact, seven of the ten countries with the largest increase in terrorism were in sub-Saharan Africa and not West Asia. Although the Taliban remained the world’s deadliest terrorist group in 2019, deaths attributed to the group declined by 18 per cent to 4,990, which some experts attribute to the role of peace talks in Afghanistan.

A decline in jihadist violence was also registered in Europe for three years until 2018, which may continue in spite of periodic spikes in terror attacks over political controversies like cartoon publications, etc. The still unconfirmed death of Al-Qaeda supremo Ayman Al-Zawahiri and the gunning down of Abu Muhammad al-Masri, Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command in Iran, are recent examples accentuating the serious leadership crisis facing the global jihadist movement. However, the return of Taliban to power, infighting within its ranks, the growing strength of ISIS in Afghanistan, etc. may register a spike in terrorist incidents in the Af-Pak region, still the FATF’s increasing economic squeeze on Pakistan could inhibit its support for proxy terrorist groups.

Thus almost two decades after the 9/11 attacks, Al Qaeda and ISIS appear to stripped off their erstwhile resources or militants to disrupt international peace and security in major way, in spite of the few surprises they might spring like the 2019 Easter bombings in Sri Lanka or a major lone-wolf attack in the West.

In fact, from September 2019 to August 2020, the United States and its allies have also successful in taking out some of the key henchmen of global jihadist groups. These include:[9]

• Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, the self-styled caliph of ISIS, was killed by US Special Operations Forces during a raid in Syria on 26th October 2019.
• Abdelmalek Droukdal, head of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, was eliminated by French Special Forces in Mali on 3rd June 2020.
• Abdullah Orakzai, the supposed founder of ISIS in Afghanistan, was arrested by Afghan intelligence officials on 4 April 2020.
• Khalid al Aruri, de facto leader of al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Guardians of the Religion Organization, was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Syria on 14 June 2020.[10]
• Earlier Qassim al Rimi, founder al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate was killed in a US airstrike in Al Bayda Governorate of Yemen on 29 January 2020.
• Again in November 2020, The New York Times reported the gunning down of Abu Muhammad al-Masri, Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, by two Israeli operatives in Tehran.
• Unconfirmed reports of Al-Qaeda supremo Ayman Al-Zawahiri’s death from natural causes appeared in noted Saudi daily Arab News on 20 November 2020.

 

There is no denying that jihadist non-state groups remain a serious threat, as they try to re-assert their presence around the world. The coming of Taliban to power in Afghanistan in August 2020, following the complete meltdown of Ghani government and its military even before the US forces could withdraw its forces from that country has revived fears that Islamist forces may feel encouraged in reviving their militancy around the world.[11]

However, there are some political observers who believe that it is possible that Taliban distances itself from global jihadist groups in future in order to gain international legitimacy for its government and much needed economic aid for the Aghan people, who expect the so-called Islamic emirate to provide them a good administration.

The Thermidorian Pushback

One of Brinton’s contemporaries to have studied the causes and course of revolutions was Pitirim Sorokin, known for his seminal work Sociology of Revolutions (1925).[12] According to him revolutions pass through two stages. In the first stage, there is a lot of pent up energy of public discontent which expresses itself vehemently and often brings about the downfall of the existing leadership.

However, the general chaos and anarchy that follows sobers the masses and public apathy and fatigue soon sets in. This sense of exhaustion soon allows the old guard or a new tyrant to re-establish its tyranny. This counter-revolution is accepted by the masses if they have been subjected to a lot of violence and instability during the initial stages of the revolution. The new tyrants come in the name of establishing a new order of security through their oppressive ways.

In line with Sorokin’s second stage, Brinton also speaks about the coming of counter-revolutions by the old order or new tyrants who seek to avenge revolutionary wrongs and to re-establish the old oppressive order. Thus we find the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte as a new totalitarian Emperor, a little over a decade after the French Revolution.

The return to power of the deposed regime, following the moderate and terror phase of the revolution was known as the Thermidorian Reaction, in the French Revolution, when a parliamentary revolt initiated on 9 Thermidor, year II (July 27, 1794), resulted in the fall of Maximilien Robespierre and the collapse of revolutionary fervour and the Reign of Terror in France. However, the new regime soon started its own “White Terror” and executed hundreds of Robespierre’s sympathizers. Brinton naturally calls this phase of counter-revolution as the Thermidor stage of the revolution.

The same pattern finds its refrain in the Arab Spring uprisings. After about a year of Adly Mansour’s interim-presidency and the Egyptian government’s allegedly brutal crackdown (which included the 2013 Rabaa massacre) against the Muslim Brotherhood and other revolutionary activists, Field Marshall Abdel Fattah el-Sisi won the presidential elections with 96.1 percent of the vote.

Another major Thermidor moment in the Arab Spring happened in Bahrain. On 14 February 2011, tens of thousands of people took to the streets and called for an elected government. However, the Sunni monarch of a predominantly Shiite country brought troops from the GCC countries, the army of the Peninsula Shield. The uprising was brutally crushed within weeks and the iconic Pearl Roundabout in Manama, which had become the hub of the movement was demolished.

The Thermidorian reaction also becomes evident in the Saudi-Qatar conflict, wherein Saudi Arabia resorted to taking tough action against Qatar because of the latter’s alleged support for the forces of change unleashed during the Arab Spring. On 5 June, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt broke their diplomatic ties with Qatar and banned its airlines and ships from crossing their airspace and sea routes. A trade ban of Qatar soon followed. The abovementioned quartet of Arab states then rallied other Muslim states around the world to join in their campaign against the tiny Gulf emirate and soon Jordan, the Comoros, Djibouti, the Maldives, Mauritania, and Senegal joined the coalition.

These countries charged Qatar with harbouring “wanted terrorists” (mainly Arab Spring Islamist as well as liberal activists)[13] and for provided them financial and logistical aid. The Saudi-led coalition then issued a sweeping 13-point ultimatum[14] to Qatar, which included demands as the closing of Al Jazeera television channel (for its alleged support of revolutionary ideology), reduced cooperation with Iran (whose Islamist brand of democracy seeks the removal of monarchies in the Gulf region), shutting down of revisionist Turkey’s military base in Qatar and severing of ties with the Muslim Brotherhood. However, Qatar did not accept the ultimatum and managed to withstand a 43-month blockade, largely because of its global pre-eminence as a natural gas exporter.

However, it is the Kingdom and not the Emirate which eventually initiated the process of rapprochement, a climb down attributed to changed regional circumstances.[15] Saudi Arabia regards its conflict with Qatar as a subset of Saudi-Iran proxy conflict. When the Trump administration’s so-called “maximum pressure” policy against Iran failed to take punitive action against the 2019 drone attacks on key Saudi oil facilities, the Kingdom started doubting US security guarantees and initiated indirect and now direct talks (held on October 3, 2021) with Iran.[16] With the Biden administration planning to further drawdown its forces from West Asia and seeking a new Iran nuclear deal, Saudi Arabia led the GCC in restoring ties with Qatar which reflects its revamped policy of building bridges even with arch-enemies, as it can no longer depend on distant friends to settle its feuds with permanent neighbours. Thus, the Thermidorian reaction has started to gradually give way to forces more amenable to Arab Spring revolutionaries.

Intervention of Extra-Regional Powers

The chaos ensuing in France following the beheading of Louis XVI in 1793 by the revolutionary forces, caused an alarm among monarchist states around Europe. It also allowed Austria and Prussia to take advantage of the anarchy in France and send their forces into the country to grab territory.

We find similar military interventions by Turkey and Iran, two non-Arab Muslim states, into the Arab theatre following the outbreak and chaos caused by the Arab Spring. In fact, the excuse of religious affiliation has been exploited by these two peripheral states of the Arab region to revive their primeval geopolitical ambitions in West Asia. For the Arabs, the collective memory of Byzantine/Ottoman and Sassanid/Safavid oppression in history evokes a sense of existential threat to Arab identity, which was salvaged to a great extent by the people of the region through their independence movements in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. However, much like the invasion of Austria and Prussia into France following the revolution, the Arab world finds itself extremely vulnerable with military inroads made by neo-Islamist Turkey and Iran carving their spheres of influences in the Levant, Yemen and the Arab Maghreb (North Africa).

Since 2012, Iran is said to have sent in tens of thousands of its military personnel (particularly from its Quds Force) into the Levant on the pretext of clearing ISIS remnants in Syria and Iraq. Along with the Shiite fighters of Lebanese Hezbollah, these Iranian forces have taken direct combat roles in Syria. There are also US reports that Tehran is building a supposed ‘land bridge’ that links Tehran to the Mediterranean, as it passes through the cities of Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut. “The regime continues to seek a corridor stretching from Iran’s borders to the shores of the Mediterranean,” claimed former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, “Iran wants this corridor to transport fighters and an advanced weapons system to Israel’s doorsteps.”[17] Former national security adviser, Ambassador John Bolton has also said on record: “Iran has established an arc of control from Iran through Iraq to Assad’s regime in Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon.” This “invaluable geo-strategic position” he claimed enhances Tehran’s ability to threaten Israel, Jordan, and U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf.[18] 

Initially dismissed as an implausible proposition, Western assessments began to change in the wake of increasing evidence to the contrary. By early 2018, there was a general consensus on the meaning of “land bridge,” even though its significance was disputed. It was then understood as essentially three main road routes cutting through Iraq and Syria, ending at the Syrian coast, southern Lebanon, and even Israel’s border. However since 2019, the ‘land bridge’ is being understood as a land corridor used for transporting people, resources, and weaponry deep into Iranian-backed militias across various parts of the region.[19] In fact, the stretch of this corridor has extended further eastward with former Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stating in December last year that the Iranian-trained militia Liwa Fatemiyoun, currently fighting in Syria, might be deployed to Afghanistan to help a future Afghan government with counterterrorism operations.[20]

Many commentators liken Iran’s ‘land bridge’ into the Levant and beyond,[21]^,[22] to the Achaemenid extension into the Mediterranean, as well as its growing sway over West Asia as reminiscent of Parthian and Sassanid hegemony over the region. But more than the ‘land bridge’ or ‘corridor to the Mediterranean”, Iran has developed over the decades a worldwide conglomeration of proxies, surrogates and partners, now known as the Iran Threat Network (ITN). The main posterchild of this enterprise is Lebanese Hezbollah, which by itself maintains a global outreach with operatives active in several countries across the globe, from Western countries, central Africa, Latin America and even Southeast Asian countries. The ITN also has groups trained and supported by the IRGC and the elite Quds Force and include the Houthis in Yemen, the Shiite militias (part of the Popular Mobilization Forces) and the Afghan and Pakistan Shia militant groups — Liwa Fatemiyoun and Liwa Zainebiyoun battalions.[23]

Today, the ITN is said to be a key pillar of Iranian grand strategy, its most effective means of force projection. Thus, Iran is able to wield tremendous influence far from its borders to hurt the vital interests of its adversaries. Iran’s revolutionary and revisionist outlook also gets a fillip from its version of Shiite Islamism — borne out of Ayatollah Khomeini’s doctrine of Vilayat-e-Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) as well as Shiite millenarianism that envisions the coming of the Awaited Mahdi to liberate Jerusalem.

However, Iran’s imperial revisionism in the region finds its match in the indomitable leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. In 1923, the fall of the Ottoman empire and the establishment of the modern Turkish state, came about with the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne. Following this treaty, Turkey oriented itself towards gaining a European identity. However, Turkey’s failure in being accepted as member of the European Union brought in the rule of the Islamist AKP by the turn of the millennium. Over the last 15 years, Turkish government under Erdogan has drifted away from the spirit of the Treaty of Lausanne in an attempt to revive a pre-Kemalist Ottoman outlook, showing greater interest in its Islamic identity and making more ingress in the affairs of West Asia.[24]

For instance, in 2020 itself, the Turkish government converted the historic Haga Sophia into a mosque, meddled with Greece in the Mediterranean waters, insulted the French president over his counter-terrorism policies, launched a military offensive in support of Azerbaijan in its war with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. It also backed Islamist GNA coalition fighting Egypt-backed Haftar forces, continued its military incursions into Iraq and Syria, hobnobbed with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestinian territories, backed Pakistan premier’s vitriol against India and spurred its business and media campaigns in countries of Central Asia and Central Africa.

Erdogan’s maverick policies seem to have antagonized not only its erstwhile allies the US and Israel, as he seems to be foregoing its NATO commitments and pursuing his own plans at variance with Western interests, it has also emerged as threat to Russia and Iran, following his support for Azerbaijan in the Nagorno Karabkh conflict.

Iran, in particular. has been incensed by Erdogan’s participation in the Azerbaijan victory celebrations over the ‘liberation’ of Nagorno Karabkh from Armenia, where he recited a line from the controversial Azeri poem ‘Aras’, thus "They tore the Aras [River] and filled it with rocks and sticks / I will not be separated from you. They have separated us forcibly."[25] Tehran took exception to Erdogan’s recitation with its foreign ministry issuing a harsh warning. Both the Iranian government and its media found the recitation an attempt to arouse Azeri-Turkish nationalist to foment separatism among the restive Azeri population of Iran. Interestingly, the editor-in-chief of Iranian daily Sazandegi, Mohammad Kuchani, reacted to Erdogan’s recitation thus: “As an Iranian, I believe that the only answer to neo-Ottomanism is 'neo-Safivism.' [I am not advocating] reviving the Safavi rule (which made many mistakes), but [reviving] a reformed [version of it] and reviving its heritage in the modern age, just as Erdogan shifted from Ottomanism to 'new' Ottomanism.”[26]

It is noteworthy that throughout recorded history, Ionian and Persian rulers have fought legendary wars against each other to carve out their empires across much of West Asia— an archetypical rivalry which harks back to the Achaemenid conquests of Cyrus and Darius, followed by the Alexandrian victory over Persia, the Byzantine-Sassanid wars and the Ottoman-Safavid hostilities.

Therefore, the Russia-backed Turkey – Iran cooperation brought about by the Astana talks in 2017 is already starting to burst at the seams, with both countries objecting to each other’s actions in Syria, Azerbaijan and other places. The rivalry is in fact quite old and bitter in that it is believed that Iran’s conversion from majority Sunni Islam to Shi’ism was the result of the Safavid dynasty’s (1507-1722) opposition to their Ottoman overlords, which led to such extreme animosity that Safavid Iran broke away and forged a different sectarian identity for itself.[27]^,[28]

New Popular Revolts and Reforms

Revolutions espousing major socio-political change initially face a strong resistance from the established power structures and may even go through severe setbacks like the French Revolution in the decades following its first outbreak. However, if there is continued resonance of their core messages in the masses and the major causes for the public unrest remain unaddressed for a long time, the resuscitation of the revolts become inevitable.

Therefore, it is simply too early to close on the Arab Spring yet. In the words of Nadim Shehadi,[29] the definition of the Arab Spring is not related to spring as a season, but to a metal coil. He writes, “The more pressure that is placed on a spring, the more tension is built up inside it and the higher it will jump when the pressure is released.” In fact, it appears that the impact of jihadist terror (as mentioned above) and the ‘Thermidors Reaction’ are on the decline and popular revolts like those seen in the Arab Spring are making a comeback.

Over the last two years, popular revolts have erupted in Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan and Algeria. Most of these revolts have sought to rise above petty sectarian and ethnic divisions and seek systemic political changes. The youth seem to be less risk-averse and more strategic in their methods of revolt than their predecessors in the Arab Spring. Meanwhile, the causes for a revolution are still to be found in demographics, social and economic injustice, and in the repression of free speech and political rights.

In the words of Ellen Laipson and Mona Yacoubian: “… despite the setbacks, we may come to see the Arab Spring as a turning point of more strategic consequence than appreciated at the time.”[30]

The Arab Spring may have deposed the long-time presidents of four states, but barely touched the monarchs of West Asia. Through a variety of measures — including aid packages and development projects, for example the much vaunted Vision 2030 of Saudi Arabia, brutal crackdowns and repression of civil liberties, the support to counter-revolutions as in Egypt and introduction of piecemeal social and political reforms (like allowing women to drive and opening up entertainment sectors in Saudi Arabia), the monarchs have managed to diffuse public resentment against their regimes.

However, the youth bulge in the national populations with growing aspirations for greater economic avenues and socio-political freedoms would be difficult to achieve in a post-oil future. The drawdown of Western forces from West Asia has put a greater strain on the security architecture for Gulf monarchies and the socio-economic disruptions caused by the ongoing COVID pandemic have come as an added burden. With the US administration engaging Iran in a bid to revive the erstwhile nuclear deal, the spilling over of violence from conflict ridden failed states like Yemen, Syria and Iraq into  Gulf states, the sense of insecurity among the monarchies is only increasing by the day.

In spite of immediate setbacks, the Arab Spring managed to garner public sympathy for its political cause both in the Arab world and in the West. The analogy of the French Revolution running its full course of several decades may still come true for the Arab Spring uprisings as they have the potential of becoming full-fledged systemic revolutions. The sense of legitimacy even for Gulf monarchies and other status quo regimes in West Asia has significantly eroded following the Arab Spring revolts and the time for the revolution to manifest again seems more likely now than it did when it first erupted after the self-immolation of Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi in Ben Arouz on 17 December 2010.

 

* Dr Adil Rasheed is Research Fellow and Coordinator of Counter Terrorism Department at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence and Analyses (MP-IDSA). He is author of Countering the Radical Narrative (2020), ISIS: Race to Armageddon (2015).

 

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[1] Asher Susser, “The ‘Arab Spring’: Competing Analytical Paradigms.” Bustan: The Middle East Book Review, vol. 3, no. 2, Penn State University Press, 2012, pp. 109–30, https://doi.org/10.1163/18785328-00032002.

 

[2]Johnson, Jessica S.; Ghazi, Zaid; Hanson, Katharyn; Lione, Brian Michael; Severson, Kent (2020-08-31). "The Nimrud Rescue Project". Studies in Conservation. 65 (sup1): P160–P165

[3] Blaufarb, Rafe. “The French Revolution: The Birth of European Popular Democracy?” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 37, no. 3, [Society for Comparative Studies in Society and History, Cambridge University Press], 1995, pp. 608–18, http://www.jstor.org/stable/179222.

[4] Moniz Bandeira, Egas, ‘Between Chaos and Liberty: Chinese Uses of the French Revolution of 1789’, in book: Alternative Representations of the Past: The Politics of History in Modern China (pp.119-148), De Gruyter, Berlin, 2020

[5]  Sadiki, Larbi, "En passant in Jordan: The king's dilemma", Al Jazeera English, 29 February 2012, https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2012/2/29/en-passant-in-jordan-the-kings-dilemma/ 

[6] Crane Brinton, The Anatomy of Revolution (New York: Random House Inc., 1965).

[7] Kevin McDonald, “ISIS jihadis aren’t medieval-They’re shaped by modern western philosophy’,  9 September 2014, The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/09/isis-jihadi-shaped-by-modern-western-philosophy

[8] Global Terrorism Index 2020, Measuring the Impact of Terrorism, Institute for Economics and Peace,

November 2020, https://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/GTI-2020-web-1.pdf

[9] Andrew Hanna and Garret Nada, ‘Jihadism: A Generation After 9/11,’ Wilson Center, 10 September 2020, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/jihadism-generation-after-911

[10] Adam Goldman, Eric Schmitt, Farnaz Fassihi and Ronen Bergman, ‘Al-Qaeda’s Abu Muhammad Al Masri

Secretly Killed in Iran’, The New York Times, 27 November, 2020,

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/world/middleeast/al-masri-abdullah-qaeda-dead.html

[11] Nabih Boulos, ‘For the Taliban, A Victory. For Other Jihadis, An Inspiraton’, Los Angeles Times, 17 August 2021. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-08-17/jihadi-renaissance

[12] Pitirim Sorokin,The Sociology Of Revolution,  J.B. Lippincott Philadelphia  1925

[13] ‘Doha’s Actions Might Destabilise the Region: Saudi Minister’, Newsweek, 10 September 2017, Doha’s Actions May Destabilize the Region: Saudi Minister - NewsWeek Me 📊

[14] ‘The Ultimatum Facing Qatar: What are the Demands?’, Euronews, 04 August 2017, https://www.euronews.com/2017/07/04/the-ultimatum-facing-qatar-what-are-the-demands

 

[15] Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, ‘Analysis: Has the Gulf reconciled after the Qatar Conflict?’, Al Jazeera, 5 June 2021, https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/6/5/has-the-gulf-reconciled-after-the-end-of-the-qatar-blockade

[16] ‘Saudi confirms first round of talks with Iran Government’, Reuters, 03 October 2021, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/saudi-confirms-first-round-talks-with-new-iranian-government-2021-10-03/

[17] ‘After the Deal, A New Iran Strategy’, 21 May 2018, The Heritage Foundation, https://www.heritage.org/defense/event/after-the-deal-new-iran-strategy

[18] Paul Sonne and Missy Ryan, ‘Bolton: U.S. forces will stay in Syria until Iran and its proxies depart’, The Washington Post, 24 Sept. 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/bolton-us-forces-will-stay-in-syria-until-iran-and-its-proxies-depart/2018/09/24/be389eb8-c020-11e8-92f2-ac26fda68341_story.html

[19] Tyler Kotler, ‘How Iran’s Land Bridge Threatens the Entire Middle East’, 1 August 2019, https://honestreporting.com/iran-land-bridge-threat-israel-middle-east/

[20] Colin P. Clarke, ‘Trends in Terrorism: What’s on the Horizon in 2021’, 5 January 2021, https://www.fpri.org/article/2021/01/trends-in-terrorism-whats-on-the-horizon-in-2021/

[21] Eliora Katz, ‘The Old and New Persian Empires’, Newsweek, 28 May 2020, https://www.newsweek.com/old-new-persian-empires-opinion-1507202

[22] Emil Avdaliani, ‘Iran and the New Land Corridor’, The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, 19 December 2017, https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/iran-land-corridor/#:~:text=This%20was%20a%20momentous%20event,Achaemenid%20Empire%20in%20330%20BC.&text=It%20means%20that%20at%20long,through%20to%20the%20Mediterranean%20coast.

[23] Ariane M. Tabatabai, ‘Iran Seeks to Cement Legitimacy of Shia Militias’, The Foreign Policy Research Institute, 10 May 2019, https://www.fpri.org/article/2019/05/iran-seeks-to-cement-legitimacy-of-shia-militias/

[24] Claude Salhani, ‘Is Erdogan out to Undo the Treaty of Lausanne?’, The Arab Weekly, 22 March 2020, https://thearabweekly.com/erdogan-out-undo-treaty-lausanne-0

[25] A. Savyon and M. Manzour, ‘Anti-Turkey Statements in Iran – Part III: Erdogan is Undermining Iran’s Territorial Integrity’, MEMRI, 11 January 2021,  https://www.memri.org/reports/anti-turkey-statements-iran-%E2%80%93-part-iii-erdo%C4%9Fan-undermining-irans-territorial-integrity

[26] Ibid

[27] Nikkie. Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution, Yale University Press. 1-408.

[28] Rula Abisaab, Converting Persia: Religion and Power in the Safavid Empire, IB Tauris paperback edition 2015

[29] Nadim Shehadi, ‘Learning the Lessons of the Coiled Arab Spring’, Arab News, 11 March 2021, https://www.arabnews.com/node/1823906

[30] Ellen Lapison and Mana Yacoubian, ‘The Living Legacy of the Arab Spring’, DAWN (Democracy for the Arab World Now), 26 July 2021, https://dawnmena.org/the-living-legacy-of-the-arab-spring/