Ambiguities in Egypt and Syria

It’s only two days since I attempted a summary of where things stand in the Arab world.  Already things are changing.  As one of my colleagues notes, that’s just the point:  politics are going to be dynamic in the Arab world in the future.  The decades of stasis are over.

In Egypt, large crowds are turning out today (the first anniversary of the revolution) to insist on transfer of power to the newly installed parliament.  It looks as if the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) is going to have trouble holding on to as much power as it would like.  Will the SCAF make the mistake of forcibly dispersing the demonstrators, or has it begun to understand that it needs to reduce its own visibility and delegate more authority to the popularly elected representatives of the people?  The soldiers would be wise to let them take the rap for the lousy economy and political strife.

In Syria, developments are also ambiguous.  Led by Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Cooperation Council countries have yanked their human rights observers from the Arab League team, which is likely to eviscerate that effort, or at least de-fang it. The Syrian Foreign Minister is welcoming the observers back, which is not a good sign for their likely effectiveness without the GCC participants.  That is a great irony:   the GCC as the guardian of human rights?

At the same time, the Arab League is asking for the UN Security Council to act.  The Assad regime, having rejected the Arab League plan for a peaceful transition, is buying lots of Russian trainer aircraft, a sale that directly contradicts Moscow’s indications that Syria has reached the end of its rope.  While those aircraft will presumably not be delivered for some time, their sale would certainly be a political signal of Moscow’s support for Damascus.

It will be interesting to see how the Americans react if Syria begins to use its existing aircraft against the demonstrators.  President Obama in last night’s State of the Union address paired Bashar al Assad with Muammar Qaddafi.  Will their ends be similar?  I have generally discounted the possibility of military action to protect the protesters, but if Assad starts using aircraft that could change the equation quickly.

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