Alex Warren: We support the Arab Spring – when it suits us

LET’S be honest about British policy towards the Arab Spring. After blossoming with so much hope and energy, the movement is now losing momentum. A grim stalemate has emerged in Libya, a brutal crackdown is taking place in Syria – where President Bashar al-Assad is now subject to US sanctions – while repression and fear have halted protesters in Gulf states like Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Even in Tunisia and Egypt, where longstanding leaders were toppled at the start of the year, there are still doubts about how much things can really change.

Now is a good time to examine Britain’s response to events and how they could shape our policy, not just in this region, but elsewhere too.

Like any country around the world, the ultimate objective of our foreign policy is to protect and further our national interests. Let’s not be naïve: these policies are not always pleasant, they can be ill-conceived, and they are often hypocritical. We pick and choose our disputes not by the worthiness of the cause but by our allies, our adversaries and their patrons, and whether the stakes are worth enough for Britain’s political and commercial interests.

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This is rational: the beneficiaries of these policies are British citizens, to whom politicians are accountable. But what rankles about Britain’s response to the Arab uprisings is the Government’s attempt to portray our national interests as being somehow inherently aligned with the popular will in the region.

To illustrate the point, take two recent but contrasting examples. First, Libya. Caught off-guard by the fall of two pro-Western leaders in Tunisia and Egypt, Britain and its allies were behind the curve of events. Then, in February, escalating protests in Libya provided an ideal chance for us to get behind an Arab popular movement and be on the right side of history once the dictator was toppled.

We very quickly called for Muammar Gaddafi to leave, we froze his regime’s assets in the UK and we played a key role in an intervention which has gone far beyond the sanctioned aim of protecting civilians. Britain has decisively sided with the opposition, providing military advisers, aid, diplomatic support and air strikes against Gaddafi forces. Both we and the Libyan opposition refuse to negotiate with the current regime, despite the argument that a ceasefire might be the swiftest way of protecting civilians and alleviating serious humanitarian problems in Libya.

Now contrast this with the tiny island of Bahrain, where in January Shia Muslims began large-scale demonstrations calling for greater political freedoms. They represent about two-thirds of the population yet are ruled by an authoritarian Sunni Muslim monarchy, leaving them little voice in politics. They were not armed, unlike the opposition forces in Libya. But after declaring martial law in March and shipping in troops from neighbouring countries, the government has ruthlessly cracked down on the demonstrators, arresting dozens of bloggers, opposition MPs, human rights activists, journalists, doctors, nurses and anyone else who supported the protests – even including some players from the national football team.

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The situations in Libya and Bahrain are very different. But Britain’s response to the latter has so far been more or less mute: an occasional statement calling for reform, but no real pressure on the Bahraini regime. No sanctions, no asset-freezing, no UN resolutions, no cancelled invitations to the Royal Wedding

“Long-term stability requires real steps towards representative institutions, political pluralism, a free media and economic fairness”, said William Hague recently, without mentioning that Britain was essentially acquiescing in Bahrain’s systematic destruction of all those things.

Yet none of this should be surprising. Bahrain has been a close ally since it was a UK protectorate. The island is also home to the Fifth Fleet of the US Navy, sits in the middle of a vital oil-producing region and is just a stone’s throw away from Iran. Our national interests are therefore best served by turning a blind eye to the crackdown in Bahrain, because real democratic change might produce a government that is less friendly to us and our allies. The opposite is true in Libya.

Such is the often rather grim reality of international relations. But self-righteously proclaiming this mantra of support for allowing citizens to choose their own leaders, and decide their own future, is insulting to people in those countries where our interests are aligned with the status quo. It becomes even more so when you consider that Britain exports equipment and training to many countries that use them to suppress the people that we claim to be supporting.

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Making foreign policy in this region is an unenviable task at the best of times, let alone during the current uprisings. At the most basic level, these require the Government to decide which horse to back in each country, and how it should be backed. The underlying objective is not to support whichever horse is “right”, but rather whichever best serves British interests, whether it be the pro-democracy opposition in Libya or an anti-democratic regime in Bahrain.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that policy, and it’s unlikely to change, but whatever new forces emerge in the Arab world would do well to remember it – and ignore all the spin.

Alex Warren is a director of Frontier, a Middle East and North Africa research and advisory firm.

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