Spring or Winter Revolution

During the past two years, several Arab states—including Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen— experienced massive uprisings that led to the removal of their authoritarian regimes. The revolution is still going on in Syria, where more than 70,000 have been killed and over a million have become refugees in neighboring countries. The west and the east are using the Syrian tragedy to settle their own differences.

In the mean time, some Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar are fueling the revolution in Syria. Ironically both regimes are authoritarian.

A few days ago, the Arab newspapers reported the arrest of 167 peaceful demonstrators in Saudi Arabia. These protestors were demanding humane treatment for their arrested relatives. Also, it was reported that the Qatar court sentenced Mohammed Al-Ajami, a Qatar poet, for his poem attacking the Amir of Qatar. He was given a life sentence but the court commuted the sentence to 15 years. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are in no position to criticize the Syrian regime because they are in an even worse governmental position than Syria. Qatar has the highest Gross National Income (GNI) in the world—over 86,000 per person per year—with a population of less than two million people.

Qatar can afford to incorporate the one million Syrian refugees who are living in tents and are deprived of basic daily needs. I do not want to give the impression that I am a supporter of the Syrian regime, because I am not. For the benefit of readers, the Assad family has ruled over Syrian since the 1960s, the result of the American CIA’s military coup in 1948. That military coup removed the freely and democratically elected Syrian president, Mr. S. Al-Quatley. He refused to let American oil companies extend their oil pipelines from Iraq through Syria. Since the end of World War II, the U.S. government has been a major source of political instability in the Middle East region in general and the Arab world in particular, which is still occurring today.

I consider Saudi Arabia and the Qatari regimes as puppets for the U.S. Furthermore and regrettably to say, the Morsi government in Egypt is of the same type of government. Unfortunately, the younger Egyptian population that initiated the January 25^th Revolution to save their country from the corrupt regime of Hosni Mubarak (paying in blood to do so) has been marginalized by the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood is spreading their political influence in every government institution at the expense of others. They are worse than the previous regime, are ignorant, and will end up paying a heavy price.