Military’s role in Arab Spring

The eupho­ria of vic­to­ry spread quick­ly amongst the crowds in Tahrir Square after Pres­i­dent Mubarak announced his res­ig­na­tion. The gen­er­al dis­con­tent caused by chron­ic social unrest had been brew­ing for decades before it reached its apex and stirred a pal­pa­ble change. Many even start­ed to imag­ine a new era for the Arab coun­tries, fol­low­ing the ouster of Arab dic­ta­tors. But his­to­ry has taught us that deep-root­ed and unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic prac­tices don’t change overnight.

When the upris­ing came, every­one rejoiced. The sight of chil­dren climb­ing tanks and peo­ple hug­ging sol­diers was unthink­able before. At the time, nobody could fore­see that the same sol­diers would mere months lat­er strip a female pro­test­er, stamp on her and drag her along the ground like a slaugh­tered lamb. It became clear that the military’s sid­ing with the pro­test­ers in Jan­u­ary had been a sur­vival move on the part of the mil­i­tary com­man­ders. It was real­ized lat­er that the umbil­i­cal cord between the mil­i­tary and Mubarak cronies had not yet been cut; very soon, the mil­i­tary appa­ra­tus start­ed to show its true col­ors.

In all polit­i­cal sys­tems, armed forces are the safe­guards against any poten­tial inva­sion that pos­es a threat to a nation’s sov­er­eign­ty. Though it does not inter­fere direct­ly in domes­tic issues, the mil­i­tary remains a pow­er­ful insti­tu­tion by virtue of its offen­sive capac­i­ty and the net­work of con­nec­tions it has with deci­sion mak­ers. When the mil­i­tary and the government’s inter­ests are in sync, their com­plic­i­ty remains invin­ci­ble since they can bran­dish their weapon in the face of any for­eign or domes­tic threat. Fric­tion between the gov­ern­ment and the mil­i­tary are liable to endan­ger the coun­tries’ sta­bil­i­ty, as is the case in Pak­istan where the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a mil­i­tary coup is always there. In the Arab upris­ings, the rap­port between the mil­i­tary and the civil­ian order has been deci­sive in con­trol­ling the course of events and their out­comes.

The mil­i­tary is a pub­lic insti­tu­tion char­ac­terised by the use of lethal force to deter threats to nation­al secu­ri­ty.  It is a closed com­mu­ni­ty that has its own facil­i­ties and is con­sid­ered a ‘soci­ety with­in a soci­ety’. Their capac­i­ty depends on the defence bud­get allo­cat­ed by the state to sus­tain their infra­struc­ture and equip­ment.  The armed forces often func­tion in the shad­ows, unno­ticed by civ­il soci­ety, except in wartime. In Egypt, for instance, junior offi­cers affil­i­at­ed with the Free Offi­cers Move­ment could orches­trate a mil­i­tary coup to over­throw King Faros in 1952. There­fore, they could expand their pow­er through infil­tra­tion of strate­gic sec­tors in Egypt — name­ly pol­i­tics and the econ­o­my. Need­less to say that two of the most influ­en­tial pres­i­dents in Egypt‘s his­to­ry, Gamal Abdel Nass­er and Anwar Sadat, were mil­i­tary offi­cers.  Thus, the military’s stance on crit­i­cal issues and at sen­si­tive junc­tures is like­ly to shape a country’s his­to­ry by virtue of the hard pow­er they have at their dis­pos­al and their firm grip over key sec­tors.

There is no doubt that in Tunisia, the align­ment of the mil­i­tary with the mass­es had a sooth­ing effect as it made the tran­si­tion from an author­i­tar­i­an regime to a demo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tem rather smooth. The Tunisian armed forces pledged to pro­tect the rev­o­lu­tion and chased off Ben Ali’s secu­ri­ty forces, accused of harsh repres­sion against peace­ful pro­test­ers. The Tunisian rev­o­lu­tion unex­pect­ed­ly sparked and unfold­ed as rel­a­tive­ly peace­ful.  On the oth­er hand, in Egypt, the revolution’s tale has had more than one twist. The mil­i­tary council’s delay to return pow­er to civil­ians and its insis­tence to remain above the rule of law has out­raged the bulk of Egyp­tians, who have start­ed to think that their vic­to­ry against total­i­tar­i­an rule is being hijacked. It has become obvi­ous that the Egypt­ian rev­o­lu­tion still has to jump many hur­dles if it wants to stay afloat.

In Syr­ia, the mil­i­tary appa­ra­tus boasts a much wider cir­cle of influ­ence.  Bashar al-Assad was pro­pelled to pow­er to repro­duce a repli­ca of his father’s staunch rule.  With his broth­er, Maher al-Assad, at the head of the Repub­li­can Guard and the Fourth Armored Divi­sion, the mil­i­tary remained under the Assad fam­i­ly con­trol. In addi­tion, the Alaw­ites who pledge alle­giance to Bashar al-Assad make up the major­i­ty of sol­diers in the Syr­i­an armed forces. Strong­ly backed by the mil­i­tary, Assad struck back the upris­ing with an iron fist.  Fear of retal­i­a­tion by the secu­ri­ty forces, along with the reluc­tance of the Syr­i­an oppo­si­tion to take a firm stand, are the main fac­tors that adjourned a sweep­ing rev­o­lu­tion in Syr­ia. Yet more cracks are appear­ing in the armed forces appa­ra­tus with many defec­tions by sol­diers who are incre­men­tal­ly reluc­tant to per­pe­trate mas­sacres against their fel­low Syr­i­ans. To add a lay­er of com­plex­i­ty, Rus­sia, a per­ma­nent mem­ber of the Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil, wield­ed its veto pow­er to pre­vent a UN res­o­lu­tion against the Syr­i­an regime. In the midst of this chaos, the mil­i­tary still has the upper hand, com­mit­ting atroc­i­ties against civil­ians with total impuni­ty.

The mil­i­tary appa­ra­tus has played a piv­otal role in the Arab rev­o­lu­tions’ via­bil­i­ty and con­tin­u­a­tion. While the armed forces assailed the dis­armed pro­test­ers in Syr­ia and Yemen, Tunisian armed forces pre­sent­ed them­selves as the new rev­o­lu­tion guards. The mil­i­tary and the secu­ri­ty appa­ra­tus have proven to be major play­ers in sketch­ing the new face of new­ly born Arab democ­ra­cies and their behav­ior in the com­ing months will be worth pay­ing atten­tion to.