Syria: a state of fear

It's no surprise that many of Syria's minorities are feeling fearful right now as unrest spreads throughout the country. The current minority Allawite regime, for all its ills, has long been viewed as the protector of minority religious rights and the vanguard of a secular (ish) society.

To gauge the current feeling in the country see Joshua Landis' recent post and the myriad of different voices expressing their fears on what may follow Assad, if the regime falls, and that's a big IF.

For more analysis on Syria, see here and here.

Bahrain update

After a month of repressive crackdowns on pro-reform protesters, including the influx of Saudi troops to shore up the al-Khalifah regime, the government in Bahrain appeared to backtrack for the first time on Friday after coming under criticism from Washington. The criticism centred on the government's decision on Thursday to ban the country's main opposition groups, including al-Wefaq, which withdrew its 18 MPs from the 40-seat parliament in February in protest at the government crackdowns.

It appears that the al-Khalifah regime has taken Washington's silence since the start of the protests as a green light for a total crackdown on the opposition. This 'overstepping of the boundaries' has placed the Obama administration - already facing heavy criticism for its inconsistent stance vis-à-vis the Arab uprisings - in a difficult position. The White House is also aware - unlike the hardliners in Bahrain - that banning the main Shia party will only fuel the unrest and further the chances of a more violent insurrection similar to what took place in the 1990s.

Joost Hiltermann of International Crisis Group has a podcast here on the recent unrest.

Egypt: business as usual

In the first case of its kind since the Egyptian uprising against the Mubarak regime, a military court has sentenced an Egyptian blogger to a three year prison term for publishing "false information and "insulting the armed forces". As Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch points out, the "The ruling [against Maikel Nabil]comes at a time when the Egyptian military is drawing very restrictive red lines around permissible speech". Joe Stork goes on to note:

"Since the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) assumed power on February 11, the military has arrested at least 200 protesters and tried scores of them before military courts. Over 150 protesters arrested on March 9 after the military forcibly cleared Tahrir Square of protesters were sentenced to prison terms by military tribunals in Cairo's high-security Tora prison and are still being held."

Syria: Riding out the storm

The regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad seems to have weathered the storm, for now. The regime will take comfort that the army and security services (firmly in the hands of Assad's Allawi minority) stayed loyal and the protest movement that briefly flourished in the provinces failed to take route in the country's three major cities of Damascus, Aleppo and Hama.

The conclusion Assad may draw from this is that Syrians - for the time being - prefer stability. The lessons drawn from political disorder in neighbouring Lebanon, Iraq and now Libya have not been lost on a population that is keenly aware of the fragile ethnic and sectarian make-up of their state. The old saying "order under an unjust leader is better than chaos under a just leader" appears to ring true for many Syrians. But while Assad may take comfort from this - and also from tactical support from the US - he should be wary of complacency.

Syria's youth, like the youth all over the Arab world, have spoken. They may not want to plunge the country into civil conflict but they do demand that the regime responds to their legitimate demands for greater political freedoms, accountable government and better economic prospects. They are no longer apathetic and have sent a clear signal to the regime that things need to change to meet their growing aspirations. It seems clear that the Syrian population has changed even if the regime has not. Communications and social media have dragged the country out of its isolation. The open question now is: can the regime respond to these changes?

Joshua Landis has some interesting observations on the recent unrest here and here.