What we are witnessing today in the streets of Yemen, Libya, and Bahrain before them is closer to a civil war than to a popular revolution. There is a concern that this might spread to the streets of the Syrian cities as well. Societies that are supposed to constitute nations are dismantling into tribes, sects, and conflicting doctrines. The battalions of a supposedly united army are breaking down based on the sectarian and partisan affiliations. The president that the rebels want to oust has a considerable share [of supporters] among these battalions, tribes, and sects. Therefore, it is only natural that this share should gather around him in order to defend him as well as its interests, as these are connected to him remaining in power. Thus, things lead to the conflict that we are witnessing between those who “want” and those who “do not want.” The so-called Arab spring has its leaves almost wilting before the end of the spring season. There goes Egypt - where the “peaceful” revolution went by peacefully or something like that – still reeling from the repercussions of this success, one Friday after another in the Tahrir Square. “The people want …” Then the blank is filled with whatever suits every side to the extent that it is now hard to set a final date or a final project to execute the demands of the now endless “revolution.” And there goes Tunisia – a Parisian square is to carry the name of Mohammad Bouazizi, the hero of Tunisia's “revolution” – with its citizens flooding the shores of the nearby Italian Lampedusa Island in order to look for a European shelter or an employment opportunity and a good livelihood. Those same citizens had opened the projects and the streets of the “Arab spring.” No citizens had emigrated as a result of the success of their “revolution” like the Tunisians are doing today. Normally, revolutions succeed in bringing back the emigrants and the ones who escaped the oppression of the rulers and the corruption of the economy in their countries. A large number of questions are added to all the ones that concern the final destination of the Jasmin Revolution and its reflections on Tunisia and its surroundings. Libya and Yemen represent two examples of the prototype of internal dismantlement that can eliminate the dream of change. This dream has started on the backdrop of the events of Tunisia and Egypt. However, the bets of Muammar Gaddafi and Ali Abdullah Saleh on scaring off the external world from the repercussions of the internal collapse have pushed that dream into a wake that has startled the western forces. These represent the true sponsors of the Arab project for change. The two countries host a resident state of radicalism called Al-Qaeda. The latter represents a danger to the Western interests and to the interests of the neighboring countries. The American military commanders were the first to warn against Al-Qaeda taking advantage of the security collapse in Libya and Yemen. This has prompted them to abstain from supporting the change to the end, and to look for solutions for the impasse that the rebels in the countries found themselves in. The initiative of the GCC and the African Union, which aimed at carrying out a mediation in the two ongoing conflicts in Yemen and Libya, can only be classified under the slogan of rescuing the external world from the internal wars. The GCC cannot bear the ongoing attrition in Yemen and the resulting consequences on its security, at a time where [the GCC] is still suffering from the repercussions of the Bahraini events. In addition, the African continent cannot hold its silence vis-à-vis the continued Libyan crisis especially as the Arabs handed the keys of the solution to Turkey, the International Security Council, and the NATO. Whether the two initiatives do succeed or not, they have stripped the events of Libya and Yemen from the description of “revolution.” Revolutions are an internal act, while we are in the face of an external act aiming at solving an internal problem because the concerned sides have failed to find their own solution. And because the Gulf and African mediators are relying on the language of negotiations in the Yemeni and Libyan conflicts, then the result of the efforts will probably consist of a change to the heart of the two regimes in a way that would allow them to persist with new faces. That is the reason why Gaddafi and Ali Abdullah Saleh have been swift to host the African and Gulf visitors and to welcome the two initiatives.
