Spring hopes eternal

How's the "Arab Spring" looking to you right now?  Let's go through a quick checklist:

* Tunisia, where it all kicked off in early 2011: peaceful now, but in dire economic straits because the tourists, the lifeblood of the economy, have continued to stay away.

* Egypt: also in economic difficulties because of a lack of tourists.  There are growing suspicions among Egyptians that not much has really changed, as a large number of candidates for the upcoming Presidential elections have been disqualified on the flimsiest of pretexts.

* Libya: off the front pages, but the militias that brought down Col.Gadhaffi are still in place, and there are sporadic reports of revenge killings and torture.  Still, the oil came back on stream faster than expected, so that's OK, right?

* Syria: civil war in all but name.  It became apparent in the early days of the uprising that the opposition was so splintered that it would be nearly impossible to reach a political solution, even if the Assad regime were to make meaningful concessions.  It's hard to see how the underlying issues can be resolved, even assuming that the UN-brokered ceasefire holds.

It's a depressing list.  In none of these countries (Libya possibly excepted)  have things panned out as the locals wanted, or as their supporters and well-wishers around the world hoped.  It's still early days, of course, but few would wager that any of these countries will be functioning, pluralistic democracies five or ten years hence.

Which brings us to Bahrain.  I visited the country a dozen years ago, during a business trip around the Gulf.  One of the clients I met was a UK expat who had lived there for almost twenty years.  In all that time, he had never once popped across the King Fahad Causeway to take a peek at Saudi Arabia.  Bahrain was just too congenial.  And it was clear at the time that many Saudis agreed.  Right at the Bahrain end of the Causeway was (and is) a large shopping mall, full of fleshly temptations (and a Marks and Spencer store!), sited there to cash in on all the young Saudis who streamed across each weekend for a little relaxation. This is the largely pro-Western and liberal country now being excoriated in the world's media for its allegedly repressive regime.

The self-styled "great powers" have been trying to shape the course of events in the Middle East ever since the "Great Game" and the Sykes-Picot Agreement.  However,  outsiders' dealings in the region are still beset by ignorance of what the place is actually like.  As a result,  it's hard to know, in any given situation,  who  will wind up supporting whom against whom.  In Bahrain, the ruling family are Sunni Muslims, but a large proportion of the population are Shiites, and it's the latter who are involved in the current unrest.  Without downplaying their legitimate grievances, it's hard not to wonder how large a role neighbouring Iran, the leading Shiite nation in the region, may be playing in the unrest, or what influence it might have in the future.

It's all very well for Hillary Clinton and William Hague and the like to express support for democracy and human rights in Bahrain and elsewhere in the region, but realistically, that's not what's on offer.  And even if it were, the US and the UK might not be happy with the outcome, as the electoral success of Islamist parties in Egypt, Gaza and elsewhere has clearly shown.   Instead of criticising the Russians and Chinese for their unwillingness to support UN "action" in the region,  maybe we should ask ourselves if they're smarter than the rest of us.