Huh?
Revolution vs. Counterrevolution: Whatever Happened to the Arab Spring?
by ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH
CounterPunch, Weekend Edition April 13-15, 2012
Within the first few months of 2011, the U.S. and its allies lost three loyal “friends”: Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Zine el-Abbidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Saad Hariri in Lebanon. While Mubarak and Ali were driven out of power by widespread popular uprisings, Hariri was ousted by the parliament.
Inspired by these liberating developments, pro-democracy rebellions against autocratic rulers (and their Western backers) soon spread to other countries such as Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
As these revolutionary developments tended to politically benefit the “axis of resistance” (consisting of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas) in the Middle East, the US-Israeli “axis of aggression” and their client states in the region mounted an all-out counterrevolutionary offensive.
Caught off-guard by the initial wave of the Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia, the US and its allies struck back with a vengeance. They employed a number of simultaneous tactics to sabotage the Arab Spring. These included
(1) instigating fake instances of the Arab Spring in countries that were/are headed by insubordinate regimes such as those ruling Iran, Syria and Libya;
(2) co-opting revolutionary movements in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen;
(3) crushing pro-democracy movements against “friendly” regimes ruling countries such as Bahrain, Jordan and Saudi Arabia “before they get out of hand,” as they did in Egypt and Tunisia; and
(4) using the age-old divide and rule trick by playing the sectarian trump card of Sunnis vs. Shias, or Iranians vs. Arabs.
Read full article (elaboration on each of the four strategies in being listed above).
Phi Beta Iota: Meanwhile within the USA, Ron Paul has been bought off and firmly put back in place as part of the controlled opposition, and Occupy has been very successfully squelched by encouraging their inherent tendency to kum-ba-ya themselves to their own early demise. Now the 1% has what is left of Occupy competing for small scholarships to tread water and remain irrelevant. It is still possible to re-ignite the Electoral Reform Act of 2012 possibilities, but each month that passes without public coalescing around this ONE THING that the all can agree on and force upon the corrupt two-party tyranny in Congress, is another stake in the heart of the Republic.
