The Revolution Continues....

A couple weeks ago my cousin joked that when Mubarak goes, the following day we'll hear that Gaddafi has imprisoned every citizen. I laughed, but not without discomfort. Because this joke struck a little too close to reality. There is real excitement, and fear that things can and will change, that there is such a thing as people power. But like in many places, an insurrection in Libya would be met with force, and that means blood will be spilled, lives will be destroyed. There have already been deaths in Libya and Bahrain.

In Libya, Benghazi, the second major city after the capital Tripoli has a history with Gaddafi. Most of the political prisoners are from this city, it makes sense that any type of insurrection would come from this city. It also home to banned Islamist party.

Many are dismissing the protests in Libya. Believing that what happened in Tunisia and Egypt will not happen in Libya. But I do not buy into this school of thought.
In response to the protests Gaddafi released several hundred political prisoners. As a gesture of good-will, or at least that's what he told the population. This to me means that Gaddafi is uneasy if nothing else. And may just serve to further encourage the movement.

Now Bahrain is a story of a minority in this case Sunni Muslim monarchy, ruling over a majority, Shii Muslims. Now a casual observer knows something is wrong with a society if the majority has the lowest education, wealth and health measures in the population.

During the first couple of days, the monarchy was willing to negotiate and concede everything except the main demand: turning the monarchy from a absolute one to a constitutional one, the latter being more in the line of British monarchy.

Obviously dissatisfied, a case of too little too late, the protests continued. And now Bahrain, has outlawed protests, and called forth its security forces.

You might say who cares, its Bahrain, so tiny. But tiny Bahrain is part of the intricate, disgustingly complex fabric of geopolitics. The Arab gulf which includes Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Yemen etc is majority Sunni, with pockets of Shias. And close by, and always watching is Iran which is majority Shia. Fairly or unfairly, the political Shias in Iraq have been accused of getting support from Iran. And we know for a fact that Hizb-Allah,which is basically holding Lebanese political system hostage, is directly supported by Iran. So you can believe that the other countries in the gulf are watching the developments in Bahrain closely.

Of course a democratic Iran would be a game changer....