New America Media, News Analysis, Behrouz Saba, Posted: Aug 22, 2011

The overwhelming majority of Americans would be hard put to tell Oman apart from Amman; they confuse Iran with Iraq, thinking Iran is an Arab country. An informed electorate does not exist when it comes to forming American policy in Arab countries. That gives Washington a free hand in its efforts to reshape North Africa and the Middle East to please Big Oil, the Pentagon and other vested interests.

The fall of Muammar Gaddafi is now being hailed as the latest victory in the "Arab Spring." Yet as the victors celebrate by letting out banshee screams and shooting machine guns into the air--instead of discussing concrete plans of economy and polity for the future--it is amply clear that a new set of hooligans is poised to replace the old one.

Proud as the rebels are, their rag-tag, Mad Max ranks would have been largely impotent without heavy and persistent NATO bombing.

Contentious Times Ahead

Moreover, Libya's critical oil region of Oasis, under the control of the three tribes (al-Zuwayya, al-Mjabra and al-Awajila), promises contentious times ahead when petrodollars are divvied up as the true spoils of the civil war. Libya's National Oil Company, the ninth largest in the world, is due for a critical rearrangement of its top echelons.

The rebels’ summary execution in July of their military commander, Abdel Fattah Younis, who was suspected of having remained secretly loyal to Gaddafi, is but a preview of the lawlessness and intrigues to come.

Because the Arab Spring will supposedly bring democracy to Arab countries, it has enjoyed the initiative and support of the Obama Administration and its European allies. Yet on close examination, the entire movement is likely to reenact the colonial divide and conquer policy. Ultimately, it will redraw the map of the Arab world by encouraging sectarian, tribal and ethnic conflicts to secure oil resources and strengthen America's imperial hold.

Early this year, subsequent to the overthrow of Zine el Abidine ben Ali in Tunisia, the United States expedited the fall of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak amid the tumult at Cairo’s Tahrir Square. The Obama Administration explicitly withdrew support from Mubarak while warning the Egyptian military to stand down.

Protests followed in other Arab countries as well, notably in Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen, with President Barack Obama expressing his wholehearted support.

Eight months later, the countries blessed by this deadly spring have seen nothing but bloodshed, instability and divisiveness. The Bahrain government, knowing what was at stake, put a quick, horrifying end to the uprising as government forces, backed by Saudi troops and mercenary Pakistani “national guards,” violently clamped down on protesters.

The Syrian city of Hama, the site of the 1982 massacre under the rule of Hafez al-Assad, experienced state terror anew, as his son Bashar al-Assad dispatched troops and tanks to the region.

Al-Assad recently appeared in an almost comical staged television interview as two interviewers tossed softball questions to "His Excellency." He promised reforms to take their full course within six months. The 2,200 human beings he has murdered so far to stay in power were never mentioned.

New Colonialism’s Divisive Strategy

In the aftermath of protests in Arab countries, long dormant divisions have been revived. Expect them to contribute to sustained instability.

In Tunis, supporters of Islamic rule are arrayed against secularists while ethnic Berbers oppose Arabs. In Egypt, even though the Muslim Brotherhood preaches moderation, it is poised to foment an inevitable clash with its vocal secular rivals. The extremist Muslim Salafies of Egypt, meanwhile, brook no compromise. Caught in the fray, the Christian Copt minority feels justifiably threatened.

In Sunni-ruled Bahrain, the clampdown on Shia protesters has spawned region-wide rancor among Shias. In Syria, the conflict between the Alawite sect, a Shia offshoot, and the Sunni majority is resuscitated.

It is all but obvious that the United States and Britain are regressing to the colonial strategy of divide and conquer, incapable of getting past a Cold War mentality. With the bulk of oil reserves in Muslim countries, they find Islam identical to communism as a global force that has to be vanquished.

This is an epochal miscalculation, which will make the Middle East a tempting power vacuum, eventually pitting the United States and the European Union against Russia and China in a potential nuclear standoff.

Unlike Soviet communism, which fell 20 years ago, Islam is not a short-lived, discredited ideology. It is the religion of 1.57 billion people across the globe, many of whom live in 47 Muslim-majority countries. Any attempt to “defeat” it will result in certain disaster.

Currently, one in five Muslim Arabs live on two dollars a day; six of 10 are illiterate. The only way out of the impasse is to encourage the quick turnaround of Muslim economies.

Democracy is a meaningless concept to a hungry and illiterate population. Muslim societies with strong civil institutions, which are stable internally and at peace with the rest of the world, can flourish only if their people begin to generate wealth through robust manufacturing, service and agricultural sectors.

The global economy, now in disarray, can benefit by encouraging new engines of prosperity. Any other scheme will only end in a worldwide catastrophe for Muslims and non-Muslims alike.