Executive Summary

It was not Facebook, Twitter or YouTube that brought down Hosny Mubarak. The Egyptian people did that. But this does not mean that social media and internet‐based technologies played no role, or that their role was insignificant, as some have alleged. Rather, events in Egypt and countries across the Middle East and North Africa have shown in the ‘Arab Spring’that internet platforms and technologies should be seen for what they are: effective tools for the conduct of political campaigns in authoritarian contexts.This paper is the product of over a year of research by the author and is based upon a wide range of academic and contemporary literature, extensive content analysis of social media and interviews conducted with prominent activists. It seeks to analyze the use of online activism in the Egyptian uprisings of January and February 2011, drawing out the lessons learned in addition to applying them to the wider context of the Arab Spring. It suggests the following key findings:

• Online activism multiplied the impact of social protest in Egypt: it made political action easier, faster and more universal. In the tightly controlled Egyptian political space, social media enabled activists to circumnavigate the regime’s repressive structures to convince Egyptians in the online world into taking action in the offline one. This was its main success, for a revolution will always be won and lost on the streets.

• The political uses of online platforms and technologies are extremely transferrable, and are just as clearly seen in the London riots as they were in Tahrir. The first use is as a tool for mobilising citizens by producing material designed to inspire them into action, and to organise their action once recruited. The second is to use online platforms as a medium for citizen journalism to report on the situation.

• To maximize the impact of online protest it is clear that the combination of the above catalytic and scrutinizing uses is required. But the ability to do so is determined by an array of factors, including the domestic political environment and levels of internet penetration, affordability and computer literacy. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the deployment of such uses has varied across the region.

• The use of online activism in Egypt and the wider Arab world has led to the growth of a new kind of political movement that reflects the plural nature of social media. This has enabled a flat leadership model that is difficult for autocratic regimes to combat: such movements are strong in the face of government interference as they are not dependent on a strong hierarchical structure to coordinate their activities.

• In the Egyptian uprisings, social media became a major hub of political activity. In the advocacy of street protest, over 400,000 people were signed up on Facebook. Moreover, throughout the protests Egyptian Facebook users believed that 85 percent of Facebook usage was to organize activism, raise awareness and spread information about events. Analysis of Twitter also illustrates the extent to which the conversation was driven by political events, with mentions of the hashtag #jan25 correlating closely with total Tweet volumes.

Online mediums have proved a potent tool for pro‐democracy elements in the Arab world. Yet, the gains of the activists remain as reversible as they were hard fought. In Egypt, their efforts have still yet to secure a true transition of power, and the online activists of Tahrir are unlikely to become major actors in the new Egyptian parliament. Meanwhile, the Syrian opposition has yet to succeed in bringing down the regime of Bashar al Asad. Indeed, if the work of the online activists is to be supported effectively, it is imperative that its significance is better understood if it is to help prevent the Arab world’s spring from turning to autumn.

Read full report

Tim Eaton currently works for BBC Media Action on media development projects in the Middle East. He previously completed his postgraduate degree at the University of Exeter, majoring in Middle East Studies. He is also a former researcher for Chatham House, The Royal Institute of International Affairs. Tim has a long‐standing interest in the politics of Egypt, where he worked as a political researcher at the Ibn Khaldun Centre throughout the 2005 elections.

The report is conducted by the ‘New Diplomacy Platform’ (NDP) and draws on 30 interviews with senior foreign policy figures such as former foreign secretary David Miliband and current shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy, as well non-party-affiliated commentators such as Mark Leonard of the European Council on Foreign Relations and Robin Niblett, director of Chatham House.

The report finds that:

•    Thirty senior party figures and foreign policy experts claim that being strong and central player in the EU is in Britain’s long-term national interest

•    Being a peripheral player in a two-speed Europe means Britain is seriously damaging its image in Beijing, Delhi and Brasilia

•    Thirteen years of ‘open internationalism’ is being replaced by the introversion and isolation of the  ‘Major years’

•    The Labour party should form a taskforce of experts to address the legacy of Iraq by using the experience to create a new ‘set of rules’ on ‘when and how’ to intervene abroad

While in ‘every other area of the world the nation-state is being empowered’, the report says, ’the only exception is the EU where member states will become increasingly reliant on its collective leverage. The bottom line for the UK is that as the world’s power shifts east the only way to remain influential is by being at the leading edge of the EU.’

Away from Europe, the report also calls on Labour to continue to support the doctrine of humanitarian intervention even after Iraq, but to drop the toxic language of ‘liberal interventionism’. It goes on to underline the need for Labour to put stricter parameters in place ‘to ensure humanitarian intervention is not used as a justification for regime change’. This, the report claims, would help to re-emphasise the original meaning of Tony Blair’s Chicago speech, which was about intervening to protect people, not enforce new forms of governance on them. The researchers suggest the formation of a taskforce of former and shadow Labour ministers, bipartisan experts and even a ‘citizen jury’ to formulate the criteria for intervention.

Please read the pamphlet here and read press coverage here

The focus might be on Britain’s relationship with Europe but the Government’s retreat from engagement with the EU is just the latest example of a government strategy of decreasing engagement from multilateral institutions and a focus instead on a more bilateral approach to foreign policy. This is one of the central findings ofour report published today with the New Labour think tank, Progress. In the spring and summer of this year we interviewed over thirty former and shadow Cabinet Ministers, senior think tank representatives, diplomats, and journalists on their views towards the future of Labour Party foreign policy in opposition – countering the slide towards isolationism in the UK was seen as a central priority in the coming years.

Britain is still a dynamic and influential actor in international affairs but what the coalition government has got fundamentally wrong is that this unique position is because of our strong role in the EU and other multilateral bodies not in spite of it. There are clearly some short-term gains to be made from opting out of the EU negotiations on consolidation of the Eurozone as the Prime Minister did so spectacularly on Friday. The Treasury is left to set fiscal as well as monetary policy in order to keep the UK in the black and the City of London is arguably spared any possible external regulation from Brussels but this is a small consolation in what is otherwise a significant step backwards in Britain’s on-going integration within the EU something virtually every interviewee for our report thought was paramount in securing the UK’s future.

The key to the UK’s foreign policy for the last 30 years has been managing our relative decline on the world stage while retaining influence and defending our national interests. From 1997 Labour achieved this by utilising its position as a member of the majority key multilateral institutions ranging from the UN, to the G8 to the EU. Its pivotal role in the EU was a key reason why the US bought into the special-relationship, seeing the UK as a bridge to the European Union. Emerging powers including China and India also saw the bridging role the UK played, seeing the UK as an ally in negotiating trade agreements with the wider European market. This is all at risk now as Britain finds itself on the periphery of the EU decision making process.

Labour now has both an opportunity and a responsibility to offer the UK electorate an alternative view of Britain’s role in the world where – through playing a central role in the EU, the UN, and the G20 – Britain can retain influence while also using these platforms to enhance our economy and geopolitical position.

Britain is not out of the EU and there is still a chance for the UK to re-engage with Europe but it is the Labour party’s job to not only to scrutinise the Government’s new position, it is also the party’s job to make the case to a seemingly sceptical public on why being in Europe matters. This should be done by explaining to people that the days of Europe being an ideological debate are gone, it is now a simple matter of national interest. As David Miliband is quoted as saying in the Progress Report “we are pro-European because we are pro-British.”

Sam Hardy is a Director of the New Diplomacy Platform.

The Future of Labour’s Foreign Policy is co-authored by Sam Hardy and James Denselow and is published by Progress, the New Labour think tank: www.progressives.org.uk

(The Guardian) 39,000 soldiers will leave Iraq this year, but US military control will continue in such guises as security and training

Six months after the outbreak of protests in Syria there is little sign of the violence halting any time soon. Over 2,700 people have been killed and tens of thousands have either been arrested or have fled the country. In September, the emergence of the Free Syria Army, the most organized armed resistance group to oppose the regime, has led to real concerns that the last six months of civil strife may transform into civil war in the months to come. Yet with the UN divided there is little chance of the kind of military intervention seen in Libya and sanctions are left as one of the few key mechanisms available for placing pressure on the regime in Damascus.

Sanctions, however, are traditionally a byword for failed policy in the Middle East. For decades, Syria and Iran have both been on the receiving end of a variety of US sanctions with little positive change evident as a result. Stephen Walt wrote of the “sanctions paradox” whereby, regardless of US popularity, sanctions remain essentially ineffective especially in the case of Iran. Then there is the legacy of Iraq, where some of the most punitive sanctions in modern history devastated the country between 1991 and 2003. However, such is the speed of the Arab revolutions and their transformative potential that many believe smart sanctions can weaken the Syrian regime while avoiding massive damage to the civilian population.  Indeed in August US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, promised that the US would “mitigate the effects of sanctions on the Syrian people,” while British Foreign Secretary, William Hague,  has explained that “sanctions are not aimed at the Syrian people but at those responsible for the regime’s violent repression and those who support or benefit from the regime.” So can this be done or is British columnist George Monbiot correct when he suggested that when it comes to sanctions we are “damned if we do and damned if we don’t?”

Syria is not Iraq

The Syrian people are unsurprisingly sensitive to the legacy of sanctions, having witnessed years of failed international policies towards their eastern neighbor Iraq.  Throughout the 1990s, sanctions undermined the Iraqi state’s ability to provide basic services, reducing their governmental budget by 90 percent. Nearly all imports were blocked, with terrible consequences for a country that had previously imported 70 percent of its food and was dependent on imports for nearly every aspect of its economy and public services. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died as a consequence, including at least 500,000 children under the age five from dysentery combined with malnutrition. Sanctions also decimated the health of millions; by 1997 one million children under five were malnourished and by 1998 70 percent of Iraqi women were anemic. Sanctions destroyed Iraq’s economy and made a shambles of the nation’s education and health care systems. Despite these terrible repercussions, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright famously claimed, the human price of the sanctions “was worth it.”

It is within this context that it is crucially important for western policy makers to highlight the differences between today’s sanctions on Syria and the devastating sanctions on Iraq. Crucially, Saddam’s Iraq had the full mechanisms of the United Nations against them—whereas it appears unlikely that Syria will suffer such a fate. In 1990, UNSCR 661 prohibited UN member states from trading with Iraq. Today the UN Security Council is chronically divided over Syria, with the Chinese, South Africans and particularly the Russians blocking any resolution that could trigger further sanctions.

Indeed the Russians, who have close cultural, economic and military ties with the Syrians, have consistently come out against sanctioning Syria. Moscow is particularly sensitive after their experience with UNSCR 1973, which they perceived as granting the establishment and enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya but which was eventually used to push through regime change. Speaking ahead of his address to the UN General Assembly in New York this September, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov argued that placing sanctions on Syria was not a strategy that Russia supported. He went on to explain that “we ask what the next strategy is, how have you calculated your next steps? The answer we get is that we haven’t thought about it yet … it’s a very simple but I believe not very reliable strategy, if it can be called a strategy at all.”

No Turkish Delight

With the United Nations route off the table all eyes will be on the impact of EU and Turkish sanctions. In early September, the EU agreed the imposition of a ban on Syrian crude oil imports. The EU is the destination for around 95 percent of Syrian oil, which makes up some 25 percent of state revenue. Yet the fall of Tripoli and disappearance of Qadhafi has made it likely that oil from Libya will be able to flow to Europe again soon, freeing European hands to sanction Syria.

This is already having a significant impact. On the 26 September, The Financial Times reported that the EU embargo on crude oil exports meant that Syria had been forced to instruct foreign oil companies to cut production due to a backlog of crude that had filled its storage capacity, despite the EU ban on oil imports only fully coming into force in November. The Syrians have reassured their public that they will be able to find new markets for their oil—with China an obvious candidate to absorb the slack. However, like a game of chess, sanctions require blocking moves as well as directly aggressive ones and in late September Hillary Clinton urged China to support strong action on Syria when she met with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.

Meanwhile EU action has highlighted the diverse array of sanctions that are available, with agreements to a ban of investment in Syria’s oil sector, blocking the delivery of banknotes to the Central Bank in Damascus and the imposition of travel and visa bans on officials linked to the regime. As the EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, explained “the EU restrictive measures are designed to have maximum impact on the Syrian regime, while minimizing any potential negative impacts on the Syrian population.” The EU has other tools in the toolbox for future use, with a possible consensus on banning exports to Syria as well as pressure on global financial institutions not to deal with the regime in Damascus.

However there is no better example of the precision of so called smart sanctions than the targeting of individuals. Currently there are 56 individuals and 18 entities subject to EU travel bans and asset freezes. Those on the list range from the president to his senior security figures, while US Treasury Department sanctions have even gone so far to freeze the assets of Assad’s advisor, Bouthaina Shaaban.

In Iraq, US-led sanctions were designed both to prevent weapons and dual-use materials entering the country, while simultaneously and covertly punishing the regime and encouraging regime change. In Syria the US has come out publically to state that Assad should go. Aware that it already has a series of sanctions in place, the US has focused its energy on pursuing a widening of sanctions amongst its allies. Washington is conscious that it has already pursued sanctions against Syria to little effect over the past decade. The 2004 Syria Accountability Act (SAA) prohibited the export of most goods containing more than 10 percent of US-made parts to Syria and in 2006, sanctions were targeted specifically against the Commercial Bank of Syria while a series of Executive Orders has allowed the US President to target individuals and entities—much like the new EU sanctions.

While the Syrian regime has been able to cope with US sanctions in the past they are scrambling to try and deal with the double whammy of internal economic collapse and new forms of external pressure. Turkey, a key regional player, is leading the way on sanctioning Syria and considering that bilateral trade between the two neighbors is worth £1.5 billion a year, Damascus is understandably concerned. Turkey is already playing host to some 7,000 Syrian refugees and has emerged as the de facto base of the nascent Syrian opposition. The Turks have intercepted ships carrying arms to Syria and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to announce in early October a series of sanctions against its Arab neighbor.

So, having outlined the catastrophic impact of sanctions on Iraq and the ineffective US led sanctions on Syria in the past, the million dollar question is whether the new raft of European and regional sanctions will alter Syrian behavior or even bring down the regime?

It’s the Economy, Stupid

Mohammed A- Jleilati, Syria’s finance minister, is bullish about the country’s ability to withstand sanctions—claiming that Syria has $18 billion in foreign currency reserves and could secure all of its imports for two years “if not a single other dollar came.” However there can be little doubt that the Syrian economy is struggling to breathe under the constrictions that have been placed upon it. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted last month that Syria’s economy would contract 2 percent this year, altering the 3 percent growth forecast it issued in April. The Syrian government is in the process of transferring millions out of accounts in Jordanian banks, having restricted the amount of foreign currency people can purchase and banned the import of goods with a tariff of more than 5 percent (except 51 items including raw materials and grain), which has led to a rise in the price of a huge range of products. The Guardian has also reported that workers at the Central Bank of Syria have been asked to ‘contribute’ about £6.50 of their monthly salary to fund the government.

Tourism, worth an estimated £5 billion a year, has entirely collapsed as the rising death toll has scared tourists away from what was previously a rapidly flourishing destination. Meanwhile sources in the shipping industry say that the volume of shipping in the ports of Tartus and Latakia declined by 35 to 40 percent in the first eight months of 2011. Overall the economic situation is bleak, but as Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU), explained “Syria is a relatively wealthy country so it will take some time for a real deterioration in people’s living standards.”  Doyle spoke of the more immediate concern of besieged cities such as Hama, Dera’a and Homs, which have been under intermittent attack since the protests began.  While the UN has been able to send in delegations to Syria there has yet to be a thorough humanitarian assessment.

Creating an environment for change

Sanctions alone are unlikely to bring down the Assad government and if the Syrian regime can endure in the short to medium term there are real concerns that sanctions will hurt the very people they are nominally seeking to protect.

However the noose of increasing sanctions and rapid decline in the economy could trigger traditional allies of the regime to reconsider where their interests best lie and abandon the regime. Although the regime will likely prioritize and maybe expand its $1.8 billion (3.5 percent of GDP) spend on the military, they will be unable to prevent business being hit hard by both the sanctions and the Syrian government’s attempt to tax their way out of the crisis. Although there have been reports of a $6 billion loan from close ally Iran, nothing has yet been made manifest and a truly isolated regime is a weak one.  Meanwhile the opposition is becoming more cohesive and organized. Fresh from a meeting with British Foreign Secretary William Hague, both Catherine Al-Talli and Bassam Ishaq, recent exiles from Syria, agreed that the people of Syria would prefer to endure the impact of sanctions over the short term than the continued long term oppression of living under the Assad regime

This article originally appeared in the Majalla on the 11.10.11 

This week the world briefly remembered Iraq when the worst bombings of the year left 70 dead and 300 wounded across the country. With civil war in Libya, civil strife in Syria and Yemen, and partial revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, Iraq has been largely in the shadows of events elsewhere in 2011. Yet out of the glare of international attention a crucially important transition has been taking place in the country. 2011 is the year in which all US troops leave Iraq despite the continued fragility of the security situation leading to an ongoing debate about whether or not the Iraqi government will ask some to remain. However, despite the US having one of its largest embassy’s on the planet in Baghdad, their ability to influence the often gridlocked Iraqi body-politic is questionable. This has been highlighted in the case of dealing with Syria.

The US has raised the stakes on Syria considerably. Secretary of State Clinton explaining that “the United States has been instrumental in orchestrating (pressure on Syria)”, days before Obama himself decided that with over 2,000 dead and tens of thousands missing, imprisoned or refugees, the time had come to abandon any hopes that Assad should remain in control.

However the Obama administration will be painfully aware of its limited ability to influence Syrian behaviour. Syria is fairly sanctions proof having endured tough US-led isolation during the terms of President George W Bush who’d labelled the country a junior member of the ‘axis of evil’. Today with Syria likely to be protected at the United Nations by the Russian veto, Washington sees bilateral pressure on its allies as the best means to suffocate and help topple the Damascene regime.

Hilary Clinton has made it clear that the US is “pushing for stronger sanctions that we hope will be joined by other countries that have far bigger stakes economically than we do.” Iraq though, is currently in the process of doing exactly the opposite of what Washington wants by actually enhancing economic ties with Syria.

Indeed last month Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki hosted a Syrian delegation of business and government figures to agree on the construction of a gas pipeline between the two countries and the sales of subsidised oil to Syria. Oil, as always in the Middle East, may play a pivotal role in forthcoming events. It is no surprise that Obama’s announcement included specific reference to Syria’s petroleum industry. Syria produces 380,000 barrels per day which brings in some $4bn annually, almost a quarter of the government’s budget. Oil accounts for about 28 to 33 percent of Syrian exports with 96% these exports bought in Europe: the simultaneous announcement affirming that Assad must go from Germany, France and the United Kingdom is an important development.

Syria Comment author Joshua Landis has said that “Prime Minister Maliki has fallen into line with Iran’s desire to help bolster the Assad regime”. But with the US and the Europeans joined by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and even Jordan against Assad, why is Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki so reluctant to join the international condemnation of Syria?

There are three main reasons; the first is his own vulnerability to the Arab Spring’s protests. Since February, tens of thousands of protesters have participated in demonstrations every Friday across Iraq. Maliki, like Assad, has approached the demonstrations with his own variety of carrots and sticks. He cut his $350,000 salary in half, announced the reduction of the government to 25 ministerial positions, and has sought to make a constitutional change to ensure a two-term limit to the office of prime minister. Yet Malaki has also unleashed Western trained security forces who have tried to bar street protests and confine them (unsuccessfully) to football stadiums, as well as attacking and killing protestors including a bloody encounter on the 25th of February where 12 people were killed and over 100 injured.

A second reason for Maliki’s reticence to abandon Assad is the warming of bilateral ties over the past six months. This is in contrast to the general poverty of recent relations that were soured by claims from Baghdad that Damascus has been harbouring insurgents who were coordinating operations in Iraq. However this January Damascus announced that it would start granting Iraqi visitors visas at the border. In a sign of the two countries’ improving relations in February Syria’s Minister for Petroleum, Sufian Allao and visiting Iraqi Minister for Oil, Abdul Kareem Luaibi, met to discuss ways of further bolstering bilateral cooperation in oil, gas and mineral resources.

In mid-March as the protests that swept away the regimes of Ben Ali and Mubarak reached Syria, Damascus announced that their security forces had seized a large shipment of weapons, explosives and night-vision goggles in a truck coming from Iraq. The Iraqi government responded by promising better security on the border, a bizarre irony considering the long history of US/Iraqi concerns over the trafficking of weapons and insurgents in the other direction. The Syrian-Iraqi border region subsequently became an area of severe unrest as the protests in Syria spread in scale and momentum. July saw a combined Syrian military force attack the border town of Albokamal, with reports of dozens of Syrian soldiers defecting. Meanwhile in August operations coinciding with Ramadan commenced around the larger Euphrates town of Deir el-Zour, with dozens reported killed.

The third element determining Maliki’s actions is the shadow of Iranian influence. Maliki is close to Iran and Iran is Syria’s closest ally, with Clinton claiming that Assad “can look only to Iran for support”. However according to Iraqi Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi Iran “has established influence within the Iraqi territories the extent of which it never dreamed.” Tehran has stood by the Assad regime offering advice and lessons from its own recent protests on how to quell demonstrations.

Obama’s announcement that Assad should stand aside is the starting gun of a diplomatic offensive against the Syrian regime. Speaking ahead of the announcement Hilary Clinton admitted that “it’s not going to be any news if the United States says Assad needs to go, O.K. Fine. What’s next? If Turkey says it, if King Abdullah says it, if other people say it, there is no way the Assad regime can ignore it.” A critically important battle is whether or not Washington can isolate Syria from its neighbours by persuading Baghdad to support its, not Tehran’s agendas. It is surely in US interests for Iraq to stay out of events in Syria.

NDP Director, James Denselow

The report is available on line in several languages at www.ciise-iciss.gc.ca/report-en.asp