Saddams Removal and Arab Spring: we need to learn the right lessons By Farooq A.

Kirmani Was Saddams ouster from power in Iraq responsible for Arab Spring? Recently, on two different BBC news programmes, Richard Perle and Colleen Graffy (on Question Time and Andrew Marr Show respectively), were seen advocating the correlation. The argument, more explicitly stated by Colleen on AM Show, holds that Arab masses, after seeing an apparently invincible brutal dictator, who had held the country in an iron-grip for decades, being deposed like a paper tiger, realised that they could as well repeat the same with others in the region? However, by the very basic rules of logic, this proposition is untenable. If this proposition is logically deconstructed, it reads: because Americans and its allies deposed Saddam easily, therefore, we can also topple other dictators in the region. But, without any association between Americans and Arab masses, by any stretch of imagination, how can it be so? The fundamental fact of the matter is that Saddam was removed by a highly organised and very powerful external force. Therefore, logically, it shall follow, that the dictators in the region can only be removed by similar forces, external or internal. In other words, removal of such rulers needs an organised (and not un-organised), military (and not public) and surgicallyplanned (and not extempore) intervention. Clearly, Arab Spring is none of it. So, the argument holding the regime change in Iraq, per se, as the fountainhead of Arab Spring is clearly misleading and fallacious. However, this is not to say that the war in Iraq has had no bearing on Arab Spring. Actually, the war in Iraq that took place after the regime change seems to have lead to Arab Spring. It is no secret that the bloody post-regime-change insurgency in Iraq inflicted highly unexpected damage on foreign forces: militarily, politically and morally. At a huge human cost, the insurgents mounted hell of a resistance to the occupying forces. The hitherto invincible military might of West seemed hopelessly helpless in front of an asymmetrical force that was nowhere to be seen before the regime change in the country. In fact, the tide could be turned only after some local militias switched sides. Now, in my opinion, herein lie the seeds of Arab Spring. The invincible foreign forces, that toppled the apparently invincible dictator in a matter of days, were made to retreat, reconsider and return! If such a feat was possible, therefore, nothing could be impossible for Arabs. This new found confidence, as per my understanding, is the real fountainhead of the energy that lead to Arab Spring that went on to depose the despots in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. It was the same confidence that showed itself in the unprecedented resistance by Hezbollah against the military might of Israel in 2006 Lebanon war. It was the same confidence that showed itself yet again in unprecedented resistance by Hamas against Israel in 2008. Given the fact that the current and future policies of West, especially those of America, are going to be predominantly influenced by the lessons from recent wars, especially the one in Iraq, it is vitally important that we learn them right.

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