THE ASHES OF THE ARAB SPRING


I have written previously about the rather inappropriately monikered ‘Arab Spring’ in the very first May 2015 edition of the Ghost In The Machine, and following on from the last edition’s piece on Iran, it seems a good point to take another look at what appears to be the wasteland of the Levant, above all Iraq and Syria.


To an extent, this is primarily about what might be, rather than what will be, though it should serve as a reminder of the destruction that has been wrought, and the undeniable potential in the region, as well as the need to consider the latter in terms of the 


As I noted in my previous piece on the Arab Spring: ‘conceptually the term “Arab Spring” remains a good example of deploying western 'cultural baggage' in order to fashion a frame of reference for the public and media, to try and comprehend events in Western Asia and North Africa in recent years; Arab “Uprising” or “Revolt” as per the previous 1916-19 and 1936 episodes would be better, but of course lack the romanticized connotations of ‘Spring’.’ Even with the very briefest periods of hindsight, this has proved to be one of  ‘myths’ that has ever been propagated, while at the same exposing the destructive meddling in the region by an array and succession of governments from Moscow through London and Paris to   countries in the region, echoing thousands of years of history.


4 | ADMISI - The Ghost In The Machine | July/August 2018


The devastation that has been wrought in Iraq starting with the war that deposed Saddam Hussein, which laid to waste much of the domestic infrastructure, and helped to spawn the so-called “Islamic State” or “Daesh”, that spread into Syria amid a civil war that has so many combatting factions is more than well known. That said, the broader impact in terms of the large scale displacement of the population, let alone the   of refugees to the EU. Estimates suggest 5.6 million people have left Syria and 2.0 million have  people in Syria and 2.5 million in Iraq. For all, the  to the EU, it is the Lebanon with an estimated 1.5 Mln, Jordan with an estimated 1.4 Mln and Turkey with 3.0 Million that have the largest numbers of migrants, which in Jordan and Lebanon’s case has stretched both countries to breaking point. These numbers only cover those who have been displaced, while there are up to 10 million in Syria whose food security is threatened, not only by the destruction of war and displacement, but also due to severe droughts in the region in recent years. In this respect Iraq is rather less challenged with just under 2.0 Mln facing food insecurity, though this is heavily contingent on plentiful imports from the two major food exporters in the region, Turkey and Iran. Iraq’s much more serious challenge relates to its energy infrastructure, to which I will return later.


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