By Mona Moussavi, Editorial assistant

This year’s Iranian presidential election race got a lot more interesting last Saturday when former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani registered his candidacy just minutes before the deadline.

The move transforms the race to replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who cannot stand in June’s poll after serving two full terms. Rafsanjani has a turbulent relationship with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. And despite being a conservative, he is attractive to reformers as a relative moderate in contemporary Iran.

Attention is now on Khamenei to see how he responds. The more than 600 candidates who have registered to run must all be vetted by the Guardian Council. Khamenei holds sway over the council, which comprises six clergymen directly appointed by the supreme leader, and six jurists nominated by the head of the judiciary (himself appointed by the supreme leader).

Hardliners are already calling for Rafsanjani to be barred. They would also like to see Ahmadinejad’s ally and protégée Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, taken off the list after he registered at the last minute.

A list of approved presidential candidates is expected next week, before the election on 14 June. Key figures who could make it through the process include Saeed Jalili, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, and the three men who make up the conservative ‘2+1 coalition’: Tehran’s mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf; Ali Akbar Velayati, foreign-policy adviser to Khamenei; and former Majles (parliamentary) speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel. All four men are conservative favourites.

Rafsanjani, for his part, has been one of the most important figures in the Islamic Republic. A close follower of Ayatollah Khomeini, who led the 1979 Islamic Revolution, he was elected speaker in the lslamic Republic’s first season of parliament. Instrumental in Khamenei’s accession to the supreme leadership after Khomeini died in 1989, Rafsanjani himself became president from 1989–97.

During his time in office, he supported free-market economic policies and sought rapprochement with the West; in 1995, for example, he offered a US$1 billion contract to US oil company Conoco (now ConocoPhilllips) to expand offshore Iranian oil and gas fields.

Today he remains one of Iran’s wealthiest men, with a family-owned business that ranges from pistachio farming and trading, to construction companies, vast real estate holdings and a commercial airline. This has put him at odds with the populist current in Iranian politics, now represented by Mashaei.

So could Khamenei and the Guardian Council block Rafsanjani’s candidacy?

A turning point came in the two men’s relationship after the disputed 2009 presidential election, when Rafsanjani indirectly backed the reformist Green Movement. During Friday prayers, he declared that: ‘We should open the doors to debates. We should not keep so many people in prison … people have lost their faith in the regime and their trust is damaged.’

Khamenei responded that his views were ‘closer to Ahmadinejad’s’, and Rafsanjani was no longer allowed to address Friday prayers. In 2011, he was removed from his post as head of the Assembly of Experts, a group of clerics that appoints the supreme leader.

Rafsanjani’s son Mehdi and daughter Faezeh have since been imprisoned, the latter for ‘spreading anti-state propaganda’. It is unlikely that this could have happened to members of such a high-profile family without Khamenei’s consent.

In this year’s election, the reformist camp has already thrown its weight behind Rafsanjani’s candidacy. Former president Mohammad Khatami called Rafsanjani’s decision to run a ‘national opportunity’; Khatami’s former vice-president and other reformist candidates have promised to withdraw their presidential candidacy in support.

While he does not enjoy the popularity Mir Hossein Mousavi did in 2009, Rafsanjani’s past pragmatism appeals, particularly in economic policy, where international sanctions against Iran’s nuclear programme have added to financial mismanagement, creating high unemployment and inflation.

Some voters believe the imprisonment of his children has softened his conservative stance. Others are more sceptical, particularly about his human-rights record; brutal crackdowns on dissent continued during his presidency as he ordered the secret execution  of more than 80 individuals. He was also implicated in the overseas assassination of opponents, including of Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, the Secretary-General of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan at an apartment in Vienna in 1989, of former Iranian Prime Minister Shahpur Bakhtiar in Paris in 1991 and of activists in a Mykonos restaurant in 1992.

While some view Rafsanjani as the only man in the country capable of standing up to the supreme leader, it is unclear if he is really capable of, or interested in, doing this.

Rafsanjani has reportedly described his relationship with Supreme Leader Khamenei as ‘like two brothers, but what has taken place in recent years has caused [him] not to have confidence in me’.

Despite everything, Rafsanjani is still considered a pillar of the Islamic Republic. He remains chairman of the Expediency Council – ‘an advisory body for the leader’ – a position Khamenei approved for another five years in March 2012.

Moreover, Khamenei is unlikely to bar Rafsanjani’s from running in the elections, because to do so, on any political grounds, would harm the regime’s image. Khamenei is eager to regain legitimacy both domestically and in the region, especially after 2009’s rigged election and brutal crackdown on protesters. High voter turnout is essential to achieve this, and Rafsanjani’s name on the ballot would probably motivate more reformists to vote.

There is even speculation that Khamenei prompted Rafsanjani’s last-minute decision to run, only days after his wife had announced he would not. Rafsanjani said he would not run without the supreme leader’s blessing, and rumours suggest he was phoned on Saturday and given the go-ahead.

In any case, Khamenei and Rafsanjani’s ‘frenemy’ status point to a dramatic election. If the former president is allowed to run, Khamenei will have to persuade his fellow hardliners that Rafsanjani is not a bona fide ‘reformer’ and may even privately tell Rafsanjani to play down his reformist appeal.

Rafsanjani could be elected, or he could be asked to step aside at the last minute for one of the safer, hard-line candidates. In fact, almost any scenario is possible in a country where a former provincial governor with a PhD in traffic and transport has been the second-highest ranking official for eight years.

Can a third-time prime minister rescue a nation in trouble? This is a question being asked about Nawaz Sharif since his party won the most number of votes in historic elections in Pakistan last weekend.

The poll – in which one elected Pakistani government succeeded another for the first time since independence in 1947 – leaves Sharif and his Pakistan Muslim League–N (PML–N) in charge of a country plagued by terrorist attacks, corruption and daily power outages. Sharif has already made it clear that the economy will be his top priority, but his campaign promise to force the United States to cut back drone attacks on Pakistani soil – albeit now softened – remains in the news.

Sharif and the PML–N saw off a plucky challenge by former cricketer Imran Khan and his Pakistan Movement for Justice (PTI), and should now be able to govern alone without needing to form a coalition.

Pakistan’s youthful population meant there were 36 million registered new voters among a total 86m; and voter turnout was substantial, at 60%, including a large proportion of women. Although more than 100 people lost their lives in election-related violence, the Taliban failed to significantly disrupt the vote.

However, Sharif’s two previous unpopular terms in the 1990s hang over him, and his party’s victory in this election rests almost entirely on its success in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province.

Final figures released by the election commission on Thursday showed Sharif’s party taking 123 of the 272 directly elected seats in the National Assembly. With 25 independents who normally join the government party, the PML–N will have more than the 137 seats it needs for a majority. It will also be allocated a majority of the 70 other parliamentary seats reserved for women and non-Muslim minorities.

While only winning 26 seats, Khan’s PTI is set to form the provincial government in the tribal areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which formed the outgoing government, took just 31 seats. However, it will retain its power in Sindh, in the south, and the PPP’s Asif Ali Zardari remains president.

This provincial polarisation – especially after more autonomy was given to provincial governments under the 18th amendment to the constitution in 2010 – will require greater diplomacy from the federal government.

Although EU electoral observers broadly praised the conduct of the poll, controversy continues to rage around alleged vote-rigging and delays in Karachi and Hyderabad.

Much of Sharif’s success in implementing reforms in his third term as prime minister will rely on how much he has changed as a politician. His first term (1990–93) ended in acrimony, amid allegations of corruption and incompetence. His second term (1997–99) ended in exile in Saudi Arabia, after General Pervez Musharraf mounted a military coup. Sharif’s second federal government is still remembered for responding to Indian nuclear tests in 1998 with a round of its own.

Sharif returned from exile in 2007, but having once been removed by the army, he will be wary of Pakistan’s powerful generals. Nevertheless he will need to develop a sustainable working relationship with the military.

As Sharif takes over the reins of power, Pakistanis are demanding ‘tabdeeli’ or change. His  repeated assurances that he would revamp the energy sector, revive the economy and eradicate terrorism prompted many voters to back to the PML–N. Now that this party is in a good position to govern on its own, much of Sharif’s future success or failure lies in his own hands. However, Imran Khan’s PTI especially will be looking over his shoulder.

Kiran Hassan will lead a discussion on what Pakistan’s recent election results mean for the country, region and world, on Wednesday 22 May in London. Journalist Huma Yusuf and Professor Ian Talbot will speak.

Sanjaya Baru’s most recent column in the Indian Express focuses on Brazil’s Roberto Carvalho de Azevedo, who has just been announced as the next director general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Azevedo will be the first Latin American in the job when he takes over from Pascal Lamy on 1 September.

Baru, the IISS director for geo-economics, says that the media stereotyped the Brazilian Azevedo as the voice of protectionism and of the global south in his race for the job against Mexico’s Herminio Blanco. But the full picture is much more complex.

Much was made of Mexico’s close relationship with the United States and its membership of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In fact, however, Mexico has frequently been a key voice for the global south; although a member of the OECD, it views itself as a developing country. And in the end its candidate, Blanco, picked up many votes from Europe and Africa.

At the same time, the recent summit of BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) in Durban stopped short of naming Azevedo as their official candidate. In Geneva, where Azevedo has spent the last five years as Brazilian ambassador to the WTO, he is seen more as an insider.

Azevedo has vowed to revive the WTO, but that will depend on his ability to negotiate increasingly ‘overlapping and intersecting economic interests and regional partnerships that define today’s global economy’.

The real challenge to the WTO today, Baru suggests, comes not from the north–south battles within, but from the increasingly dangerous entrenchment of regional free trade agreements (FTAs) and the marginalisation of broader multilateralism.

While free-trade purists have always rejected regional trade arrangements, the WTO’s charter has pragmatically regarded RTAs and FTAs as the building blocks of, rather than barriers to, a multilateral trading system.

‘The game, however, has changed,’ writes Baru. ‘Unable to get an outcome of its liking in the Doha Development Round, and wary of rising China, the US is vigorously pursuing a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and a Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). These initiatives are aimed at queering the pitch for the Doha Round, bringing issues that developing countries have been resisting, like labour and environmental standards and higher intellectual property rights (IPR) protection, into trade agreements.’

China, meanwhile, has launched its own Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Even India, a strong advocate and defender of trade multilateralism in trade, has over the pursued several RTAs and FTAs over the past decade.

Azevedo believes that countries entering smaller regional initiatives would gladly negotiate broader and more encompassing multilateral deals, and he insists: ‘What we must do is ensure that the multilateral trading system remains the main tool for trade liberalisation.’

But just as he tries to achieve this, splits are appearing in the global south. Baru highlights how China’s emergence as a major exporter/importer and its exchange-rate policy is starting to worry Brazil and several other developing countries.

‘There are other fault lines along the four major areas – trade in goods, trade in services, trade in agriculture and IPRs – that cut across both north-south and east-west divides,’ Baru writes.

He concludes that: ‘Given the many challenges facing the WTO, Mr Azevedo’s strategy for saving multilateralism must be crafted in a way that appeals to a plurality of G20 membership. He must arrive at the next G20 summit with a strategy aimed at ensuring the victory of multilateralism over regionalism in trade.

‘Clearly, Mr Azevedo has to be a consensus builder, bridging the many divides in the global trading system. Perhaps Brazil more than any other major trading nation can play that role. And that, more than any other reason, may explain Mr Azevedo’s convincing victory [in winning the top WTO job].’

Read the full version of this article in the Indian Express

By Wafa Alsayed, Research Analyst, IISS-Middle East

In February of last year, Ahmed al-Saadoun, Kuwait’s speaker of the parliament at the time dismissed the idea of a Gulf Union. In an interview with Al Arabiya, he stated that Kuwait, with its open political system, could not withstand a union with the more authoritarian Gulf states. However, since then Kuwait has undergone yet another chapter of political turmoil accompanied with harsh government reaction to public criticism of the state. Due to these developments, the government in Kuwait may be looking more favorably at the prospects of a Gulf union. The signing of a Gulf Security Agreement at the Bahrain GCC Summit in December may signal that, in the face of growing domestic upheaval, Kuwait is willing to restrict its public sphere, enter a union with other GCC states and coordinate more on security.

The GCC Security Agreement was first proposed in 1994. At the time Kuwait resisted it because it considered some of its articles to be in conflict with its constitution. The agreement was shelved for almost two decades and an amended version was reintroduced at the end of last year. Though Kuwait’s government reassured the public that the amended version is no longer in conflict with the constitution, the swift signing of the agreement along with the secrecy surrounding its provisions stirred a heated debate in Kuwait, with some warning that the country is falling in line with the rest of the Gulf on issues of internal security and domestic politics.

Read the full article in Al Arabiya

By Pierre Noel, Hassanal Bolkiah Senior Fellow in Economic and Energy Security

In the Baltic states, energy security remains perceived as a truly serious issue. It’s seen as a question of survival rather than, as it is in much of the world, merely an exciting topic for after-dinner speeches. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania depend entirely on Russia for their gas supply and have complicated political relationships with Moscow. Recent numerical indicators of gas-supply security – including my own – show that the Baltics are among the least secure countries in Europe. Therefore they want to invest in gas-supply security.

The European Commission encourages them to do so, but has precise ideas about how it should be done: it has made subsidies contingent on the building of joint regional infrastructure. Brussels’ dream however, although aggressively pursued since 2009, has failed to materialise. In fact, Baltic gas-security cooperation faces serious political and even legal hurdles. Steps already taken have managed to infuriate Russia without improving the Baltic states’ ability to cope with supply disruptions in any way.

Therefore it is important to know if Baltic cooperation is absolutely needed, simply desirable or just one solution among others to improve Baltic gas-supply security.

Answering this question is the purpose of a research paper that I wrote with two colleagues from the University of Cambridge, appearing in Economics of Energy and Environmental Policy. (A preliminary version was published as an EPRG Working Paper.) We calculated the cost of various policy options that could be implemented by national governments in each of the three countries, and compared these with alternatives based on joint regional infrastructure.

The results clearly show that Baltic governments have a variety of options to improve their ability to cope with gas-supply disruptions at a cost that need not be prohibitive. Insuring district heating systems can be done very cheaply, given a willingness to use more polluting heavy fuel oil, and the size of mandated online storage. In all three countries, a security tax on gas of about 10% would buy a very high level of security through a strategic LNG (liquid natural gas) terminal.

In most cases, a single regional LNG terminal is indeed cheaper than national terminals, but only marginally so. The question is whether this small saving justifies the difficult and lengthy process of overcoming the political and legal barriers to the construction and operation of a regional security infrastructure. The past three years suggest that it is not.

Brussels should change tack and do one of two things: either stop its involvement altogether, or simply offer a lump-sum subsidy to help the Baltic states buy insurance against gas-supply disruptions through whatever means they want, provided it measurably improves the situation.

By Emile Hokayem, Senior Fellow for Regional Security, IISS-Middle East

Israel’s recent air strikes on Syria were intended as a warning to both Syria and Iran, and to stop weapons falling into Hizbullah’s hands – but they have increased the likelihood of a regional conflict.

Last week, the Israeli air force struck two targets inside Syrian territory. The first seems to have been a shipment of surface-to-surface missiles destined for the Lebanese Shia group Hizbullah (the Fateh-110 is more accurate than anything Hizbullah is known to currently possess, and with a 300-kilometre range has much of Israel within its reach). The second was a major research centre and important storage facility near Damascus, which is administered by units of the elite Republican Guard. Israel had already struck this installation – the Centre of Scientific Studies and Research in Jamraya – in January, allegedly destroying shipments of anti-aircraft missiles destined for Hizbullah.

These strikes add to an already complex political and military landscape in Syria. The Assad regime has deployed its full arsenal of conventional capabilities against the Syrian rebels – and may have even used chemical weapons on a small scale. The rebels are consolidating their hold over much of Syria, but remain too ill-equipped and poorly organised to win the struggle on the battlefield.

The rise of Islamist and jihadi factions has further complicated the picture: better organised and funded, they often spearhead rebel attacks on key regime facilities across the country. They may eventually seize some of the regime’s advanced weaponry.

For Israel, the combination of a waning Assad, increasingly dependent on Iran, and an array of unknown Islamist rebel factions may well be a worst-case scenario.

Assad’s weakening influence and control over Syrian territory also has dire implications for Hizbullah, because it disrupts the logistical and strategic paths that enabled it to grow and act as a formidable guerrilla force.

Likewise, keeping its ally Hizbullah well-equipped is essential for Iran’s ability to deter and punish Israel and the US. Consequently, Iran may be rushing deliveries of quality weaponry to the Shia militia while it can. Among these deliveries, according to Israel and some US politicians, are game-changing advanced weapons that would make Hizbullah more lethal, especially anti-aircraft missiles that would erode the much-prized air dominance that Israel has over southern Lebanon.

As in previous attacks, the Israeli government has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement; news was simply leaked to its media without fanfare.

Israel’s reasons for the strikes are manifold: they are intended to warn Iran and Hizbullah not to alter the current military balance; to force Assad into abiding by the old rules of the game and not resort to unconventional weapons; to remove advanced weaponry from the battlefield; and to signal to Iran that it not only retains a significant military ability but also the will to act.

Israel does not want the conflict to spiral out of control but the chances have now increased that it will move beyond Syria’s borders, as have the chances that it could escalate by accident or miscalculation.

Until now, the Assad regime has begrudgingly accepted strategic humiliations at the hands of Israel because it could ill-afford to escalate matters conventionally. But the Israeli strikes allow Assad to link, even if disingenuously, Israel to the Syrian rebels. They may also force him to take greater risks in the name of the alliance with Hizbullah and Iran.

Israel and Hizbullah have been locked in a balance of terror in southern Lebanon since the 2006 war. Because both parties know that their opponent can inflict massive damage, they are reluctant to descend into conflict except under extreme circumstances.

The conflict in Syria could tip this tenuous balance. Hizbullah is politically exposed and militarily overstretched, at home and in Syria. Israel sees Iran getting close to the ‘red line’ on its nuclear programme, without feeling confident that the US would decisively intervene to stop it.

Iran itself worries about Assad’s fate and the impact on its influence in the Levant. The ingredients are there for the conflict to intensify, but all parties are aware of the costs and cautious of venturing down this path.

Egypt has walked out of talks on the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) this week, over the slow progress on the establishment of a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East (MEWMDFZ).

The unprecedented move presents a serious headache for the non-proliferation regime. Announcing his delegation’s withdrawal from the Preparatory Committee to the 2015 NPT Review Conference (2013 NPT PrepCom) on Monday, Egyptian Ambassador Hisham Badr warned that despite being a strong supporter of the NPT regime, Cairo was dissatisfied with the international community’s ‘lack of seriousness’ in establishing an MEWMDFZ and ‘very concerned about the ramification of the non-fulfilment of commitments on the credibility and sustainability of the NPT regime’.

Egypt’s dramatic walk-out revolves around the implementation of the 1995 Middle East Resolution. This first promised Arab states a nuclear-weapons free zone in return for their support of the indefinite extension of the NPT at that year’s NPT Review and Extension Conference. A lack of progress since has created enormous frustration within the Arab League and among other states parties to the NPT.

The fact that Israel, which is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, remains outside the NPT is a key security concern for its regional neighbours, and one driver behind the push for a weapons-free zone.

An effort was made to advance matters at the 2010 NPT Review Conference, whose final action plan endorsed the convening of a 2012 conference on establishing a zone free of nuclear and other WMD (WMDFZ) in the Middle East. Eventually appointed in October 2011, the conference’s facilitator, Ambassador Jaakko Laajava of Finland, has worked hard to get all regional parties to meet in Helsinki. The postponement of the conference with no future date was announced separately in November 2012 by the facilitator and the co-convenors (the US, UK and Russia  and the UN Secretary General), hinting at differences in their positions. This appears to have tried Arab patience even further.

The Arab League debated boycotting this fortnight’s PrepCom in the Palais des Nations (pictured) in Geneva, and Egypt only took the decision to attend at the last minute. Egypt and other Arab League members said that despite their reservations, they would ‘engage and listen’.

Although Egypt was the only Arab state to leave the meeting, its fellow Arab League members may not have been particularly surprised. Egypt says a MEWMDFZ remains ‘a central component of regional, Arab and Egyptian national security’ and has begun referring to such a zone as the ‘fourth pillar’ of the NPT.

Even before his delegation’s exit on Monday afternoon, Ambassdor Badr was saying that: ‘We cannot continue to attend meetings and agree on outcomes that do not get implemented, yet to be expected to abide by the concession we gave for this outcome.’

The withdrawal by such a key NPT party is a significant and serious challenge to the non-proliferation regime. Essentially, the Egyptian delegation is questioning the NPT’s integrity.

Both Cairo and the Arab League have said that the 2010 Action Plan is not open for renegotiation. At this fortnight’s PrepCom, the Arab League submitted a working paper on the implementation of the 1995 Middle East Resolution. The league’s Ambassador Wael al-Assad insisted that it would ‘not tolerate any attempt at shifting blame to us’. He ‘declared in the strongest language possible’ that the postponement of the MEWMDFZ conference was a ‘clear violation of commitments undertaken in 2010 and to a consensus document’.

The convenors of the 2012 Helsinki conference have expressed their regret over its postponement but reaffirmed their support for the facilitator’s efforts to eventually convene a meeting. The US delegation to the PrepCom in particular insisted the postponement of the 2012 conference did not constitute ‘a breach of the Action Plan as some suggest’.

‘We missed an important deadline—but we have not yet missed the opportunity to transform the security environment of the region’ said US Assistant Secretary of State, Thomas Countryman.

Countryman also underlined that ‘the responsibility to hold the conference does not fall solely to the Convenors and Facilitator’, stressing that ‘leadership must also come from the states of the region’.

Meanwhile, the Russian delegation at this fortnight’s PrepCom proposed setting a date for the conference ‘in the second half of December 2013’ and stressed that the ‘proposed consultations do not at all substitute the idea of convening the conference’.

Ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov of Russia further called for regional parties to ‘as far as possible, to put off emotions, abandon mutual claims, and to focus instead on business-like discussions of specific issues in the spirit of pragmatism’.

Given current allegations of chemical weapon use in Syria, decades of regional frustration with the double-standard posed by the Israeli nuclear programme, coupled with Israeli concern about Iranian nuclear activities, this may be a very tall order.

That said, if the Helsinki conference does not take place in 2013, the rest of the 2015 NPT review process (the 2014 NPT PrepCom and the 2015 NPT Review Conference) will probably see greater controversy.

By Sarah Johnstone, Assistant editor

‘Sorry ladies and gentlemen,’ the sharply dressed young man at the table behind me deadpans in French, as his female companion’s wild gesturing sweeps a bottle of wine onto the floor, ‘but we were talking about Rachid Ghannouchi.’ By bitterly invoking the name of the Islamist Ennahda party leader in a half-empty restaurant in downtown Tunis, my fellow diner neatly encapsulates the problems afflicting his country.

More than two years since the 2011 Jasmine Revolution chased autocratic president Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali from power, tourists are staying away as Tunisia experiences a dangerous power struggle between secularists and the religious.

Despite the appearance of relative normality, the country is still recovering from the gunning down in early February of left-wing opposition leader Chokri Belaid, the first political assassination since Tunisia gained its independence from France in 1956. Time magazine may have recently voted liberal President Moncef Marzouki as one of the planet’s 100 most influential individuals – he’s in at no. 67 – but at a home he faces a vote of no confidence in parliament. The powerful trade union confederation, the UGTT, is at loggerheads with the Ennahda-led coalition government over the drafting of the new constitution.

In Tunis’s central market, people complain about the rising cost of the colourful array of vegetables and fruit. Hawkers at whitewashed coastal villages like Sidi Bou Said miss the large foreign crowds that used to bring around 7% of national GDP; tourism revenues fell more than 40% after the revolution.

Perhaps more damagingly, exports to the crisis-hit eurozone have declined. As Tunisia’s largest trading partner, Europe contributes about 25% of the North African state’s GDP. An attention-grabbing government auction of Ben Ali’s treasures in December 2012 did little to prevent ratings agency Moody’s downgrading Tunisian sovereign bonds to junk status in February.

Meanwhile, cultural skirmishes between Islamists and secularists are being played out over bare-breasted (literally) feminism and even the right to perform the Harlem Shake. Headlines like ‘Tunisie: une nation en danger’ blare from the newsstands; a cover story on ‘Terre du djihad’ warns of al-Qaeda’s efforts to gain a foothold here. In the birthplace of the Arab Awakening, 2013 has seen a much less hopeful spring.

The death of Belaid, an outspoken critic of the Islamists, was an enormous shock, provoking the biggest protests since the revolution. However, it has at least unblocked a political logjam. Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali resigned after his offer to step aside in favour of a technocratic government was blocked by his own Ennahda party. Lawmakers have since agreed to have a draft constitution ready by the end of April (with a fallback deadline of 8 July) and to hold elections by mid-December.

Four members of an unspecified ‘radical religious group’ have now been arrested for involvement in Belaid’s assassination. However, it remains unclear if interim PM Ali Laradeyh and his new government can deliver a constitution acceptable to all Tunisians and set the country’s transition back on track.

The economy is the gravest concern, especially given that Arab Barometer surveys have found economic disillusionment to be central to the 2011 uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. Against a backdrop of generally increased food prices, Ben Ali’s government courted controversy by announcing just a small increase in the cost of subsidised bread in July 2010 – from 190 to 200 millimes for a baguette, and a loaf of bread from 230 to 240 millimes. After street protesters symbolically wagged long thin loaves at the president during protests in January and February 2011, one of his last political decisions was to reverse that price increase.

Yet poverty and joblessness remain as bad today as ever. Unemployment is at 17%. Among young graduates and in Tunisia’s neglected interior, it is as high as 30%. Demonstrating workers I meet outside an office of the Citizens Relations Bureau in Tunis relate a litany of woes: higher price rises than before the revolution; a monthly wage of 250 dinars on which it is impossible to survive; fears that released political prisoners (Ennahda supporters jailed by Ben Ali) will take their jobs; the scourge of political arrests and ongoing corruption. ‘Will there be another revolution,’ I ask one. ‘We knew we would have to patient for things to improve, and we hope not, but…’ he trails off.

In May, Tunisia is expected to sign a deal for a $1.75 billion standby loan from the IMF. However, many Tunisians are suspicious about the structural economic reforms – including the potential reduction of subsidies – that the deal could bring.

In December 2010, Tunisian fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight in Sidi Bouzid and sparked a regional revolution. After another young man echoed Bouazizi’s act and immolated himself in central Tunis this March, President Marzouki swore that his determination to free his country from its manifold problems was ‘unshakeable’. But, he admitted, his government lacked the ‘baguette magique’ (French for ‘magic wand’) to solve the problems of poverty and unemployment that have accumulated over the past three decades in Tunisia.

The Emir of Kuwait, Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah

By Wafa Alsayed, Research Analyst, IISS-Middle East

The trial of outspoken political activist Musallam al-Barrak seems to be galvanising Kuwait’s fragmented opposition – at least for the time being. Thousands of Kuwaitis took to the streets in protest on 15 April, after Barrak was sentenced by a lower court to a five-year jail term on charges of ‘offending the emir’. The Court of Appeal’s decision to release him on bail last Monday defused some of the tension that had built up as court proceedings were live-tweeted and otherwise disseminated over social media, but with his appeal due to resume on 13 May it remains a potential rallying point.

Barrak’s supporters say the charges against him violate the principle of free speech. They relate to comments he made at a demonstration last October that: ‘We will not allow you, your highness, to take this country into the abyss of autocracy.’ While Kuwait has one of the Middle East’s more open and democratic political systems, its constitution holds that the emir is ‘immune and inviolable’, and Barrak’s remark was said to contravene this.

The protest took place during a deepening political crisis in Kuwait, soon after the dissolution of the opposition-dominated parliament only eight months into its term. Four days later the emir announced an emergency decree amending the country’s electoral law; by reducing the number of votes per person from four to one he ended an arrangement that had benefitted Islamist, tribal and other opposition groups. Barrak’s ‘we will not allow you’ soon became the refrain of opposition rallies that followed the announcement of the emergency decree.

With the Kuwaiti government’s continued crackdown on the opposition, other political activists are facing similar charges of offending the emir. However, Barrak is a particularly popular and high-profile figure. A former MP who draws much of his support from powerful tribal constituencies, he won a seat in parliament in the February 2012 elections with 30,000 votes – a Kuwaiti first.

After his sentencing on 15 April, security forces made several unsuccessful attempts to take him into custody. A raid on his house prompted large protests, to which police responded with tear gas and stun grenades.

Such opposition solidarity comes after a period of disunity and difficulties in mobilising mass rallies of last year’s magnitude. Kuwait’s opposition consists of a remarkably diverse array of groups, bringing together liberals, civil-society groups, and trade and student unions with tribal, Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated and Salafist groups. In March, Barrak spearheaded an effort to bring the opposition under one umbrella, namely the Etilaf al-Mu’aratha (the Opposition Coalition), but this alliance quickly ran into criticism as those around it called it either too radical or too weak.

Today in Kuwait the prime minister is appointed by the emir, who in turn appoints the cabinet, and one reform the Etilaf has demanded is that the parliamentary majority should have the right to form the government. One member of the former opposition majority in parliament, Al-Saifi Mubarak Al-Saifi, has said that around 17 members of that bloc found this call for elected government too drastic. By contrast, another opposition member and former MP, Obaid al-Wasmi, has criticised the Etilaf for being too ‘soft’ in its demands.

Salafis have also established their own group, the Coordination Committee of the Popular Movement, which opposes calls for elected government as well as unlicensed demonstrations.

Such divisions seem to be forgotten as the opposition rallies around al-Barrak. His case is a reminder of how government heavy-handedness can unite Kuwait’s usually disparate opposition factions. In late 2010, for example, an attack by security forces on Kuwaitis gathering in an MP’s diwaniya (traditional salon) was the catalyst for a popular mass movement that eventually forced the resignation of Prime Minister Nasser al-Mohammed in November 2011.

On Thursday, the government delayed another move that was uniting the opposition against it. It put on hold its proposal to introduce strict new media laws after criticism not only from rights groups, but also from some government supporters. The ‘halting’ of the law demonstrates the opposition’s ability to get results when it unites against draconian government moves.

Damascus. Photo Credit: Flickr/sharnik.

By Mark Fitzpatrick, Director, Non-proliferation and Disarmament Programme

Yesterday US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said it was likely that chemical weapons (CW) had been used on a ‘small scale’ in Syria. President Obama claimed in August that the use of CW in Syria would change his calculus on US intervention, but the intelligence must be examined carefully to assess whether his ‘red line’ on CW has actually been crossed.

On Thursday, the White House said that although it was likely the nerve gas sarin had been used, the evidence was still too thin and that it needed ‘credible and corroborated facts’. President Obama is being pilloried in some quarters for not following through on his earlier red line. But after the misuse of intelligence to justify an invasion of Iraq ten years ago, the bar for concluding that Assad used chemical weapons must naturally be set high. The standard of evidence should meet at least three conditions: clear-cut evidence of use, meaningful quantity, and purposefulness.

As reported in the Times today, there seems to be little doubt that chemical weapons were used recently in Syria, probably on at least two occasions. As Jeffrey Lewis argues on ArmsControlWonk.com, the allegation must be specific to time and place. Pictures of victims and media interviews with Syrians who witnessed the attacks are prima facie evidence. The specificity on time of attack is important, to rule out the possibility, for example, that victims came into contact with a punctured or spilt CW canister. The soil samples obtained by British intelligence that show trace elements of a sarin by-product appear to confirm the place where CW were used, although further analysis might be needed to rule out a false positive connected to fertilisers or pesticides.

Even if CW use is confirmed, how much was used is particularly relevant for any retaliatory intervention. When Obama first stated CW use as a red line, he indicated a quantity standard: ‘a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of CW moving around or being utilized‘. The low level of by-products found in the soil and the limited number of victims indicates only a small number of CW munitions.

Obama stopped using a quantity metric after August, but it is still a reasonable criterion. CW are weapons of terror, for use in large numbers to shock and demoralise enemies. The use of only a few CW shells has almost no military or strategic purpose. Assad’s only reason to use CW on a small scale would be to test international reactions before using them on a larger scale to intimidate opponents. When he has other means available for terrorising them, however, from ballistic missiles to rape, it would seem to make little sense for him to risk using the weapons that are most likely to prompt a Western military intervention. On the other hand, Western analysts have not had a good record at predicting Assad’s risk calculus to date.

The small amount of CW apparently used in Aleppo and Homs raises questions about the third standard: purposefulness. It is still unclear who launched the attack and why. Just as important as establishing the chain of custody of blood samples from alleged victims is clarifying the chain of custody of the  armaments. It is not inconceivable that rebel forces overran one of the many CW storage sites in Syria and may have fired a CW shell themselves, perhaps inadvertently.

It would not be the first time that CW injuries were the result of friendly fire. During the Iran-Iraq War, a UN investigation confirmed that about 40 Iraqi soldiers had been exposed to a mustard CW agent and a pulmonary irritant near Basra in April 1987. The investigators judged that the cause of this exposure could not be established, however, and they noted that casualties had been close to the front line when they suffered injuries. The likelihood that this was ‘friendly fire’ was reinforced by the fact that Iraq itself was using CW on a massive scale, a situation that obviously does not prevail in the case of Syrian rebels.

Much more likely than rebel use in this case is inadvertent CW use by Syrian government forces. It is entirely possible that in the fog of war, a few CW shells were mixed up among conventional weapons or that an individual unit used CW without higher authority. Occam’s razor, the principle that the simplest theory is often correct, points to incompetence as a reason for use of CW in Syria. At least that possibility should be ruled out before any outside power intervenes militarily because of CW use.