Thousands of celebrating protesters have moved back into a square that was the symbolic heart of their demonstration after Bahrain's leaders ordered the military to withdraw tanks and other armored vehicles that had secured it earlier this week.
The military vehicles moved away Saturday from Pearl Square, the symbolic center of the uprising against the Sunni monarchy in the predominantly Shiite nation, and riot police also withdrew.
If you start to take Pearl Square, take Pearl Square. As a matter of practicality (apart from the morality of it), it is folly to hurt the opposition a little bit and then retreat. If the government wants to talk, it should have talked and not sent troops into the streets to shoot a little bit. Bahrain's rulers have just enraged the protesters by shooting; and by retreating, encouraged protesters to expand their goals to regime change and not reform, and given the protesters a reason to believe they can win.
Security forces themselves have seen that they may be asked to kill but will not be allowed to win--meaning that if the protesters win the security people might be put on trial for murder. That will steady the security forces in defending the regime, eh?
I'm not saying that Bahrain needs to pull a full Tiananmen Square on the protesters, but firmness in applying force is necessary. This is the path to regime change.
Libya's Khaddafi, too, seems to be dithering:
Libyans set up neighborhood patrols in the shaken eastern city of Benghazi on Saturday as police disappeared from the streets following an attack by government forces on a two-day-old encampment of protesters demanding an end to Moammar Gadhafi's regime, eyewitnesses said.
I'm glad to see Libya's government dithering, of course.
And this, too, would seem to set the stage for dithering in Iran:
Senior officers in Iran's Revolutionary Guards have written a letter to their commanding officer demanding assurances that they will not be required to open fire on anti-government demonstrators.
Interesting. As the article notes, the regime relies on the bully boys of the Basij to attack protesters. I've read in the past that while the Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards) are supposed to be the loyal troops of the regime (set up after the revolution and expanded during the Iran-Iraq War), there are splits in the organization.
Add in the fact that the regular military is not trusted by the regime.
This could get interesting. The Basij alone are certainly enough to beat, kill, and rape their way to a victory over street protesters. But is a stated refusal to shoot at peaceful protesters a line in the sand that could lead the Pasdaran to defend the protesters against the Basij? Could the entry of the Pasdaran into the fight lead the regular armed forces to follow and also defend the protesters?
This is all a speculative train of events, of course--for all three countries, actually. But if the authorities are not united in defeating the protesters, weight of numbers will prevail if the protesters are aggressive enough.
UPDATE: Well, Libya is still using force--including firing an anti-aircraft missile at protesters:
Snipers fired on thousands of people gathered in Benghazi, a focal point of the unrest, to mourn 35 protesters who were shot on Friday, a hospital official said.
A hospital official said 15 people were killed, including one man who was apparently hit in the head with an anti-aircraft missile. The weapons apparently were used to intimidate the population.
We shall see if this force is enough to intimidate the protesters. Snipers implies, to me, the lack of forces to put lots of security personnel into the streets. The use of the most loyal forces and imported hirelings also implies the lack of confidence int he bulk of the security forces:
Earlier in the week, forces from the military's elite Khamis Brigade moved into Benghazi, Beyida and several other cities, residents said. They were accompanied by militias that seemed to include foreign mercenaries, they added. Several witnesses reported French-speaking fighters, believed to be Tunisians or sub-Saharan Africans, among militiamen wearing blue uniforms and yellow helmets.
The Khamis Brigade is led by Gadhafi's youngest son Khamis Gadhafi, and U.S. diplomats in leaked memos have called it "the most well-trained and well-equipped force in the Libyan military." The witnesses' reports that it had been deployed could not be independently confirmed.
"Elite" in the sense of pampered and loyal--not in the sense of being a crack combat force. Against unarmed civilians, I'm sure the Khamis Brigade can hold its own. At least for a while.
We shall see, obviously.
