But those revolts were only the fuse that detonated several much larger explosions and lit firestorms, still raging from the shores of the Mediterranean to those of the Gulf.

The first mutation – still centred in Tunisia and Egypt – was the emergence of a relatively moderate Islam, in the form of electoral victories by El Nahda and the Muslim Brothers. The respective electoral processes had their complications, as always happens, but they seemed to largely reflect the will of the people concerned – at last in the moment they were held – and as such, were recognised by international public opinion. To this day the United States supports the governments led by parties of Islamic inspiration in Egypt and in Tunisia.

But the success of those electoral processes in important Arab countries was seen under a totally different light by the Arab monarchies in the Gulf: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the Emirates, Bahrain. While all of strict Muslim persuasion, the success of democratic processes in neighbouring Arab countries was seen as a direct menace to their own stability and legitimacy – even if it benefited religious parties like the Muslim Brotherhood – and as a possible (bad) example and encouragement for the protest movements already existing, albeit in embryonic form, in their own countries.

From the beginning the Gulf countries gave strong financial support to Salafi fundamentalist parties, not only in Egypt ant Tunisia, but also in other Arab countries: Libya is a good example. While President Morsi went to great lengths to reassure that Egypt did not aim to destabilize the monarchies of the Gulf (his first official visit broad was to the Saudi Kingdom), members of the Muslim Brothers were being arrested in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi for “inciting to subversion”, and Saudi financed Salafi parties were making felt their strong political pressure on the Egyptian and Tunisian political scene, on the conservative side of the Muslim Brothers; the very active presence of the Salafi movements was very effective in preventing any accommodation between the Brotherhood and the secular components of the initial revolts, propagating a very strict interpretation of Islam, and in inciting clashes with religious minorities, e.g. the Christian Copts in Egypt.

The severe, and still worsening, economic crisis of countries like Egypt made the pressure much more effective. As the United States and Europe (especially after the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the general economic downturn) lacked the resources to support the Egyptian economy – and while Egypt is still not able to negotiate support from the IMF – Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf countries were there to fill the gap, making available billions of dollars of balance of payments and budget support. With strings attached.

It is clear to everybody that the Gulf countries policy was motivated entirely by political considerations, and not by religion as such; but, as a result, the initial confrontation between authoritarian regimes and a liberal, secular opposition, morphed to a clash between Islamist parties of various hues and secular political forces. A clash that was designed to impede a democratic evolution of the Islamist parties who had won the first elections in Egypt and Tunisia, and that has already had a large measure of success.

But religion was to play a role also in another political confrontation within Arab societies, that between the Sunni and the Shias versions of Islam. All the Gulf countries are ruled by Sunni dynasties, but most of them have sizable Shia minorities. Notably Saudi Arabia has a Shia population accruing to ca. 20% of the total, living in an oil rich part of the country on the shores of the Gulf, and traditionally alienated form the Sunni regime. When, during the first phases of the Arab Spring, the Shia population of Bahrain (in that case a majority of ca. 80%) tried to revolt against its Sunni rulers, the Saudi army intervened and put down the revolt with brute force. The human rights violations were widespread and widely reported, but the international community didn’t see fit to do much. The fact that Bahrain harbours a large and important base of the U.S. Navy has perhaps something to do with it.

This being said, the fact that the Arab Spring was liable to provoke revolts of the Shia minorities in Gulf countries, as had already happened in Bahrain, created for the monarchies a new threat, because the issue could easily play in the hand of their traditional rival, Iran, ruled since 1978 as a Shia Islamic Republic.

The matter came to a head when the Arab Spring reached Syria, a vital ally of Iran. The first protests against the Assad regime were peaceful, and motivated by demands of freedom, dignity, social justice as had happened in Egypt and Tunisia. But the brutal repression turned the protest into a revolt, which very soon evolved in a revolt of the Sunni majority against the Alawite led Syrian regime. Again a political revolt had fanned a religious and sectarian clash, where religion was not important for itself, but mainly as a factor of communal identity. On the margins of the clash between Sunnis and Alawites in Syria, the other minorities (mainly Christians and Kurds) felt naturally menaced by a possible victory of the Sunni majority. Especially the Christians, who remember what happened to their brethren in neighbouring Iraq under comparable circumstances.

As well known, and widely anticipated, this set of problems would not remain confined to Syria, as it presented too many connections with tensions and societal clashes in neighbouring countries. The Gulf Countries, mainly Saudi Arabia and Qatar, saw fit to support the armed rebellion against Damascus, both to help overthrow the Alawite regime, part of the Shia camp led by Iran, but also to prevent a possible democratic outcome in the case of the success of the rebellion. The Syrian battle was therefore joined by rebels from all the Sunni world, largely supported, financed and armed by the Gulf countries. Today the most effective force of the very fragmented Syrian opposition, seem to be the Syrian Islamic Front (SIF) financed and supported by the Gulf.

On the other side, Bashar el Assad has benefited from the strong support of Shiite Iran, and we have witnessed the very effective intervention of the Shiite Hezbollah militias on the side of the Syrian army. Iraq, with its Shia majority, is de facto part of the Shia alliance. The Syrian crisis is now an international crisis, with strong repercussions in Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan. A possible consequence of the enlargement of the conflict is the eventual redrawing of state boundaries drawn in 1916 by the Sykes Picot agreement after the collapse of Ottoman rule.

The Syrian conflict may therefore be considered as the end product of the Arab Spring, in the sense that it entails all of its successive mutations: the democratic and libertarian revolt against an authoritarian regime, a political inspired clash between moderate and fundamentalist Sunni movements, a confrontation between Sunni and Shia Islam, and now a regional confrontation between the Gulf monarchies and the Iranian theocratic regime.

Another unintended consequence is the emergence of al Qaeda inspired fighting groups, not only on the Syrian front, but also in Iraq, Libya, Mali,…While notoriously fundamentalist, al Qaeda is (among many other things) a historical enemy of the Gulf monarchies, which it considers corrupt, and compromising with the West: another proof that in the region politics often trump religion.

If all the above stands true, it seems that the keys to the Syrian problem are not in Qusayr or in Aleppo, but rather in Teheran, Riyadh, and Doha. And this seems to be largely true not only for Syria, but for the present political outcomes of the Arab Spring in the other main Arab countries. What happens in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain is seen and appreciated by Saudi Arabia and Iran for the repercussions it may have on their own interests. In particular Riyadh, and the other Arab capitals of the Gulf, view the situation through the prism of the legitimacy, security and stability of their own regimes. The maze of problems arising from the Arab spring have nowadays acquired a regional dimension, and the only possible lasting solution should therefore be one that provides a solution to those worries and to those fears at the regional level.

Francesco Aloisi de Larderel has served as Italian Ambassador to Egypt

Image by Gigi Ibrahim