With the emergence of demonstrations in Iraq, opposing voices started to warn and sound the alarm… Some pointed to “US fingers” behind the protests, while others said those were driven by “hidden agendas”. Many, of course, have blamed the alleged “intruders” of being part of the “fifth column”.

 

These opinions have reminded observers of the same voices that were heard during the Syrian revolution. In its early beginnings, there was shame and confusion accompanied by the regime’s call for reform.

 

Reform, regardless of its content and direction, strengthens the regime and calms protest. However, without Bashar Assad initiating any serious reform, the revolution escalated its criticism, which gradually became a veto: doubt, accusation, treason and support for armed intervention against it and incitement.

 

Observers also remembered the Libyan revolution, which was known as the “NATO uprising.” There are also those who turned back two more years to evoke the “green revolution” in Iran in 2009, described by the opponents themselves as a conspiracy against the people of Iran. We put aside the Khomeinists in their many variations, and some Arab nationalists and Baathists, who are a natural extension of the Iranian and Syrian regimes.

 

We also exclude opportunists of all kinds, who know where their interests lie and how they best serve them.

 

Here, we talk about those who associate themselves with a “revolutionary left”, a left that claims to change the world but stands against every change.

 

Those, who are relatively few, still constitute the loudest voice in theorizing the opposition and providing it with arguments of two categories: One that travels the world to confirm the validity of its "strategic" position alongside Vladimir Putin and the late Chavez, and a class sailing in previous experiences to discover that its position is only in the rising line of history.

 

One thing is different however: revolutions, which are always adored and which gave the revolutionaries their name, have become something hateful. Strangely, revolutionaries have become counter-revolutionaries!

 

In fact, the revolution, according to their weird dictionary, is not about calls for freedom, dignity and better livelihoods. Above all, it is an alignment in international conflicts that puts the concerned countries against America.

 

Some of those who studied the transformation of the Soviet Union from the country of the revolution to a conservative anti-revolutionary state have seen that behind this transformation was the predominance of geopolitical and strategic factors. But they also noted a cultural part in that prevalence. Hostility to the West surpasses politics to affect culture, ideas and way of life.

 

To us, this transformation is based on three bitter ideas:  The bitterness of the collapse of the Soviet Union itself and the inability to replace the dead. The bitterness resulting from a shift in the meaning of revolutions which started three decades ago. In Central and Eastern Europe, where a dozen of regimes fell, the revolution did not adopt violence, nor was it led by a politburo headed by a leader, nor called for the destruction of a particular class. It chose the goal of democracy and reconciliation with the West and its model.

 

The third bitterness is based on a local cause:  Revolutions no longer recognize the old way of managing the conflict with Israel. That’s because the above mentioned approach attaches all national issues to that one file. Thus, societies are being oppressed, impoverished and ruled by tyrants, under the pretext of fighting against the Jewish state.

 

On the other hand, revolutions are evoked once they are based on a plurality that breaks the unilateral monopoly of the “revolution” and promises to promote Arab societies and their freedoms. Thus, by strengthening these societies, the Arab negotiating position is reinforced against Israel, and the Arab world’s appeal to the world increases.

 

With the one “revolution”, one or two systems control the lives of millions, and with the many revolutions, millions of lives are freed from the control of one or two systems.

 

All of these feelings of bitterness show a deep desire to restore the Cold War world and its equations. Here we can validate the theory that says that “revolutionism” is a type of extremist conservatism that wants to return to the previous status quo.

 

This deep tendency is compounded by a strong national dose of Arab revolutionary ideas, a dose that describes the way to the future as a path to “authenticity” and “roots”, and a nostalgia for the pre-West era.

 

Those ideas inspired Iran’s religious revolution, which harmed women’s freedoms and agrarian reforms.

 

But the most important reason for these revolutionaries to stand against the revolutions is that they have become part of the de facto power.

 

They are the necessary servants of the system of governance led by the Wali al-Faqih, which the majority of Syrian people have fought and now the Iraqi youth are opposing.