EMERGING POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC TRENDS IN NORTH AFRICA

"Arab spring" Keywords:, North Africa, economic situation, "Muslim Brotherhood", multiple development scenarios

"Arab Spring" has enriched the active vocabulary of Russian journalism and leaders of social movements with the fashionable terms "social elevators" and "Twitter revolutions", as well as the phrase "youth hillock". As a result of the Arab revolutions, the following ideologemes entered the academic discourse and everyday life:" political Islam"," moderate Islamists","Salafists". The economic categories - "national income", "investment", "savings", "economic growth" - are unfortunately much less frequently recalled. Meanwhile, it seems to us that it would not hurt to sum up some of the results of the "Arab Spring", relying not on the subjective-evaluative categorical pairs "freedom-non-freedom", "progress-regression", "fair-unfair", but on statistical data and facts that are not painted in propaganda colors.

L. L. FITUNI

Doctor of Economics

V. G. SOLODOVNIKOV

Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Africa, Russian Academy of Sciences

In North Africa, the "popular revolutions" unfolded in different ways. They end up mostly the same. The year and a half that has passed since the fall of the ruling regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, and about a year since the beginning of the NATO bombing in Libya, which ended with the ritual murder under torture of Muammar Gaddafi, is a short time to make historical generalizations. However, for economists and politicians, who, unlike historians or philosophers, are more focused on operational information and analytics, it is significant.

Although the socio-economic processes that blew up the Arab world are far from over, many of the predictions and illusions of a year ago have gradually begun to collapse. The real mechanisms and actual vectors of development of the situation in the sub-region were revealed.

In the scientific literature, including on the pages of this journal, the causes of the social explosion and its vicissitudes were analyzed in great detail1. We will focus on the study of today's problems based on official statistics, the Arabic and foreign press, publications of international organizations and centers, as well as our own impressions and interviews with representatives of the Arab business community and the public.

A KIND OF ECONOMIC BALANCE

In October 2011, one of the authors of these lines, together with a number of researchers from the Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences, conducted a survey of North African entrepreneurs regarding their vision of the economic results of the "Arab Spring". One of the respondents gave a succinct, if grotesque, description of the situation in the economies of the countries that "won revolutions": "We finally have a balance in the economy: half of the working - age population is unemployed, the other half is on strike."

The bitter irony wasn't born out of thin air. The revolutionary events of January 2011 go further and further into the romanticized past. Past political triumphs have been replaced by the anxieties of the daily struggle for survival. The economic situation deteriorated sharply in all post-revolutionary countries, although not to the same extent. In compact and more modern Tunisia, annual GDP growth fell from 3% in 2010 to -1% (according to official statistics-0%) in 2011. In Egypt, which has a more complex economic structure, the decline was much deeper: from +5

up to-3%. The Libyan economy, on the other hand, "collapsed" during the year of the war, according to the estimates of the English magazine "Economist", by more than half (data for February 2012)^.2

According to the entrepreneurs we interviewed, the business climate in all three countries has significantly worsened. The permanent strike process in Tunisia and Egypt in particular, according to business people, has paralyzed the normal course of industrial activity. Workers everywhere are demanding higher wages. At the same time, they do not make uniform demands, but achieve their goals on behalf of rather large groups of several dozen people. Negotiations with employers are usually conducted by activists associated with a particular political force or movement. Even if the entrepreneur meets their demands, work at the enterprise often still does not resume, because other groups of employees associated with another political force immediately begin to strike and put forward their new demands.

Civil servants demand not only an increase in wages, but also the dismissal of old managers appointed under the previous regimes, whose places they are not averse to taking themselves. (After all, they were promised that "social elevators" would work!) The bosses themselves, in fear of possible nagging and quite likely dismissal, try not to make responsible decisions, do not sign "extra" papers and, in order to avoid accusations of fraud and corruption, do not rush to allocate funds.

The promises of manipulators who claimed that the overthrow of dictators would open the door to a private sector "crushed by bureaucrats"turned out to be false. So far, only those who are closer to "distributing loot"are getting rich. It is these "fighters against corrupt regimes" who, for inexplicable reasons (but most likely also not for nothing), begin to receive part of the property or economic rights that were previously concentrated in the hands of the clans of deposed rulers. In Tunisia, such objects are primarily retail chains, in Libya (at the moment, while the oil industry is only recovering) - mobile phone operators, in Egypt-trade and transport companies and service companies. In addition, elite real estate and promising development projects are being redistributed in all three countries at full speed. It has not yet reached a large property.

But the most obvious and striking economic outcome of all three revolutions is accelerated inflation. To be fair, it lags far behind the "post-revolutionary" inflation rate in Russia (then prices rose by 2,610% from January to December 1992).³. Consumer inflation rates, according to IMF estimates, are 35-40% in Libya, 11-12% in Egypt,and ^4-6% in Tunisy4.

In conversations with one of the authors of the article, representatives of the Egyptian banking business complained that because of the constant depreciation of money, Egyptians are less inclined to put money on deposits. Banks that are deprived of the flow of money and are afraid of increased risks are ready to lend only at a higher interest rate. This, in turn, makes loans unaffordable for most entrepreneurs. However, there are not so many people who want to expand their business through new investment right now.

In Tunisia, the authorities are pinning their hopes on the revival of the tourism industry. After the victory of Islamists in the elections, the authorities made a special statement that they would not prohibit the sale of alcohol in large hotels and the wearing of bikinis on fenced beaches belonging to hotels. However, the "topless"tanning, which is a favorite of German and Dutch women, and which the former authorities did not particularly pursue (although, as one of the heads of the tourism department of the time of President Ben Ali assured, "they never turned a blind eye to it"), is now excluded even there.

The Tunisian "hospitality industry" cannot recover from the loss of the flow of visitors from Libya. Until 2011, about 2 million people crossed the border between the two countries every year. Libyans who were considered tourists by statistics and left huge amounts of money in ^the country5. About 800,000 Libyans were treated annually in the neighboring country. The trade turnover between the two countries was about $2 billion. per year. About 200,000 Tunisians worked in Libya every year. However, the official figure was much lower - 80 thousand people.

In total, the number of tourists visiting Tunisia decreased from 7 million. in 2010, up to 4.7 million in 2011. The industry's revenue declined by 40-50%.

In Egypt, despite a less profound drop in industry revenues, the situation with tourism is much more complicated. The Russian fatalist tourist is still ready to buy a cheap tour to the Land of Pyramids, but the risks are increasing every day. Western travel agencies began to exclude Luxor and Aswan destinations from their routes after they received thousands of complaints from customers who became hostages on the Nile near the city of Jena in Upper Egypt.

Local residents who worked on the construction of irrigation facilities blocked the river with "felucas" - sailing boats. For several days, they blocked passage in both directions along the Nile - to Luxor and Aswan - for dozens of cruise ships. In total, 84 tourist vessels were stuck in the traffic jam, with up to 2 thousand foreign citizens on board. Residents of Jena and the surrounding villages thus tried to get the regional authorities to solve their local problems that were not related to international tourism in any way. Hundreds of foreigners had to be evacuated under heavy police protection.⁶

There has been an unprecedented increase in crimes and violence against foreign tourists in Egypt. If earlier ino-

Chart. Annual FDI inflows (in $ billion) at the current exchange rate).

Source: compiled from: http://unctadstat.unctad.org/TableViewer/tableView.aspx?ReportId=88; data for 2012 - the author's forecast.

If the Americans were killed mainly by dashing bus drivers, now there are more and more reports of robberies and shootings with human victims in the most attractive beach resorts of the country - Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada. According to Russian tour operators, winter tourist flows from our country are reoriented from Egypt to South-East Asia, and summer-to Turkey, Spain and Italy. Nevertheless, Russian tourists, along with Ukrainian and British tourists, turned out to be the most "risk-tolerant" of all Europeans. The flow of tourists from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries and Italy has been particularly reduced.

According to the results of 2011, the total number of foreign tourists visiting Egypt decreased due to the consequences of the "Arab Spring" by 33% compared to 2010 - up to 9.8 million people. Tourism sector revenues in 2011 totaled $9 billion, which is 29% less than a year earlier.⁷

Calculations for foreign investment are not justified yet. The well-known formula " The West will help us!"I have once again confirmed my groundlessness. To the accompaniment of loud words about "supporting the democratic choice of the rebellious people", 120 foreign companies left Tunisia in 2011. With their departure, 40 thousand jobs disappeared. Foreign direct investment (FDI) declined by a quarter (see chart). The sharpest drop was recorded in Egypt: from $6.4 billion in 2010 to $0.5 billion in 2011. In Libya, the result is even more impressive-with $3.8 billion. almost to zero ⁸.

However, with regard to FDI, the situation may soon begin to improve. Many Western companies plan to expand their presence in these countries as the situation in them stabilizes. Foreign investors have particularly high hopes for the opportunity to participate in projects aimed at restoring Libya's oil industry and developing the country's hydrocarbon resources. The Italian state-owned energy company ENI plans to invest $600 million ⁱⁿ Tunis in 2012.9

Promises to invest funds sometime in the future and under certain conditions are not so small. At the beginning of 2012, the US President B. Obama announced his intention to allocate about $800 million in aid to countries in the sub-region to overcome the side effects of the "Arab Spring". Most of these funds ($770 million), however, will not be transferred directly to Arab countries, but will be invested in the capital of a newly created financial institution-the Middle East and North Africa Incentive Fund. The goal of the Fund is to create "incentives for long-term economic, political and trade reforms in transition countries, especially those that are willing to actively implement reforms" ¹⁰. At the same time, it was not specified whether these funds will be allocated in addition to existing assistance programs, or, conversely, the funds of the latter will be redirected to the Fund. In this case, part of the $2 billion will go there. through regional programs of the government Corporation for Foreign Private Investment (OPIC) and from the amount of debt swaps in Egypt (its value is about $1 billion). In addition, about $500 million was not distributed from the aid promised by the Americans to the "revolutionary countries" in 2011. These funds can also be poured into this fund.

Egypt continues to be the largest recipient of U.S. aid in the sub-region, receiving about $1.3 billion annually under the Camp David Accords. for military needs. The US budget also provides for the allocation of $250 million in "economic assistance". In addition, the US Congress approved the allocation of almost $60 million under the Enterprise Fund by ^the end of this year11. However, these funds will most likely not be received in full, since their receipt is due to the fulfillment of a wide list of political, legal and economic requirements, including the granting of freedom of action to American-funded non-governmental organizations. organizations (NGOs) and their activists.

When dealing with the amount of foreign "aid", it should be remembered that, at least for now, the lion's share of what is promised to both Egypt, Tunisia and Libya is intended not for the purpose of real investment in the economy, but for the implementation of investment projects.-

institutional changes, legislative reform, training of managerial and political personnel, creating the foundations of civil society. In practice, this means that this money will be spent on payments to those who will prepare drafts of future laws for the countries of the "victorious revolutions", on conducting seminars, lecturers, paying for business trips of foreign specialists, purchasing equipment for the offices of foreign consultants, sending Arab students for training and study trips to Western Europe and America. Such aid becomes a tool for ensuring the normative expansion of the West - one of the most important areas of imperial expansion in Africa, and not only there.

In the autumn of 2011, the European Union announced the development of a joint "Jasmine Plan" to boost the Tunisian economy and the creation of a special task force on Tunisia for this purpose. ¹² The document mentions billions (in euros) of injections into the Tunisian economy. However, so far in the form of needs, intentions and plans for the future.

The fact that declarations of intent do not yet mean a real influx of capital applies not only to American "aid", but also to the generous promises of "friends of the revolution" from the Arab world. So, at the end of 2011. Egypt received from other Arab countries out of the promised $8.2 billion. only about $1 billion, including $0.5 billion each. from Saudi Arabia (out of the promised $3.7 billion) and Qatar (out of $1.5 billion). The UAE, having promised $3 billion, did not transfer anything.

The Egyptian side expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of transparency in the process of providing assistance from the Gulf States and its associated nature. According to the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the country's external debt reached $34.4 billion at the end of the year, or 15% of the country's GDP.¹³ In any case, the inflow of foreign investment and aid primarily depends on the degree of internal stability, the alignment of political forces and the direction of development of the country.

WINTER OF OUR ANXIETY

Parliamentary elections were held in Tunisia and Egypt, which showed that the sympathies of the majority of the population lie not on the side of liberal and democratic forces raised by the wave of "Twitter revolutions", but on the side of those who preach the primacy of traditional religious and national values.

The authors of the article have already noted that just as in Russia the struggle between Westerners and Slavophiles (statesmen) historically determined the nature and directions of the country's development, in modern Arab societies there are two powerful cultural and civilizational components in dialectical unity and confrontation: one based on traditional Islamic-Arab values, the other "European-oriented" modernization, formed in the XIX century. and then strengthened during the years of colonial rule. During the Arab Spring, both poles agreed on the need for profound political changes, and somewhere separately, somewhere together, they began to seek a change of power.¹⁴

At first, it seemed that the West's complicity in the Arab revolutions and its decisive role in ensuring the final fall of the existing regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya would bring to power pro-Western secular liberal-democratic regimes. However, the elections, which were fairly free for all political forces except those that supported the overthrown regimes, brought Islamist parties and movements to power.

As a result of the Western-backed revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, political forces of Islamist orientation - Salafists (to a lesser extent) and somewhat more moderate conservative Muslim circles directly associated with the Muslim Brotherhood (to a greater extent)-now dominate. Their real political influence was translated into the results of legislative elections held after the revolutions in these countries, where parties representing political Islam formed an undisputed majority.

The Muslim Brotherhood is by no means new to the political arena of North African countries. Fallen authoritarian regimes saw them as real rivals and severely restricted their legal participation in political competition and power struggles. The West, which until the beginning of the Arab Spring considered the Muslim Brotherhood a radical movement, was forced to calmly accept their entry into power in Tunisia and Egypt. This was supported by the appeasing statements of the Islamist Freedom and Justice Party (PSS) in Egypt and Ennahda in Tunisia, which won the elections, about their commitment to the principles of democracy in the field of domestic politics. However, one cannot discount the fact that Salafist political movements, which are more radical than the Muslim Brotherhood, have a fairly strong and, very importantly, growing influence in both countries. As a political force in the countries of North Africa, they later developed into the Muslim Brotherhood, including under the influence of preachers from Saudi Arabia and with its generous funding. After the election, both segments of the conservative spectrum of political Islam admit the possibility of cooperation, but deep-seated wariness towards each other and open competition continue.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies have always viewed the brotherhood as an unruly force playing on their own ideological field, at least warily. Some tension in the relationship and mutual skepticism remain to this day.

The intrigue lies in the fact that, having won free elections, the Muslim Brotherhood-whether the "fathers of Arab democracy" across the ocean want or don't want it-will assert itself.-

They were regarded as a system-forming political force of post-revolutionary Egyptian society and statehood. The problems of the Egyptian economy are forcing the " brothers "to establish economic ties with the largest and richest economies in the region - Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait-not as a religious force, but as a national force.

Currently, about 500 companies from the United Arab Emirates operate in Egypt, and their total accumulated investments in the country since the Mubarak era are estimated at $10 billion.¹⁵ For Saudi Arabia, exact data is not available, but it is believed that the amount of investment is approximately the same. In addition, after the fall of Mubarak, Riyadh promised to provide the Pyramid Country with several billion dollars more in aid. For a more complete understanding of the importance of these eastern neighbors for Egypt, we add that 1.5 million Egyptians live and work in Saudi Arabia, and 250 thousand in the United Arab Emirates. ¹⁶

However, the liberal flank of the political spectrum in Egypt and Tunisia continues to exist and enjoy active support from the West. We are talking about both moral support and material assistance that comes, including through various non-governmental organizations funded by the West.

The December issue of our magazine described these mechanisms in detail and described the tensions that have arisen between the new authorities of Egypt and the United States in connection with the activities of pro-Western NGOs in the country." In 2012, the scandal developed further, leading to their arrest and trial. The case involves 43 people, including 16 Americans, 16 Egyptians, as well as citizens of Germany, Serbia, Jordan and Palestinians. They were outlawed in December 2011 after the security services of EGYPT raided the offices of NGOs funded by the United States: the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, and Freedom House. The Egyptian authorities expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that the United States interfered in the internal affairs of the country. Washington responded by threatening to cut off the flow of financial aid to Cairo.

The issue of American funding of NGOs is actually much more complicated than it seems. It is not limited to the superficial clash over the financing of political forces opposed to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). The supreme authority in Egypt, both Islamists and the military, is concerned that with the help of US-funded structures, they are trying to form channels of communication with the junior officers of the country's armed forces. Perhaps such attempts do not pose an immediate threat to the current leaders, and Washington is only trying to form a base of agents of influence in the army in advance, with the expectation of a long-term perspective, in order to insure against the dangers associated with generational change in the command structure of the Egyptian Armed Forces in the 2020s.

Be that as it may, the SCAF's concern was so great that they appealed to the Muslim Brotherhood to support them in the conflict with Washington, and the PSC issued a statement that the reduction of American aid to Egypt would be considered a violation of the terms of the Camp David agreements and would free Egypt from the obligations it had assumed in the past. obligations under them ¹⁸.

The Americans did not like this turn of events. However, through threats and persuasions, they managed to get permission to leave the country for those under investigation.

VARIABILITY OF STRATEGIC SCENARIOS

The year that has passed since the beginning of the "Arab Spring" has allowed us to place the right accents in the initially very acute dispute about the role of the external factor in it. Today, it has become clear that this role in shaping objective assumptions in each country was minimal, but more significant at the level of the sub-region as a whole. At the same time, the external factor played a rather significant role in the formation of subjective conditions and became decisive in ensuring the fall of regimes.

Today, the mechanisms that determined the dynamics and vectors of the "Arab Spring" have become even more obvious. Its" technical " starting point was Tunis. There, the social explosion was directly related to the severe deterioration of the domestic economic situation due to the global crisis.

The Tunisian economy is export-oriented. Most of GDP is mediated through the external market-exports of electrical, textile and agricultural products, phosphates and tourism services; and imports of mechanical engineering and energy raw materials. During the crisis, the Ben Ali-era manual settings for economic prosperity stopped working.

Tunisia is a country with a huge middle class for a developing state - more than 70% of the population ¹⁹. As often happens, at the first sign of a significant deterioration in his position, he rose up against his own government. This speech was supported by the West, which ultimately ensured the victory of the revolution. If we look at Western Europe in the same time period, then here, somewhere a little earlier (France, Spain, Italy), somewhere later (Greece, Great Britain, Iceland), unprecedented mass protests against governments are taking place.

The geographical spread of Tunisian social unrest to other Arab countries was quite natural. However, immediately after Tunisia, the revolution won only in Egypt - in a country with a completely different set of internal reasons and contradictions. Egypt also had a fairly influential (although not numerically dominant) middle class, with its own problems. At the same time in Egypt

large sections of the middle class identified their interests with the preservation of the current regime. And the regime itself was more consolidated and strong. It took intense media intervention and political pressure from outside forces (both Western and Arab) to force Mubarak to hand over power peacefully (but not voluntarily).

The events in Libya are a fundamentally different phenomenon. And here, of course, a certain role was played by the revolutionary unrest in Tunisia and Egypt, because such examples, as we know, are contagious. The political events in Libya can rightly be called a "revolution on the sly". External forces, strategically and geopolitically interested in changing the regime that ruled here, in fact, folded the opposition out of the "emigrant Lego" stored in the storerooms, provided it with finances, weapons, propaganda and diplomatic support, and threw it into battle, and then provided direct military support.

Thus, as we move further away from the beginning of the "Arab Spring", it is increasingly clear that its primary impetus was not so much "political stagnation" and "lack of reforms and social elevators", but the deterioration of the economic sense of the middle class caused by the global crisis.

In the future, depending on the circumstances, various developed, spare or improvisational scenarios came into play. New players joined or "woke up" old ones, who had previously been peacefully dozing or hiding.

From today's perspective, it seems that the "Islamist effect" of the Arab revolutions was expected for the United States. The fact is that the religious card has always been a kind of "fifth ace up the sleeve" of the West's Middle East policy. If we carefully follow the evolution of US expansion in the Eastern Hemisphere over the past few decades, it turns out that "Islamists", "Muslim fundamentalists" and "Arab terrorists" were either allies of the West (oil price collusion with Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan in the 1980s, Bosnia, Kosovo in the 1990s)., Libya 2011), or a convenient reason for the military expansion of the United States and NATO- (11.09.2001, Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction", the "Iranian threat" , etc.)

Although the above is not an indisputable proof of the existence of some consistent plan or strategy of the West, persistently repeated "random" scenarios and "unforeseen" consequences lead to the idea that there are some patterns and well-calculated interests here.

References to the "constant" shortsightedness of the American authorities, politicians, analysts, government officials and special services specialists who repeatedly "underestimated", "looked through", "did not assume that..." or "did not expect consequences" or some turn of events in the Muslim world look fake, or even just stupid. the world.

According to the most approximate calculations made by us from open sources, about 1,200 research and analytical centers - academic, government, "independent", religious, and military-are currently engaged in Middle East and Muslim topics in the United States alone. If we add to this the officials, military personnel, and "volunteers" who directly serve the interests of the United States in the Middle East, and more broadly in the Muslim world, it turns out that the number of specialists in this field is at least 100 thousand people (excluding soldiers and officers fighting or stationed in these countries, and representatives of NGOs responsible for the implementation of the to the Arabs "the light of the ideas of democracy"). If at least some of them are real professionals and top-level specialists, we can reasonably assume that with all the individual deviations from the rule, in general, the US policy in this area is consistent, meaningful and, like any policy of a modern superpower, proceeds from a multiplicity of possible scenarios for the development of specific situations. As in any multi-move game in chess, a line of counter moves is calculated for all options (or at least for all the most likely ones), which as a result should lead to the desired final.

The Muslim factor (used both in coordination with the partner and "in the dark") serves as an important element of preserving the global position of the United States, "keeping in check" its junior allies, deterring and destabilizing potential rivals (China, Russia and India), for each of which the embers of Islamism smouldering along the perimeter or inside their borders, can easily break out in a disastrous fire.

It is hard not to notice that since the Democrats came to power in 2009, the anti-Islamic rhetoric emanating from Washington has weakened. Moreover, there are real, as well as purely manipulative, signals designed to show that the White House is finally turning its " face to the Arabs." June 4, 2009. President of the United States B. Obama delivered a keynote foreign policy speech in the Great Hall of Cairo University. It is noteworthy that the co-organizer of the speech was the world-famous Islamic University "Al-Azhar". According to the idea, it was a speech by the American president, addressed from the Muslim capital to the Muslim world, the name of which "New Beginning" spoke for itself.

OPERATION MUSLIM OBAMA

At the same time, the manipulative treatment of public opinion, especially among young people and the "creative" segments of Arab society that are not skilled in politics (not to be confused with intellectuals!), has intensified. In the" Arab Internet "("Arabnet") began to walk "letters of happiness", according to-

giving that Barack Obama is a crypto-Muslim. In fact, this email spam was a repeat of the virus-like mailings of 2004 and 2006. in the United States, the purpose of which was to compromise a black politician who was then being elected to the senate. In particular, they played up the fact that the candidate has a clearly non-Christian middle name-Hussein, while his Kenyan father (also Barack Obama-Sr.) and Indonesian stepfather (Lolo Sutoro) were both Muslims.

The revived version of spam, aimed at Arab recipients, had exactly the opposite goals. Despite the official denial of the fact that Obama belongs to Islam, even a small fraction of the truth contained in the mailings gave rise to the idea in the minds of the target Muslim audience that something more was hidden behind it.

Indeed, many of the letters were supplemented with impressive pseudo-details, such as the fact that in 2005 B. Obama took the oath of office as a US senator, allegedly putting his hand on the Koran instead of the Bible. As expected, a "convincing" detail was added to the manipulative material for "credibility", as if for this purpose a copy of the Muslim Holy Book, once in the collection of President Thomas Jefferson, was specially borrowed from the Library of Congress.²⁰

Another circulating version of the letter, quoted in the Washington Post, said that Barack Obama, while living in Indonesia as a child, studied at a Muslim madrasa for 4 years. In fact, Obama was studying at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School, which accepted children of all faiths. True, Obama was actually enrolled in school by his parents as a Muslim (according to his stepfather)²¹. However, in fact, the introduction of this spam in the new environment was a useful background for manipulating public opinion in the Muslim world.

Even earlier, statements about "Islamists", "jihadists", "the terrorist threat of militant Islam", etc.abruptly declined in US propaganda and political rhetoric directed to the outside world. NATO took a more flexible position on negotiations with the Taliban and the possibility of their participation in the governance of Afghanistan. What is very important, the" danger of clerical circles coming to power "or" supporters of radical Islam "as a result of the fall of pro-Western and secular regimes in Arab countries was discussed only at the very initial stages of the" Arab Spring", and then more and more at the level of" talk shows " or media publications.

Gaddafi's sensational claims that members of Al-Qaeda, which hates him, are fighting on the side of his opponents, were drowned out in the silence of the West. Later, after the capture of the Libyan capital by anti-government forces with the support of NATO countries, it was already publicly announced that the new government of Libya, recognized by Western countries, included militants associated with Al-Qaeda and fought in its detachments. This was reported calmly, casually, as something ordinary and self-evident, without the traditional cries and cries about the threat to democracy and human rights.

Far away, in Afghanistan, thousands of kilometers from the bombed-out capital of Libya, as part of preparations for the withdrawal of the US army, they stopped hiding contacts with the Taliban at an unofficial level, offering the latter to join the new government of the country in exchange for maintaining its general political orientation and current strategic role near Chinese Tibet, the Muslim-populated Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China and the troubled Indo-Pakistani border. Since the beginning of 2012, there have been regular reports that Al-Qaeda fighters are fighting on the side of anti-Assad forces in Syria, including detachments that previously formed the backbone of armed groups that fought in coordination with NATO forces in Libya.

In the year of the Arab Spring, the ends of the mysterious story of bin Laden, who appeared out of nowhere and disappeared into nowhere, appearing like Zorro, just when the White House really needed it, were literally hidden in the water. In February 2012, "secretly from the Pakistani authorities", the Americans completely destroyed the traces of the house and command post where the "terrorist No. 1" was allegedly hiding in Pakistan all the time.

In general, the calm attitude of the United States and NATO to the fact that the" laurels of power "of color revolutions are being reaped by forces that are much more conservative than the previous regimes indicates that, in general, the development of the situation in the region is moving in the" right " direction and does not require additional corrective intervention by the West.

How can the West benefit from the changing situation in the sub-region? In our opinion, they boil down to the following: the turn that has taken place only outwardly does not seem to correspond to what the West was striving for. In fact, if you ask the question "What do the fallen regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and still-resisting Syria have in common?" as if in an IQ test, the answer is self-evident. These regimes grew out of secular revolutionary nationalist liberation movements and parties, whose attitudes and actions are still strongly influenced by national-oriented economic and political decisions.

This circumstance regularly led to friction or complications in relations with the West. Even when the ruling elites in Tunisia and Egypt threw away the "socialist birthright" from which they grew up and embarked on the path of accelerated development of national capitalism. Levels of tax payments, investment regimes, customs duties and foreign trade quotas, and the terms of agreements on free trade zones and export quotas were the subject of fierce bargaining affecting the economic interests of Western capital.

fishing. Moreover, as the national Arab capital matured and strengthened (often linked to the ruling political elites through corruption), Western companies were increasingly deprived of the very tasty economic morsels they had hoped for (promising gas and oil fields, development projects, hotel management, banking).

After the revolutions, the lack of a "new" national alternative to the cowed old economic elites meant that the field of activity for interested foreign companies was now cleared. Small and medium-sized businesses that have supported revolutions in Arab countries are no competition for foreigners. The public sector has been inefficient before, and now officials who have stayed in their seats since the fall of governments are paralyzed by the fear of exposure. This is particularly evident in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia.

In contrast to the defeated nationalists, "moderate Islamists", at least for now, are mainly focused on solving internal ideological and social problems. They are ready to open the doors and provide more favorable opportunities for foreign capital (including in the development of scarce strategic natural resources), if it assumes the role of a stabilizer of the economic situation, but at the same time does not interfere in politics and ideology.

For the West, guaranteed access to these resources is an opportunity to extend its dominance, deter geopolitical competitors, and transfer the paradigms of current world economic relations and interdependencies to the new emerging model of world economic development in the 21st century.

In other words, from the point of view of the West, which implements the principles of globalization and world governance, "moderate Islamists" may not be the worst partners. Their practical interests do not go beyond the local framework, the anti-Western position in fact boils down to cultural, civilizational and religious rhetoric, which is much less dangerous for the West, for all its domestic problems with multiculturalism, than for countries with an autochthonous Muslim population, such as Russia, India or China. At the same time, the toga of the "friends of Egypt" (Libya, Tunisia, Syria - cross out what is unnecessary) helps the West in solving geopolitical problems using the resources of Arab and some other Muslim countries at the strategic and global levels.

* * *

Does this mean that we are at the beginning of a new stage in relations between the West and the Muslim world? It is pointless to state something unambiguously and make long-term forecasts. Despite all the predictability and well-known general orientation of its policy, the West as a partner and support in the medium and long term is not always reliable. As practice shows, including our domestic experience, the West easily withdraws from concluded agreements, violates oral agreements, manipulates or "stretches" the content of written agreements to suit its own needs, and easily makes oral promises that it is not going to fulfill. In order to create the necessary information background, it is not disdainful to distort, or even simply falsify facts and realities. He can negotiate indefinitely, not at all intending to give anything in return for very real concessions from the opposite side. They can also, if they find it useful, easily compromise the interests of the" junior " partner.

In this sense, the emerging "warming" towards the Muslim world and the new course of the West in the Southern Mediterranean region and in the Arab East can only be a forced pause caused by the need to regroup forces or launch an offensive with new means in a new direction. At the same time, the next zigzag of politics will easily be based on the same fundamental principles and high ideals as the previous ones.

^{Vasiliev A.M.} 1 Tsunami revolyutsii [Tsunami of Revolutions]. 2011, No. 3; Tkachenko A. A. Bolshoy Mizhnyj Vostok: sudba reformov [The Greater Middle East: the Fate of Reforms]. 2006, N 6; Fituni L. L. "Arab Spring": transformation of political paradigms in the context of international relations // ME and MO. 2012. N 1; Vasiliev A.M. Egypt after the elections / / Asia and Africa today. 2012, N 4.

² The Economist. L. 4.02.2012. P. 49.

³ Data from the Russian Center for Economic Analysis and Expertise - http://www.assessor.ru/forum/index.php?t=1600

⁴ IMF. Middle East and North Africa: Economic Outlook and Key Challenges. 2011. N. Y. P. 97.

⁵ This is precisely the number of border crossings, i.e. multiple visits to Tunis by the same Libyan citizen are considered by statistics in each case as a visit by a new Libyan. The entire population of Libya is 6.4 million people, most of whom live in the western provinces, near the Tunisian border.

⁶ Al-Ahram. Cairo. 4.02.2012.

⁷ http://tourweek.ru/news/world_news/233760/

⁸ The Economist... P. 49.

⁹ http://www.meed.com/sectors/oil-and-gas/eni-to-invest-600m-in-tunisias-oil-infrastructure/3122 668.article

¹⁰ http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/13/us-usa-budget-foreign-idUSTRE81C1C920120213

¹¹ Ibidem.

¹² http://eeas.europa.eu/tunisia/docs/20110929_taskforce_en.pdf

¹³ http://www.egyptindependent.com/node/546326

^{Fituni L. L.} 14 "Arab Spring": transformation of political paradigms in the context of international relations // ME and MO. 2012, N 1. P. 6.

¹⁵ http://www.egyptindependent.com/node/643676

^{Abramova I. O.} 16 Arab Spring and cross-border African migration / / Asia and Africa Today. 2012, N 6.

^{Fituni L. L.} 17 Middle East: technologies of Protest potential management / / Asia and Africa today. 2011, N 12.

¹⁸ http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/35361/Egypt/Politics-/Crisis-in-USEgypt-relation s-the-whys-and-whereofs.aspx

¹⁹ According to the OECD methodology, an individual who spends between $ 10 and $ 100 per day at purchasing power parity (PPP) is considered to belong to the middle class.

²⁰ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2007/dec/20/chain-email/obama-sworn-in-on -his-bible/ December 20, 2007.

²¹ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/28/AR2007112802757_2.html

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