CAIRO (IPS) — As the Cairo-based Arab League continues to
back Western military intervention in support of the popular rebellion in
Libya, the League’s failure to back similar uprisings in other Arab countries —
most notably Bahrain — has led to charges of double standards.

“From the very beginning, the League has adopted
conflicting positions vis-à-vis the popular revolts now rocking the Arab
world,” Walid Hassan, international law professor at Alexandria’s Pharos
University told IPS. “While it supports the Libyan people against the
Gaddafi regime, it is overtly backing oppressive regimes elsewhere, especially
in the Gulf.”

In early March, shortly after Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi
began violently cracking down on anti- government protesters, the Arab League
suspended Libya’s league membership. The only other time an Arab state has had
its membership revoked was when Egypt was expelled from the 22-state
organization in the late 1970s after signing the Camp David peace agreement
with Israel (Egypt was later readmitted to the League in 1989.)

On Mar. 12, with the Gaddafi regime using increasingly
violent methods to quell the burgeoning uprising, the League requested that the
United Nations Security Council (UNSC) impose a no-fly zone over Libya to
protect civilians from air attack. Five days later, the UNSC adopted Resolution
1973, authorizing the international community to establish a no-fly zone and
use “all means necessary short of foreign occupation” to protect the
civilian populace.

Since Mar. 19, the Western-led NATO alliance has launched a
series of air-strikes against forces loyal to Gaddafi. Nevertheless, fierce
fighting continues to rage — accompanied by a steadily rising death-toll —
between pro- and anti-regime forces.

The Arab League, however, has adopted entirely different
positions on uprisings elsewhere in the region. It failed to intervene, for
example, in the twin revolutions earlier this year that led to the toppling of
Tunisian president Zein Al-Abidine bin Ali and Egyptian president Hosni
Mubarak.

Nor has the organization intervened on the side of
anti-regime protesters in Bahrain and Yemen, both of which have seen several
weeks of popular unrest. Far from backing Bahraini protesters against the
regime of King Hamad bin Eissa Al-Khalifa, the League endorsed the entry of
Saudi and Emirati troops into the kingdom on Mar. 15 — within the context of
the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)-backed “Gulf Shield” initiative —
to support Al-Khalifa.

On Mar. 22, the League issued a statement confirming
“the legitimacy of the entry of Gulf Shield forces into Bahrain based on
the joint security agreement between GCC members.”

Dozens of protesters have been killed and scores injured in
Bahrain since anti-government demonstrations, demanding an end to the rule of
the Al-Khalifa dynasty, first began on Feb. 14.

According to Egyptian political observers, the Arab League’s
conflicting positions are largely explained by Saudi Arabia’s longstanding
influence over the pan-Arab organization.

“States of the Saudi-led GCC finance most of the Arab
League’s activities,” Abdelhalim Kandil, political analyst and
editor-in-chief of independent weekly Al-Sout Al-Umma told IPS.
“Therefore, the league is subject to disproportionate Saudi influence.

“The Saudi regime, fearing for its own stability, has
consistently opposed the Arab uprisings,” he added. “Riyadh hosted
Tunisia’s Ben Ali after his ouster; pressured Egypt’s transitional government
not to prosecute Mubarak; continues to support President Ali Abdullah Saleh in
Yemen; and, most flagrantly, sent troops to support the Bahraini
monarchy.”

Hassan agreed, saying that the League’s position on Libya
versus those on other rebellion-racked Arab states has served to confirm the
“overriding Saudi influence” over League decisions.

“Saudi Arabia, fearing the spread of the revolution to
the rest of the Gulf, has been staunchly against the uprisings from the
outset,” he said. But Libya proved the exception, Hassan believes, due to
the “longstanding rift” between Gaddafi and Saudi King Abdullah bin
Abdul Aziz.

“Acrimony between the two leaders even led to
accusations by Saudi Arabia in 2004 that Gaddafi had plotted Abdullah’s
assassination,” said Hassan. “This, along with Gaddafi’s murderous
assaults on his own people, allowed Saudi Arabia to mobilize the Arab League
against the Libyan regime.”

According to Kandil, Saudi Arabia has played a chief role in
turning the Arab League in recent years into a “bastion of U.S.
influence” lacking any “effective or constructive” role in the
region.

“Washington’s Arab allies, especially Saudi Arabia and
Egypt, had long used the League to legitimize U.S. policy in the Middle
East,” he said. “As was the case with the 2003 U.S.-led war on Iraq,
the West used Saudi’s leading role in the League to obtain a resolution
allowing it to use military force against Libya.”

On Wednesday, the League announced the postponement of an
Arab Summit scheduled to convene in Baghdad in mid-May. The move came as a
response to the Iraqi government’s sharp criticism of the recent deployment of
Saudi troops to Bahrain.

“The decision to delay the summit suggests that Saudi,
along with other GCC states, is still trying to maintain its influence over the
direction of the League,” said Kandil.

But in light of rapidly unfolding political realities,
Kandil believes this influence to be waning.

“In the past, regional policies were largely determined
by an axis consisting of the U.S. and Israel on one hand, and Egypt and Saudi
Arabia on the other, with the former two using the latter two to implement
their policies,” he said. “But in the revolutionary atmosphere now
pervading the Arab world, this era appears to be coming to a close.”