Are the Arab uprisings driven by outside plots?
|15:12 UK time, Wednesday, 22 June 2011
From the start of the Arab uprisings, those in power have been making accusations of outside involvement and plotting. Hosni Mubarak consistently blamed Al Qaeda for the Egyptian unrest.
Today, Bahrain has accused Iran of seeking to destabilise the country.
Also this week Syria has accused the EU of deliberately fomenting 'chaos'.
Meanwhile the Syrian foreign minister has accused al Qaeda of being behind some anti-government operations. Col Gaddafi has made similar claims through-out the conflict there.
Go back to the days of the Egyptian revolution and you'll see that Al Jazeera and other media outlets were accused of having anti-Mubarak agendas.
I remember a couple of weeks ago in Egypt that several people saw the overtures of the IMF and the World Bank as part of a greater Western plot to seize control of Egypt and its economy.
Do you believe that the uprisings are what they at first they seem? Is this simply a series of campaigns to bring better democracy and human rights to each country that's been affected? Or are there more sinister and complex forces at play?
