The Independent: Why is a new wave of protests rocking the Middle East?

The mass protests that are ravaging countries such as Iraq, Lebanon and Algeria are calling for an orderly change of the ruling elites rather than the exclusion of one or more senior officials in those countries, The Independent newspaper reported in an article for its international affairs correspondent Borzo Draghi.

Draghi, an American journalist of Iranian descent, said Friday's protests in Iraqi cities, including the capital Baghdad and met with violent repression by armed militias backed by Tehran, were calling for the removal of the entire political class that came to power after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003 and controlled a fortune. Enormous oil country.

The protests in Lebanon also demanded the resignation of warlords who have become politicians and "have remained dominant in the country's politics and looted its coffers since the signing of the power-sharing agreement in 1989 that ended the civil war" there.

In their demonstrations, Algerians are pressing for "sweeping and eliminating military and security elites" that have run their oil-rich state since the country's "black decade" ended in the 1990s.

Conflicts and disturbances
The recent protests spread to countries in the Arab world that did not participate in the 2011 Arab Spring revolutions. She could seek to change her situation.

That claim later turned out to be wrong, according to Draghi, as ordinary people took to the streets to protest against the lack of jobs and poor public services such as electricity, water, education and health care.

Tamara Kaufman Wittes, director of the Brookings Institution's Center for Middle East Policy, says the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings broke the fear barrier.

But the protests have not been confined to the Arab world. This is a season of "renewed" grumbling around the world, according to Draghi, alerting to events in Ethiopia, Guinea, Chile and Hong Kong, as well as huge mass rallies calling for action to curb climate change.

Poverty and resentment
The writer considered that the source of discontent in the Arab countries due to the lack of economic opportunities.

Zaid al-Ali, the constitution-building program officer at the International Foundation for Democracy and Elections, said that the economic models followed by countries in the Middle East and North Africa have not met the desired success. .

Bourzou Draghi says analysts have struggled to explain the motives that led to many protests, and that one factor may be, in his view, the successful relative transition to democracy in Tunisia.

Another factor is that the wave of protests coincided - albeit not entirely - with the defeat of ISIS from areas under its control.

"A new generation of Arabs - better educated and more connected to the world - are starting to use the Internet, a majority and pushing for changes in politics and society," Draghi concludes by borrowing a statement from Tamara Wits.