Sectarianism, corruption and unemployment are common denominators between demonstrations in Iraq and Lebanon

A second wave of the Arab Spring appears to have swept through the Arab region, this time reaching Iraq and Lebanon, where hundreds of thousands of young people took to the streets and squares with slogans calling for regime change.

The Russian newspaper `` Expert '' that there are common denominators between the protests in Iraq and Lebanon are different from the previous Arab Spring revolutions, as the two countries suffer from social division and suffered from civil war and sectarian conflicts, and the two countries have a constitution that divides power between the various sectarian and ethnic groups.

Iranian intervention
In Lebanon, Iran supports Hezbollah financially, militarily and politically. In Iraq, it supports a wide range of political forces, such as the Dawa Party and the Popular Mobilization Party.

In the first phase of the protest movement in Iraq, which began in early October, there were snipers dressed in black, believed to be from Iran or belonging to their militias, who fired on protesters from rooftops in Baghdad.

Also in Lebanon, there were masked and unidentified people suspected of belonging to Hezbollah who tore up the protesters' tents and attacked them in the streets of Beirut.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has commented on events in Iraq and Lebanon.

Spring revolutions
Demonstrators in Lebanon and Iraq learned lessons from the first Arab Spring revolutions, relying on their large numbers and setting up checkpoints in Baghdad's Tahrir Square and Beirut's Martyrs' Square.

Protesters also intensified the use of social media to draw the attention of the international community towards their movements, and even when the Iraqi government disrupted the Internet service, the demonstrators were quick to find alternative ways to get information out of the country.

In the protests in Iraq and Lebanon, slogans were raised that considered sectarianism the cause of all the scourge, and the demonstrators stressed their independence and non-dependence of any external party.

The newspaper pointed out that the demonstrators in the two countries are demanding a change in the current political system, considering it depends on sectarian quotas, which leads to rampant corruption and take ineffective decisions.

Provision of services
The paper pointed out that the young demonstrators who are the mainstay of the movement in both countries focus on the need for the government in its role, providing basic services to citizens, spending public funds responsibly, and find solutions to economic problems.

Young Iraqis find it hard to get jobs, and the Lebanese - whose unemployment rate is 40 percent - feel they have no choice but to leave the country.

Although Iraq has an important economic advantage as it earned about $ 65 billion in oil sales last year, authorities are still unable to provide even clean water in the oil-rich southern province of Basra.

Just as in the first wave of the Arab Spring, Lebanese and Iraqis see corruption as one of the biggest causes of scourge in the country.

The newspaper said that the ruling elites in the two countries will stand firmly in the face of changing the sectarian political system that brought it to power, which may go things to an unknown worse.