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Former Saudi ambassador, Charles Freeman, told Al Jazeera that the monarchy won't "tolerate excessive unrest" in Bahrain because of its proximity to its main eastern oil fields. Nonetheless, unrest spread to Saudi Arabia where foreign construction workers went on strike at the King Abdullah Financial District and King Saud University in Riyadh, the capital.
In Kuwait, hundreds of stateless Arabs demonstrated in Jahra, northwest of Kuwait City, demanding citizenship. Clashes erupted. Arrests were made, and numerous injuries were reported.
In Jordan, protesters clashed with thugs wielding batons, saying they were attacked after a march called for an elected government and end to corruption. In January, they forced King Abdullah to sack his cabinet, but appointing Marouf Bakhit, a retired army major general, new prime minister angered many, a man they want replaced and all regime members close to the monarchy.
Since regional January protests erupted, fig leaf changes left old regimes entrenched, resolving nothing about redressing deep-seated inequity, including poverty, unemployment and repression, especially against public anger.
On February 20, London Independent columnist Robert Fisk headlined, "These are secular popular revolts - yet everyone is blaming religion," saying:
Mubarak, Ben Ali, Jordan's King Abdullah, and others blamed Islamists and Al Qaeda for regional unrest. "How on earth do well-educated if singularly undemocratic men get this thing so wrong?"
In fact, they're fear-mongers, opportunists, pointing fingers at targets of choice despite their own regimes at fault.
"Bobbysocks Obama and Clinton have managed an even weirder somersault." They and past US regimes have backed dictator allies for decades. Now, rhetorically at least, they "support civilian calls for democracy in the Arab world," when, in fact, they won't tolerate it. In Tahrir Square, an Egyptian student told Fisk:
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