George Soros urges West to back Mid-East rebels

Billionaire fund manager and philanthropist George Soros, one of the world's most powerful investors, has issued a warning to Western governments over their role in the Middle East turmoil, saying they must be more proactive in supporting such revolutions.

Soros also predicted the Iranian regime would be overthrown in the "bloodiest of the revolutions".

Soros said in an interview with BBC on Friday that the West should rethink the way it deals with oil producing nations, where too little of the wealth from natural resources is shared by ordinary people. He urged Western nations to support revolutions in the Middle East to gain allegiance with newly-founded democracies.

The founder of the Quantum hedge fund likens the unrest in Libya and other parts of the Middle East to the former Soviet Union between 1989 and 1991, but adds that in this case countries such as the US and UK need to stand by the revolutions to ensure new regimes co-operate with the West.

Soros said, "What is happening today in the Middle East is very similar to what happened in the former Soviet Union in 1989-91. But then it was a regime hostile to the West that was destroyed by the revolution.

"Now it is regimes supported by the West, so the West has to regain the allegiance of the people in those countries by actually supporting the transition to democracy.