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IR THEORY
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EGYPT UPRISE
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ISLAMAPHOBIA
Good News About Islamic Terror
Posted By Stephen M. Walt
Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 4:50 PM
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The toppling of the Tunisian regime led by Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali has led a lot of smart people -- including my FP colleague Marc Lynch -- to suggest that this might be the catalyst for a wave of democratization throughout the Arab world. The basic idea is that events in Tunisia will have a powerful demonstration effect (magnified by various forms of new media), leading other unhappy masses to rise up and challenge the stultifying dictatorships in places like Egypt or Syria. The obvious analogy (though not everyone makes it) is to the velvet revolutions in Eastern Europe, or perhaps the various "color revolutions" that took place in places like Ukraine or Georgia.
Color me skeptical. In fact, the history of world revolution suggests that this sort of revolutionary cascade is quite rare, and even when some sort of revolutionary contagion does take place, it happens pretty slowly and is often accompanied by overt foreign invasion.
For starters, the French revolution did not in fact ignite sympathetic revolutions across Europe. True, assorted monarchies were eventually toppled, but that was mostly done by the bayonets of the French army. Similarly, although many people feared that Bolshevism would spread across Europe after 1917, it did not in fact prove to be very contagious and the expansion of international communism didn't take place until World War II, once again largely backed by the might of the Red Army (or by indigenous communists like Mao Zedong, and only after decades of civil war). The Iranian revolution in 1979 did not prove to be an especially contagious model either; although sympathizers did emerge in several places (e.g., Lebanon), we've hardly seen a wave of Khomeini-style revolutions over the past 30 years.
The velvet revolution in Easter Europe are a partial exception, but mostly because the Soviet Union's Eastern Europe satellites were all dependent on the threat of Soviet invasion to keep their artificial regimes in power. Once the common keystone of Soviet power was no longer credible, however, all of these dominos could in fact fall down in a row.
But that's not the case in the Arab world. Although most Arab governments are authoritarian, they are also all independent and depend on a slightly different mix of political institutions and measures to keep the rulers in power. The fact that Ben Ali ultimately mismanaged a challenge and was driven from power does not mean that other Arab leaders won't be able to deflect, deter, or suppress challenges to their rule.
There are three other reasons why the Tunisian example is unlikely to lead to similar upheavals elsewhere. First, as Timur Kuran and others have shown, the actual revolutionary potential of any society is very difficult to read in advance, and a rising revolutionary wave often depends on very particular preferences and information effects within society. Put differently, whether a genuine upheavel breaks out and gathers steam is a highly contingent process. Second, Tunisia is an obvious warning sign to other Arab dictatorships, and they are bound to be especially vigilant in the months ahead, lest some sort of similar revolutionary wave begin to emerge. Third, Tunisia's experience may not look very attractive over the next few weeks or months, especially if the collapse of the government leads to widespread anarchy, violence and economic hardship. If that is the case, then restive populations elsewhere may be less inclined to challenge unpopular leaders, reasoning that "hey, our government sucks, but it's better than no government at all."
All of this is not to say that a cascade is impossible, that events in Tunisia won't exert a long-term effect on political discussion elsewhere, or that it is not a telling sign of democratic aspirations that are likely to bear fruit eventually. But "eventually" could be a rather long time, and if you are expecting to see a rapid transformation of the Arab world in the wake of these events, you're likely to be disappointed.
For more extended reflections on some of these points, see this or this.
EXPLORE:AREA STUDIES, BOOK CLUB, ARAB WORLD, DEMOCRACY, EGYPT, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, WINNERS & LOSERS 
I agree with Walt - anyone who thinks this will spread lives in
- a fairy land - or inside the Washington Beltway - or both.
However Lynch is one of the more sympathetic of these fantasisers - mainly because he is not neoconservative, - I think he instead is one of those Clinton-fantasisers that Mearsheimer talks about in his recent essay.
What is wildly amusing for us informed people in the free world, is to watch these insular Americans - be they Clinton dreamers or neoconservatives - completely fail to understand that it is BECAUSE of American policies, that the Palestinian Authority, Jordan and Egypt is not democratic, simply because that would mean that parties hostile to Israel would be in power.
I know that the "West" has interest in the Suez canal also, but according to my estimate we wouldn't bother to intervene in Egypt's politics if it weren't for the existence of Israel - simply because the costs to the entire world is to great by doing it.
I only have to remind you that the leader of 9/11 - Muhammed Atta - was from Egypt, and his colleague was a Lebanese bloke who had witnessed repeated Israeli invasions as well as an influx of Palestinian refugees and fighters, fleeing their ancestral land, and all of them influenced the dreadful Civil War there. And 16 out of 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, another country that we have no interest in giving democracy, because that would mean that Osama Bin Laden and his henchmen would come to power.
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It is Israel that is the great anomaly in the middle East and the concerns of this artificial state is influencing the lives of the original inhabitants on a daily basis.
Without Israel -- which soon will be a democratic bi-national state dominated by its Palestinian majority (rendering all the US expenses for its upkeep a complete waste) -- the only concerns the "West" would have regarding the Arab World, would be our interest in its oil (because, as I said, I do not think we would bother to intervene in Egypt's politics in order to secure the Suez Canal) - and everything would be a whole lot easier, and a thing like 9/11 and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq wouldn't have happened.
. . . are unprecedented, in that the Internet and social media like Twitter and Facebook has magnified these events and permitted people to speak to the world in totally unprecedented ways.
It will be interesting to see what secret documents the new Tunisian government might release, or some might dump on WikiLeaks. Little conversations between the Tunisian and Egyptian government and, say, Mossad? The mind reels at the possibilities.
So I think Walt's examples are a bit outdated. I wonder how the Roman Empire would have fared if all the scattered tribes of Europe and North Africa, including Egypt -- had been able to coordinate their resistance and attacks on Rome. I might be writing this in a language like Old English, free of Latin words and influence.
I agree strongly with your analysis that the insurgencies we face are enlivened mostly by our own stupid policies. At the end of WWII, we had an opportunity to take the side of and befriend the formerly colonized peoples of the world and this region. Instead, we took up the colonial sceptre, marched off merrily into Vietnam handed the USSR the role of liberator of the oppressed -- and earned the hatred of millions with our support for the alien Israeli thing -- in exactly the same place that the Crusaders planted their flags.
Hard to imagine a more self-defeating policy.
Israel will either fade away via the demographic forces you mention, or will be so wounded in a regional war that many of its remaining best and brightest will leave it a nation of the old and the fanatical.
But hardly an 'artificial state'.
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Indeed, when pundits and talking heads yip repeatedly about the impact of the latest "Arab revolution" (see Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Sudan, etc.) will have on the rest of the Arab world, Israel continues to coast to another freely elected government.
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Indeed, as Jeff Goldberg points out, Israel's democracy is quite healthy, as a court, where three judges, consisting of two women and one Arab Israeli, rendered a guilty verdict on its former president on the charge of rape.
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Meanwhile, Hizballah, that 'guardian of resistence' forced the collapse of Lebanon's government because it cannot bear to face the potential indictment of its members on the charge of murder of the country's former President.
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Personally, I wouldn't hold my breath that Israel is going to become a 'democratic bi-national state dominated by its Palestinian majority. Reality is, the Palestinians have yet to deal with democracy, certainly haven't shown any ability to work well in a multi-ethnic state and that Israelis would be willing to live under such circumstances without a fight, something that the Palestinians don't have the greatest track record of winning.
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Of course, given that Osama bin-Laden's chief beef with the US was that we dared defile sacred Saudi territory, I don't see how Israel's existence or not, would have saved us from either fight with Iraq (1990 or 2003), or our face off with al-Queda given its attacks on Americans from the 1990's onward.
We saw how well that has worked in places like China, Burma, North Korea, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. It’s always the same cry “It’s different now”. They said that too back in 1999 right before the internet stock-market bust. Realize that they have had revolutions before electronics. Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, et.al. didn’t have as much as an i-Pod 0.0 back then, nor did Marx & Lenin, and look what they accomplished.
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It will be interesting to see what ‘secret’ documents the Tunisian government might release. I can see it now:
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‘Tunis Government’: Wow, that shark attack worked real well, you think we could get a few of those boys from the Red Sea to help shift tourism from Libya over here?
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Yes, the mind reels with the possibilities, mostly with how Israel haters will try to take any idea and twist it so that they can either blame the Jews for the problems, or look for a solution that regardless of anything else, will result in getting rid of the Jews. ‘Alien Jews’, what a lovely concept. I keep waiting for someone to make a movie about it. Wonderous blood thirsty ideas of killing Jews in wars, so that only ‘old and fanatical’ Jews will be left. Gotta love the hatred. Of course it fits the ‘self-defeating’ mindset that you lovingly embrace Arvay.
"What is wildly amusing for us informed people in the free world, is to watch these insular Americans - be they Clinton dreamers or neoconservatives - completely fail to understand that it is BECAUSE of American policies, that the Palestinian Authority, Jordan and Egypt is not democratic, simply because that would mean that parties hostile to Israel would be in power."
How about this -- what if after all the ME dictators fall like dominoes the Arab street realizes that it wasn't Israel which was holding up their progress. What if they realize that their fascist rulers were simply using Israel to shield themselves from their peoples' valid anger. The way Israel haters place it at the center of all the world's problems is laughable.
Dearest BELLA and Blue Boy -- Yawn!
Like the reliable sound of the cuckoo clock, comes the predictable and boring charge of "hater" -- a term applied like Crisco to any criticism of the Zionist Israeli state. Plus a little distortion -- I said "alien Israeli thing," not "alien Jews." Some Jews are Zionists but not all. Many Zionists are Jews but not all.
These are called "distinctions" and they are rather important. But I guess anything to get the words "Jew" and "hater" into the same sentence -- screech, screech, screech . . .
BELLA: The way Israel haters place it at the center of all the world's problems is laughable.
Sorry, I am not Mel Gibson. Here's a list of problems, in which I see no Israeli dimension.
The Kashmir dispute
Chinese valuation of its currency
Global warming and weather chaos
The crisis of the Euro
Silvio Berlusconi
Rwanda
Sudan
Haiti earthquake and aftermath
Teenage pregnancy
California's financial crisis
European persecution of the Roma
Outsourcing of American jobs
Male pattern baldness
. . . the list is very, very long, I'll stop here.
And I don't waste energy hating Israel. I don't think it should exist in its present form but rather should be replaced by a single democratic state for both Jews and Arabs. Please notice that in my new state concept, the Jews aren't forced out - - like the whites of South Africa, they stay. The name will have to change, obviously.
I suggest "HolyLandistan." They can make a fortune selling fake relics and tours to gullible people of three major faiths.
Of course for Arvey its never about "The Jews"
Just those alien Israelis. I guess I have to assume Jews because one has yet to hear him complain about all those other alien states in the region, you know, the Arab ones that were created at the same time as Israel.
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And I guess it has to be Jews, because we've seen how well these multi-ethnic states have worked in places like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt (Kurds, Aliwaites, Copts, etc.)
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And of course it has to be Israel because after all, in the Palestinian Authority, where selling land to Jews is a capital crime, is just so welcoming.
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And I cannot imagine why its Jews because after all, in a Stephen Walt article that discusses the issues of Arab life in Arab run states, Arvay just cannot think of anything else in the world that is a more pressing problem than, Jews.
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Silly me. But hey after all, its only alien "Zionists", not Jews that drives Arvay wild. Sorry big guy, but you were already schooled on why Jews are neither aliens or strangers to Israel, and how we had a longing for the land a long time before Balfour, Herzl, and the 1900's.
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But in a world where Egyptian Copts, Iraqi Christians, Iranian Zoastrains, and the Druze have their lives threatened on a daily basis, let me know when you get those intra-Arab ethnic issues sorted out before coming up with that somewhat less than useful idea of 'holylandistan'.
Israel is artificial because the Zionists were able to take back land their ancestors lost after 2,000 years (never happened anywhere else, and never will, even though thousands upon thousands of nations and tribes have lost their land in history), because they had the (well-meaning, clumsy, short-sighted, largely inadvertent, fundamentally downright idiotic) support of the British Empire, and later the Americans.
Just because they longed for land doesn't mean they were entitled to it. They lost their homeland (un)fair and square, like thousands of other tribes and nations. Once a nation/tribe's homeland is lost it is lost. The new occupants acquire legitimate title by right of occupation (which is effectively what Israel itself claims now). That is the way it works for everyone except the Jews, and it is the only way things can work, or there will be endless irredentist wars everywhere. The Jews had no more right to reclaim their former homeland than the English have to reclaim the coastlands of northern Europe on the basis that that is where the Angles and Saxons came from. The only possible moral argument for Jewish re-possession of Palestine in 1900 was that it had been given to the Jews by God, but God doesn't exist.
does not equal a right to that land...
Arvay do I understand you correctly?
So you say:
"And I don't waste energy hating Israel. I don't think it should exist in its present form but rather should be replaced by a single democratic state for both Jews and Arabs."
Well i'm glad you believe that, because today is your lucky day. In fact there exists somewhere in the Middle East a country called Israel (sorry not Holylandia), which is a fully democratic parliamentary system. Yes that is right, each citizen no matter what race, gender, or religion receives one vote. In fact, roughly 10% of the Parlimentary body is Arab while so are members of the Supreme Court.
So since you have what you want, I'm not sure what you're complaining about.
Israel is an apartheid state, built on a "blood and soil" philosophy that's first cousin to the regimes that caused so much death and destruction in2th century Europe.
And much of the Arab population has been exiled -- ethnically cleansed -- resides in Jordan and Lebanon. Israel is like one of those mostly-white American neighborhoods where a few minorities are permitted as window-dressing. It routinely and flagrantly ignores UN resolutions that followed the one that accomplished its own founding, one of which demands that the Palestinians be returned.
It's a "fully democratic state" with checkpoints and movement restrictions for Arabs, and an active, government sponsored and publicly supported movement to get rid of them.
http://www.haaretz.com/misc/search-results
Your faux democratic state is unstable and will collapse either via slow leak -- a processess underway now as people leave and decide not to go there -- or in the next catastrophic war.
Either way, good riddance. As an American, I'm tired of this millstone around my country's neck.
. . . of course, ignoring the vital distinction between Jews and Zionists.
Your disdain for multi-ethnic states gives you away as the racist you are, you and the other Zionists. One land, one people, sounds familiar, ya? All you need is ein Feuhrer, and the set us complete! Is the Russian bouncer running for that post?
I happen to live in a multi-ethnic state, the US, which has problems but is dealing with ethnic tensions quite well. In fact, Israel is a good example of how badly its managed relations between its Jewish ethnic groups. Secular Jews vs. religious, Ashkenazi vs Sephardic, many of the light ones vs. the Falashas.
It gets better.
The Israeli parliament is deeply divided on the issue of who, exactly, is Jewish. Sort of like the Ministry for the Purity of the Race trying to sort out certain people. Can anyone imaging such a proposal being narrowly defeated in the US Congress?
So, apparently, the Jews if Israel can't even get along with themselves. So I guess we can all see why you're so pessimistic about people of various ethnicities getting along.
Like Yogi said, you can't make this stuff up.
Hilarious that you mention Lebanon as an unstable multi-ethnic state, since its ethnic balance has been upset by the refugees Israel drove out of their homes into Lebanon.
Here's a list of multi-ethnic states that function quite well
Brazil
India
US
Canada
Mexico
Argentina
South Africa
Indonesia
Maylasia
Turkey (a bad history being fixed by its forward-looking government)
Peru
Chile
That's quite a swath of the world's population. I'm sure it''s not complete.
And in Rwanda, victims and perpetrators of a gigantic massacre are reconciling. But a master race -- er -- God's chosen people, can't be expected to subject themselves to such indignities.
Your desperate and increasingly screechy attempts to portray anti-Zionism as anti-Jewish is pathetic and falls ever more on deaf ears. This kind of stuff may be useful whipping up paranoia in Israel, but in other places it's a bore.
Repeated mindlessly too many times, Buckaroo.
duhhh.... looks like someone was wrong!! =p (cough..Stephen M. Walt)
If Tunisia succeeds in moving to a more open, pluralist polity
Much depends on how things transpire on the ground in Tunisia. If there is a short, interim coalition government followed by a competitive general election and new democratically elected Parliament and President, then that has the potential to have significant implications for the rest of the Arabic-speaking world.
One thing not to underestimate is the common language from Moroc to southern Iran. One thing you find in Algeria, Egypt or UAE is the remarkable amount of knowledge that the people in the street know, for example, ahead of Lebanese parliamentary elections last year. People really followed the Lebanese elections across the Arabic-speaking world, and similarly, the idea that an a highly autocratic regime in the Arab World can be replaced by a democratic one - should Tunisia succeed in making the transition - will be very influential. It would be a tremendous threshold breached.
Some commentators are saying "The West" won't let democracy succeed in Tunisia. They may be over-estimating the power of France, the UK and the U.S. in 2011. What was true in 1988, or 1954, may not be true today.
The last time this was tried, a generation ago in Algeria in 1988, the French-backed army arborted the democratic impulse with brutal success.To think that Tunisians succeeded would undoubtedly embolden those seeking greater transparency in government right across the Arabic-speaking world and also in Iran.
Persians in 1979 felt they were ahead of the Turks and Arabs with their over-throw of the hated British-imposed Shah. Persians won't like the idea of both Turkey and a few Arab countries (Lebanon, Iraq, Tunisia) actually having a secret ballot electoral system to determine the make up of their governments. If Tunisia succeeds, it will embarass Persians to demand the same.
The likelihood of similar events happening in the region is very high. Let's take Egypt for example:
1. Egypt has a young, educated populace who are restless as a result of not being able to find work even though they're university educated.
2. Food prices will sky rocket within the next two years. Now, here in America that might just mean that our 7-11 Big Gulps are a little smaller, but in a place like Egypt, they very much feel the crunch. This, more than anything else, is the best indicator in my opinion for social upheaval.
3. The Egyptian government is weaker than you might imagine, and there is already a significant, organized opposition movement within the country (Muslim Brotherhood) that would be able to fan the flames of an uprising.
Although each country in the region is different in its own way, they share many similarities. Most importantly, they all will experience drastic increases in the price of basic food commodities and this will have significant effects on society.
I'm going to disagree C.Chocula
Mubarak may be old and decrepit, but that doesn't mean that Egypt's security services are in the same condition. Mubarak may be the face of Egypt's dictatorship, but he's one man among many that control the state.
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Realize that despite his advancing age and infirmity, Mubarak was able to completely own the latest sham of an election in Egypt, and neither the Muslim Brotherhood, or former IAEA head Mohammed el-Baradei, were able to make a dent in the electoral results.
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Same thing for the conditions in Gaza. HAMAS may rant and rail, but the Egyptian government has had no problem keeping the border sealed tight, including opening fire on those Palestinians taking violent issue with the border situation.
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Remember just a year and a half ago, people were waxing poetic about the 'green revolution' taking place in Iran . . . tell us how that one worked out for the revolutionaries as compared to the ruling party.
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It doesn't matter how big the dicatotorship looks
It's all about the food! Jobs are important as well, but it really comes down to the food. Your average person in Egypt isn't some political dissident willing to rebel at a moments notice; they're just regular people going about their daily life. But if you impact the food, everyone notices and everyone cares. Bread and circus remember?
I agree, at the heart of any issue is survival and there's no denying its all about the food, and in Egypt's case among others, about the water as well. But riots, even bad food riots are not always sufficient to overthrow a government.
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Two cases in point to look at.
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First, North Korea, where, despite a multi-year famine that has killed millions of North Koreans, the family in power remains in power, its a question of how bloody Egypt's government is willing to get.
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Second, Iran, while not at the starvation level of North Koreans, Iran's government is pulling back the subsidies used to benefit millions of Iranians, making life significantly more difficult from an economic standpoint. While its still too new to tell, no revolution on the horizon and the Revolutionary Guards have locked things down fast.
THE US CAN'T AFFORD OUR POSTURE NOR OUR PUPPETS MUCH LONGER. The Neo-cons miss this, the generals miss this, all of you have failed thus far to address this. Further, it's not only the US, NATO is vanishing. Russia broke the whole NATO pretense like an over stretched guitar string. NATO has forces major electoral changes in Spain, and one must imagine other EU gov'ts cutting defense commitments, if we don't. That too effectively reduces our posture. NATO can't keep shipping lanes free off the Somali coast even as EU fishermen poach their fisheries and ships purge their brown water.
When US interests and Arab interests are so opposed, the people won't long endure tyranny. This again comes to the question of who are "we?" Does a wider pan Arab notion exist in the minds of these people? We may seek to focus them on smaller questions or states, but if the people feel a solidarity, they are one people. I'm not just discussing Israel, but what of oil contracts, what of fair distribution of resources? We've shown that our system is not perfect, we've sullied democracy and capitalism. Is it odd that venerable models of rule found in their glorious past would appeal to those who feel dispossessed. If our own poor and disenfranchised minorities had some success to hearken to they would be emboldened by that. Some Black Americans have latched on to Islam for it's model of plurality and inclusion of all races and nationalities. That aspect is said to have profoundly changed Mohammad Ali and Malcolm X among others.
Anyway, what we are seeing might well be akin to the end of the Soviet Empire, Roman Empire and British Empire. If that's the case, we may well be primed to see that cascade. I don't disagree with many of the caveats mentioned, but few have drawn the parallel to the end of US empire. Must be really hard to feel that as a high fallutin' Harvard professor.
It really depends on what Tunisia will become in the short term
Ben Ali's government received much support from the US because it was secular and pro-West. The human rights abuses which Ben Ali's secret police committed against were mostly against Islamists, hence you don't hear much about this by the Western media.
For individual Arab nations, whether the people will get energized will depend on the outcome of Tunisia. Economy is one thing, but if Islamists come into power in Tunisia following this revolt then you can bet that the US will do whatever it can to stop these revolutions from further spreading.
...Tunisia's near future will also determine to what extent it can serve as a model for other oppressed Arab states to have mimic revolutions. I certainly can't see a wave of cascading revolutions, but it certainly has to hearten disaffected Iranian, Egyptian, and Jordanian citizens. I don't, however, think the Tunisian example applies nearly as well in other parts of the MENA (Saudi Arabia, the gulf emirates, and conflict-ridden countries like Algeria, Yemen, etc.) due to the more complicated nature of rule in those places.
This was a cataclysmic event in Arab history: the first ever popular revolution against an Arab ruler. And there are already copycat suicides of people setting themselves on fire to re-create the spark of the Tunisian revolution.
Regardless of the outcome of the current revolution, the Arab publics are fed up and are willing to risk stability for the sake of change – any change from their corrupt leaders in Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Syria, Saudi Arabia etc.
Also, what's different about this revolution is that it was live on TV across the Arab world. I'm sure if the French Revolution was broadcast live across Europe, it too would have spread.
You are correct though that the governments in region are now more vigilant and will act quickly against any protests before they spread.
the final paragraph of my article here http://pulsemedia.org/2011/01/17/changing-the-air/ is this:
"Perhaps in six months’ time non-Arab commentators will decide that the Tunisian revolution was a mere anomaly in an eternally stagnant Arab world. But they’ll be wrong. The revolution will exert a long-term pervasiveness throughout Arab culture, as the Iranian revolution did before it. It will change the air the Arabs breathe and the dreams the Arabs dream."
The Iranian Revolution didn't lead to regime change in the Arab world. You could even argue that regime responses to the Iranian Revolution helped to hold off change. But the revolution did set the tone for oppositional activity and thought in the Arab world for the next 30 years. It had an obvious effect on Palestinian and Lebanese resistance to Zionism, and it energised Islamist politics from Morocco to Saudi Arabia and Egypt. I would argue that Islamism held back revolutionary change in some places because it increased sectarianism and thus the popular fear of sectarian chaos in the wake of any revolution. It also meant that the significant minorities in many Arab countries came to fear popular action. The very different Tunisian model will gradually change the discourse in the Arab world (I'm not being so simplistic as to suggest that Islamism is about to collapse, or so boneheaded as to suggest that all Islamism is the same). Once the discourse has developed, much more becomes possible. Another thing: even without revolution, it is likely that Arab regimes will now become somewhat more attuned to public opinion (rather than an imperial sponsor's opinion). This is a good thing, surely.
Stephen Walt may have a point...
Hey, cool it, boys - lets not jump on to conclusions! Barring a few exceptional ones amongst them, these arabs are predominantly barbarians. Look what have they done to the religion of Islam? They've turned their faith into one ugly, brutal and mortifying reality.
One would really want all these arab dictatorships to disappear in thin air, especially the saudis. The writer of this essay is partially correct in his assumption that the Tunisian change will not have a snowball effect. But, who knows, tomorrow, or the day after, with all the technology and the communication tools at their disposal, the people in the sheikdoms will rise and sweep away these despots?
Arabs, for the most part, i.e. the ruling mafia, are basically lazy and lethargic, weak charactered, parochial minded, snobbish, uneducated, inhumane and intolerant folks. These political revolutions, idealism, human rights, governmental systems, etc., are all trash to them.
Arabs have not been able to rise above their tribal mentality. Despite oil and other materialistic riches of the world, they haven't been to 'upgrade' themselves and act appropriately.
The Tunisian effort, mind you, was one disjointed, disunited push, a show of dissent against Ben Ali's almost quarter century of misrule. The Tunisian opposition remained detached and did not come out on the streets to make its presence felt. The change can truly be regarded as a 'people's revolution'.
The million dollar question, however, remains: Can this trend spillover to the other Middle Eastern states? If it does, it's rock'n roll time!! Sadly and more than likely, it will not. The shieks keep their citizenry under strict check; there are too many restrictions and brutal punishments for 'disobeying' the terrorizing laws. Organized opposition in most of the sheikhdoms is unheard of. Freedom of expression is an unknown commodity.
Therefore, my friends, before we start a quarrel on the principles of the issue, lets face the facts and lets realize that modern-day arabs are just hot/ill-tempered, frustrated folks who do not like follow rational trends and ideals; instead they are a bunch of angry nations who do not honor and respect the blessings of life. They would rather commit irrational demeanors to express themselves and settle scores in the most prejudiced manner.
Politically speaking, democracy and arabs are two entirely different concepts. ‘Autocratic’, ‘theocratic’, and ‘tribal’ are some of the words that come to one's mind when thinking about the arab world.
What matters at the end of the day is how much freedom does a state affords to its citizens? Ironically, most of the sheiks that run their respect kingdoms receive their education in the Western world. They go back to their lands and follow the same damning patterns of governance that have been followed in those rough and rugged geographies for centuries together. No one has ever dared to change the 'system'.
Long story short, the arab world may be miles and miles away from a 'process' of 'awakening' and 'enlightenment'. Twitter and Facebook interaction may just be the beginning of a rather long and tedious process whereby the current generation of arabs may start scratching their heads and question the validity of the actions of the regimes that they live under.
I have reason to believe Israel was behind this revolution
So which country gave refuge to hundreds if not thousands of Palestinian Freedom fighters? Tunsinia. So do you think these revolutions just happen out of the blue? It needed a push to get going, and if you google it you can find some rather strong (though not entirely conclusive I must admit) evidence of Israeli involvement. Too bad the U.S. governemnt and Europe are too bought up by these Zionist cartels to acknowldge this is such.
rubbish, Knight. Silvan Shalom and Netanyahu have revealingly complained about the dangers democracy spreading from Tunisia holds for Israel. Ben Ali was a US client, and friendly to Israel. If there were democracy throughout the Arab world, there would be no wall between Egypt and Gaza, no Israeli embassies in Arab capitals, and the writing would be on the wall for the Zionist state.
What do you believe the role of the dictators is? One major role that Steven Walt makes, correctly is that they are there to hem in their people. Tunisia is/was a police state and a small one at that, surrounded by Algeria and Lybia, those are well policed borders, I assure you. So, how does your point hold any water? Wasn't the Shah in France? Aren't we housing quite a few tin pot dictators too? That is a fairly unremarkable issue to raise.
Who learns from revolutions? The people or the rulers?
Perhaps a better way to think about the question of the spread of the Tunisian example is to ask another question - who learns from revolutions?
http://www.junotane.com/analytical-updates/north-korea-risk-in-tunisia-economics.html points out that it is authoritarian rulers that will more likely learn from the Tunisian example.
The lesson they will see is that 10 years of economic reform and more progressive social policies (relative to the region) led to higher expectations. Two years of economic decline and and collapsed expectations led to 29 days of riot and ultimately exile for the President.
The lesson learnt? Better to keep expectations low.
People don't protest when there is no breakfast, lunch and dinner. They only protest when they've eaten breakfast, don't know where lunch will come from, and can remember what dinner tastes like.
Revolutions in History that sparked more revolutions
Protestant Revolution, Martin Luther splits, then we have an explosion of new sects.
The Hatian and French Revolution were inspired by in part and used the ideals of the American revolution.
Revolutions of 1848.
I Don’t Fully Agree With You; Professor Walt.
Agree with the basic premise that the popular uprising in Tunisia is not automatic against the rest of the dictatorships of the Middle East, but I have different perspective on why it is not.
1. While ideologies alone rarely ignite popular uprisings, economic deprivations do. The Tunisian dictator orchestrated devastating blows against the Islamists, Communists, and Organized Labor over 20 years ago with impunity. Only when economic inequality, unemployment and corruption become rampant that massive uprising took place. Even in landmark revolutions, like the Bolshevik Revolution and the French Revolution, economic inequality in both cases was much stronger instigator than ideology.
2. One important prerequisite for any massive uprising in any oppressed society is the homogenous formation of such society. In another word; such society has to have strong and unified national aspiration that is not hampered by religious sects and/or tribalism. Remember the Irish revolt against the British occupation was hampered by the sectarian division of the Irish society. The Iraq Revolution of 1920 against the British succeeded largely because Iraqis, both Sunnis and Shiites, put their sectarian differences aside and worked hand-in-hand to defeat the British occupation. The British learned from their old mistake, and tipped their American allies, when they invaded Iraq in 2003. The first act of the American Governor of Iraq, Paul Bremer, was to segment Iraq along strict sectarian lines. Bremer was able to turn Iraqis against each other and to break any unified front against the American occupation.
While economic inequality, unemployment and corruption are common denominators to most Arab Countries, very few of these countries have homogenous societies like Tunisia. Using such important yardstick, the next candidate countries for massive popular uprising are: Morocco, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania and Algeria. Massive anti government uprisings are very difficult in places like: Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc… for the very reasons I specified above.
AHSON H - BRAVO, Finally someone with clear mind, common sense and facts. I was just about to switch the page after reading half-moronic comments from ARVAY, KENNETH_SORENSEN, OLIVER CHETTLE and similar Israel haters. I am not a Jew lover and not an Arab hater but I do admire Secular Israel. To those blaming Israel for all the crap in the ME and mentioning artificial state given by God - World give them their country back after they paid heavy price thru centuries with blood libel ending with HOLOCAUST. If Arabs would accept peacefully that status then there would be no such animosities to day.
Regarding changes, revolutions here or there, eventually will happen - learn from history.
On forums like this one and many other, scholars and pundits never contemplate influence of a phenomenon called Mother Nature. Disregarding advanced societies for Earth, we are just kind of living organism like cockroach, rat or any other. Those over populated societies will always start boiling, no matter what; this is in the nature of all species. Politics, tyrannies, orchestrating religions, economies, military complexes etc are just handy tools in reinstating natural balance.
However, we are not totally helpless, as only among species we are able to create common sense and unfortunately still unable to control it and probably never will. Only remedy to havoc on Earth is birth control in "over productive" nations. With their spill over, they will always initiate counter reaction from endangered nations and we would remain caught in an eternal loop.
Live sample we had in Europe where ethnic Albanians took over territory of other nation using orchestrated over birth rate. I do predict same sample in other EU countries with significant Muslim immigration. If societies cannot or are not willing to balance these problems, nature will do it, using us just as a tool. How nature is influencing our responsiveness is a matter of psychology and science.
As a wisdom, do not try mixing antagonistic nations in one pot, it will inevitably explode like recently Yugoslavia. Sense able coexistence, controlled birth rate, expropriation of huge financial institutions with national control over greedy corporate vampires and disassemble of main religions centers are some basic instruments in balancing our future.
What Stephen Walt actually meant to say is that the crooks and bandits in the White House, Wall Street, 10 Downing Street and Tel Aviv HOPES & PRAYS this will not spread. What he is not telling you or me is that this is the first time in modern history that a revolution came about that was initiated by the grass roots. ALL others took place only after lots of money was paid to agent provocateurs from the usual suspects (see above list + Rothschild & Co.). The Wailing Wall Street thugs are now playing with the bellies of billions of people. The West which supported Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was taken by totally by surprise. Egypt will be next - then Saudi Arabia and the above bunch of thugs are shaking in their boots.
I agree with the author's point that the Tunisian revolution will be unlikely to have domino's effect in the Middle East. Before his last speech to the Tunisian people, Ben Ali seemed confident that the revolt will be controlled. However, when he was delivering his last speech (he delivered in colloquial Arabic so that every one could understand him), he seemed to be scared. Most likely he was scared because he understood that the army decided not to take his side.
In Egypt, on the 18th and 19th of January 1977 a similar revolt took place against Sadat whose government decided to remove subsidies to fuel and bread. The Egypt army interevened only after there was a promise from Sadat himself that following the intervention the subsidisation will not be removed.
The similarity between the two cases is that the army was the decisive factor to which side it should take: the people or the regime! I am sure right now all the ME leaders are making sure that their army leaders are complacent with their regimes' policies. Needless to say that the indebtness of all the ME states will soar as they will continue to borrow irrationally to fund the food subsidisation.
You last point is too broad. You may be largely correct, but not all ME states are in economic straits. In Algeria there is a surplus, as in the resource rich states. Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria will no doubt suffer, and we certainly have tremendous interest and engagement with those countries, but this may be too broad as well. These states straddle the East and the West, and in case you haven't been paying attention, being ostracized from Western markets isn't the kiss of economic stagnation it once was. What will Turkey do with their wealth and position? They could benefit most from this opportunity. They don't want to invest in the West, hell the West doesn't want to invest in the West. Will China seek more power and interest in these areas? China might well be smart enough to focus on the ample riches in their own back yard.
But, let's think this through just a bit. Could China trump all our endeavors in Afghanistan? What if they were to offer more support to Morocco, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. Their MO is to not be too controversial, but they could gain powerful favor by building improvements there, as they are throughout the region. I believe they understand the rewards of soft power. But, this is happening as the US is economically strained. I don't know if we will be smart and retreat from the region, drastically scaling back our role, as NATO's partners do the same; or if we will be rallied into a last exhaustive mission in Iran, overextending ourselves in our economic Winter. Where's the domestic political resolve to address our tough budgetary challenges? Who has the gravitas to cut the Pentagon without being called a "Chicken" by all the MIC's stooges? Whatever, we're overextended and our boots are in tatters.
What about the other, resource rich states? They are already enjoying China's largess. This gives them the freedom to leverage their assets in a way they couldn't since the Cold War. Further, the Cold War was so much more charged than the China US relationship. We will have to learn to smile as we are snubbed by a richer, more nimble China. But, these states have excess reserves to invest as well. These dollars will be heavily courted, but the smart nations will keep their dollars free of the West, as the growth potential, largely is far less than in their own back yard. Turkey again, has long historic roots in this region, and a non-confrontational policy, with the absolute leverage they enjoy, in a competitive, resource rich world means we won't have the same influence as we did years ago.
If we are smart and focus our energies on improving ourselves, we will benefit from this development. If we retrench, we will regress like Russia and be swindled by our financial vultures who will fly off to other nests.
According to the FAO predictions (see Bloomberg report on the 5th of Jan 2011) the food prices are expected to increase during 2011 and 2012. None of the ME countries, including those with a budget surplus, is self sufficient in food production and the incessantly increasing population of this region invites insult to meet injury.
The budget surplus of the rich ME states is almost meaningless with an incompetent and inefficient bureaucratic system that fails miserably to administer the monies of the surplus and cascade its benefits to the young unemployed Arabs. The most recent incident of the Kuwait emir granting $4 billion and free food to his people stands witness to my point. How sustainable is this solution to maintain the complacency of the people? The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has almost ten times the population of Kuwait; can the same solution be adopted with the Saudis? And for how long?
External indebtness in this case is predestined to increase and while the rich ME countries enjoy a low ratio of external debt to GDP, this ratio could well increase and put pressure on the ruling regimes. It will be inevitable for the hungry unemployed and unsatisfied youth to systematically protest.
Whether the Tunisian coup d’état will succeed to establish a democratic regime in Tunisia or not is not my concern. France’s revolution beheaded a king to make Napoleon an emperor. The France we see now has changed its constitution 5 times only to be classified as a flawed democracy according to the EIU Democracy index. However, the impact and repercussion of the French revolution were very profound on other European states that certainly have more sophisticated democracies than the French and did not need to change their constitution 5 times.
The question that we must ask ourselves is whether the Tunisian Coup d’état will have the same positive repercussions on the neighbouring Arab states as the French revolution had on Europe?
I am Jewish and I have problems with Israeli policy. I think Israeli policy since at least 1967 has been execrable and horribly bad for both Israelis and Palestineans. I don't equate anti-Zionism with anti-semitism even though sometimes it's hard to tell it apart. I even will concede that, in retrospect, the establishment of Israel was a mistake. But many of the anti-Israel comments, especially Oliver Chettle's, are totally ahistorical and reflect no sense of context.
The Zionist movement began at a time when Jews in Europe were not welcome, when pogroms, at least in Eastern Europe were common, and when the idea of self-determination for peoples was becoming widespread. If Jews had been welcome elsewhere, there would have been no Zionist movment. Then, the Holocause gave Zionism even more force. (No, I'm not saying Zionists "used" the Holocaust.) It's easy to look back now, after Jews have been pretty well integrated into the West and say that Zionism was a mistake. At the time, it wasn't clear that Jews had anywhere to go--Jews fleeing from the Nazis certainly weren't welcomed into the United States. No doubt, Zionists played on the guilt of the West; but let's remember that, at the time, most people on the left supported the founding of Israel. Now, granted, creating a state where there were already people may well have been a mistake, and I understand that the issue of Israel cannot easily be separated from the issue of western colonialism. But the original state of Israel was very small and, even assuming that the Zionists wanted the Palestineans to leave, it should not have been an insupperable problem had the Arab states been willing to even consider talking with Israel.
Now, I do believe that The Meditant does not like Jews.
Don't look now - but the revolution is spreading....
At least to Egypt at the moment.
As for historical revolutions spreading -- the 1848 "The Year of Revolutions" is springs to mind....
Beside surely it is not necessary that a revolution actually over throw a regieme to leave a political legacy in both the 'originator' and neihboring states.
Wow: You, as well as other 'realists' like Juan Cole, were dead wrong. This is perhaps the biggest social movement in the Arab world in decades. It would be nice, for the historical record, if you acknowledged how incredibly off your prediction was.
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.
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