BBC: 2011 could be the Middle East's 1989

[pampango]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/mattfrei/2011/01/as_north_african_protests_the.html

Teargas is wafting through an already polluted Cairo and there is much talk of a domino effect triggered by events in Tunisia.

And when North African leaders get onto their emergency conference call the similarities between their countries cannot have escaped them: Leaders whose stints on the throne are measured in decades not years (Col Gaddafi clocks up four next to Hosni Mubarak's three and a bit); price hikes; rising unemployment; a surplus of young educated men and women with little hope of gainful employment; rampant corruption; and the dead hand of political repression. Add Facebook and al-Jazeera and it's hard to see how all this won't continue to rumble.

Take Egypt for example. Even if today's demonstrations are quashed and the demonstrators are cowed into retreat, who is to say that they won't descend onto the streets again when the 82-year-old Hosni Mubarak seeks another re-election in the autumn.

First, the administration needs to make up its mind whether these developments should be supported or whether they will just open the door to messy, unforseen consequences. Secondly, it is ironic that the spark of freedom was not lit, as once intended, by free elections in Iraq, but by price hikes in a tourist paradise called Tunisia. The best thing the US can do is stay out of the way and watch. It's all up for grabs: 2011 could still become the Middle East's 1989.

2011 probably won't be the Middle East's 1989, but when 1989 started I didn't think it would be Eastern Europe's 1989.

[formercia]

1. I hope it's not their 1979

When Iran went the way of the Ayatollah.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. exactly my thoughts

the fundies are the other half of the opposition being repressed by the authoritarian regimes. As in Iran, they will use the opportunity to make their version of a new regime.

[cutlassmama]

2. Sounds vagulely familiar...

"price hikes; rising unemployment; a surplus of young educated men and women with little hope of gainful employment; rampant corruption; and the dead hand of political repression."

[moondust]

4. "Bush's dream of democracy in the Middle East."

The Bush legacy salvagers may use the unrest in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere to try vindicate the invasion of Iraq. I've heard this meme already.

[kenny blankenship]

5. When do we get ours?

[Dappleganger]

6. Perhaps when we stop meddling in everyone else's democracy.