Per the NYT, things looking pretty awesome in Egypt

[oxcoug]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/wo...?_r=2&src=recg

To summarize:

Young secular side that launched the revolution - no longer in control and pretty much marginalized.

Muslim Brotherhood - out in the lead and now partnering with the army for an awesome leadership combo.

And I like this quote:

“We are all worried,” said Amr Koura, 55, a television producer, reflecting the opinions of the secular minority. “The young people have no control of the revolution anymore. It was evident in the last few weeks when you saw a lot of bearded people taking charge. The youth are gone.”

[San Juan Sun]

Muslim Brotherhood - out in the lead and now partnering with the army for an awesome leadership combo.

The new Pan-Arabic Caliphate is going to be awesome.

I'm going to start studying now to pass the bar in Sharia Law. To all you CUF attorneys and your fancy JDs: suck it, infidels.

[venkman]

Is anyone surprised? Revolution for revolution's sake generally doesn't turn out well. But hey, we got rid of a dictator in Mubarak so we can all give ourselves a big pat on the back. Just like the Shah. Good luck to the Egyptians, I mean it. Hopefully the MB are nice Islamicists.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Hmmm.... Reminds me of a certain song by the Who.

[DU Ute]

Hmmm.... Reminds me of a certain song by the Who.

Squeeze Box?

[RobinFinderson]

It seems a little premature for hand wringing. Also, people are toppling dictators. That is awesome. What a bunch of Debbie Downers.

[Guest]

It seems a little premature for hand wringing. Also, people are toppling dictators. That is awesome. What a bunch of Debbie Downers.

Overthrowing the despot is the easy part; you need more than Twitter to build a new government/country.

[Jarid in Cedar]

Squeeze Box?

The one on Rock Band

[landpoke]

I wonder how long it will be before they demolish the pyramids in the name of cleansing the country of idolatry.

[Viking]

It seems a little premature for hand wringing. Also, people are toppling dictators. That is awesome. What a bunch of Debbie Downers.

Yes, worked well in the Congo

Guine-Bissau

Angola

Mocambique

Zaire

Cabo Verde

etc...

[RobinFinderson]

With free elections there is always the potential that a popular anti-American leader will rise to power. This was also true in Iraq. If the hand-wringers on this board want to show that they are consistent, post links to where you expressed your worry that democracy in Iraq could empower an anti-American government.

[landpoke]

With free elections there is always the potential that a popular anti-American leader will rise to power. This was also true in Iraq. If the hand-wringers on this board want to show that they are consistent, post links to where you expressed your worry that democracy in Iraq could empower an anti-American government.

I doubt I ever posted about it, but that's always been my worry. History from the cold war on has shown time and time again that the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. We don't understand how the people of the middle east (or most anywhere else in the world) think. We just assume everyone else has been blessed with a love of liberal (in the classical sense) democracy when, in fact, they haven't. We forget that what we believe is the product of a thousand years of political evolution. In the end when most of the world stages a revolution its not to establish a free and democratic form of government but rather to get someone from their tribe or religious faction into power.

We need to stop being naïve about this stuff and start living selfishly by the philosophy of realpolitic. Everyone else is.

[CardiacCoug]

With free elections there is always the potential that a popular anti-American leader will rise to power. This was also true in Iraq. If the hand-wringers on this board want to show that they are consistent, post links to where you expressed your worry that democracy in Iraq could empower an anti-American government.

http://www.cougaruteforum.com/showpo...6&postcount=16

This was regarding Egypt, but I promise I rolled my eyes every time Bush talked about founding a democracy in Iraq as part of the justification for the war.

Democracy is overrated.

[oxcoug]

With free elections there is always the potential that a popular anti-American leader will rise to power. This was also true in Iraq. If the hand-wringers on this board want to show that they are consistent, post links to where you expressed your worry that democracy in Iraq could empower an anti-American government.

Egypt v Iraq is really a pointless comparison.

The rationale for invading Iraq wasn't purely to create a Democratic government. It was because Iraq's head of state was both (a) the only leader in recent history who has demonstrated a willingness to use WMD (twice - against his own citizens and against Iran) and (b) the only leader in recent history was crazy and belligerent enough to invade a sovereign neighbor - also twice.

With that background, the uncertainty about his WMD programs - most of his own generals believed that they had them, so let's not act shocked if we got it slightly wrong ourselves - and Hussein's possible intersections with international terrorists (he was openly subsidizing Palestinian suicide bombers, for starters) created a plausible regional/global risk that Bill Clinton had decided needed to be dealt with but didn't have the time to do it while he was in office. The Bush admin inherited Clinton's blueprint, and put the plan into action post 9/11. Oh and pretty much all of this can be found in this 2004 article by Clinton adviser Ken Pollack in the Atlantic http://www.brookings.edu/articles/20...q_pollack.aspx

So to summarize - there was widely believed to be urgent cause for action on Iraq. Democratization was a secondary rationale.

So the comparison w/ Egypt kind of falls on its face. [p.s. that's not even getting to the fact that Iraq was different on several other levels - beginning with the presence of the Kurds, extending to the Shia-Sunni divide, a number of factors at play in Iraq that favored the development of a pluralistic society, at least relative to Egypt).

[Solon]

We just assume everyone else has been blessed with a love of liberal (in the classical sense) democracy when, in fact, they haven't. We forget that what we believe is the product of a thousand years of political evolution.

But that's just the point. The people of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain, etc. are fighting their own battles. The US hasn't engendered these revolutions. On the contrary, the US backed the dictators until very recently. That's what I find most remarkable about these uprisings - in many ways they embody the triumph of the Western Heritage. Regardless of the outcomes and long-term effects, it's an amazing transformation to see.

Whether or not the people of the Maghreb and Middle East are "ready" for democracy is a question as old as Aristotle. Ultimately, though, it's not our question to answer. It's theirs. I'm not naive, but I'm not ready to be so condescending as to assume that Arabs can't handle democracy. I guess time will lend some more historical perspective, but I still think it's a bit early to hit any panic buttons.

And, speaking of realpolitik, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that landpoke was behind all of these upheavals in an attempt to get the price of crude up to $200/barrel.