Mideast asks after Tunisian riots: Where next?

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Fox News:

CAIRO – The stunning collapse of Tunisia's long-ruling president brought cheers from the streets and a flood of messages on Middle East websites Saturday with one overriding question: Could it happen next in Egypt or other iron-fist regimes in the region?

There's little doubt that Tunisia's people-power uprising — a potent mix of economic gripes and demands for political freedoms — will embolden similar calls in a region dominated by authoritarian leaders and ruling monarchs. Protesters in Cairo mocked Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and trade union activists in Jordan chanted: "Tunisia is teaching us a lesson."

But chances appear far less likely of a rapid domino-style political housecleaning such as what occurred in Eastern Europe after the Cold War, experts say.

Many states with deep political rifts, such as Egypt and Iran, maintain vast security forces heavily vested in the status quo and have shown no signs of breaking ranks to join protesters. Other hard-line regimes like Syria come down harshly and swiftly against dissent.

And smaller states with well-organized political opposition, including Kuwait and Bahrain, provide their native citizens with wide-ranging social benefits that few would dare put at risk with a full-scale mutiny.

"We only have to look at Iran to see the challenges for anyone thinking they can bring change just by going to the streets," said Sami Alfaraj, director of the Kuwait Center for Strategic Studies, referring to the massive protests that were eventually crushed after the disputed re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009.

Still, he said it's a mistake to underestimate the power of the upheaval in Tunisia.

"This gets planted in minds that it is possible. They believe it can happen in their country," Alfaraj said. "Leaders cannot just dismiss that."
________

It definitely depends on what kind of government and society there is. Iran, for example, has a large, increasingly cosmopolitan and connected younger population. Other countries, like Yemen, look like a house of cards that would become hotbeds of terrorism if their governments fell. The Middle East is not Europe-for one thing, Europe actually advanced beyond the Middle Ages.

[AceRimmer]

I'd check the Vegas odds, but going on the unsteadiness, I'd bet Iraq, because Iran is going to want them to collapse before they do, which is going to happen soon.

[Sanguine]

Sorta scary. Not "if", but "where"?

[Valin]

WestVirginiaRebel

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv5g2YXtJS4

[Valin]

CNN: North Africa sees its own intifada

John P. Entelis

11/16/11

 

(Snip)

From Morocco to Egypt, North Africa has recently been rocked by a series of violent disturbances that have left scores dead, government leaders shaken and outside observers puzzled by the scope, timing and intensity of upheavals in a region normally viewed as stable, moderate and pro-Western.

 

(Snip)

 

In Morocco, army and police units have been involved in deadly clashes with Sahrawi nationalists in the Western Sahara that Morocco has occupied and annexed since 1975.

 

In neighboring Algeria, large towns and cities have experienced a wave of demonstrations, strikes and riots that have led to police intervention to quell the rioting among a population angry about the sudden rise in the prices of basic foodstuffs. This is in a country flush with incredible hydrocarbon-generated wealth.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

And now a different view.....

FP: Why the Tunisian revolution won't spread

Stephen M. Walt

1/16/11

 

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.

 

(Snip)

 

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.

 

(Snip)