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Friedman on the “Arab Spring”

George Friedman observes that political change in Arab states this year has been much less than advertised: It is important to begin with the fact that, to this point, no regime has fallen in the Arab world. The old regimes are still largely intact in Tunisia and Egypt. Authoritarian rulers and their families have been […]

George Friedman observes that political change in Arab states this year has been much less than advertised:

It is important to begin with the fact that, to this point, no regime has fallen in the Arab world.

The old regimes are still largely intact in Tunisia and Egypt. Authoritarian rulers and their families have been deposed in more or less “soft” coups. In Tunisia, the army is not as strong and does not directly rule the country, so Tunisia may gradually move to a more open and competitive political system. In Egypt, the military regime has been consolidating its power, and Mubarak’s fall was mostly a means of placating the protesters to keep the regime intact. Turning to the countries where they are under the most severe strain, Friedman offers some words of caution:

More important, what regime changes that might come of the civil wars in Libya and Syria are not going to be clearly victorious, those that are victorious are not going to be clearly democratic and those that are democratic are obviously not going to be liberal.

He also notes the Western habit of exaggerating the amount of popular support that anti-regime forces have and repeatedly underestimating how much support the regime retains. This miscalculation is one reason why the Libyan war has dragged on as long as it has. The good news is that Westerners seem reluctant to in repeat their Libyan mistake in Syria:

First, following the Libyan intervention, everyone became more wary of assuming the weakness of Arab regimes, and no one wants a showdown on the ground with a desperate Syrian military. Second, observers have become cautious in asserting that widespread unrest constitutes a popular revolution or that the revolutionaries necessarily want to create a liberal democracy.

Western observers need to re-check their assumptions and recognize that the “Arab Spring” has not been quite what many have wanted it to be:

As we saw in the Arab Spring, oppressive regimes are not always faced with massed risings, and unrest does not necessarily mean mass support.

Finally, it is not enough to have good intentions and sympathy for protesters:

The pursuit of human rights requires ruthless clarity as to whom you are supporting and what their chances are.

Needless to say, the U.S. and our allies didn’t have much clarity at all on this when the Libyan intervention started, and it seems that there is even less in the Syrian case.

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