The Mideast

Update

March 18, 2011: When I wrote the original note below, I implied that despots and dictators in the Mideast learned a lot when they saw what happened to Mubarak in Egypt and how Libyan strongman Kadafi handled a similar situation. Now, others are reporting the same thing.

Kadafi has ruled this country for four decades using tools also at the disposal of other Arab leaders. He shrouded his dirty deeds in nationalist ideology. He tactically doled out the country's oil money. He kept tabs on his enemies here and abroad.

But in the end, it was Kadafi's willingness to use brute force and the tools of his police state that has helped him so far avoid the fate of neighboring autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt who were swallowed up by popular revolutions.

Regimes in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Syria appear to have taken note, confronting their uprisings with a hard wall of state-sponsored violence.

If the people rise up against Saudi royalty, I wonder if President Obama will side with the rebels? If not, it's interesting how he picks which countries should become democratic. Apparently those with minimal / no oil such as Libya and Egypt get freedom. Those with oil, won't. 

Original Post

I can't comment on the situation in Tunisia, except to say it is a constitutional republic.

No one has any idea how "this" will end in the Mideast, but there are already lessons to be learned, and observations.

It is interesting to note that the countries with the most Western-oriented (with one exception: Morocco), liberal thinking, well-educated were the first to be engulfed in conflict.

Tunisia first, and as I've said, I don't know it well enough to comment further except to say that is is a constitutional republic.

Then, Egypt, perhaps the longest ally of the west, working closely with the west to hammer out peace treaties with Israel, was the second. It's young people may be the best educated among the Mideast countries, and they are probably the most traveled, particularly to London. Their government, outside of Israel, of course, was the most progressive among the countries with Sunni- or Shia-dominated populations.

Then Libya. Of course, there is a madman in control, but his 38-year-old son was well-educated and well-traveled. The expectation was that he would succeed his father with plans to bring Libya closer to the western world.

The westernised 38-year-old, who studied at the London School of Economics and enjoys close friendships with senior British politicians and financiers, has become the focal point of the conflict now threatening to rip Libya apart.
Whereas Gaddafi senior has always been seen in the west as a dictator – albeit one brought back into the fold – Saif, a trained architect who established a medical charity and was considered his father's heir apparent, held out the promise of a new dawn.
As far back as 2002, Saif told an interviewer that Libya needed democracy. "It's policy number one for us. First thing democracy, second thing democracy, third thing democracy," Saif said, using a rhetorical technique he was to repeat last week to far more sinister effect.

Another link here regarding the son's ties to London.

Bahrain was next; and that appears to be settled. Sort of. For now.

Saudi Arabia and Iran have both stomped on initial efforts of protesters.

Obviously, Iraq is a special case, but had Saddam still been in charge, I doubt there would have been any long-lasting or successful uprising.

My hunch: the leaders (despots as some would call them) in the more hard-line countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran are learning a lesson: they need to improve things for their folks but democracy is not something they are going to be interested in any time soon, now that they have seen where it leads.