When the Arab awakening swept through the Middle East last year, with
waves of democratic protesters swallowing tyrants in Tunisia, Egypt,
and Libya, no one could confidently predict what kind of political order
would emerge from the ruins. Certainly the stability of the old order
of autocracies was shattered, hopefully along with their characteristic
corruption and stagnation. In the long term, there is still reason to
hope for a democratic transformation similar to the one that eventually
emerged in Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War.
The danger that most concerned many U.S. policy analysts at the time, however, was a repeat of the Iranian revolution of 1979, which was hijacked by Islamic theocrats. The anti-American protests that targeted U.S. embassies throughout the Middle East last week suggest that at least in the near term, the greater peril may come from the model of Lebanon: a weak democracy with inadequate institutions and security forces that are unable or unwilling to confront the Islamic extremists in their midst. In the case of Lebanese Hezbollah, the extremists exploited that weakness to form a shadow state that has become too powerful to uproot.
Of course, the common thread that runs through the anti-American protests in Egypt, Libya, and Yemen is an anti-Islamic film made in California that went viral on the Internet. Events of the Arab Spring have also driven home the point that each of these countries is distinct, with different cultures and ethnic tapestries.
Read more: http://nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/post-arab-spring-states-magnets-for-extremism-20120917
The danger that most concerned many U.S. policy analysts at the time, however, was a repeat of the Iranian revolution of 1979, which was hijacked by Islamic theocrats. The anti-American protests that targeted U.S. embassies throughout the Middle East last week suggest that at least in the near term, the greater peril may come from the model of Lebanon: a weak democracy with inadequate institutions and security forces that are unable or unwilling to confront the Islamic extremists in their midst. In the case of Lebanese Hezbollah, the extremists exploited that weakness to form a shadow state that has become too powerful to uproot.
Of course, the common thread that runs through the anti-American protests in Egypt, Libya, and Yemen is an anti-Islamic film made in California that went viral on the Internet. Events of the Arab Spring have also driven home the point that each of these countries is distinct, with different cultures and ethnic tapestries.
Read more: http://nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/post-arab-spring-states-magnets-for-extremism-20120917
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