This is in contrast to the West's expectations of the Arab Spring, based on the narrative that the revolutions had broad public support and were as a result unstoppable.
In fact, as the tumult continues, it is becoming clearer that there are actually multiple power blocks, some in the regimes and some on the streets, that are vying for the the levers of power. Regardless of which groups prevail in the various countries, a thugocracy -- that is the same old, same old -- is more likely to emerge than a liberal democracy as the West first hoped.
He ends by discussing, because of the fluidity of the situation, the difficulty external governments have in correctly judging the eventual geopolitical consequences of the Arab Spring.Of course, judging the outcome wrong could have severe repercussions, so the chaos spread from Tunisia to the Gulf States is a nightmare for diplomats from Washington to Tehran.
Since the article was about rebellion I naturally turned towards rebellion for inspiration in choosing its Hot Stratfor Babe. In particular, I turned towards the rebellion of 1950s juvenile delinquents which led to the 1956 movie Teenage Bad Girl (a.k.a. My Teenage Daughter). Sylvia Syms played the teenage titular hooligan of the film and so she gets the honor.
In the film Ms Syms plays good girl Janet who gets hooked up with a bad boy. Pretty soon she's boozing it up in dives and jive dancing (apparently to the same song over and over again). And you know where jive dancing will lead you -- straight to murder!
The reviews I've read pan the movie, which was Sylvia Sym's first at the age of 22. Apparently it didn't hurt her career, because 55 years later she is still active in TV and movies. She's worked steadily and as a result her filmography is amazingly long (and includes the wonderfully named Expresso Bongo, a film I would love to see).
As a bonus, at the end of the article, I've embedded a trailer to another of her films:The World Ten Times Over. In it she played a high class tramp of some sort and it looks like it would be a hoot.
RE-EXAMINING THE ARAB SPRING
By George Friedman, August 16, 2011
On Dec. 17, 2010, Mohammed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor, set himself on fire in a show of public protest. The self-immolation triggered unrest in Tunisia and ultimately the resignation of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. This was followed by unrest in a number of Arab countries that the global press dubbed the "Arab Spring." The standard analysis of the situation was that oppressive regimes had been sitting on a volcano of liberal democratic discontent. The belief was that the Arab Spring was a political uprising by masses demanding liberal democratic reform and that this uprising, supported by Western democracies, would generate sweeping political change across the Arab world.
It is now more than six months since the beginning of the Arab Spring, and it is important to take stock of what has happened and what has not happened. The reasons for the widespread unrest go beyond the Arab world, although, obviously, the dynamics within that world are important in and of themselves. However, the belief in an Arab Spring helped shape European and American policies in the region and the world. If the assumptions of this past January and February prove insufficient or even wrong, then there will be regional and global consequences.
It is important to begin with the fact that, to this point, no regime has fallen in the Arab world. Individuals such as Tunisia's Ben Ali and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak have been replaced, but the regimes themselves, which represent the manner of governing, have not changed. Some regimes have come under massive attack but have not fallen, as in Libya, Syria and Yemen. And in many countries, such as Jordan, the unrest never amounted to a real threat to the regime. The kind of rapid and complete collapse that we saw in Eastern Europe in 1989 with the fall of communism has not happened in the Arab world. 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. The myth that beneath every Libyan is a French republican yearning to breathe free is dubious in the extreme.
Consider the case of Mubarak, who was forced from office and put on trial, although the regime -- a mode of governing in which the military remains the main arbiter of the state -- remains intact. Egypt is now governed by a committee of military commanders, all of whom had been part of Mubarak's regime. Elections are coming, but the opposition is deeply divided between Islamists and secularists, and personalities and ideological divisions in turn divide these factions. The probability of a powerful democratic president emerging who controls the sprawling ministries in Cairo and the country's security and military apparatus is slim, and the Egyptian military junta is already acting to suppress elements that are too radical and too unpredictable.
The important question is why these regimes have been able to survive. In a genuine revolution, the regime loses power. The anti-communist forces overwhelmed the Polish Communist government in 1989 regardless of the divisions within the opposition. The sitting regimes were not in a position to determine their own futures, let alone the futures of their countries. There was a transition, but they were not in control of it. Similarly, in 1979, when the Shah of Iran was overthrown, his military and security people were not the ones managing the transition after the shah left the country. They were the ones on trial. There was unrest in Egypt in January and February 2011, but the idea that it amounted to a revolution flew in the face of the reality of Egypt and of what revolutions actually look like.
Shaping the Western Narrative
There were three principles shaping the Western narrative on the Arab Spring. The first was that these regimes were overwhelmingly unpopular. The second was that the opposition represented the overwhelming will of the people. The third was that once the unrest began it was unstoppable. Add to all that the notion that social media facilitated the organization of the revolution and the belief that the region was in the midst of a radical transformation can be easily understood.
It was in Libya that these propositions created the most serious problems. Tunisia and Egypt were not subject to very much outside influence. Libya became the focus of a significant Western intervention. Moammar Gadhafi had ruled Libya for nearly 42 years. He could not have ruled for that long without substantial support. That didn't mean he had majority support (or that he didn't). It simply meant that the survival of his regime did not interest only a handful of people, but that a large network of Libyans benefitted from Gadhafi's rule and stood to lose a great deal if he fell. They were prepared to fight for his regime. [continued after the jump]
