There used to be a famous joke about the now embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, according to which, when President Mubarak's car would reach a crossroad, his chauffer would ask him the direction. But Mubarak would first like to know about the roads that his two predecessors--Nasser and Sadat-- used to take. "Nasser left and Sadat right," would be his driver's answer. "Then don't move," Mubarak would order him. This joke perhaps characterizes the present-day turmoil on a somber note. It can also be termed a sardonic comment on the present-day upheavals in the Arab world at large. Mubarak doesn't want to move regardless of the ferocity of protests calling for his ouster in the streets of Cairo in particular.
Writing in The National Interest less than a year ago, Daniel Byman observed, perhaps with a deep sense of despondency and dismay, that "most of the Arab world remains a stranger to the democratic transfer of power. Ironically, back in the 1950s, military leaders began to overthrow monarchs-first in Egypt (which served as a model for others), then in Yemen and Libya. The revolutionaries rejected the royals as hidebound and aloof from the wishes of the people; yet inevitably the system produced a set of leaders who emphasised stability over revolutionary dynamism."
Although, it is yet to be determined whether or not the events of the 1950s were the precursor of the present day popular uprisings in the pre-dominantly Sunni Arab world, there is little doubt about the fact that since the overthrow of the Shah in Iran in 1979, Shia Islam has acquired a formidable reputation for militant opposition to secular government-Hizbullah and Hamas are two chief cases in point, although the latter is purely a Sunni outfit. Factors culminating in these impressions began with the Iranian constitutional revolution of 1906, the precursor of the revolution of 1979.
Almost all leading global and regional TV channels such as-BBC, CNN, Fox News, Democracy Now, Russia TV, Al-Jazeera---and newspapers, periodicals and other media sources such as-Der Spiegel, FT, The Guardian, NYT, WSJ, Daily Telegraph, LA Times, Pravda, Al Ahram and Al Hayat-have been keenly focusing on the Arab unrest for two weeks. Israelis in particular are really nervous about what is happening next door. According to Stephen P Cohen of the Institute of Middle East Peace and Development, the Israelis perhaps wanted to see Mubarak as President until he was 120 because there's little confidence that any successor to Mubarak would keep intact the basic agreement between Egypt and Israel. But former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger advises Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanayahu in another TV talk show hosted by the same anchorperson that he should not indicate Israeli participation or influence over political developments that are taking place in Egypt and that he should continue to show his readiness to make peace with the Arab states that are willing to make peace with Israel.
The US Middle East policy seems to be driven by its deep but flawed appreciation of the region where apart from Turkey and Israel, the two countries in the region where the governments are elected and can be dismissed by the people, most of the countries of the Middle East can be divided into two groups. As 95-year-old Professor Bernard Lewis, a leading Middle East historian, puts it: those with what the West is pleased to call friendly governments, and therefore, increasingly hostile people to hold the West responsible for the oppression and depredations of those governments, and on the other hand, those with bitterly hostile governments, whose people consequently look to the West for help and liberation.
(To be continued tomorrow)