If indeed the common denominator of "Arab Spring" is, as Micheal argues, a Muslim Fundamentalist sweep against secular dictators, then how do we explain the secular, urban-based young, educated 'twitting-cell using' participants in these movements? Did these people become involved in order to help establish a theocratic state? Do we have evidence of that, or just theories based on fear on the part of the West and Israel?
Maybe Michael is right that the Arab rebels would end up with Muslim Fundamentalist regimes, and who knows, what course they would take once they are there... Iranian route, trying to play the Chinese and Russian cards? I am sure that the US intelligence services have created various scenarios of what could 'go wrong' with the revolutions that the CIA has helped along in countries like Libya and Syria. Certainly revolutions involve various participants that are difficult to control, and this was true of the Iranian Revolution. I had just started my college-teaching career when that Revolution was unfolding, and I honestly believed that the Tudeh party would have a voice of some sort, and/or that the regime would be some type of Kamlist mixture - really closer to a Turkish model that would have asserted strong nationalism and an integration model with much better terms than those Turkey has been able to secure from its NATO partners in the last sixty years. Of course, I was wrong, because that is not what evolved out of the Iranian revolution in which urban youths took part.
And it may be the case that the evolution of Arab revolutions transitioning into regimes would go the Iranian route of some variation - now that would be a nightmare for the West and Israel. However, I am not prepared to make such a prediction righ at this point. Iran is a special case and I cannot see the Arab countries not surrendering their sovereignty, a part of it at least, namely the economic and strategic, to the West so that they can focus on forging a domestic consensus and relative harmony.
The bottom line is that a strong nation-state is not about to eveolve in any of the Arab countries that has undergone or undergoing revolution, and that means an integration model with the West that compromises national sovereignty. If some one can point out how the people in the countries where revolts have been taking place would be better off in any sense other than psychological for a brief period, I would be grateful because I cannot see it right now amid this global recession and aggressive Western imperialist drive for raw materials and markets. The West will collect its tribute in some form, and the Arab regimes will capitulate because they have very little leverage in the absence of a bloc of nations backing them.
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