Revolution in the Arab World - Observation of a lost soul Blog

foreign policy • revolution in the arab world
by Arabs, not least because they saw democracy being delivered at gunpoint
in Iraq, rather than being grown from within. Arab regimes took advantage
of the outrage over the war, as well as the growing threat of terrorism,
to clamp down further on their restive populations. The Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, long the burning issue in Arab politics, raged quietly, with no solution
in sight. And when Islamist parties dominated elections in Egypt and
the Palestinian territories, the United States suddenly lost its brief ardor for
Arab democracy.
Now, after years of stagnation, the long-dormant Arab street has finally
awakened. It took just under a month for protesters to dislodge Tunisian
President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, and only 18 days for Egyptian demonstrators
to drive their leader of three decades, Hosni Mubarak, from power.
Both men were once thought to be pillars of the American-backed “stability”
in the region, bulwarks against terrorism and chaos. It took unheralded,
underestimated youth movements to show just how brittle their rule
really was.
In Egypt, the revolutionaries who occupied Tahrir Square for three
weeks have gone home, and key political leaders—such as the liberal politician
Ayman Nour—say their main demands are being met. Mubarak, his
rigged parliament, and his anti-democratic constitution are gone, and the
country is in the early days of a momentous transition, still under military
rule yet experimenting with newfound freedoms as ordinary Egyptians begin
discussing politics openly for the first time. The military, for the most
part welcomed by the demonstrators as the least tainted of Egypt’s pre-crisis
institutions, has promised to hand over power to an elected, civilian government
in six months’ time.
Yet the fall of Mubarak represents only the partial collapse of his regime.
Many top figures have left the hated National Democratic Party, which saw
its headquarters burned during the protests on Jan. 28, but its vast electoral
machine still exists. Hundreds of mini-Mubaraks—heavy-handed provincial
governors and corrupt local officials—control the provinces. The Interior
Ministry, though much diminished, still operates, as does Mubarak’s
feared state security apparatus. His final cabinet, led by a former Air Force
officer with close ties to Mubarak, has not been replaced, and it’s not clear
what role Vice President Omar Suleiman will play going forward.
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