Egypt’s Present Path
With turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa continuing to spread in the wake of the departure of Egypt’s longtime dictator and U.S. stooge Hosni Mubarak, it is difficult to predict the short-term, let alone the long-term, future for that profoundly troubled region. Inspired by the relative ease and nonviolence with which determined resistance managed to unseat long-entrenched dictatorships, first in Tunisia and then in Egypt, people elsewhere in the Arab world are finding the struggle for self-emancipation much tougher slogging.
At the time of this writing, Libya’s thuggish autocrat, Moammar Ghadafi — once characterized by President Ronald Reagan as a “barbarian” and a “flake” — is presiding over the wholesale slaughter of his own citizenry, apparently determined to make a desolation of that unhappy nation rather than relinquish power. Government goons in Yemen and Bahrain have been killing unarmed protesters as well, showing the true face of America’s allies in the Middle East. Whatever the outcome of those bloody struggles, Egypt, at least, appears irrevocably on a new path, one that leads away from decades of secret police, economic stagnation, and martial law. But it is by no means certain that Egypt will become a shimmering oasis of liberty, limited government, and economic prosperity; such an outcome — like many oases that beckon to thirsty travelers in the Sahara — is likely to prove a desert mirage.
The Mirage
First, the illusion: Following the surprise ouster of Tunisian autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Egyptians rose up en masse and demanded that their longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak, in charge of Egypt since the assassination of his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, in 1981, resign. After several days of peaceful demonstrations, Mubarak unleashed his thugs to attempt to browbeat the insurrectionists into giving up. Instead, after several more days of heroic resistance, Mubarak bowed to the demands of the people of Egypt and stepped down. An interim government under Egypt’s military is now guiding Egypt toward Western-style political reforms and elections, as democratic fervor flowers across the jewel of the Nile. That, at least, is the official media narrative.
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