Let the wolves fear the bunnies.
We've walked a short way down this path before, when we had the so-called Cedar Revolution in Lebanon a few years back. That went mostly nowhere. We also had the Green Revolution in Iran, which also went mostly nowhere.
As some noted during the Cedar Revolution, this is a logical outgrowth of the Bush Doctrine. Unfortunately, as we've seen in the Palestinian Authority and Lebanon, democracy in the Middle East often leads to Islamism. Which is exactly what the Bush Doctrine was supposed to defeat. Oops. What made Tunisia interesting is the absence of a sizable Islamist presence among the protestors. Egypt, however, has a sizable and angry Islamist community. Ayman Al Zawahiri - the co-leader of Al Qaeda - is Egyptian, and Egyptians made up a sizable part of the command structure of Al Qaeda.
This is a real test for American foreign policy. On the one hand, until the people of Middle East have some form of representative government, the region will remain a simmering cauldron of anger, despair and violence.
On the other hand, without real democratic institutions - most especially a solid foundation of the rule of law - we could see important Middle Eastern countries slip into an anti-Western Islamist stance.
It's a classic example of "be careful what you wish for".
Mubarak's days are necessarily numbered. The guy won't live forever, and dictatorships like his are unlikely to transfer easily to heirs. In a perfect world, we could see some important liberal reforms come out of this unrest, a sort of guided illiberal democracy, like Tunisia has had for the past decade.
Then, when the regime does fall, there might be some important institutions to hold the crazier elements at bay.
Too bad we don't live in a perfect world.
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