THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 60, March 1, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
MY OPTIMISM ABOUT THE NEW ARAB REVOLT
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
A NEW ERA IN THE ISLAMIC MIDDLE EAST? DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ARAB REVOLTS CURRENTLY OCCURING IN THE
MIDDLE EAST & THE ISLAMIST REVOLTS THAT OCCURRED DURING THE LAST CENTURY -- PERCEPTIONS OF A NEW
REVOLUTIONARY ERA IN WHICH INFANTILIZED ARABIC-SPEAKERS MATURE INTO ADULTS -- THE SENSE THAT THE PAST
CENTURY'S ISLAMIST EXTREMISM HAS RUN ITS COURSE, THAT POPULATIONS SEEK SOMETHING MORE MUNDANE &
CONSUMABLE THAN RHETORIC, REJECTIONISM, & BACKWARDNESS
FULL STORY:
Unprecedented convulsions across the Middle East, from Morocco to Iran, prompt three reflections:
First, these rebellions fit into the context of a regional chessboard, what I call the Middle East cold war. On one side
stands the "resistance" bloc led by Iran and including Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and Qatar; it seeks to shake up the
existing order with a new one, more piously Islamic and hostile to the West. On the other side, stands the status quo
bloc led by Saudi Arabia and including most of the rest of the region (implicitly including Israel); it prefers things to
stay more or less as they are.
The former (but not Syria) have an agenda, the latter (except Israel) want primarily to enjoy the fruits of power. (Caged
tigers, anyone? Or a private concert by Mariah Carey?) The former enjoy the appeal of offering a vision, the latter can
deploy guns, lots of them.
Second, while developments in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, and Bahrain have great significance, there are only two
regional geo-strategic giants – Iran and Saudi Arabia – and both are potentially vulnerable. Discontent with the Islamic
Republic of Iran became manifest in June, 2009, when a rigged election brought massive crowds onto the streets.
Although the authorities managed to suppress the "Green Movement," they could not stifle it and it remains
underground. Despite Tehran's strenuous efforts to lay claim to the revolts across the region, portraying them as
inspired by the Iranian revolution of 1978-1979 and its own brand of Islamism, these revolts more likely will inspire
Iranians to renew their own assault on the Khomeinist order.
Were such a counter-revolution to succeed, the implications would go far beyond Iran, affecting the Non-Proliferation
Treaty regime, Israeli security, Iraq's future, the global energy market, and – perhaps most critical of all – the Islamist
movement itself. Bereft of the most important "resistance" government, the Islamist movement worldwide would likely
begin to decline.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is no ordinary state. Its power lies in a unique combination of Wahhabi doctrine, control
over Mecca and Medina, and oil and gas reserves. In addition, its leaders boast an exceptional record of
outside-the-box policies. Still, geographical, ideological, and personnel differences among Saudis could cause its fall;
the key would then be to whom. Shi'ites who resent their second-class status and would presumably move the country
towards Iran? Purist Wahhabis, who scorn the monarchical adaptations to modernity and would replicate the Taliban
order in Afghanistan? Or both in the case of a split? Or perhaps liberals, hitherto a negligible force, who find their voice
and lead an overthrow of the antiquated, corrupt, extremist Saudi order?
This latter thought leads to my third and most unexpected observation: The revolts over the past two months have been
largely constructive, patriotic, and open in spirit. Political extremism of any sort, Leftist or Islamist, has been largely
absent from the streets. Conspiracy theories have been the refuge of decayed rulers, not exuberant crowds. The United
States, Great Britain, and Israel have been conspicuously absent from the sloganeering. (Libyan strongman Mu'ammar
al-Qaddafi blamed unrest in his country on Al-Qa'ida spreading hallucinogenic drugs.)
One has the sense that the past century's extremism – tied to such figures at Amin al-Husseini, Gamal Abdel Nasser,
Ruhollah Khomeini, Yasir Arafat, and Saddam Hussein – has run its course, that populations seek something more
mundane and consumable than rhetoric, rejectionism, and backwardness.
Pessimism serves as a career enhancer in Middle East Studies and I am known for doom-and-gloom. But, with due
hesitation, I see changes that could augur a new era, one in which infantilized Arabic-speakers mature into adults. One
rubs one's eyes at this transformation, awaiting its reversal. So far, however, it has held.
Perhaps the most genial symbol of this maturation is the pattern of street demonstrators cleaning up after themselves. No
longer are they wards of the state, dependent on it for services; all of a sudden, they are citizens with a sense of civic
responsibility.
While cautious about premising foreign policies on this abrupt improvement, it would also be a mistake to reject it. The
rebel movements need an opportunity to find themselves and to act as adults. Time has come to discard the soft bigotry
of low expectations; speaking Arabic or Persian does not make one incapable of building democratic means to attain free
ends.
© Daniel Pipes 2010
Originally Published in National Review Online, March 1, 2011
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List, March 1, 2011
URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/9534/arab-revolt
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is Founder and Director of the Middle East Forum,
Publisher of Middle East Quarterly,
Founder of Campus Watch, Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, a
signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a former
adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the U.S. Committee for a Free
Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and Technology, and a
former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the University of
Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for National Review Online, Front Page
Magazine, the New York Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and
developments in the Middle East have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington
Post, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network
television, as well as at universities and think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the
U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately
twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
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