THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 211, August 27, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
.................................................
MIDDLE EASTERN UPHEAVALS ENTER ROUND TWO
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
WITH MUAMMAR QADDAFI VOWING A WIN OR MARTYRDOM & BASHAR ASSAD BEING URGED BY THE WEST TO STEP
DOWN, WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE ARAB SPRING THIS SUMMER? HAS IT BEEN A SUMMER OF PROGRESS TOWARD
FREEDOM & CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY IN THE ISLAMIC MIDDLE EAST, OR IS IT A MEDIA DELUSION? WHERE STANDS
THE ARAB SPRING AS WE PREPARE TO MARK THE TENTH ANNIVERSITY OF THE SEPTEMBER 11 ISLAMIST TERROR ATTACKS
ON THE U.S.A.?
FULL STORY:
The following replies to a question posed by National Review Online:
"With Qaddafi vowing a win or martyrdom and Assad being
urged to step down by the West, what has happened to the
Arab Spring this Summer? Has it been a summer of progress
. . . democracy . . . Western-media delusion? Where stands
the Arab Spring as we prepare to mark the tenth anniversary
of the 9/11 attacks? We asked a group of Middle East experts."
For the answers by the other twelve authors, see "Long, Hot Arab Summer: The Arab Spring, circa the end of August."
Round One of the Middle Eastern upheavals consisted of uncannily parallel coups d'état in Tunisia and Egypt. In both,
street demonstrations prompted the security/military establishment to rid itself of a rapacious, unpopular president.
Events moved so quickly because, faced with rejection by their own institutional power bases, Presidents Ben Ali and
Hosni Mubarak had little choice but to resign. They were rapidly replaced by another security/military leader who kept
most of the governing institutions, practices, and policies in place. Neither Liberals nor Islamists made much of a
difference over the subsequent half year.
Round Two consists of the near-certain overthrow of the Qaddafi regime in Libya and the likely overthrow of the Assad
dynasty in Syria, as well as the Saleh regime in Yemen. In all three cases, revolution is underway. Should these leaders
fall, so do the institutions of their rule, leading to chaos and the eventual founding of an entirely new government. In the
Syrian and Yemeni cases, there could well be no effective central government but the devolution of power to regions,
ethnicities, ideological groups, or tribes.
In other words, the Second Round is more consequential than the first. Further, the five aforementioned states may not be
the only ones in play. Algeria and Jordan could undergo similar processes of upheaval and revolution. Plus, picking up
from the repressed riots of 2009, some small spark could set off a conflagration in Iran, the Middle East's most disruptive
state.
Round Three could even follow, consisting of regional breakups. Prime candidates here include Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and
Turkey.
In brief, we could be just at the start of a wild ride in the world's most volatile region.
© Daniel Pipes 2011
Originally Published in National Review Online, August 25, 2011
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List, August 27, 2011
URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2011/08/middle-eastern-upheavals-enter-round-two
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
North Africa -- The Arab States of Islamic North Africa
Tunisia, Islamic North Africa, & the Arab World
Egypt, Arabs, & the Middle East
The Middle East & the Problem of Syria
The Middle East & the Problem of Iran
The Middle East & the Problem of Iraq
Page Two
Page One
Turkey, the Middle East, & the U.S.A.
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 President 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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