The U.S. withdrawal from Iraq has no clear-cut signs of “victory.”  The administration of President Barack Obama tried to negotiate a status of forces agreement (SOFA) with the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.  When that did not work out to the satisfaction of Washington, the United States – contrary to its strong proclivity for having a long-term stay in Iraq – withdrew its forces.

The U.S. withdrawal from Iraq was an ideal development, from the vantage point of Iran’s strategic interests.  Iran’s adversary, the United States, spent billions of dollars and shed the blood of thousands of its own troops and that of the Iraqis to transform Iraq from a staunch adversary of Iran to its strong friend.  In fact, in Prime Minister al-Maliki, Iran has a powerful ally.  One of Iraq’s chief adversaries in the area, Saudi Arabia, has been a strong supporter of al-Maliki’s nemesis, Iyad Allawi, the head of the al-Iraqiya party, a secularist, and a person preferred by the Sunni Iraqis.  Thus, Iran, by ensuring the prolonged existence of the government of al-Maliki, is definitely enjoying the upper-hand in keeping the Saudis at bay.  The unstated aspect of that development is that Iraq has emerged as an arena for the power struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and by proxy, the United States, which is very much in the corner of Saudi Arabia in undermining Iran’s growing power and influence, not only inside Iraq, but also in the Middle East.

This gathering storm is unique, in the sense that when the Persian Gulf states sided with the United States in 1991 to end Saddam’s occupation of Kuwait, they were not interested in destroying his regime.  In the case of Iran, there do not seem to be any red lines in the sand drawn by the Arab states that the United States should not cross in taking military action against Iran.

But the preceding is a minor subtext of the growing animosity between the United States and Iran.  The chief subtext is Iran’s continued nuclear research program, which the U.S. categorically depicts as aimed at developing nuclear weapons.  Iran’s denial to the contrary has few takers in the West.  Thus, while the United States is assiduously weaving complex webs of economic sanctions against Iran, Israel prefers military action against it – either of its own or that of the United States – to put an end to Iran’s nuclear research.

Viewing the issue from Israel’s point of view, if Iran indeed develops nuclear weapons, the Jewish state would lose its nuclear veto against any ambitious states in the Middle East – a veto that was strategically developed by the founding fathers of that country.  Even though a nuclear armed Iran would be no match against Israel’s military power, the mere fact that such a development is about to happen is alarming to the leaders in Jerusalem, and they have kept their pressure on the Obama administration for action against Iran.

Considering the fact that the Islamic regime of Iran has been under threat by the United States for the sake of regime survival, the Ayatollahs may be considering having nuclear weapons in the future.  Even though it has been serious about creating the circumstances for regime change in Iran, the United States – even though it denies it – does not think that Iran’s predilections for acquiring nuclear weapons has a legitimate or a rational basis.  Therein lies the rub: what Iran considers as a necessary requirement for regime survival, the United States regards as a threat to regional stability “justifying” waging another war.  Listening to the Republican presidential candidates casually talking about taking military action against Iran, and even the Obama officials’ frequent references to the phrase that George W. Bush and his officials used to iterate – that all options regarding Iran are on the table – it appears that the American political leadership is suffering from a collective sense of amnesia regarding the instability and destruction that resulted from the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In the rising cacophony of claims related to ‘threats’ regarding Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons, the Arab regimes’ siding with the United States, in reality, has an entirely different real reason.  Those states have long considered Iran as a threat to their own aspirations involving the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) capacity to manage regional stability.  For instance, GCC propaganda is trying to persuade the international community that political protests in Shia-dominated Bahrain are sponsored by Iran instead of being a manifestation of the Bahrainis to transform the shape of the tyranny of the Sunni regime.  Saudi Arabia – the dominant state of the GCC – has long regarded Iran as a threat to its own aspirations to dominate the larger Middle East.

Iran has deftly outmaneuvered the Sunni Arab states, but, most importantly, has outsmarted the United States in Iraq and in the Levant by creating a nexus with Syria.  That nexus, in turn, has dominated the distribution of power inside Lebanon in favor Hezbollah.  Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East in the aftermath of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq created a sense of long-term defeat among the Sunni rulers in Riyadh, Cairo, and Amman.  They did not know what countermeasures to take in order to undermine Iran’s enhanced power and influence.  America’s near obsession of “containing” Iran through the pretext of depriving it of nuclear weapons was perceived as a fantastic opportunity to outsmart Iran.

The upside of this American-Arab maneuvering is that Iran is likely to be forced to continue its nuclear research but would stop just short of developing nuclear weapons.  The downside is that political explosion in the Persian Gulf in particular – and in the Middle East in general – happens suddenly and with calamitous consequence.  And the next war, if it comes, promises to be highly explosive and equally catastrophic.

A number of students of global affairs are steadily predicting a power shift from the West to the East and the consequent emergence of a post-American era.[2]  In reality, however, the global power shift might not be from the West to the East, but a multi-directional one, as we also witness the emergence of Turkey, Brazil, and South Africa as new global centers of economic dynamism, along with the PRC and India – two spectacularly rising powers.

Perhaps recognizing that it has long been stuck in the dizzying whirlpool of the Middle East and the need to catch its breath by refocusing on its dominance in the Asia-Pacific, President Barack Obama has already withdrawn America’s forces from Iraq; and has redeployed 10,000 troops out of Afghanistan.  This is part of his promise to bring about complete withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.  However, the United States is opening a new military base in Australia.  By withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan, the lone superpower might also be tacitly conceding its defeat.  The politics of Iraq remains as volatile and divisive as ever.  Except this time, along with the explosive Shia-Sunni division, it is also characterized by the growing presence of al-Qaida.  Afghanistan, on the other hand, continues to prove itself to be the graveyard of empires.  As such, the war in that country continues to underscore the mounting power of the Taliban.

The Asia-Pacific, on the contrary, is welcoming the United States’ decision to escalate its presence, with open arms.  China — whose escalating hegemony appears ominous from the perspectives of small nation-states of East Asia – is creating ample apprehension among them.  Thus, these nation-states initiated a policy of “circling the wagons,” and appear determined to balance the power of China by asking for a resurged presence of the old hegemon, the USA, which has an established record of creating a benign hegemony.[3]  Washington could not have been happier.  The East Asian nations’ welcoming of America to their region only complemented the insistence of the Obama administration that America is a “Pacific power.”  President Barack Obama reiterated that resolve during his trip to Australia by stating that “…we are here to stay.”

India and China, the poorest countries of the not-too-distant past, have long passed the label of “rising powers.”  Now, they appear to be the economic power houses, indeed superpowers, of the future.  China is way ahead of India in this race, and thus remains a focal point of America’s attention.  As the foremost rising power of our time, China has the American example of the post-World War II era to follow.  Its rise not only has to be peaceful, but it also should be eminently constructive in revamping the rules underlying the functioning of the premier global political and financial institutions, like the U.N., the World Bank, and the IMF, etc.  Thus far, however, its leaders have not impressed the world by their proactivism or imagination for playing a constructive role.  They are standing on the sidelines, while being critical of the U.S. and Europe for not being “responsible” in their respective economic policies.  In the meantime, China continues to act as a rising power most comfortable in implementing parochial and inward looking policies of currency manipulation, as well as a heavy reliance on pushing its merchandise to the West.  It behaves as if it is only interested in reaping the benefits of appearing to be a superpower of the future without paying the political or economic price for being one.

India is gradually learning to act as a rising power in its neighborhood.  It has enhanced its presence in Southeast Asia by deciding to explore for oil in the South China Sea and in its cooperation with Vietnam, which has been one of the most vocal critics of China’s assertiveness in that region.[4]  India also has escalated its military presence along its border with China by announcing “$13 billion plans to raise a new mountain strike corps and four mountain divisions.”[5]  That was a clear response to China’s reported buildup on the Sino-Indian borders.   However, the jury is still out regarding the future performance of the successors of the Sun Tzu and Kautilyan styles of Realpolitik.

Europe is facing a crisis related to the future of the Eurozone, which was recently depicted as “a crisis of apocalyptic proportion” by Radoslaw Sikorski, Foreign Minister of Poland.[6]  As Europe is standing at the edge of a precipice, Turkey is emerging as the new power center of Europe.  In that capacity, it is implementing a “truly multidimensional foreign policy” in which it secretly conducted a joint air force exercise with China last October.[7]  In economic affairs, Russia became Turkey’s number one trade partner, replacing Germany.

Turkey is playing a similarly spectacular role in the Middle East.  Its intermingling of secularism and Islam is emerging as a popular example for the next corps of Arab leaders replacing the autocrats in the aftermath of the Arab Awakening.  In view of these developments, Turkey is transforming itself from a “peripheral state of Europe” into a “central power” of that region.[8]  Its model of secular democracy is already being emulated in Tunisia; and chances are that it would also be emulated in Egypt, as Islamists are winning electoral majority in that country but promising to opt for a coalition with the secularist parties.

The Arab Awakening (aka Arab Spring) continues to capture the world’s attention.  As the aging dictators fall, Islamists are emerging as some of the most prominent leaders of the Arab world.  The question is not an imminent one, but should be asked:  What is the Arab world going to look like in the next 3-5 years?  Are there prospects for the emergence of democracies, Islamic democracies, or would some of those Arab countries slide under the rule of theocracies?  Three current models of theocracy – Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia – have not made those countries places of economic prosperity, political stability, or the focal point of enlightenment.  If anything, obscurantism is on the rise in Pakistan, and theological autocracy is the order of the day in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

If the convergence of Islam and pluralistic democracy occurs in the post-awakening Arab world, then the opportunities for people of that part of the world are enormous.  There is tremendous human potential waiting to be liberated, educated, enlightened, and to make a dash toward the globalized world from which it was more or less excluded because the autocrats feared progress related to the information age.  And they were right for fearing it, because modernity was bound to become their enemy.  The Arab Awakening arrived in the Middle East and North Africa riding on the shoulders of some of the most recent advances in social/electronic media.  It was the power of social media that the autocratic and archaic control machine could not control, fight, or stifle.

One of the secrets of the Arab Awakening is that it has been an inclusive movement.  Another shocking aspect of it is that there were no leaders who could issue commands for the masses to follow, or whose arrests or assassinations by the ruling autocrats could have seriously undermined the movement.  As liberated Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya are struggling to create a constitutional system of governance, the most important question is whether they will adhere to the principle of inclusiveness, or will they become victims of fissiparous tendencies for which their societies have been notorious?

One has every reason to be wary of the Islamists of the Arab world.  They have spent long years in the dungeons of the autocrats and the Pharaohs.  They have no experience with governance.  They have repeated the slogan, “Islam is the solution,” without having the responsibilities for spelling it out into specific policies.  As they become part of the ruling elites, it will be a test for them.  Their ultimate success may not be that they govern well, even though that would be a wonderful outcome.  Their ultimate success as participants in a democracy is their willingness to accept defeat, if or when they are voted out of office.

One “odd man out” in the rising tide of political change in the Middle East is Iran.  It has increased its influence in Iraq and Afghanistan, most ironically, because of the dismantlement of the Taliban regime and that of Saddam Hussein by its arch enemy, the United States.  However, the Green Movement’s abortive attempt to bring about regime change in Iran has left that country exposed to the covert shenanigans of the United States to overthrow the rule of the Ayatollahs.  Iran’s recent capture of the CIA’s, RQ-170 “Sentinel” drone is evidence of that reality.  The CIA’s monitoring of Iran is only the exposed aspect of its covert actions against that country.  The covert actions that are unbeknownst to the theocratic rulers of Iran are likely to hurt their regime the most.[9]  To add insult to injury, Iran’s strong ally, Syria, appears to be the next country to undergo a bloody regime change.  The loss of Syria would also seriously damage Iran’s presence and influence in Lebanon.

However, Iran is not the only country increasingly troubled by the prospects of regime change in Syria.  Israel is equally concerned, because the ouster of the Assad regime promises to bring about the rising presence and clout of the Islamists, who are not likely to loathe the Jewish state any less than the current Baathist/Alawite rulers of that country.

The emerging realignment of power should be worrisome, especially for the great powers of the West, because it is not only aimed at threatening their erstwhile privileged status in the global hierarchy of nation-states, but it also promises to bring to prominence actors and forces that have not been viewed by them as particularly friendly or cooperative.  There are likely to be many uncertainties, even the outbreak of minor or even major military conflicts, before a new hierarchy of nations is formulated.  The emergence of China and India does not promise the evolution of a Sino-Indian condominium of power.  Instead, the two rising powers might be headed toward an era of increased friction and even military conflict, especially on the issue of border dispute.  One minor example of that friction is underscored by the fact that India’s new Agni-V long-range ballistic missile is being dubbed by its defense analysts as the “China-killer.”

The lessening of the economic status of European states and the rising power of Turkey direly requires the emergence of a new set of “rules of engagement,” whereby Turkey can decide whether it is still interested in joining the EU, and, if so, on what terms?  The “sick man” of Europe toward the conclusion of the first decade of the 21^st Century is Europe, not Turkey.  The rising presence and influence of Islam requires a new rapprochement between the Islamists and the secularists for the emergence of Islamic democracy or a new model of democratic pluralism that resembles the Turkish model.  All of these are tall orders.  But they are also in need of acceptance by the powers of the past and the future.

Iran and Saudi Arabia are traditional competitors, but unlike what most American “specialists” on Iran claim, the chief reason is not the religious differences between them.  The chief reason is that in the post 9/11 era, Iran has remained a major Middle Eastern power.  In that capacity, it has consistently remained opposed to the American hegemony of that region.  After the United State’s dismantlement of the regime of Saddam Hussein, Iran had the golden opportunity to assert itself in Iraq, which it has been doing to the utter chagrin of the administrations of George W. Bush and now Barack Obama.  As American forces are getting ready to leave Iraq, Iran’s political prestige in that country remains unchallenged.   On the contrary, the Saudi strategic stock in the Middle East has been dwindling at the same time, and the Iran-Saudi rivalry has remained lopsided in favor of Iran.  Thus, the government in Riyadh is in dire need of asserting itself in the region.

Saudi Arabia faced an entirely different world during the same era.  In the post-9/11 and the post-Saddam eras, Saudi-American
relations have witnessed lots of lows.  Fourteen of the nineteen hijackers of the 9/11 attacks on U.S. soil were Saudi citizens, thereby triggering the charge of the administration of George W. Bush that the Wahhabi world views and the Saudi educational institutions have been chiefly responsible for creating self-styled global “Jihadists.”  The authoritarian regimes of the Middle East, at least temporarily, came under pressure from the United States to introduce democracy starting in July 2004.  Saudi
Arabia, along with Egypt, topped America’s demands for such a transformation.  However, once the Islamist-dominated
democratic government captured power in Iraq and the occupied Palestine, the Bush administration quickly abandoned the demands for democratization.  Bush’s dream of introducing Jeffersonian democracy in the Middle East quickly turned into a pipe dream.

Iran also became one of the beneficiaries of the Hezbollah-Israeli war of July-August 2006.  Since Israel failed to achieve its declared objective of eradicating Hezbollah at the end of that war, even after unleashing the fury of its air power over Lebanon, the bruised but still-standing Hezbollah was perceived in the Middle Eastern streets as a “victor” of that conflagration.  Iran was the chief supplier of weapons and military training for Hezbollah.  It was during that era that King Abdullah of Jordan made his detestable remark about the “Shia crescent across the Middle East.”

As much as Iran became a “rising power” of the Middle East between 2004 and 2008 – when there was no Saddam regime to challenge it, and when the U.S. prestige in the world of Islam was at its lowest as an occupier of Iraq and Afghanistan – the rulers
of that country sabotaged their own regional prestige by defrauding the Iranians and stealing the election for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  The Green Movement – that wonderful precursor to the Arab Awakening – emerged as the response of the young Iranians to bring about regime change.  The Ayatollahs got lucky, in that they succeeded in viciously suppressing the Green Movement.  However, the Achilles heel of the Islamic regime was exposed, and its legitimacy experienced an unprecedented level of erosion.

The Arab Awakening started in December of 2010 in the streets of Tunisia and became a tsunami of political change, and created a precedent of unimaginable magnitude for all the countries of the Middle East, especially for Iran.  The fact that the Arab Awakening was primarily a youth-driven movement, the fact that it appeared unstoppable because it was carried on the shoulders of the social media, and because it largely remained secular and democratic in its orientation, there is little doubt that the Ayatollahs are shaking in their inner sanctums about the resurgence of the Green Movement.  The chief difference between the failure of the Green Movement in overthrowing the Ayatollahs and the spectacular success of the Arab Awakening in overthrowing the rotting dictatorships in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya is that the resolve of the Iranian youth fell short.  Otherwise, there is absolutely no difference between the substantive goals of the Green Movement and the Arab Awakening as social movements.  As such, the success of the Green Movement was only temporarily hampered, but it cannot be permanently
denied.

The Arab Awakening is as much a threat to the Saudi Arabian regime as the Green Movement has been to the regime of the Ayatollahs.  Iran was as brutal about suppressing the Green Movement as the Saudi government was when it sent is paramilitary forces to put down the protest movement in Bahrain under the auspices of the GCC.  The world watched in horror the brutality of Saudi forces in the streets of Manama in March 2011, as if the earlier videos of the violence perpetrated by the Iranian security forces against the Green Movement were being played all over again.  Thus, while those two social movements challenged the political status quo in Iran and Bahrain (and indirectly defied the iron-clad status quo orientation of Saudi Arabia), it makes little sense for Tehran and Riyadh to continue their regional rivalry.  The commonality of the challenges that are ahead of them suggests that they should be minimizing the chances of friction and antagonism.

Then why does that irrational rivalry continue?  Possible explanations for such recurring irrationalities in the Middle East are endless.  I will mention only three.  First, given the fact that the Obama administration has taken the lead in alleging the “Iranian plot,” one is tempted to think that some low-level functionaries in Iran might have been involved in their attempts to conjure up an idiotic plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador.  Secondly, and alternatively, it is possible that the Obama administration, in its desperation to win Jewish votes in the next presidential election, is overstating the significance of that allegation, but is still remaining careful not to claim that Iran’s top leaders were involved in it.  Third, there is also the possibility that, after losing its strategic dominance in the Middle East and North Africa as a result of the turbulence created by the Arab Awakening, the United States wishes to create an anti-Iranian Arab nexus as a smoke screen to recreate its dominance in those regions.  As much as the autocratic Arab regimes served as pillars supporting the U.S. hegemony of the Arab world in the post-World War II decades, the remnants of them may still be counted on to play a similar role in its recreation now.  After all, the relationship between the U.S. hegemony and the autocratic regimes in the Middle East was nothing if it was not symbiotic.

The allegation that Iran’s elite Qods force was involved in the plot to kill the Saudi ambassador is too silly to believe.  The Qods force has ample room to challenge the American hegemony in Iraq and Afghanistan for it to take the suicidal step of attempting to commit a crime inside U.S. borders.   Iran does not even consider Saudi Arabia as a country in the same league to challenge its strategic maneuvers in West Asia or the Middle East.  It is only when one considers the possibilities of U.S.-Saudi maneuvers
to create an anti-Iranian nexus in the Arab world that Saudi Arabia gains significance, and this story also starts to sound familiar.  Even then, the risks of such a potential nexus associated with the long-term prospects of peace and stability in the Middle East are just too grave.

When the Hezbollah party was created by Iran in the early in 1980s, it was based on the ideology that carried out the Islamic revolution, which had ousted “America’s Shah.”  That ideology was brimming with Shia pride.  The establishment of an Islamic government in Iran was not only a revolutionary idea in its own right, but it also created the possibility that such a major change had also paved the way for creating Islamic governments in other Muslim countries.  As participants of the Islamic revolution, the representatives of Iran went to Lebanon in their zealotry to politicize the Shias of Lebanon, who were disenfranchised and marginalized by an anachronistic Sunni-Christian power system that was ruling Lebanon.  The Mustadafeen (the deprived or dispossessed ones in the vocabulary of Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini) of Lebanon had to be empowered through a process of militant politicization.  Hezbollah was created out of that endeavor.  Iran’s politicization of the Shias of Lebanon gave them a new self image.  They were taught that the Sunni-Christian power arrangement was highly corrupt, and that, in order to acquire what is their right, the Shias of Lebanon had to fight for it.

Consequently, the Shias of Lebanon erupted on the political scene with a vengeance. They had had enough of being pushed around by the corrupt elites of their country.  They were also getting especially tired of becoming victims of Israeli retaliations in response to the attacks launched on the Jewish state by the Palestinian refugees of Lebanon.

Around the same time, the Israeli government invaded Lebanon to “finish off” the Palestinian “terrorist” attacks.  However, in the process of invading Lebanon, the Israeli leaders also decided to become the kingmakers of that country by forging an alliance with the Christian Phalangists.  In fact, according to one source, creating a Christian state in Lebanon has been a long dream of the Israeli leadership.  Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, was of the view that Israel “should prepare to go over on the offensive with the aim of smashing Lebanon, Transjordan and Syria. The weak point of the Arab coalition is Lebanon for its regime is artificial and easy to undermine. A Christian state should be established, with its southern border on the Litani River. We will make peace with it.”[1]

It was during the initial phase of the Israeli invasion and the occupation of Lebanon that Hezbollah intensified its activities.  Its shadowy predecessor was blamed for the mass assassination of the U.S. Marines in Lebanon in 1983.  President Ronald Reagan, as much as he was interested in cooperating with the Israelis about promoting a Christian dominant regime in Lebanon, wisely decided to pull out the American forces from that country.  And Hezbollah continued its presence and dominance of the Lebanese political scenes.

Hezbollah’s finest hour was the 2006 war against Israel.  During that short war, the Jewish state swore to eradicate it, and unleashed a campaign of intense bombing of Lebanon.  However, when the dust settled, Hezbollah was bruised but still standing.  In the Arab world, the outcome of that campaign was interpreted as a “victory” for Hezbollah over Israel.  In the aftermath of that episode, the political popularity of Hasan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, witnessed new heights in the Arab world.  No Arab leader had the reputation of challenging the military might of Israel and surviving it.  In fact, before the 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli war, Israel had the reputation of handing a crushing defeat to the Arab armed forces, thanks to its decisive victory in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Along with Hezbollah, Iran’s political reputation as the chief backer of that party also grew in the aftermath of the 2006 war, as the entire Sunni Arab leadership watched with a mixture of envy and frustration. Even the United States, whose occupation forces were then fighting an uphill battle with the Iraqi insurgents and al-Qaida-related Islamists, appeared vulnerable to encountering a defeat in Iraq. While the Arab leaders were attempting to hide their envy of Iran and Hezbollah by coining highly pejorative phrases such as the threat of the rising so-called “Shia crescent,” Hezbollah proceeded to further dominate the internal
power distribution of Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s dominance of Lebanese politics might have lasted for quite awhile, except for the Arab awakening that is currently sweeping through the countries of the Middle East and North Africa. One of the current targets of that movement is the growing revolt inside Syria – one of the chief backers of Hezbollah.  As Bishara Assad has turned loose his killing machine against his citizens, his regime, instead of getting strong, is looking increasingly desperate and weak. That is bad news for Hezbollah and Iran, which had been playing a major role in Lebanon, thanks to the Syrian occupation of that country since 1976. Even though that occupation happily ended in April 2005, Syria remained an influential actor inside Lebanon because of its geographical proximity to that country, and also because of the highly proactive resolve of both Iran and Syria to influence the internal power
dynamics of Lebanon through their support of Hezbollah.

As the future of Bishara Assad’s murderous rule appears bleak in Syria, Hezbollah, and its long-standing nexus with Syria and Iran, looks increasingly anachronistic.  If or when the Assad regime falls, Iran’s influence in Lebanon will also suffer a major setback.

One option for Hezbollah is to revise its strategy of dependence on Syria and Iran.  But there is no alternate strategy for Hezbollah to fall back on.  As a Shia entity, it was heavily reliant on Shia Iran and on the Alawite-ruled regime of Syria.  Even though the Alawites (a minority Shia sect) comprise no more than 10 percent of the Syrian population, they have been ruling that country for several decades.  Hezbollah has no other friendly state supporting it.  In fact, some rare good news for the Sunni Arab leaders — who have been highly wary about Iran’s rising influence in Lebanon and Iraq, and who were also manifesting their antipathy toward Iran by airing their concern through muttering the phrase “Shia crescent” — is that the future of Hezbollah’s continued dominance of Lebanon’s  internal politics also appears shaky and highly questionable.

The Arab awakening is the revolutionary movement of today.  How it will change the political face of the Middle East is not yet known or understood. But, like the aging monarchs and dictators of the Middle East, Hezbollah has little reason to be optimistic. The march of history in the Middle East promises to throw Hezbollah — the revolutionary of yesteryear — into the dustbin of history.

One relevant example of urging an ally to acquire the leadership role was Washington’s advocacy that Japan should emerge as a “normal” military power.  That was a euphemism for the remilitarization of Japan, at least as envisaged by the PRC and South Korea, two countries that still nurture horrible memories of Japan’s “rape” of their polities when it occupied them.  One wonders how much thought the United States gave to the Chinese and South Korean reactions to a potential emergence of a militarized Japan.  Alternatively, the U.S. suggestion might also be part of its strategic maneuvers to put pressure on China in the same manner in which Richard M. Nixon decided to develop a strategic nexus with the PRC in 1972, to put pressure on the Soviet Union.  Another example of such an advocacy was the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s advocacy during her latest visit to that country that it is time for India to act as a leader in South Asia and in the Asia Pacific.   That advocacy, though genuine, is highly controversial and may not be welcomed among the countries of South Asia.

The fact that the United States will be lowering its military profile in Afghanistan in the near future has become a major source of apprehension for India.  It knows that the immediate outcome of that development will result in an instant heightened presence of Pakistan in Afghanistan.  And India is as opposed to an increased presence and influence of Pakistan in Afghanistan as Pakistan is about a similar development involving India in that country.  Even if one were to temporarily ignore the Indo-Pak loathing of each other’s increased role in Afghanistan in the future, an important question is what exactly does the United States want India to do in Afghanistan?  Should it become an occupying force in a manner similar to that of the United States or should it become a peacekeeper?  Both of these alternatives are highly untenable.  Keeping these facts in mind, one wonders how much time the United States has really spent in thinking about the issue of India’s leadership in Afghanistan.

A possible alternative for India to consider in Afghanistan is to establish some sort of a nexus with Iran and Russia to minimize the chances of the emergence of al-Qaida as a major force.  Even on this issue, a lot depends on what kind of a compromise the United States would be able to reach with the Taliban of Afghanistan before pulling out of that country.  If there is even a remote possibility of the Taliban’s emergence as co-rulers of Afghanistan, any emergence of an India-Iran-Russia nexus influencing the internal power dynamics of Afghanistan is entirely out of the question. Moreover, given the intense antipathy that Iran and the United Sates hold toward each, it is highly unlikely that Washington would endorse any political compromise that would enable Iran to escalate its power and influence in Afghanistan.

In the Asia-Pacific region, on the contrary, India has a good chance of exercising its leadership.  The ASEAN countries have been quite receptive, indeed some of them have been eager about, India’s increased leadership role in their region as a balance against the PRC’s rising influence.  India has been quite successful in building on that support by becoming a member of the East Asia Summit in December 2005 and by signing free trade deals with the ASEAN countries in 2009.

India as a naval power (it has world’s fifth largest navy) also has a great potential in cooperating with Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore in conducting joint patrolling of the Strait of Malacca, through which more than 80 percent of China’s oil supplies from the Middle East and Africa passes.  Indeed, India has been involved with the U.S., Japanese and Australian navy in conducting joint naval exercises in that region, much to the chagrin of the PRC.  India has also been conducting joint naval
exercises with Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia.  India’s Andaman and Nicobar tri-services Command has a potential of playing a major role in India’s naval maneuverings in Southeast Asia.

One Indian maneuver vis-à-vis China in the South China that is worth making a mention is the evolving Indo-Vietnamese strategic ties.  Operating on the axiom that my enemy’s enemy is my friend, India has been seeking increased strategic cooperation with Vietnam, which also includes gaining access to the Cam Ranh Bay naval and air base. Even though Vietnam has been reluctant about granting India access to that facility, the Vietnamese-Indian strategic partnership remains a work in progress.  The worsening of Vietnam-China ties in the future would make rulers in Hanoi reconsider India’s sustained interests in the Cam Ranh Bay base.

Even though India’s immediate neighborhood in South Asia does not appear promising about its emergence as an effective leader, leaders of that country can still work on most challenging aspects of creating a rapprochement with its arch adversary, Pakistan.  Such a development—even though it remains hard to develop—would open up considerable opportunities for India’s exercise of leadership in South Asia.  In the meantime, Asia-Pacific holds enormous opportunities for India.  It should work on equally proactively to foster them.  It behooves India to remember that its greatest challenge in the Asia-Pacific is coming from China, which regards that region as its area of special (if not “core”) interests.

When it comes to East Asia, the United States has been following a comprehensive strategy toward sustaining its strategic dominance.  It has long recognized how important East Asia remains as an area where China’s strategic profile must rise in order to complement its global presence and influence.  Since China, because of its awesome economic power, maintains a clear advantage over the United States in escalating its presence and influence in distant regions of the world, the United States has to escalate its maneuvers in maximizing its own presence and influence in East Asia, knowing that China would envisage it as a challenge (if not an obstacle) in its strategic goals of affecting East Asia and the rest of the world.

In Washington’s comprehensive strategy toward East Asia, the annual Shangri-La Asian security meetings serve as a forum where it has been elaborating on and adjusting its strategic posture in response to the latest developments related to the concerns of Southeast countries involving China.  The June 2011 session of Shangri-La was most significant because China sent its military delegation to do its own posturing in order to mollify the fears of its Southeast Asian neighbors related to China’s hyperactivism in South China Sea.  But that symbolism did not do much to change the minds of China’s neighbors about its mounting regional assertiveness.  At the same meeting, former U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, stated that his country would increase “its port calls, naval engagements, and multilateral training efforts” to build the capacity of regional actors “to address challenges.” That veiled reference to China was clearly welcomed by a number of East Asian countries.

Secondly, the United States is conducting its own strategic maneuvers to undermine China’s growing posture in East Asia.  The latest evidence in this regard was the U.S.-Vietnam naval exercise, which was more of a sweeping maneuver than China has been doing in Iran.   Like the U.S.-Iran animosity, China and Vietnam have had their considerable baggage of mistrust, suspicion, and even a military conflict in 1979.

Thirdly, the United States has expanded its annual military exercises called “Cobra Gold,” which involves Thailand.  However, the newest participant of this exercise is Malaysia.  In addition, under the general rubric of “CARAT” (Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training), Washington is conducting bilateral military exercises involving the U.S. Navy and a half-dozen countries of Asia.  The latest additions to the CARAT are Cambodia and Bangladesh.

America’s greatest advantage stems from fact that most Southeast Asian countries remain highly suspicious of China’s military preparedness, its precipitous decision to label the South China Sea as part of its “core interests,” and China’s continued refusal to remain flexible on the issue of resolving its territorial disputes with its Southeast Asian neighbors in a region that is expected to contain large oil reserves.

China not only knows that the United States has a palpable advantage over it in East Asia, but is also aware that it (China) has a lot of work to do to engage its neighbors in a dialogue on its South China Sea territorial dispute.  Just stating that the purpose of its strategic rise is peaceful will no longer satisfy the East Asian countries, which are demanding substantive action.  In the meantime, China is expected to increase its own maneuvers involving a country like Iran, which has remained one of the top U.S. strategic concerns for the past thirty-plus years, especially in reference to Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons aspirations, and regarding Iran’s growing maneuvers in Iraq to undermine America’s chances of sustaining its long-term military presence in that country.

Iran desperately needs China’s support and assistance as the American-sponsored economic sanctions are steadily closing its avenues of global trade.  China’s willingness to go along with those sanctions was a crucial factor in their passage at the U.N.   So, as an immediate adjustment in its policy toward Iran, China, aside from increasing its economic ties with Tehran, is expected to reject any further economic sanctions.  Secondly, if or when the U.S.-China power games become more intensely competitive in the future than they currently are, one can expect increased Sino-Iranian defense cooperation, which would also include a possible membership of that country in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).  Iran currently remains an observer in that organization, largely because China did not wish to antagonize the United States by allowing it to become a member.  However, that may change if the Chinese calculations involving its own ties with the U.S. undergo visible transformation.

It will be interesting to see whether China will be able to transform its disadvantages into advantages in Southeast Asia.  However, that will require a clear departure of Beijing from its hollow rhetoric about its peaceful rise.  It will have to sit down with all of the countries in that area to find common ground that would be beneficial to all the parties involved, especially on the distribution of oil reserves in the South China Sea.   In addition, the PRC has to persuade its neighbors that the purpose of its military preparedness is really peaceful.  China’s ties with Iran may not be as crucial as its ties with the East Asian countries.  It would not hesitate to substantially scale down or even to end its strategic relations with Iran in the future, if or when it serves its purpose.

The ultimate objective of the Arab awakening is to democratize the Arab world.  The Arab youth that are fighting for democracy and, in a lot of instances, paying the price for the attainment of that objective with their blood, are not beholden to any Arab leader or the so-called champions of democracy in the West.  Those youth have also watched the struggle between the authoritarian rulers and the Islamists for the past twenty-five plus years (since the Islamic Revolution of Iran popularized the possibility of the establishment of an Islamic government), and have definitely rejected the options of either living under dictatorships or under a theocratic rule.  That was why they did not even consider the Islamists as one of the flag bearers for their cause.  They have also witnessed what kind of failing, near failed, or a failed state the Islamists have created in Pakistan, Iran, and Sudan.

The best aspect of the Arab awakening was that it had both men and women protesting side by side, it had religious minorities (as was the case in Egypt), the overwhelming majority of the participants of this movement was in their twenties and thirties, and the movers of the awakening were practitioners of social media to disseminate their cause. Above all, they wanted to bring democracy inside their borders.  As such, the Arab awakening promises to be one of the greatest movements of this young century.

As much as the impending political change in Tunisia and Egypt appeared imminent, it is not surprising that the forces of status quo (reactionary forces) had to react one last time to cling on to power and attempt to postpone the seemingly inevitable transformation. The forces of reaction seem to have been tremendously encouraged by the intensity of bloody battles the dying dictatorships of Muammar Qaddafi and Bishara Assad are waging against the forces for change. It is logical to think that the remainder of the forces of reaction in Tunisia and Egypt are spending a lot of time in conducting “what if” type of futuristic thinking related to re-sabotaging the reform movement.

However, there are three factors that are favoring the forces of reform in Arab world.  First is the fact that the movements for reforms in both Tunisia and Egypt are very much alive and are refusing to trust the remnants of dictatorship to determine the modalities of reforms.  Secondly, the Islamists have adopted a low profile in both Egypt and Tunisia, even though in both these
countries the Islamist parties have a long-term political presence.  That reality defeats the frequently iterated scary propaganda of the dictators that if they were to be ousted the “Islamist terrorists” would take over their country. Third, the West, by and large, has maintained a strong profile of defending political change now that it has become, or about to become, pretty much of a fait accompli in a number of Arab countries.

However, the longer the forces of reaction linger on in Egypt and Tunisia and the longer the despicable dictatorships of Qaddafi and Assad succeed in prolonging the bloody battles the higher are the chances that the Islamists of the Arab world (I am not referring to the murderous terrorist groups but parties like the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and An-Nahda movement of Tunisia) would be encouraged to come to the forefront of the political battles.  It is also a high possibility that the forces of reaction are operating on the basis of similar hopes because such a scenario would increase the prospects of their sabotaging the reform movements.

So, as much as one is tempted to celebrate the Arab awakening and its attendant promise of defeat of extremism of all variety, let us postpone the celebration, for the battle between the forces of reform and reaction is still waging, and will continue wage, without losing its intensity in the near future.  Democratic elections have to take place in Egypt and Tunisia. And if the outcome in both countries is the prevalence of a pluralistic democracy—where the Islamist parties also participate as important actors—then the next step would be the adoption of structural reforms that would lead to the creation of modern institutions, supremacy of the rule of law, gender equality, and protection of the rights of the minorities, to mention a few.

The chief significance of the Arab awakening is that it has no precedence in the Muslim world.  If it were to lose the long and arduous march of the Arabs toward democratic stability, economic opportunity and practice of political and religious pluralism, then the past battles between despotism and Islamism would recur with a vengeance—battles that have created nothing but a dark and bloody history, only for the Arab world, but also for the world of Islam at large.

For its immediate neighborhood, Saudi Arabia exercises its own version of hegemony that resembles America’s hegemony in a bizarre way.  Like the American hegemony in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world, the Saudi hegemony wholeheartedly accepts the legitimacy of the existing Arab governments and is willing to promote it at all costs.  Saudi Arabia knows that any questioning of the style or manner of governance in neighboring states will have a boomerang effect on the political status quo inside the Saudi Kingdom.  Like the American hegemony, the Saudi hegemony has established a variety of systems and arrangements in West Asia to ensure that political stability in its immediate neighborhood is never challenged from within or without.  For instance, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is an excellent Saudi tool to promote that perspective.  That fact was established when the Saudi decision to send forces to Bahrain to suppress the reform movement had the backing of the members of that organization.  Finally, like the American hegemony the Saudi hegemony will not hesitate to take necessary actions to suppress or defeat such challenges.

However, the Arab awakening has posed a very sui generis type of challenges for Saudi Arabia.  No sovereign power or terrorist group is involved in its creation or in its awesome growth that swept from power Zein el-Abideen Bin Ali and Husni Mubarak from power.  The credit for its inception goes to the self-immolation of a frustrated fruit seller, Mohammad Bouazizi in Tunisia.  Then it flared up like wildfire or tsunami in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, Syria and other places riding on the shoulders of global social network.  Since it had no religious overtone, neither the United States nor anyone else in the Arab world could make a credible argument that it is just another manifestation of religious extremism.  The best aspect of the Arab awakening is that it promises to democratize the Arab world sooner or later.  Therein lies the trouble for Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi monarchy might be the only government which knows nothing about compromise if that means abandoning their autocratic rule and religious puritanism, which emerged as a result of religious compact with Mohammad Bin Abdel Wahhab.  Any notion of introduction of democracy means that the monarchy has to end and religious moderation has to become the sine qua non of that polity.  Either of those issues means the end of Saudi Arabia of today, a proposition that is out of the question from the perspectives of the Saudi rulers.

So what is acceptable?  To put simply, continuation of the status quo inside the Saudi borders.  Any political change inside the Saudi polity is envisaged by the monarchy as a harbinger of more demands for change.  So, nipping all demands for change in the bud is the policy for now.  That may be modified if the regime is faced with the kind of pressure that the world is witnessing on the regimes in Syria, Libya or Yemen.

For its immediate neighborhood, the Saudi dispatch of security forces to suppress the reform movement in Bahrain speaks volumes about that country’s perspectives about the Arab awakening.  By the same token, since the Saudi rulers perceive a powerful linkage between the political activism of the Shias of Bahrain and the Shias of Saudi Arabia, they will also continue their policy of the use of iron fist in discouraging any blooming of the Shia protest inside their borders.  The entire Persian Gulf region is regarded as an area of vital interests by the Saudi regime.  Any political reforms there ought to be suppressed immediately and unequivocally.

However, Yemen is a special case because of complexity related to tribal politics, the presence of al-Qaida, and of the possibility of its splitting into two states.  The Saudi rulers are implementing a very sophisticated strategy to deal with Yemen, especially after the injury of president Ali Bin Saleh and his departure to Saudi Arabia presumably for treatment.  Since they are in full control of whether Saleh stays in Saudi Arabia or returns to Yemen—the latter being an option that would increase turbulence in Yemen—the Saudis are playing a meaningful role in negotiating between the major tribal forces.

The promulgation of democracy inside Yemen is hard to conceive.  What the Saudis want is another ruler who would continue his dependence on Saudi Arabia, keep the Shia insurgency inside Yemen under total control and also do his best to eradicate al-Qaida.  In the pursuit of these objectives, there is no noticeable difference between Riyadh and Washington, even though the U.S. government has made some mild criticism of the Saleh regime and spoke for democratic change.  However, the United States would be just as leery of a democratic government in Yemen as the Saudi government because such a government would act independently of both Riyadh and Washington.

The most troubling reality for Saudi Arabia and the United States is that Yemen promises to increasingly edge toward chaos and lawlessness in the short run.  The most likely beneficiary of such a development is al-Qaida, which is already quite active and assertive in that country.  Thus, Saudi Arabia and the Obama administration will be watching the political developments in Yemen quite closely.

The Arab awakening has failed to place the traditional Saudi-Iranian strategic rivalry on the back burner.  Saudi Arabia has made a point of accusing Iran in fomenting political turbulence inside Bahrain, a line that the government of Bahrain also frequently iterates.  It should be noted however, the United States government has been convinced that there is no Iranian role in Bahrain.  In fact, if one were to examine the overall goals of the supporters of the Arab awakening and the Green Movement of Iran (which is also a reform movement that wishes to topple the Islamic government), Iran has every reason to worry about any movement that aims to radically transform the political status quo in the Middle East.  However, neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia attempted to find reasons to cooperate with each other against the forces of change.

As much as the Saudi rulers are worried about the Arab awakening’s awesome potential to alter the political map of the Arab world, they have yet to figure out how to counter it.  So, they bribed their citizens by throwing money to appease them and hope that the problems related to that phenomenon would go away.  However, the Arab awakening is not a problem that would go away.  It intends to change the Middle East and North Africa.  And no government that intends become an obstacle in its way does not have a bright future.

The Saudi monarchy is truly afraid of the sustained revolutionary power of the Arab Awakening, which has no charismatic leaders. That factor makes it hard for the sitting autocrats to jail or kill the leaders and contain the uprising. It is a genuinely grass-roots movement that is riding the electronic shoulders of the social media — Facebook, twitter, electronic messaging, etc.

In response to this popular uprising, the Saudi rulers have adopted a variegated strategy. When the government of Bahrain “invited” the Saudi government to put down the popular uprising, it responded instantly and categorically through the use of force. That “invitation” was also endorsed by the Gulf Cooperation Council, all of whose members are monarchies.

Regarding the Yemen awakening, the Saudi strategy is focused on easing out President Ali Abdullah Saleh, hoping that such an outcome would enable Riyadh to play a major role in selecting the nature of the succeeding government and even Saleh’s heir. However, the Yemeni President, through his sustained intransigence to leave power, is not making the potential fulfillment of Saudi aspirations any easier. What is more important is that, after ousting Saleh, the Yemeni populace will certainly not allow the Saudis to impose another dictator on them. However, the Saudi monarchs seem to have great faith in their ability to persuade anyone by showering petrodollars on them.

Saudi Arabia will be faced with a major power if the Arab awakening succeeds in ousting Saleh and if Yemen becomes a democracy. The Saudi rulers are currently faced with an almost “no-win” situation in Yemen. They cannot afford to adopt a hands-off policy as Yemen undergoes a revolutionary transformation of its regime. The creation of democracy in Yemen is bound to escalate the aspirations for democracy of similar forces in Saudi Arabia. Secondly, the large number of the Shia population in Yemen is already keeping the political consciousness and activism of the Saudi Shias at a high level. That variable is keeping the Saudi rulers awake at night, even as Saleh becomes increasingly weaker in his hold on power.

As a response to the awakening of the Bahraini population, which is more than 65 percent of the population of that tiny emirate, Saudi Arabia is raising its level of suspicion about Iran’s complicity, even when American intelligence has found no credible basis for such a claim. The fact of the matter is that the Iranian government is just as much of a target of its own protest movement — the Green movements — as the Bahraini or the Yemeni governments are targets of their respective uprisings. So, by insisting on the alleged complicity by Iran in Bahrain, the Saudi rulers, quite unwisely, are raising the level of tension with Iran at a time when cooperation between those two countries is most crucial.

Another feature of the Saudi strategy about the Arab Awakening in their neighborhood is the establishment of an alliance of monarchies. For that purpose, the government in Riyadh has invited Jordan and Morocco. That type of alliance, even if it were to materialize, cannot stem the tide of change in the streets of Amman or Fez, and Manama or Riyadh, for that matter. However, Saudi Arabia can ill afford to recognize the capacity for political change on the part of a popular uprising and do nothing.

The only hope for Saudi Arabia is that, at least thus far, the monarchies have not yet been uprooted as a result of domestic uprisings. Bahrain came close, but the Saudis are doing their very best to put an end to it through the use of force.

The final feature of the Saudi strategy is to shower its citizens with money, hoping that such an attitude will buy their loyalty to the regime. Thus far, that attitude seems to have been keeping the level of fermentation inside Saudi Arabia at a manageable level. However, one has to wait and see what happens in Yemen and Bahrain. A potential civil war — stemming from Saleh’s refusal to step down from power — will be damaging to Saudi security. The general expectation is that al-Qaida will quickly emerge as a major player in the resultant chaos. The United States is not likely to stand aside and let the events take their own course. If it intervenes, even under the cover of U.N. sanctions, the level of violence in Yemen may be beyond the control of anyone.

The beauty of the Arab awakening (or Arab spring) is that it is neither an outcome of the Western “conspiracy,” nor is the product of Islamist “rage.”  The former has a nefarious legacy of legitimizing the enslavement of the Arab masses through their decades-long support of dictators, who were quite valuable in their role as their lackeys.  As such, they made sure that the Arab-Israeli conflict remained unresolved, while the Israeli government continued to build illegal settlements in the hopes of creating “realities” on the ground, which would make it hard for an independent Palestine to emerge.  The oil producing Arab states guaranteed the supply of cheap oil for the Western industries, while their own countries were permanently assigned the role of suppliers of a commodity.  As long as billions of dollars kept coming into their coffers, the tyrants of the Middle East and North Africa remained free to deprive their citizens of liberty and freedom.

The Islamists have established their own legacy of promoting obscurantism and irrational insistence on puritanism, extremism and violence, all of which are antithetical to Islam’s powerful predilections for knowledge, moderation, and enlightenment.  As advocates of those dark traits, the Islamists could never raise their status as a major force for change.

The falling dictators of the Middle East and North Africa also bode gloom and doom for Russia, which had gotten too used to selling billions of dollars worth of arms to the likes of Muammar Qaddafi, Bishara Assad, and the Ayatollahs of Iran, for whom the Western arms were not available for one reason or another.  Now the Russian government is scurrying around to find other lucrative sources for selling arms to its cash-starved enterprise.  Fortunately for the people of “autocratistans,” not many countries will have the old-style dictators left to do business with Russia once the dust is settled.

Watching the Arab awakening from the United States, I am amused over the alarmist rhetoric that is being spun by the Western media and the so-called Middle Eastern experts.  Two predominant themes are: how can the United States regain the leadership of the Arab Awakening, and how can the Arab awakening be transformed or managed to promote the security of Israel, as if nothing else matters.  No one spends even a tiny amount of time to reflect about the ways of using the Arab awakening to bring about a respectable resolution of the Palestinian conflict, and about helping the creation of an independent Palestine that would establish harmony between the Palestinians and Israelis.  The permanent enslavement of the Palestinians is taken for granted as long as it prolongs the false sense of security of Israel.  Even as the stereotypes of Arab subservience to the U.S. and the sanctity of Israeli security are being dismantled in the West as a result of Arab awakening, a similar type of new thinking to accommodate the emergence of the new Middle East is sorely lacking.

Two important aspects of the Arab awakening are worth considering.  First, what will be the outcome of the demise of dictatorships?  Would the movements of reform remain fully focused on developing secular democratic governments or would they be taken over by the Islamists?  No one—not even the leaders of the popular movements in various Middle Eastern countries—have the slightest clue about which direction the movements of change in their countries would take.  One of the main reasons for this reality is that in Tunisia and Egypt, even though the dictators are gone, most of the old ruling elite is still in power.  So, the chances of the emergence of another tyrant in those countries are still high.  That was not the case in Iran where, as Patrick Cockburn astutely noted in his recent excellent essay, “…no other country in the region has had a genuine popular uprising that overthrew a whole ruling class.”

The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the An-Nahda party in Tunisia are two of the oldest Islamists organizations.  However, thus far, they are laying low in terms of leading the reformist movements.  In fact, there are indications, that both Islamist parties would contest general elections, but on a moderate agenda.  They are not even interested in running their own presidential candidates.  If that is indeed the case, then it would establish another very powerful precedent about the future stability of at least Egypt and Tunisia.  However, any knowledgeable person of the political vagaries of that region is well-advised to remain skeptical about the future intentions of the Islamists.

The United States still has a palpable advantage only if it were to change its conventional agenda of doing business with the tyrants in the Arab world, and if it were to abandon the silly notion that only by neglecting the continued misery of the Palestinians under the Israeli occupation that it could help the Jewish state live in “peace.”  The U.S. advantage stems from the fact that there is no Arab leader left who can speak for the Arab peoples.  All the remaining tyrants are looking for ways to stay in power.  But the question of the hour is whether the United States is even capable of playing such a role, considering its long record of seeking stability while only prolonging—and in some cases intensifying—the Arab suffering.

The absence of credible democratic leaders in Arab countries is bad news.  Leaderless reform movements have a tendency of drifting toward extremism or even anarchy, at the end of which only another megalomaniacal tyrant is waiting to take over.  We have the examples of Iran and Iraq to worry about.  The Iranian revolution was highjacked by the Islamists, who succeeded in establishment of the Vilayat-e-Faqih (rule of the clergy), which was nothing but the dictatorship of the Ayatollahs.  The U.S.-imposed democracy in Iraq seems to be drifting toward failure.  Nuri al-Maliki, even though he had minority support in the legislature, refused to accept that fact and clung on to power until he succeeded in remaining as prime minister.  The best observation that can be made about Iraq is that democracy—even though it is facing a constant uphill battle—is struggling to survive.

During these days of high uncertainty, one can still look with some hope toward Egypt to become a leader in establishing democracy.  The transformation of a brutal dictatorship—which blindly toed the American line toward Israel, Iran, and Hamas—into a democracy appears promising and steady.  There are already quite a few hopeful signs in that country’s foreign policy.  Egypt is in the process of upgrading its diplomatic ties with Iran.  It has declared its intentions of opening up borders with Gaza for the passage of vital supplies to the Palestinians; and it is playing a leading role in bringing about reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.  At the same time, it has declared its intentions to honor the peace treaty with Israel.  Still, the ultimate proof is how democratic Egypt becomes in the aftermath of a first democratic election in the next few months.

The suffering of the Arab peoples in Yemen, Syria and Libya continues.  These are three of the most enduring and equally brutal dictatorships.  When they fall, the choice for other Arab autocracies will be rather straightforward: reform or perish.  For now, the next domino to fall will be the regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen.  Qaddafi is expected to follow Saleh.  Then will be the turn of Bishara Assad.  The biggest unknown in those countries is whether democracy will indeed become a reality, or the old dictators are only making room for the new ones.