Not a single Arab ruler is a willing participant in democratic reform. Their regimes are festooned with opportunists attached to their financial and political privileges. And while the Arab media have changed, these regimes still possess the same coercive instruments that have proven effective means of control in the past.
Just as important, many of the potential forces for change are wary of going along with Western-inspired momentum. And violent extremists threaten progress made in Iraq and within the Palestinian Authority.
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Youssef Ibrahim will be online Monday, March 14, at 9 a.m. ET to discuss his article.
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In Lebanon, Hezbollah is a wild card. In a speech to some 500,000 supporters who gathered under his movement's banners on Tuesday in Beirut, Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah said the real objective of the United States and Israel was to disarm and dismantle Hezbollah rather than to institutionalize democracy. While it would be better to have the heavily armed Hezbollah, which already has 12 seats in the Lebanese parliament, brought into the political process, that would be hard for the Bush administration to swallow. Hezbollah is still on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations. Will the administration be willing to make a deal?
Given the uncertainties about U.S. policy, perhaps the most pertinent question is whether the resolve of Arab reformers will prove durable and effective even without substantive U.S. support.
So one is left to wonder if this moment will last more than a moment, whether it will turn into a repeat of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall or whether it will be a reprise of the truncated Beijing Spring. The region lacks China's economic dynamism, but it also lacks a Gorbachev and his policy of perestroika.
For now, all the Middle East has are demonstrators and brave voters who, ballot by imperfect ballot, e-mail by e-mail are burying a culture of fear. And for the moment, that may be enough.
Author's e-mail: ymibrahim@seig.org
Youssef Ibrahim, a former Middle East correspondent for the New York Times and energy editor of the Wall Street Journal, is managing director of the Dubai-based Strategic Energy Investment Group, a consulting firm.
