Another Berlin Wall Falling?

OK; looks to me as if Egypt's government is going down. I did not foresee this, either. But a long worldwide recession like the one we are experiencing is a time of the breaking of nations. As and if it continues, there will be more crackups. If Tunisia goes, and Egypt goes---? Egypt's influence over the rest of the Arab world is immense. My choice for next most likely domino is Yemen. I'd short any bets on Libya, Syria, Algeria, or Sudan.

I think the Arab monarchies are generally safe—they have done rather well by their populations in comparison to the republics, and are a different kettle of fish. The main concern here is corruption, and the monarchies, for predictable reasons, have been much cleaner than the republics. Make no mistake, the average Arab believes in and wants democracy—but the monarchies of the Gulf actually already have it, in its purest form, so long as their borders with each other remain open, and their citizens wealthy enough to cross them when they choose. It is the bigger, poorer republics that do not. The general dislike of Saudi Arabia among Western Liberals does not change this truth.

I would assume the hidden public discontent is greatest and the risk of a fall now is greatest for countries for which the military-republican-strongman government system of Nasser's Egypt has served as a model. Hence Yemen, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Algeria are the nearest dominoes, if that's the game we're playing.

This does not apply to Iran, but Iran is already highly unstable; there is a good chance shock waves within the larger region may shake free more anti-government forces in Iran as well.

Any revolution risks chaos, or producing worse repression. But imagine a world in which all those nations suddenly become genuine democracies, more or less as suddenly happened in Eastern Europe a generation ago. We then have a huge new Muslim democratic bloc across the Middle East: Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, all now joining the pro-Western and essentially benevolent monarchies of Morocco, Jordan, Saudi, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman—and perhaps also seeking new alliances with established Muslim democracies like Malaysia and Turkey. That would be a game-changer, in world terms, and it seems to me very much in a good way. We would have a vast new Muslim mainstream on a model very different from that planned and hoped for by al Qaeda. Dissident energies that might have been wasted on supporting al Qaeda's insanities may generally find an outlet now instead in building this prosperous new Muslim society. It seems to me we might suddenly no longer see a large rift between Islam and the West, any more than we see a large rift any more between Eastern and Western Europe. And there is no reason, to my mind, why a society cannot be both fully Muslim and fully democratic.

I would also expect Egypt, under any kind of new government that was not corrupt, to quickly and massively boom economically. So too for the rest of North Africa and the Levant. While held back by bad government, these countries have an extremely well-educated workforce; indeed a spectacularly well-educated workforce; and that is where true prosperity comes from.

Here's hoping.