The domino effect

Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen; Syria is next, while tensions grow in Libya, and Algeria anxiously awaits further developments. Rulers of many countries are literally swept by panic. Their actions resemble a reflexive desire to do something at the last minute, to try and prevent events which may well be fatal to them.

According to the American think tank Stratfor, King Abdullah II of Jordan has decided to dissolve the government and has ordered a new cabinet to be formed. Obviously, what is happening right now is not accidental, as the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan is watching the developments in Egypt. However, Jordan is not Egypt.

The Jordanian government treats the opposition very differently from the Egyptian one, and has applied a softer approach to it. The political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Front of Action, is recognized as a legitimate political entity in Jordan, although the Front is still fighting for adequate representation in parliament.

The government of Iran, feeling the effects of international sanctions, has sharply raised prices on gasoline and diesel fuel, but after the Tunisian events it has put on the brakes (quite dramatically at that) and announced new forms of assistance for the poor. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has suddenly decided not to hold a referendum to extend his presidential term until 2020 and offered to hold early elections this year, thereby reducing his presidential term by two years. The carefully designed and prepared campaign of the “people’s will” for the extension of his term was stopped immediately. The Kazakh president’s decision to abandon the referendum was unplanned. It was clearly motivated by the massive popular protests demanding a regime change in Egypt, says German political scientist Alexander Rahr. The Kazakh leader, as an experienced politician, realized that his game is too risky and he might well meet the fate of the Tunisian president, and possibly the Egyptian president, too. The thing is not that the presidents of Tunisia, Egypt and some other countries have stayed in power too long. This is a subjective factor, albeit it has a certain significance, too.

Much more importantly, these leaders, highly respected in the past, completely lost the sense of reality and shied away from resolving the problems that arose and were exacerbated through strengthening authoritarianism, sometimes acquiring traits of totalitarianism. It was not only ordinary people who got tired of poverty, abuse of law, and widespread corruption — the elites got tired, too. National wealth was concentrated in the hands of one family (or several families), most often the ruling one, or ones that were very close to it. Who would like this? And characteristically for most Arab regimes, problems with the elite easily translate into problems with the army that normally serves as the guarantor of regime stability.

Intra-elite conflict, its depth and poignancy translate into mass protests in the streets and squares. In Egypt, one could see how the army high command was vacillating literally by day. So one day, soldiers were out of the streets, then they appeared again and even fired shots, but the next day they allowed a demonstration of two million people to proceed, and then installed tanks at intersections, but soldiers were only watching what happened. If at some point the brass hats would decide to treat their president as their counterparts in Tunis did, it will inevitably echo like a thunder far beyond the Arab world.

The prediction of president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, a retired Russian army general Leonid Ivashov is quite a representative one. In an interview with the Portuguese news agency Lusa, he said: “The Egyptian and Tunisian events will inevitably repeat in Russia, but their nature can be quite different. When the government and the people are opposed to each other, radical changes are inevitable. It remains to see, will it be a violent rebellion, or will the authorities find the courage to undertake radical reforms. So far the authorities have not done anything good for anybody; they do everything to block the development of parties and social movements.”

Another feature of the developments in North Africa is the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. However, no one wants to think about the threat of Russian fundamentalism. Indeed, with internal conflicts considerably exacerbated, the government, as well as elite factions that oppose it, may attempt to find solutions to arising problems precisely in such radical ideologies. But this path leads to a dead end, as proved by Iran’s example. Anything, aside from the radical democratization of society, leads to dead end.

COMMENTARY

Eyal ZISSER, Professor, Dayan Center of the Tel Aviv University:

“The unrest in Egypt was unexpected and challenges the system. And now we have to wait and see how everything will end. For now, the system is fighting back. It is difficult to forecast at this time. On the one hand, there are very brave young men and on the other hand, there is a very strong system. I’m not talking about President Mubarak, I mean the regime. I really do not know, it is just impossible to predict anything at the moment.

“If the demonstrators will mobilize and continue protests over the coming days, the regime will find it very difficult to survive. Conversely, if the authorities will suppress the demonstrations, it will be able to hold out for a while. But reasons and occasions of unrest remain — they are not going anywhere. That is, the next explosion can occur very soon after stopping of the current confrontation.

“As for the lessons of the revolution in Tunisia and now in Egypt, all the neighboring regimes have reason to worry. However, I do not think that after the abovementioned revolutions there will be more democracy and freedom of speech in the region. But Western countries can only observe the situation. Their opportunities are limited because they cannot interfere. In addition, it is not up for them to decide what the future of this region should be like. As for Barack Obama’s call for the Egyptian president’s resignation, people wonder: if you appeal for democracy, where was the US earlier, when Mubarak was strong and his regime stable? In other words, the US must take some of the blame for the situation that has arisen in Egypt.

“I do not exclude the possibility of Islamization of the country after the overthrow of the Mubarak regime, but it could only happen in the long run.”