Middle East after Hosni Mubarak: impact of a revolution

Excerpts from an article by Roger Hardy at BBC

[T]he success of ‘people power’ in Egypt is far more significant for Arabs everywhere than its success in Tunisia. The Egyptian example has already electrified public opinion throughout a region where a similar set of ills - autocracy, corruption, unemployment, the dignity deficit - prevail.

Autocrats whose security services are smaller and weaker than Egypt’s are more vulnerable to the chill wind of popular anger.

Those with the money to buy off dissent are already trying to do so. Poorer states, such as Jordan and Yemen, will have to borrow in order to do so.

Fears of Islamic revolutions everywhere are misplaced. Most of the current dissent seems driven by nationalist rather than religious sentiment.

In Egypt and elsewhere, the Islamists are jumping on a bandwagon others have set in motion.

The Obama administration’s handling of the Egypt crisis has been inept. But even if their response had been sure-footed, the underlying conundrum would have been the same.

The West has, for decades, made stability a higher priority than democracy and human rights.

Some urgent re-thinking is now under way, as policymakers scramble to learn the right lessons.