David Ignatius, one of the nation’s premier foreign affairs reporters, has written a piece for Foreign Policy magazine that is filled with cautions and warnings.
Here’s an excerpt:
“After the exhilarating days in Tahrir Square that led to the resignation on Feb. 11 of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, many observers have felt a chill in the political air — whatever the season may be.
“The first electoral test of the new democracy came in the March 19 constitutional referendum. That resulted in resounding defeat for the democracy-building ‘no’ vote urged by many leaders of the Tahrir Square revolution — and a thumping 77 percent victory for the ‘yes’ position advocated by the unspoken alliance between the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and the Muslim Brotherhood.
“Egypt’s democratic revolutionaries, to be sure, are fighting back. They have stepped up their own political organizing and are forming new parties. They see the danger that their revolution will be hijacked, and they are organizing against that outcome.
“To say that there are dangers ahead for Egypt and its neighbors is only to state the obvious. For the historical truth is that although revolutions are always lovable in their infancy, they tend to become less so as they age. The idealistic youth on the barricades, who seem drawn from the cast of ‘Les Misérables,’ are replaced by small groups of determined revolutionaries who have the will and ideological or religious determination to steer the masses.
“And the revolutionary disorder, which seemed so exciting at first, becomes dark and insecure to the point that people demand order and give up the freedoms they fought so hard to obtain.
I don’t mean to predict that the Arab Spring will turn to winter. In truth, we don’t know where this process is heading; there are too many inflection points and uncertainties. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates had it right when he said in March that this is ‘dark territory’ it’s impossible to read the overhead imagery, so to speak, and know what’s down there in terms of outcomes. In what follows, I want to offer a skeptical analytical look — not predicting failure, but warning of obstacles ahead.”
To read the entire piece, click here.
