In 1982, Muslims in the city of Hama rose up against the Syrian dictatorship. “President” Hafez al-Assad, the father of today’s Syrian strongman, sent in his military. At least 25,000 civilians were massacred. The media saw little, governments said less, and the regime in Damascus marched on.
No ruler in the Middle East could pull that off today and keep it quiet. The stunning changes in digital connectivity — the democratization of the news — have changed the rules for good: Dictators can still butcher their own people, but other governments are forced by popular opinion to react. In words first uttered in Chicago in 1968, “The whole world’s watching.”
Connectivity is the new enabler of revolt. First in Tunisia, now in Egypt, today’s wealth of information sources, from satellite news to blogs, Facebook and Twitter, has powered spontaneous popular uprisings — flash mobs for the revolution — leaving longtime opposition leaders scrambling to catch up.
The Mubarak regime in Cairo rushed to shut down the Internet and seize control of other news sources. But the people’s cat was out of the government bag. As I write, regime thugs have been beating, intimidating and arresting members of the international media. It’s an approach that could have worked a few decades ago, but that backfi res now: There are toomany cellphone cameras in the streets, too many options for voices to break through, too many competing news outlets hungry for copy. The outraged media simply double down.
We can’t know what the lasting results will be from the current tumult, but it’s clear that the game has changed. Tunisia and Egypt will never be the same, no matter the composition of their next governments. But what about the rest of the Arab world’s states, each in its own way a wretched example of arrested development? Where will revolution next clog up the streets?
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THE PALESTINIANS: Protest in the streets or not, they’ll lose. Their Arab “supporters” throughout the region will make sure of it. Other Arabs need the Palestinians as a tortured cause.
LIBYA: The uprisings to the west in Tunisia and to the east in Egypt must have Moammar Khadafy wondering if his four decades of dictatorship will extend on through a fi fth. Geographically vast, with a population of only 6.5 million, Libya’s been a model police state. Its security apparatus would probably crush popular demonstrations before they got off the block. Khadafy might, however, feel obliged to allow a few token protests — a potentially fatal mistake we should hope he makes, since early crackdowns are the only consistently effective response to public dissent. Meanwhile, you can bet that old Mo’s nervous.
SUDAN: An African state that insists on its Arab identity, Sudan has been the worst-governed major country in the region (quite an achievement). Repressive, violent, treacherous and economically incompetent, the Khartoum regime recently had to allow its southern provinces to become an independent state — after a lengthy civil war and uneasy peace — but Sudan’s western territories, notably Darfur, continue to fester. Meanwhile, the population rots. Recent anti-government demonstrations in the streets of the capital were a hopeful sign, but this regime is not afraid to kill.
ALGERIA: This infl uential state of 35 million is a place where a popular upheaval is a real possibility. Recent demonstrations spooked the government, which last week called off a 19-year-long state of emergency, but the troubles are far from over. Algeria’s future could involve more of the same with different faces (the likeliest scenario), or a lurch toward rambunctious democracy. Islamists will continue to kill but have no chance of seizing national power.
JORDAN: This small (pop. 6.5 million), strategically located state is also a family concern, but its lack of oil wealth has taught its kings how to rule with measured benevolence. Every king insures the loyalty of crucial elements of the population — especially, those with Bedouin backgrounds, key to the Hashemite dynasty. Like his father, King Hussein, King Abdullah keeps his ear to the ground and his vanity under control, at least in public. He takes a heartfelt interest in progress and has a popular trophy wife.
When the Amman streets rumbled briefly last week, Abdullah dismissed an unpopular prime minister (guilty of hard work, integrity and competence) and reformed his cabinet to show the people that he heard their voices. There may be trouble ahead in Jordan, but bet on this America friendly dynasty to keep the goodwill of most of its people — and probably survive.
YEMEN: This is a lawless territory pretending to be a state.Yemen’s political system has yet to reach the heights of medieval feudalism. A tribal culture divided by feuds, religious discord, inequity and iniquity, only the people’s widespread addiction to qat, a chill-out narcotic chomped for lunch, tamps down the taste for violence.
Yet, even in Sanaa, the capital of this primitive stretch of the map, the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt have sparked unprecedented demonstrations, fi st by those hostile to President Ali Abdullah Saleh, then, as in Egypt, by paid supporters of the alarmed regime.
Saleh rushed to the airwaves to tell his people he would not run for re-election but would raise government salaries, expand welfarepayments, skip a year of school fees, lower taxes and fix prices. Itsounded like Chicago in an election year. Saleh’s goal is his own survival in power, as he deals with tribal rebellions and a nasty al Qaeda presence up in the hills. But even this petty despot in one of the world’s worst backwaters (where the water is running out) has begun to recognize that he’s accountable to the man, if not the woman, in the street. That alone amounts to a revolution.
And if Saleh and his regime were to fall? At this point, the likeliest result would be regional fragmentation, more exported terrorism and possible civil war leading to the break-up of the state. Yemen has no good options.
SAUDI ARABIA: What happens in Riyadh, stays in Riyadh.
Nothing’s going to happen in this sun-scorched heart of darkness. Saudi Arabia’s a private fiefdom run by the most-successful mob family of our time. A few trivial protests might be tolerated, then turned to the family’s advantage as a consigliere in Washington trumpets the capo di capi’s tolerance of dissent (Fredo will get his later). In Saudi Arabia, it’s still good to be the king. And the House of Saud’s unrivaled patronage system makes everybody answerable to a godfather. It isn’t personal, it’s business.
SYRIA: This is the big one. Although its population of 22 million is barely a quarter of Egypt’s, Syria has been the real stumbling block to Mideast peace for decades — as well as keeping Lebanon ungovernable. If the Egyptian revolution succeeds, it may inspire unrest in Syria’s streets. The Damascus dictatorship could toss out a few bones — the regime has been slowly implementing economic reforms — but if demonstrations grew serious, a savage crackdown would follow in short order. President Bashar al-Assad could rely on his allies in Iran to help him weather the subsequent Western huffiness.
That said, if a brave popular movement somehow unseated the Damascus regime, it could be good news for peace, for the population, for Israel, for Lebanon — and very bad news for Iran and its client, Hezbollah. While an upheaval would have an Islamic component, secular forces would predominate, just as in Egypt today. The odds are heavy against freedom coming to Syria anytime soon, but we live in an age of surprises (every Western intelligence agency was blindsided by the uprising in Tunisia).
THE GULF STATES: Small protests erupted, then faded, in Bahrain (which has its own Sunni-vs.-Shia internal problems). Overall, the wealthy states lining the western side of the Persian Gulf — the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait — have done a good job of buying off their native populations and providing bread and circuses (including Al Jazeera, a potent regional player reminiscent of Goethe’s description of the devil as always wishing evil but accidentally doing good).
In a region that’s made bribery an art form — with its masterworks on constant display in Washington — the local potentates should be able to contain any unrest. If they don’t, Saudi Arabia will intervene. Nor would the United States stand idly by: This is where the oil is.
ELSEWHERE… Surely, the syndicate boys in Beijing, Tehran, Pyongyang and Caracas must be watching Cairo in terror. The bottom line is that the era of dictators immune to the popular will is slowly ending. Change will be measured in years, decades and generations, but the trend is clear. Postmodern communications and social networks, along with the proliferation of “media without borders,” have changed the rules profoundly: The gun still has the power, but the cost of pulling the trigger has soared. Nor should we forget the “inconvenient truth” that former President George W. Bush is a presiding spirit behind the changes underway in the Middle East.
Iraq’s troubled democracy is nonetheless a democracy — the first among the major Arab states to last through at least three national elections. Egyptians think of themselves as the sophisticates of the Arab world and don’t like being left behind by Iraqis they view as yokels. For all his blunders during the occupation of Iraq, Bush broke the ice. Skeptical Arabs learned that democracy is possible. Now they’ve taken to the streets in the millions.
And the whole world is watching.
Ralph Peters is a former military intelligence officer with extensive experience abroad. His new novel, “The Officers’ Club,” is set in the post-Vietnam military.