Morning Bell: The Middle East’s Third Wave

In a private phone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, almost two weeks after the unrest began, President Barack Obama finally called for Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi to step down. While the President’s inertia may have been mitigated by the need to get Americans out of the country so Qadhafi could not take any hostages, the incident demonstrates again that the wave of revolution currently sweeping North Africa and the Middle East took the Obama Administration completely by surprise. And for good reason: President Obama’s “engagement” strategy toward the “Islamic world” is thoroughly outdated and irrelevant.

The first wave of revolutions in the region came in the middle of the last century and was made up of nationalist revolts against European colonialism. The next wave, the Islamist revolt, came a generation later, upending corrupt monarchies and nationalist regimes set up after the colonial era. Each of these movements—nationalist and Islamist—pretended to be “pan” movements of some kind. But they never caught on for very long because their universal claims were myths, undermined by tribal, religious, and nationalist divisions. The third wave we are witnessing today is completely different. Heritage Foundation Vice President and former Assistant Secretary of State Kim Holmes explains:

Arab nationalism was largely an elite phenomenon that drove and exploited popular sentiments. Islamism is driven by clerics and political ideologues like the Muslim Brotherhood who likewise exploit peoples’ religious beliefs and social resentments. The current third wave of revolt is truly a bottom-up, people driven movement. It’s driven not by nationalism, Islamism or any other 20th Century “ism,” but by a 21st Century socially linked-up mass movement of people who are sick of corruption, the lack of representative government, and being poor. … Despite the unique national and tribal features of each movement, it is united by the same emotional revulsion to the ruin and corruption created by the first two waves of revolution in the Middle East. The people of Libya are no less disgusted with Qadhafi than the people of Iran are with Ahmadinejad. One may be largely Sunni Arabs and the other Shiite Persians, but both are utterly finished with the ideologies, pretentions, and results of the Middle East’s first two failed revolutions.

IMO, this is exactly what the diplomatic core wants desperately to believe. The diplomats continue to think that if we just talk to people, everything will turn our rosey.

I don't think the Muslim Brotherhood is now seeking a way to weasel it's way into a leadership role. It was doing that years ago, while the diplomats were ignoring the real world around them. And now the MB is executing it's plan across the region.

Yes, the people were goaded into this "people's movement", but they do not have the organizational skills necessary to keep these nations from sinking back into Islamic Theocratic rule.

The sooner the diplomats gasp this, the sooner they and others can start addressing the real world as opposed to the fantasy world they have concocted.

Rebel groups don't stand poised to exploit political unrest in ten nations at one time, unless there has been plenty of groundwork first.

HELLO! Thump! Thump! Hello! Is this thing on?...

and how long do you think the “muslim brotherhood” is going to be able to keep a lid on hundreds of millions of poor people - by using islam as a sledgehammer?

Frankly I think the MB may be rethinking its abilities, now that control is within reach. Let them run Egypt and see how well they do. In Egypt for sure, a lot of the peasants have managed to see “Paree”, and certainly the middle and upper classes have. Do they think all those women students ululating for freedom are going to give up driving, give up working, give up traveling, go home and sit in the backyard wearing hijabs?

If they break it (arab world), they own it. Then what?
They have to feed it. Good luck with that, and brandishing nukes along with some donkeys, goats and stone wheels

My thought on this has been focused on a loose connection with all these nations adopting a clerical leader type of arrangement. It wouldn’t have to boil down to that in each instance. A more secular approach could work.

More than picking one brand of Islam and trying to shove that down everyone’s throat, I see them trying to set up something everyone is comfortable with, then controlling the strings behind the scenes.

The people they support for power, support them back understanding that they are all more powerful, by the affiliation with the M.B.

I have referred to this as a United States of Iran. I’ve gotten some push-back based on the Islamic sect consideration, but I don’t see that as a road-block, if the MB handles it craftily.

I do think that by old standards, that was a powerful criticism of my regional view. I’m not so sure these days.

Iran wants to control the region. If it’s done right through the MB, and they don’t try to control which sect wins in each nation, they could come up with something rather interesting.

It would provide autonomy, with the power of a multi-national entity.

It could cause a lot of grief for the West.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.