Monday, January 31, 2011

Islamist uprisings?

Egypt is in the midst of large uprisings, as is much of the Middle East.  I hope that this is a good thing, but I think it is an uprising of Islamist extremists, or the popular uprising will be taken over by Islamist extremists. 

In the beginning, all revolutions inspire hope.  After all, they are overthrowing tyranny, and humankind responds sympathetically.  But, so many of them end up establishing new tyrannies.  All the way back to the French revolution that was taken over by the guillotine, the '79 Iranian revolution which installed Ayatollah Khomeini, and the recent Iranian street protests did not overturn the Iranian tyranny.  Other than America's George Washington, and Vaclev Havel of Czechoslovakia, most other revolutions created tyrranies.

It seems certain to me that the Arab populous has a long hatred of the United States and of Israel.  My fear is that if the Egyptian tyranny topples, whoever takes over is all too likely to break the thirty year peace with Israel, cease much of the assistance that it has been giving to America in our war against terrorists, and eventually be taken over by Islamic extremists.

I profoundly hope that more moderate and responsible elements of Islam will come to power in Egypt, but I think that the West is going to lose some important support in Egypt, and indeed, we are likely looking at the overturning of tyrannies in the Middle East that had at least some connection and cooperation with the West to be replaced by fundamentalist Islamists who will turn their back to the West, or worse.