Three Questions About Those Middle East Revolts

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.


Dan Drezner has three questions about the revolts currently sweeping the Middle East:

1) How much logic will be contorted in an effort to argue that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was the trigger? I’m thinking a lot.

2) Which neoconservative impulse will win out — the embrace of democratic longing, or the fear of Islamic movements taking power?

3) A year from now, will Tunisia actually be a democracy? The “Jasmine Revolution” portion of this story is easy — it’s the grubby parts of institution-building and power-sharing that muck things up.

Let’s see. On #1, I’d say that calling it pretzel bending will end up being an insult to pretzels. #2 is easy: neocons will embrace the democracy part and take credit for it and denounce the Islamist part and blame Obama for it. On #3, the answer is no.

Any other questions?

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate