A half century of reading about the Arabs has left John Derbyshire with two strong impressions:
One: a rational, orderly, and fair system of government is beyond Arab capabilities. And two: They are the all-time world champions at blaming other people for their problems.
He gives a little history and describes US interests in the region:
We wanted to keep the oil flowing. We didn’t want to see Israel annihilated. We worked with who we found, bribing as necessary. To the Arab in the street this looked like, quote, “the U.S.A. colluding with the Jews to prop up corrupt dictators.” Hey, pal: if you’d gotten yourself some non-corrupt non-dictators, we’d have been happy to work with them.
Liberal democracy is not a possible outcome. Here’s what is:
- Evens: an Iran-Gaza outcome, i.e. religious fanatics take over the place and start arming up for a war against the Jews.
- Two to one: regime survival: the Mubarak regime, with or without Mubarak, survives the crisis, supported by (a) the common people’s desire for a restoration of order under any conditions, (b) the military’s desire to continue living the harlot’s life — power without responsibility — on U.S. subsidies, and (c) backing from key international playahs, notably the Saudis, the Europeans, and of course us.
- Five to one: a military coup, some bright young officer in the Nasser-Gaddafi-Saddam mould sweeping away the old order and starting a new cycle of gangster-dictatorship.
Each outcome has its pros and cons:
The big pro of an Iran-Gaza outcome would be we’d no longer be on the hook for the two billion dollar annual bribe we pay Mubarak to behave himself. The con is of course another crazy wild-card actor in the Mideast.
The pro of regime survival is we wouldn’t have to think about the stinking place for another decade or two; the con is, they’d want a big cost-of-living adjustment on that annual bribe, which of course we’d have to borrow from the ChiComs.
The pro of a military coup is that the military is the least religious and most bribable faction in Egypt and has the ethos and the means to impose order; the con is that the cost-of-living adjustment in the bribe we pay them will be twice as big again.
Derb also gives a shout-out to our man on the inside, Foseti.