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?
