Viva la Revolucion

I know you've been frantically refreshing the Razor, anxiously awaiting my commentary on the revolutions sweeping the Middle-East. Sorry for the delay. Events happen so quickly, even with a subscription to Stratfor, I hardly have time to keep up with the goings on, and rarely have time to write. We'll try to correct that today.

It is official Razor policy that I am "for" maximum global happiness. Believing that the best way to max out a population's happiness is to give the people the ability to conduct their lives however they see fit I'm supportive of all revolutions that result in a freer society. Once liberty (and a full stomach) has been achieved, happiness is only increased incrementally by nicer homes, more possessions, technology, &c. Which is not to say that the latter aren't motivating factors, just secondary to the primary factor, freedom.

Revolutions tend to be contagious. Once one nation gets a little freedom, the neighboring countries want to achieve the same. With that in mind, all of the tyrannical regimes of the Middle-East are concerned that they are on borrowed time. I wrote (here) about some of the things that various governments had done recently to appease their subjects, but there is blood in the air, so it seems unlikely that the majority of these efforts will be successful.

Things got started in Tunisia with the "Jasmine Revolution" which knocked President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali out of power, and put Tunisia on the path toward a (hopefully) more representative form of government. Good Job! Before we get to far, it's interesting to note that the Tunisian revolution was dubbed "Jasmine" not because of the hot chick in Aladdin, but because the main stream media insists on naming these things after colors/flowers (here). Past revolutions have been named Rose (Georgia), Orange (Ukraine), Cedar (Lebanon), and Tulip (Kyrgyzstan).

Next up? Egypt.

Mubarak has ruled Egypt for a long time. To some degree, he has been a decent man. Certainly he has been a strategic ally to Israel, and by extension, to the US. With Israel not concerned with an invasion from the border with Egypt, they could focus on the more material threats (Hamas, Hezbollah, &c.). However, the population, made up primarily of young people was tired of Mubarak, so he got the boot. What we'll learn over the next few months is whether the new Egyptian government will enhance the liberty of the country, continue to be an ally to us, or if they fall back into a despotic trap. It is not inevitable that the replacement government will be an improvement. We shall see.

As you know, the revolting is not over. Over the weekend I read where Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi called on the Palestinians to protest against their "oppressors" in Israel. I'm sure he's now rethinking his pro-revolt point of view as his own populace is in the process of revolting against him.

As an aside, Mr. Gaddafi only seems to pop his head up when the United States has a Democrat in the Oval Office. I remember as a child, Ronald Reagan bombed the crap out of Libya because Gaddafi was causing some trouble for us. At the time, Gaddafi spelled his name Qaddafi (or something like that). Not only did Reagan get his attention and get him to slow down the terrorism nonsense, but hearing that Americans preferred to have their Q's followed by U's, changed the spelling of his name to avoid further bombings. During the 1990's, with Clinton in office, Libya began a program to develop Weapons of Mass Destruction. With Bush elected and seeing Saddam hanging from the end of a rope, Gaddafi didn't feel it wise to tempt fate. He not only shut down his weapons program, he put it on a boat and shipped it all to us. Current Location? Oak Ridge, TN.

I fully expected the tyrannical regime in Iran to fall last year (was it two years ago?). Whenever it was, the young people of the country began rioting, it looked like it hit critical mass, and then died down almost as quickly as it started. The next attempt, likely already underway, will probably not fail. That'll be a fun one to watch.

I've already kept you too long. Tune in tomorrow for more on Egypt, Jordan, and few other odds and ends.