Just two-and-a-half years ago, advocates of “the Arab Spring” argued it would bring democracy to the Middle East and end terrorism’s attraction in the Muslim world. Large demonstrations, especially in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, filled Western television screens, and our media reported excitedly that the Internet-age demonstrators used Facebook and Twitter. The fall of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, in power for three decades, embodied the widely accepted narrative that ousting authoritarian regimes was easy, costless and unambiguously positive.
But not all street demonstrators are Jeffersonian democrats, not all users of social media are Thoreau-style idealists, and not all post-authoritarian regimes are better than what they replace.
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