The Great Crisis

Editor's Note: Michael Ledeen is a Freedom Scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and author of more than 25 books, most recently Accomplice to Evil; Iran and the War Against the West.

There are so many dramatic events in the Middle East these days that it's easy to concentrate all our attention on a single one, these days the fall of Mubarak in Egypt. The tumult now covers a huge area: Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Jordan, Libya, Algeria and Tunisia have either reported protests against the rulers or foresees them in the immediate future. A phenomenon of such enormous dimensions cannot be understood by focusing on a single case. While local events (whether bread prices or the self-immolation of single citizens) undoubtedly served as catalysts, we are dealing with a regional insurrection against authoritarian (and, in the cases of Syria and Iran, totalitarian) tyrants.

It remains to be seen whether it will be successful. It's easy to be misled by the street theater into believing that revolutions have already taken place. None has, at least not yet. The former dictator of Tunisia has gone into exile, and the former dictator of Egypt has gone into internal exile. In both countries, the armed forces are in charge (whether they are also in control remains to be seen), and are promising to step aside "soon," once new constitutions have been written and approved, and a new government is elected.

If that happens in just two Arab countries, it will truly have been a revolutionary event... if the new governments are indeed liberal democracies, and not -- as some fear -- new tyrannies produced by elections that will prove to have been "one man, one vote, one time."

Nobody knows how Tunisia and Egypt will pan out, let alone all those other countries, where the sitting tyrants are still in charge. But we can certainly draw some important conclusions, and discard some of the slogans and stereotypes that have long passed for wisdom about the Middle East:

- The "Arab Street" is a myth. Arabs were supposed to be almost genetically resistant to democracy, preferring strong, oppressive leaders. And Arabs were supposed to be totally obsessed with the Israel/Palestinian question, to the exclusion of both their countries' widespread misery, their lack of freedom, and other threats to their national security. We now know that lots of Arabs want to be free, have plenty of time and energy to address social and economic problems, and lots of them worry a lot about Iran even more than about Israel;

- Despite the considerable religious and other cultural differences from one country to another, the demand for greater freedom is unexpectedly strong in all of them. As I write on Saturday evening, Algerian security forces are said to have rounded up a thousand protesters, and there are ongoing demonstrations in Yemen's capital;

- Women are quite active in these movements, as they have been for years in Iran, while according to the stereotype of the "Arab Street" women were supposed to have been marginalized in "the culture."

Moreover, the tumult is not limited to Arab countries, and there is considerable interplay between democrats in Iran and those in the Arab capitals. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei eagerly supported the Egyptian and Tunisian insurrections, declaring them part of a widespread "Islamic Awakening." But in fact the tyrants in Iran were very alarmed to see hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy youths calling for the overthrow of their governments, because the Iranian tyrants knew full well that the Arabs were emulating the Iranians who had taken to the streets in mid-2009 (and continued for many months thereafter), demanding their own freedom. The remarks of the Egyptian poster boy, Wael Ghonim, could not have been more explicit:

"I would tell Iranians to learn from the Egyptians," he said, "as we have learned from you guys, that at the end of the day with the power of people, we can do whatever we want to do." And he called for uniting to achieve their common goals.

You can be sure that the Ayatollahs in Tehran understand this quite well, and they have accordingly sent their security forces into the streets and squares of the country in anticipation of demonstrations called for Monday the 14th. And they cannot have been pleased to hear the Obama Administration, which heretofore had tiptoed around the grisly slaughter carried out by the Iranian regime against its own people, as well as the ongoing terror attacks sponsored, armed and trained by Iran, denounce the Iranians in laudably clear language. Both Vice President Biden and National Security Adviser Donilon condemned the blatant hypocrisy of the Iranian regime for praising Egyptian democrats while oppressing Iranian ones, and called on the Iranians to let their people demonstrate, just as the Egyptians were doing.

Those good words are the beginning of a decent policy, but only just. We need to actively support the Iranian democratic opposition, with strong words and some material support (money, and perhaps communications technology) if they tell us they need it. The downfall of the Tehran regime would be a godsend, not only for American national security, but for the pro-democracy forces throughout the region. Virtually every terrorist group and radical Islamist organization gets help from Iran, and without that largesse they would all be substantially weakened. One of the problems facing our policy makers in Egypt is that, while there are many admirable people in the opposition, there are also members of some very nasty organizations. If they were to gain the upper hand in a future Egyptian government, it would be hell to pay for us, for the Egyptian people, and for all true democrats in the Middle East. Much has been written about the Muslim Brotherhood, whose members have long schemed to establish an Islamic Republic on the banks of the Nile, but they are not the only evil forces at work there. Islamic Jihad, for example, which spawned bin Laden's top comrade, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is another, and it receives considerable support from Tehran.

The presence of such groups rightly concerns us, for prudent policy makers know, as my grandmother used to say, that nothing is so bad that it can't get worse. As Hippocrates famously told medical doctors, the first rule of good medicine is to avoid doing harm, and we need to follow the same principle in dealing with the current uprising. Back in 1979, when a mass movement mobilized against the dictatorial shah of Iran, we were unable to distinguish between the legitimate democrats and the fanatical Islamists. The result: the worst actors took power, and Iran was far worse than it was under the shah. Worse for us, for the region, and for the Iranian people. We must not repeat that terrible mistake.

This is easier said than done, to be sure. If we had been supporting real democrats in the Middle East for the past many years, we would have a better picture of who's who in places like Tahrir Square. But we failed to do that. Now we have to scramble to catch up, and that's a guarantee of error. General James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, told Congress last week that the Muslim Brotherhood was "largely secular" and "eschewed violence." He was wrong on both counts, as he should have realized by looking at the first word of their name ("Muslim") and reflecting on the fact that the Brothers were deeply involved in a series of attempted assassinations -- first Nasser, then Mubarak -- and one successful one -- Sadat.

There will undoubtedly be more such misconceptions, which will lead to potentially tragic policy failures.

Similarly, if we had consistently used our considerable leverage on the Egyptians to work with them to make their political system freer, we might not have been forced to choose between an unpopular dictator and a mass movement about which we didn't know enough. And Egypt is only one of many countries in which we face the same choices. In many cases, there is no really good option, and we will have to choose what appears to be the lesser of available evils.

Finally, the whole enterprise has been made even more difficult by a president who designed his Middle East strategy on the basis of romantic theories about the "Muslim world," and a visceral conviction that past American policies -- especially our support for Israel--are the root cause of Muslim rage. His belief that if he offered a grand bargain to Iran our differences could be resolved at the negotiating table is a classic example. As he has discovered, the Iranians don't want a deal, they want to destroy us. They are trying to kill Americans -- and their own people -- every day.

Is this administration capable of recognizing its past errors and designing a policy that can turn the great insurrection to the advantage of freedom, and therefore of the United States? The recent past gives little reason for optimism, and our enemies in the region are well organized, well funded, and inspired by a fanatical belief that their cause is blessed by the Almighty. It's going to be very tough.