How Goes the Global Uprising?

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.

So far, two dictators have been toppled and have been replaced by interim governments (with a striking resemblance to the previous ones), and there is a civil war in Libya. There are demonstrations throughout the Middle East, and indeed throughout the world, driven by mass movements demanding greater freedom. But there are also many demonstrators who want more rigid governmental control, typically inspired by fundamentalist Islamic codes that would dramatically worsen the civil rights of women, members of other sects and faiths, and more liberal Muslims. It's a fight, with enormous stakes for the people involved and for the world at large. The war in Libya, along with the virtual civil war in Iran, give some sense of the intensity of the conflict, as Qadaffi fights to retain power against a considerable armed force, and the ayatollahs use all manner of violence to repress the opposition Green Movement.

Perhaps there will be structural changes in the Middle East—people are working on new Constitutions all over the place-- but they have not taken place yet, and the "new order" may not resemble the dreams of the democratic demonstrators, nor of those who dream of a new Caliphate. No one can predict what the world will look like in a few weeks, let alone months from now, any more than anyone anticipated the current situation.

This is quite normal, by the way. There is a widespread conceit that pundits or experts can predict events of great import, such as revolutions, but while it is certainly possible to diagnose a "revolutionary situation," we are invariably surprised when it actually happens. This was the case with the Soviet Empire, for example. Several of us predicted its downfall, but none of us could put a precise time frame on it, and when it finally happened we were surprised at both the timing and the form it took.

Nonetheless, we can certainly dispense with at least three widely accepted views of the Middle East, which have been effectively demolished on the ground:

 --First, the myth of the "Arab Street," according to which the Arab masses are somehow unmoved by the desire for freedom, and inevitably—as if it were a genetic imperative--rally around one strong man or another. We have seen huge numbers of Arabs willing to take enormous risks to remove their strong men and create a freer and more just polity;

 --Second, the misguided notion that the Arab-Israeli conflict is the central issue in the Middle East. None of the revolts—whether in Arab countries or in Iran--was inspired by a demand that the regime act more forcefully in the "peace process" or do more for the Palestinian people. The uprisings were aimed at removing hated regimes.

 --Third, contrary to the conventional wisdom, according to which revolutions are desperate acts of people in dire economic straits, the Tunisian uprising—the first in the Arab countries—came under generally good economic conditions (the best in the region) and was led by men and women from comfortable circumstances. True, the proximate cause of the uprising was the self-immolation of a young man prevented from selling vegetables on the streets, but the regime was toppled by demands of greater freedom and less corruption, not of bread for the hungry.

With rare exceptions, revolutions are acts of hope, not a last, a desperate throw of the existential dice. It is no accident that most revolutions and revolts are carried out by young people full of hope and hormones. The hope transcends national and regional boundaries as well as ethnic and religious divides, as we see today: Sunnis and Shi'ites, and even Ibadhis (in Oman) have demanded freedom and justice. The Chinese regime, which knows a thing or two about revolution, was quite prepared to believe that revolutionary passions had spread to the PRC, and cracked down quickly and viciously at the first sign of young Chinese organizing their own pro-democracy movement. Down in Venezuela, students demanding the release of political prisoners staged a hunger strike in front of the Caracas offices of the Organization of American States. As their action started to gain widespread support and media coverage, President Hugo Chavez capitulated. We will no doubt see more such protests in the future. And the passions for liberty and virtue are very much on display in the United States, in the leaderless mass movement known as the Tea Party.

The leaders of the insurrection are certainly in touch with each other, and if we look back to the fall of the Soviet Empire, we can see the same pattern. Solidarity in Poland was certainly not the only trade union movement in the Warsaw Pact countries; when I was in the Reagan Administration, I read the notes of secret meetings of labor leaders from all over Central and Eastern Europe. They met to compare their experiences and analyses, and to plan their strategies.

In like manner, the forces of the old order likewise shared their understanding and their assessments of how to deal with their common threat. This, too, is an old story, dating back to the second half of the 18th century, when the European monarchs believed they were under assault from a vast conspiracy, which in a way was true, but not in the way they believed. There was certainly an intellectual/political conspiracy (just as the Committees of Correspondence in pre-Revolutionary America), but not, for the most part, the well-organized subversive underground the monarchists imagined.

It is similar today. The Iranian regime believes that its home-grown opponents are directed from outside the country by dark democratic forces in Washington, London and Jerusalem, and you can be sure that by now, the frightened tyrants from Damascus to Caracas are convinced that the usual subjects, whispering in English and Hebrew, are orchestrating the whole thing. They aren't (although they should be). The leaders of Iran's Green Movement have not had any direct contact with any Western government since the phony elections of June, 2009.

The real conspiracies, today as in the 18th century, are among the democrats within the tyrannical regimes, or--little noted so far--in the hands of the tyrants. The Saudis sent help to Mubarak, and lobbied Washington to do the same. Some of this has been reported, and no doubt there is lots more flowing through classified channels. I have no doubt that the Iranians, Syrians and Turks are coordinating strategy and sharing intelligence, as are the members of the terror network. They have two objectives: preserve the Islamic regimes they like, and topple their enemies by taking over the insurrection and turning it to carry out their wicked aims.

As my friend Walid Phares has said, there are two diametrically opposed forces at work within the global insurrection: a western-style democratic revolutionary movement, and an anti-democratic movement that favors tyranny, whether wrapped in the red flag of socialism or in the green robes of a new Islamic caliphate. If the West were true to its announced principles, it would be supporting the democratic revolution (especially in Iran). But there is no reason to think that will happen. And if it doesn't, the anti-democratic forces will likely prevail, with terrible consequences for the peoples of the Middle East, and indeed the rest of us as well.