The weird rush to anoint Iran as "victor" in 2.0 Revolutions
Thursday, February 24, 2011 at 10:37AM 
Tour d'horizon piece by always solid Michael Slackman that editors at NYT need to hook with title, and so they decided that Saudis are losing and Iranians are winning.
I find that teaser a bit much and awfully premature. Simplistic and deceiving are other words.
These are not Islamic revolutions. The protestors are not saying, "What's wrong is the lack of Islam!" Nor are they saying, "Stick it to the West!"
What they are saying is that they want a future, with jobs and opportunity. Again, this is an expectations revolution: these young have gotten just enough education and just enough connectivity with the outside world to know they're screwed, that the oligarchic capitalism they're being offered is totally slanted against them, and that these situations will not improve with time--meaning no jobs and no dowries and no wives and no families for them.
What is there in the Iranian model that says they know how to raise a middle class and keep it happy? Nothing. Their middle class is miserable. We're talking a stunning brain drain (worst in world, according to international organizations) and an even more stunning birth dearth, meaning people are so profoundly unhappy in Iran that they're refusing to have babies--the ultimate vote. Iran's economy is magnificently controlled--mafia-style--by the Revolutionary Guard, oligarchic capitalism at its best.
Granted, compared to "revolutionary" Iran, the Saudis seem equally trapped in some nutty past (and an equally oligarchic, mafia-run economy), but at least there you're talking some serious money to be thrown at the problem and at the region, something Iran doesn't have to anywhere near the same degree.
But, in the end, both peddle loser ideologies that do not attract investment or business or jobs. They are both all about holding off the future and, in Iran's case, settling past scores. Yes, to the degree they open up, they and others like them may buy time with Chinese investment, but that's all they're buying--time. The same expectations revolution comes for their heads--eventually.
The one country that can be cast as default winner in the region is the government that knows how to raise a middle class and keep it happy--Erdogan's AKP in Turkey. There's a country with a future and its people know it.
Once all the dust settles, the winners will be countries and extra-regional powers who make the economic connectivity happen. In those loser situations where that does not happen, radical ideologies will hold sway, but what else is new? The Saudis and Iranian can fight over those bones, but how that constitutes winning is beyond me. Winning is picking up strong allies, not more mouths to feed.
Globalization, meanwhile, marches on.
Reader Comments (6)
Great minds think alike, or something. This morning as soon as I picked up the NYT, I was struck by the headline to Slackman's piece. I thought that this was incredibly shoddy journalism - and dangerous because the underlying message seemed to be that the US ought to be trying to put the brakes on what is going on, which strikes me as the worst possible policy. The piece was full of unsubstantiated assumptions asserted as fact, such as "[T]he pro-engagement camp of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia is now in tatters" and "[A]ny regime that eventually emerges in Egypt will not be as hostile to Hamas as Mubarak was, and Hamas has been supported by Iran. That may help Iran to increase its influence there even more" and "[R]ecent events have also taken the focus away from Iran’s nuclear program and may make regional and international consensus on sanctions even harder to achieve”. The piece repeatedly cites as authority unnamed "experts". I'm not sure exactly what their field of expertise is, but it seems to be arousing fear of our favorite bogeyman - big bad nuclear armed Iran.
Clearly Turkey has established a successful Middle Class. It's not clear to me that all the credit goes to Erdogan's AKP. But at least AKP gets full credit for not screwing it up...
My case for the AKP is simple: GDP per capita (PPP) basically doubles since early 2000s, when party took power.
That is some record.
My case for the AKP is simple: GDP per capita (PPP) basically doubles since early 2000s, when party took power.
That is some record. Point well taken and well justified (but I still suspect the general secular trend in Turkey contributed to this.)
I don't get it why so many "security analysts" and other pundits (especially on FOX news) are constantly bashing democratic movement in ME. To think that tech-savy youths from Egypt,Libya and Tunisia, who really just want to have a job and family, see radical islam as their idea of perfect society. They already saw results in Iran, and i don't think they are that impressed. The real role models are societies which accepted opennes while keeping some traditions in the system (i think that Malaysia is even better example than Turkey). Imagine the irony, that Bush doctrine of democracy in the ME finally takes hold, and the republicans consider that "losing control". For me, this really might be the "End of history". With a 20 year lag.
I agree Janko. Seems like this is what Bush Admin. wanted. Democracy in the Middle East.
Don't fear change. Embrace it.
Unfortunately I believe China will embrace the new ME way before the US. That's a shame too. If that region stabilizes there will be lots of business opportunities.