With Lebanon in open revolt against Syria, Egypt slowly loosening its oppression and the autoritarian regimes in the Stans shaken by a string of - relatively bloodless - revolutions, one wonders how such a large portion of the world could so suddenly take a so surprisingly positive political turn.
Personally, I'm working with three scenarioes:
1) The revolutions in the Stans and the Middle East are caused by the weakening of the local regimes in the wake of the fall of the USSR.
2) The revolutions are a result of the US engagement in Iraq.
3) The revolutions are a domino effect following the fall of the georgian regime - a turn of events clearly influenced by the assimilation of other former East Block members into the European Union.
Personally, I think # 3 is the most likely explanation.
- ST
***enters flameproof bunker***
The Lebanese revolt has been a long time coming.
About the others I'm not really sure, as I dont' really have many friends that have family, or have come, in/from that region
That said, the coverage of the so called "lebanese revolt" has been rather one-sided.
Its true that thousands demonstrated against Syria's involvement.... but a week or so later a million or more demonstrated FOR their involvement.
It isn't as simple as them being an invading power, as they were initially welcomed in by all and were there to protect lebannon against invasion by israel. They may well have outstayed their welcome... but many of the population still support their involvement, including some of the largest political parties.
---------
In a general sense, i think it is mostly a coincidence that all these unrelated events have happened at the same time. The ex-russian states ("stans") certainly have little to do with the islamic states.
In fact the russians have used the "war on terror" excuse to crack down much harder on seperatist/anti russian parties.
I do wonder though whether increased internation communication (internet, etc..) has played a part. A lot of the "stans" issues, and the syria ones, have come about as part of a swift public reaction to blatant corruption/dodgy actions by the leading parties. A few years ago I can't see anyone finding out about such actions, but in these days of instant global communication it is a lot harder to hide such things.
I don't think the israel/egypt/syria/saudi situation is as promising as you make out.
Of course, this is the same week that president Mugabe "won" a landslide victory... despite half his population starving... so I don't think it is the end of all dictatorships. In fact there a lot of unreported dictatorships all around the globe that the US (and others) don't really seem to care about.