...the Arab Spring is a misnomer. This is an Islamist ascendancy, likely to dominate Arab politics for a generation.
It constitutes the third stage of modern Arab political history. Stage I was the semicolonial-monarchic rule, dominated by Britain and France, of the first half of the 20th century. Stage II was the Arab nationalist era — secular, socialist, anti-colonial and anti-clerical — ushered in by the 1952 Free Officers Revolt in Egypt.
...But the self-styled modernism of the Arab-nationalist dictators proved to be a dismal failure. It produced dysfunctional, semi-socialist, bureaucratic, corrupt regimes that left the citizenry (except where papered over by oil bounties) mired in poverty, indignity and repression.
Hence the Arab Spring, serial uprisings that spread east from Tunisia in early 2011. Many Westerners naively believed the future belonged to the hip, secular, tweeting kids of Tahrir Square. Alas, this sliver of Westernization was no match for the highly organized, widely supported, politically serious Islamists who effortlessly swept them aside in national elections.
This was not a Facebook revolution but the beginning of an Islamist one. Amid the ruins of secular nationalist pan-Arabism, the Muslim Brotherhood rose to solve the conundrum of Arab stagnation and marginality. “Islam is the answer,” it preached and carried the day..
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Romney to be charged with crimes against the state? This current administration has determined that Romney will obstruct their plan for the destruction of Israel, that his religion will vehemently stand against sharia law, he will not bow to Islam, He will oppose the Islamic caliphate, and he will attempt to re-establish a semblance of morality within the borders of the U.S. It has also been discovered that noone on his team has bombed or attempted to bomb a police station, therefore we will have to confiscate his bank accounts by exectutive order and allow Moochele to take 10,000,000 dollar vacations until she has liquidated him and his wifes net worth which they worked and entire lifetime to accumulate. And they wonder why Romney has Swiss bank accounts...he is much smarter than they anticipated? If they can't get to his money he can stay in the race.
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