THE NEIGHBORHOOD'S GETTING INTERESTING
* The top news from the Maghreb today is the mass rioting in Egypt. Obviously, the Egyptians have been emboldened by the events in Tunisia - but again, let's not get carried away and call it the Twitter Revolution or any such nonsense. Mubarak - unlike Ben Ali - has dealt with this sort of thing before. His regime has always been a lot more stable than other such dictatorships. This will be a dangerous time - misplay even one hand, and you could find yourself in Jeddah (if it happens, we know a good Hairdresser!).
* Self-immolations continue in Algeria at an alarming rate; alarming in many ways. The Tunisians took to the streets quickly after the much smaller rash of desperate suicides. In Algeria, the public seems to just be hanging back... despite the fact that the overall standard of living was far, far lower than Tunisia.
* In the broader Arab world, there's a major story that has been developing over the past week from al-Jazeera. They got ahold of documents from inside the peace process, which they've termed the Palestine Papers. It's one hell of a look inside the negotiations, in which the Palestinians offered everything but the kitchen sink, and Israel refused to budge. You've also got the collapse of the formerly-promising government in Lebanon. I still think people are overreaching when they say that Tunisia was the beginning of a wave of democracy throughout the Arab states. But it sure does seem like there's a lot happening, all at once, and it's hard to imagine all of it happening absent the successful (so far) Tunisian revolution.
MEANWHILE, BACK ON THE RANCH...
* Gen. Rachid Ammar will go down in history in one of two ways: He will either be the next dictator, or he will be the George Washington of Tunisia - the old soldier who understood liberty, and laid down his career to protect it... or the other thing. Wouldn't it be something - wouldn't it be something! - if it was a general who was the guy who established the first homegrown democracy in the Arab world?!
* The top news from the Maghreb today is the mass rioting in Egypt. Obviously, the Egyptians have been emboldened by the events in Tunisia - but again, let's not get carried away and call it the Twitter Revolution or any such nonsense. Mubarak - unlike Ben Ali - has dealt with this sort of thing before. His regime has always been a lot more stable than other such dictatorships. This will be a dangerous time - misplay even one hand, and you could find yourself in Jeddah (if it happens, we know a good Hairdresser!).
* Self-immolations continue in Algeria at an alarming rate; alarming in many ways. The Tunisians took to the streets quickly after the much smaller rash of desperate suicides. In Algeria, the public seems to just be hanging back... despite the fact that the overall standard of living was far, far lower than Tunisia.
* In the broader Arab world, there's a major story that has been developing over the past week from al-Jazeera. They got ahold of documents from inside the peace process, which they've termed the Palestine Papers. It's one hell of a look inside the negotiations, in which the Palestinians offered everything but the kitchen sink, and Israel refused to budge. You've also got the collapse of the formerly-promising government in Lebanon. I still think people are overreaching when they say that Tunisia was the beginning of a wave of democracy throughout the Arab states. But it sure does seem like there's a lot happening, all at once, and it's hard to imagine all of it happening absent the successful (so far) Tunisian revolution.
MEANWHILE, BACK ON THE RANCH...
* Gen. Rachid Ammar will go down in history in one of two ways: He will either be the next dictator, or he will be the George Washington of Tunisia - the old soldier who understood liberty, and laid down his career to protect it... or the other thing. Wouldn't it be something - wouldn't it be something! - if it was a general who was the guy who established the first homegrown democracy in the Arab world?!
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