I’m having a hard time figuring this out – the notion that the popular uprisings against tyrannical regimes in the Middle East is a bad thing for the United States. Seriously, are we that set on how much a gallon of gas costs here?
Apparently so. I mean, I can understand the concern – that a power vacuum can just as easily be filled by nefarious forces, the Muslim Brotherhoods and Al-Qaedas of the world, as it can the forces of liberty et al.
That said, what I see going on here is a long-term trend that is very much in line with Western interests. These uprisings are being led by young Arabs who are better-educated and much more open-minded than their parents and grandparents – and have come of age in a world in which they have been exposed to so much more of the world than their immediate and more distant predecessors.
Which is to say, they’re not pushing for change as much as they’re pushing for a world that they know exists outside of their national borders to be their world.
Instability is always dangerous in the short term, no question. Long term, isn’t this what we have been saying we as Americans want for our brothers and sisters on the global stage – to follow the example of representative democracy that we’re still trying to work to get better at after a couple of hundred years of putting it to practice?
More columns by Chris Graham at TheWorldAccordingToChrisGraham.com.
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