"Walid Jumblatt, a longtime leader of Lebanon's intifada, caused something of a stir last week when he said of the election in Iraq and the subsequent uprisings in his own country, "Something is happening, the Berlin Wall is falling, we can see it."
The tumbling of the Berlin Wall was the product of a peculiar convergence of events. The Soviet empire was collapsing. The Soviet president was a singular man, Mikhail Gorbachev, who actively pushed for reform and Westernization (which he hoped would avert collapse but in fact accelerated it). Meanwhile, indigenous democratic movements were fomenting within the empire (Lech Walesa's Solidarity in Poland, Václav Havel's Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, the perpetual secessionists in the Baltics). Detente, black markets, and jam-free broadcasts had whetted an appetite for Western ways. The nations suffering a generation of Soviet rule—especially the Baltics, East Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia—had longer traditions of democracy, capitalism, and European cosmopolitanism. Finally, their anti-Soviet sentiments were blooming in a bipolar world; repulsion toward Moscow translated very easily into attraction toward America. When the wall came down in '89 and the Soviet Union itself imploded two years later, the adoption (or resumption) of Western-style democracy was natural; emissaries from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the CIA, McDonald's, and all the rest were, at least initially, most welcome.
So, three questions arise from the stirrings of 2005. First, are they real movements or brief flashes? …Second, if these movements are successful, what will they do next? Will an Islamic Republic of Iraq seek alliance with Iran? What effect will that have on Iraq's Sunnis and Kurds, to say nothing of Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel? If Syrian troops do pull out of Lebanon, what role will Hezbollah play in an independent Lebanese government? What effect might that have on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks? If Egyptians really do choose their own leaders, what's the chance that they'll elect the Muslim Brotherhood to power?
Third, what does President Bush plan to do about these developments in the meantime? It's a tricky situation. …it's a matter of indigenous culture, sheer luck, shrewd diplomacy, or brute force. Which way it goes will depend on some mix of all four. No outcome is inevitable. History is molded, not fated. Euphoria, for the moment, is beside the point.”
