A “messy” business could be unfolding in the Middle East

As a political freak and a self-professed “world citizen” I find it fascinating to watch the pictures from Egypt streets of thousands of protesters. The mobs, often clashing with police firing tear-gas, want an end to what they see as a repressive regime under President Hosni Mubarak. Egyptians are also feeling the crunch of a sour economy with high unemployment, inflation and young people who are tired of the same old same old which is partly at root of the protests across the Middle East world.

Strangely, the live pictures of crowds clashing with police do not include an overt animosity to Egyptian soldiers who seem to be trying to keep the lid on a boiling cauldron.

At the moment while writing this I am also listening to a press briefing from the White House to see if they have anything but the continuous and rightly cautious words spoken earlier by Secretary of the State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Caution seems to be the watchword for many including some of those in Egyptian’s neighbor and one-time-sometime foe, Israel. Outgoing Obama administration Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is walking the fine line he has had to travel most days and predictably doesn’t stray far from earlier statements made by the Secretary of State. Gibbs has reflected upon the caution the U.S. government is urging for the Egyptian military for restraint while the press secretary sounds in undertones as if it might be possible for a popular overthrow of the Mubarak government. At least that is what I hear, but what do I know?

An editorial from today’s online version of the Jerusalem Post notes that unrest has flared up in the neighborhood with protesters taking to the street in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Libya all following the so-called “Jasmine Revolution” that continues to unfold in Tunisia. The commentary by the English-language Israeli newspaper not surprisingly, I suppose, takes a point of view which sounds very much like the phrase “why rock the boat?”

“Oil prices are tolerably high, security forces are loyal, foreign aid is available in abundance, elections have been manipulated and Islamists have been repressed,” says the Post editorial. “Nor would it necessarily serve the interests of national and regional stability for these authoritarian regimes, many of them allies of America, to be suddenly deposed.”

Quite truthfully the commentary says that the framework for a Western-style democracy in Egypt or in the other Arab-world countries lack the necessary infrastructure. The newspaper points to power grabs by Hamas and Hizbullah in Gaza and Lebanon, respectively, to make its case.

The revolutionary push from power by authoritarian rule has, from the American government standpoint at least, been known to backfire in some nations over the years. The rise of Castro in Cuba and the emergence of a severe theocracy in Iran following uprisings are just a couple of examples. The U.S. also has some tolerable-to-staunch allies in these countries which seem on the precipice of revolution. King Abdullah of Jordan and several members of the Saudi royalty seem at home at Western events or on TV news talk shows broadcast in the United States.

I certainly don’t have any answers to the strife over there, not that Mr. Obama would tap me for an envoy to the Middle East. I have a hard enough time managing my own life.

Also, I could see why Western interests might worry that even democratic reforms could cause problems with their economic designs. After all, at least in the Republican mind, it seems that democracy and a free-market economy walk hand-in-hand. While the multinational corporate world seem to espouse the view that an open market is truly open, competition is not always welcomed fully.

But if these countries in which thousands are marching to rid their tyrannical heads of state appear to be like-minded with the Western world, then why would not those free Western nations fully welcome more countries into the family of democracy?

Perhaps the offices and organization charts are not all ready for those who seek a democratic government but it is doubtful any national government could be built, like Rome, in a day. While I have reached the end of my comments and I am not averse now to using a cliche to end my writing, I think it would be appropriate to suggest that “democracy is a messy business.”

I just hope it doesn’t get too messy.