The Uncertainty Of Today's Arab Revolts

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria in 2008. One is now on the run, the other fighting for power. Hussein Malla/Associated Press

After Arab Revolts, Reigns of Uncertainty -- New York Times

DJERBA, Tunisia — The idealism of the revolts in Egypt and Tunisia, where the power of the street revealed the frailty of authority, revived an Arab world anticipating change. But Libya’s unfinished revolution, as inspiring as it is unsettling, illustrates how perilous that change has become as it unfolds in this phase of the Arab Spring.



Though the rebels’ flag has gone up in Tripoli, their leadership is fractured and opaque; the intentions and influence of Islamists in their ranks are uncertain; Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi remains at large in a flight reminiscent of Saddam Hussein’s; and foreigners have been involved in the fight in the kind of intervention that has long been toxic to the Arab world.



Not to mention, of course, that a lot of young men have a lot of guns.



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My Comment: For more on what may happen as the Arab Spring continues .... Andrew Green's post at The Telegraph is also required reading.