Right now all these uprisings look somewhat the same, as they did in Eastern Europe in 1989. But like in Eastern Europe, each country will end up a bit differently, with politics reflecting its particular constituency and state of institutional and educational development. Poland and Hungary had relatively easy paths to capitalism and democracy; Romania and Bulgaria were sunk in abject poverty for years; Albania suffered occasional bouts of anarchy; and Yugoslavia descended into civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people. The Arab world is in some ways more diverse than Eastern Europe, and we should therefore heed the uniqueness of each country's political and historical situation in calibrating U.S. policy.
Indeed it is complicated. A week ago, Kaplan said Tunisia was so unique that no other Arab country was likely to follow suit.
Not to mock, but it is complicated. Which is why all I'll claim to do is guess about outcomes. And it is why I have sympathy for the Obama administration trying to navigate this eruption.
