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Comment by return0 | Hacker News Reader

Long piece , but it fails in that it does not give a coherent message. Pieces of stories here and there are not history. First of all , lets stop calling it Arab Spring. If anything it's the arab Autumn of civil wars, where all arabs are united only in their resentment of the west. Secondly, let's talk about people, their souls, aspirations, and culture instead of political history. Given that these states were built as western protectorates, their history should not be a good guide for their future. Clearly the approach to colonialism/interventionism that the US takes is a failure, compared to the colonialism of the British for example (e.g. Jordan). The arab world has always been far too divided to able to draw clear borders around their states. Their only hope for peace is long-term economic prosperity and transition to secularism. Until then, tyranny worked.

This piece may be fun to get through your flight, but it should offer a holistic perspective.

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> "where all arabs are united only in their resentment of the west"

Is that how you view the political movements happening in the Arabic-speaking majority world - Sorry for the pedantry - from 2011 onward that we're consumed by resentment toward the West?

It's gotta be about you, right?

> "The arab world has always been far too divided to able to draw clear borders around their states"

I had no idea that these political movements and the resulting turmoil were about border disputes between states, and not primarily domestic political issues. The more you know ...

> "Until then, tyranny worked."

Could this explain your theory the perceived resentment in the Arabic speaking world towards the West?

At least now, it would be warranted and well earned since you wish on other people harm, maybe you should get paid for this in kind.

The US is likely to be able to dodge the Trump bullet and skirt falling into a populist authoritarian rule coming November but this doesn't preclude this from happening in the future.

Maybe you should get some taste for how tyranny can turn your life upside down and experience it firsthand before you could wish it onto others.

Anyhow, I still don't wish harm on innocent people but if they're full of hate toward others to the point of blinding them to fall into a trap this big and this wide, I wouldn't help them to avert it or save them.

I think you know what i mean, but you like to twist my words.

I m not american. This is a cynical view from Europe. Believe it or not it's closer to the truth rather than believing that having elections suddenly would fix all the problems in countries like egypt, libya, syria.

If you think that this was an unfair characterization of your comment, can you please refute the points that I raised in my counterargument?

Because just taking your word for it won't cut it, sorry.

> "elections suddenly would fix all the problems in countries like egypt, libya, syria"

I'd take ballot-box-only democracy and majoritarianism over tyrannical strongman rule or military dictatorships anytime of the day but this is just me, a Middle Eastern native who really cares for the future, prosperity and the welfare of people living there.

I think that I also have the right to express and strive to achieve these political goals without interference or the "guardianship" of outside players. Since I can't tell you how you should run your countries, I expect this to be reciprocated too when it comes to running ours, and I think that this is a small thing to ask for.

It's very intriguing that for "Arab Spring" skeptics to only focus on failures like Libya and not success stories like in Tunisia. It just detracts from their credibility and makes their viewpoints look very partisan.

It is not the fault of the countries in the Eastern part of the Arabic speaking world that they're surrounded by reactionary forces in the region like the oil sheikhdoms or nationalist-led Israel that they would do everything they can to undermine the then-nascent democratic experiments to protect their interests and save their thrones but this is the topic of another article.

> I'd take ballot-box-only democracy and majoritarianism over tyrannical strongman rule or military dictatorships anytime of the day but this is just me, a Middle Eastern native who really cares for the future, prosperity and the welfare of people living there.

The usual overt basis for complaints that elections are insufficient is that they don't end up as ballot-box-only democracy, but that they instead they often end up as one person, one vote, one time -- followed by tyrannical strongman rule.

OTOH, that's clearly not generally worse than just leaving existing tyrannical strongmen in place. I think the real concern is that locally popular strongmen buoyed by such a one-time election, in the short term, are more likely to have the domestic support to cause problems for neighbors and outsiders, while the often-unpopular existing strongmen are frequently hobbled in their ability to cause external problems by the needs to deal -- whether through active repression or ongoing negotiation and mollification -- with unruly internal factions. (Another is that external elites often have connections and established ways of working with the existing strongmen.)

The chance of making progress toward real democracy is often not seen as worth the risk for external parties (especially external elites); locals, of course, may have different calculus.

> "The chance of making progress toward real democracy is often not seen as worth the risk for external parties (especially external elites); locals, of course, may have different calculus. "

That's a very true observation but that doesn't mean that elites will always get their way and prevail over the masses.

The masses can sometimes secure victories at their expense, albeit short-lived in most cases, and force them to change their mind and adopt their ideas.

>It is not the fault of the countries in the Eastern part of the Arabic speaking world that they're surrounded by reactionary forces in the region like the oil sheikhdoms or nationalist-led Israel that they would do everything they can to undermine the then-nascent democratic experiments to protect their interests and save their thrones but this is the topic of another article.

Woh, woh, woh, what on Earth does Israel have to do with this? Israelis haven't done anything to undermine the "democratic experiments" in any of its neighbouring states. In fact, Israel is the only regional country to consistently support Kurdish democracy, which it has done for decades.

Are you really denying that the Israeli govt had nothing to do with supporting the military takeover in Egypt back in 2013 and then the military-led regime that took shape after that whether internally or abroad?

If so, I don't see that there's any point of arguing over facts like these.

It's OK to have reservations about the democratic experiments in the region but if you could call "Talibani vs Barazani" a democracy, then I think it's fair that I get to call what happened in Egypt or Tunisia a democratic experiment.

Speaking of Kurdish democracy, I believe that opening channels with other players in the region is good strategy to secure the interests of the Kurdish people or elite, but excessive pandering to one particular player at the expense of others in the region would be very shortsighted move esp if you're planning to stay in this neighborhood for long time.

A balanced and well thought-out approach to foreign policy in the region would be a better alternative to the Kurdish people for whom I wish good luck for their legitimate political aspirations.

> Are you really denying that the Israeli govt had nothing to do with supporting the military takeover in Egypt back in 2013

Conspiracist much?

>Are you really denying that the Israeli govt had nothing to do with supporting the military takeover in Egypt back in 2013 and then the military-led regime that took shape after that whether internally or abroad?

Yes. That's a ridiculous assertion. To think that Israel (population: 7 million) has the power, influence, or will to "undermine the then-nascent democratic experiments" of a country like Egypt (population: 82 million), is ludicrous enough. To assert such a ludicrous statement as fact, without any supporting evidence is a wild conspiracy theory.

Your last three paragraphs have virtually nothing to do with the argument at-hand.

Before they were western protectorates, they were Ottoman protectorates. It's been a mess for a long, long time. Once the oil runs out, or we move beyond oil, the whole region will be relegated to the kind of backwater it became after the advent of world-wide oceanic shipping in the age of sail and the overland trade routes were superseded.

Once the oil stops being important (Just Another Commodity like, e.g. iron ore), life will probably improve for citizens of the middle east:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

We'll stop meddling and making things worse. The leaders of those countries won't be able to substitute oil wealth for popular support or funnel money into pushing Wahhabism.

It's the best thing that could happen to them.

It's the best thing that could happen to them.

... In the long term.

In the short term, it's going to be very, very bad for them indeed, as the sole source of foreign exchange goes away and the ordinary folks find themselves abandoned in a climate-change-drought-crippled land that has become populated well above its agricultural carrying capacity, and the elite jets off to enjoy their stolen wealth in Switzerland.

> In the short term, it's going to be very, very bad for them indeed

It's not like they would not see it coming. Petrol is eventually going to become too expensive at some point, and they should invest accordingly. But numerous past examples of countries relying on raw resources have shown they usually don't adapt and plan, so I don't have too much hope in their case either.

Who is this "they" you speak of (who can't see it coming)?

The rulers are doing fine -- they've got armies and secret police and offshore investments so that when things turn to shit they can just jet off into exile like the Shah of Iran.

The ordinary folks don't have the money and they don't have the oil, they stay quiet for now because they don't want to be imprisoned or executed and because the rulers spend a small chunk of their surplus on social security.

In other words, the people with money to invest don't care, and the folks who might care are in no position to take action.

That the problem is foreseeable doesn't make it less tragic.

I can see that happening to Saudi Arabia but not the middle east as a whole. A lot of them don't really see the benefit of the oil wealth (especially in surrounding 'pipeline' countries that don't have oil), they only get to deal with the fallout.

> in a climate-change-drought-crippled land that has become populated well above its agricultural carrying capacity

There was a recent HN article about Israel's progress with desalination[1]. Obvious funding issues aside, I wonder if that approach could ease some of the water issues?

Perhaps that kind of investment would be a good use for the oil income, whilst they've still got it.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12191089

Fortunately some countries (like Saudi Arabia) are making steps to reduce their dependency on oil, because they can see the coming problems if they don't.

To their descendants, maybe.

The Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire were not protectorates, they were full provinces of the Ottoman Empire and as much a core part of the empire as the Balkans or Anatolia. The regions of Tunisia, Algeria, and Tripolitania were largely closer to independent vassal or client states; Egypt was effectively an autonomous fief, particularly during the 19th century (by WWI it was more a part of the British Empire than the Ottoman Empire). Crimea and Hungary were always tributaries rather than full vassals.

In general, the Arabs were happy subjects of the Ottoman Empire until around 1900-1914, when the CUP's political program attempted to marginalize the Arabs; even then, the Arab Revolt was a very narrow revolt with support almost exclusively from the Hejaz (western Saudi Arabia in modern terms) Prior to that, the Ottoman Empire was generally very supportive of the Arab cultural expression. While the governors of the Syrian and Egyptian provinces tended to be problematic from the point of view of the Sultan, the populations of those provinces were far less prone to revolt than Anatolia.

This is more or less true however, it's important to note that the Ottoman Empire spanned for many centuries and the Empire and its rule (administratively or otherwise) looked very different in the 16th century than in the 19th century. Egypt was under direct control in the beginning, it rebelled, then turned into a feudal system and then it became pretty much autonomous. Empires change a lot over time that its really hard to capture centuries worth of history in a few sentences (hence the generalisations).

I am just glad we are finally getting a mainstream press group to admit the Middle East is the fault of European colonialism instead of the last fifteen odd years blaming Bush.

It was made a mess before and after WW2 and it never was allowed to self correct. If anything the powers that be kept trying to keep it bottled up until a few set pieces fell and the house came tumbling down. This isn't to say that going into Iraq didn't cause part of the problem, that simply revealed just how force the Saddam regime was applying to keep it all together.

Letting Libya fall like everyone did was likely the real issue. That whole country went without anyone trying to step in and allowed groups to assemble. Then the misguided interference with Syria by the US just sent the whole region to hell. You would have thought Libya would have given the administration a hint what would go wrong, let alone an Administration so hell bent on reminding people of Iraq repeated that mess twice if not worse.

The region has to reshape itself. What the West must do is try to minimize the civilian cost. This does not mean going in a setting new borders, but mostly protecting those who get out and making sure they have safe exit points.

> I am just glad we are finally getting a mainstream press group to admit the Middle East is the fault of European colonialism instead of the last fifteen odd years blaming Bush.

Even with the fault of European colonialism, they were doing just fine until we decided to get rid of Saddam.

...and bomb *Libya, and fund opposition "moderate" beheaders in Syria, and supporting the military coup in Egypt, and antagonize Turkey and harbor the alleged mastermind of the coup. I'm sure I'm missing a lot more.

>Long piece, [...] This piece may be fun to get through your flight,

Yes, it's ~43000 words and at 250wpm, it would be a 3 hour read!

I think I'll wait to collect some more opinions/tldrs like yours before reading it myself. Three hours would be a terrible waste of time on a substandard article. Open question: Are there better articles on the topic that use that would use that finite reading time better?

Is there a decent way to save the article as a PDF to read later, say on an ipad?

I tried Safari's 'Export as PDF' but the formatting is too mangled. Safari can also save as a single 'web archive' file but I can't get that file to open on my ipad.

Firefox has a save option of 'Web page, complete', but you end up with lots of files, impractical to move around to other devices. Printing as a PDF also mangles the format.

https://getpocket.com/

http://www.printfriendly.com

If you add it to your reading list, Safari is supposed to make it available offline on all devices linked to the same iCloud account.

Instapaper

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