Hussein Agha and Robert Malley (The New York Review of Books)
"Darkness descends upon the Arab world. Waste, death, and destruction
attend a fight for a better life. Outsiders compete for influence and
settle accounts. The peaceful demonstrations with which this began, the
lofty values that inspired them, become distant memories. Elections are
festive occasions where political visions are an afterthought. The only
consistent program is religious and is stirred by the past. A scramble
for power is unleashed, without clear rules, values, or endpoint. It
will not stop with regime change or survival. History does not move
forward. It slips sideways.
Games occur within games: battles
against autocratic regimes, a Sunni–Shiite confessional clash, a
regional power struggle, a newly minted cold war. Nations divide,
minorities awaken, sensing a chance to step out of the state’s confining
restrictions. The picture is blurred. These are but fleeting fragments
of a landscape still coming into its own, with only scrappy hints of an
ultimate destination. The changes that are now believed to be essential
are liable to be disregarded as mere anecdotes on an extended journey."
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