Looking back at 2011
The Tunisian government falls after 23 years in power.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigns.
A 9.1 magnitude earthquake rocks Japan, damaging four nuclear power plants and killing nearly 16,000 people.
Osama Bin Laden, the founder and leader of the militant group al-Qaida, is killed during an American military operation in Pakistan.
Unrest grows in Syria, and protests are mercilessly quashed by the government in power.
In Libya, the government of Muammar Gadhafi is overthrown and Gadhafi is killed.
Israel and the Palestinian militant organization Hamas begin a large scale prisoner swap, in which Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is released by Hamas in exchange for 1,027 prisoners held in Israel, including 280 prisoners serving life sentences for planning and perpetrating terror attacks.
The United States formally announces an end to the Iraq war and removes virtually all military personnel from the country.
What is the connection among all the events listed above? They are by and large considered the biggest news stories of 2011. You don’t have to Google 2011 or do too much in-depth analysis to see the other significant connection among nearly every incident from the past year: with the exception of the earthquake that struck Japan and created real global fear of a nuclear catastrophe, the Middle East was at the center of world news from the beginning to the end of the year.
What began as the “Arab Spring” soon became the “Arab Year.” Country after country saw its long entrenched leadership depart, fall, get overthrown. Country after country saw its people rise up to take power back from dictators. And if a country’s leadership wasn’t in danger, then eras ended in other ways. Osama Bin Laden was finally found and executed. The war in Iraq ended. We may find fault with Barack Obama for his handling of our economy, and there may be questions about his foreign policy, but when push comes to shove, he did what his predecessors could not do: end a fruitless war rather than start one, and find and kill the most wanted man on the planet. Israel bared its soul for the world to see, giving up more than 1,000 Arab prisoners in exchange for one Israeli soldier. And while this may have called its longstanding commitment to not release terrorists into question, it cemented Israel’s status as the only country in the world that consistently acts with its heart as well as its head.
The most significant trend, then, is an obvious one, though where it will lead no one really knows. The Middle East is in upheaval. Countries that have been ruled with an iron fist by individual megalomaniacs are returning to rule by the masses. But what masses? And what form will these new governments take?
We hope, of course, that democracies will sprout and flourish, but the history of the region does not bode well for those values we hold dear: equal rights for all, especially women who have been notoriously oppressed in Islamic countries, freedom of the press, fair elections, rational education, the ability to freely and openly dissent. The list goes on and on, and one by one these important ethical values are hard for Muslim countries in the Middle East to swallow.
What is equally likely to take place is the rise to power, at least in some cases, of a fundamentalist Islamic regime spearheaded by zealots who, while in the minority wield great influence simply by the passion of their beliefs and convictions. While we can rest assured that the United States is doing whatever it can economically, politically and behind the scenes to move these nations in the direction of constitutional democracy, we can also be reasonably certain that we’ll do a lousy job of it. Take it from history. The United States does not have a good track record of effective social change in foreign lands.
So where does that leave us in 2012? My only prediction is that this is a year to watch developments closely, for while 2011 heralded in drastic, and often violent change, 2012 will see those changes begin to take shape, to become concrete and directed, and as the Middle East takes a new, unknown direction, the rest of the world will be deeply, undeniably affected.
And that’s the good word. The opinions in this column are those of the writer and not the Heritage or any other individual, agency or organization. Send your thoughts, comments, and critiques to the Heritage or email dsb328@gmail.com.
Read this entire story in the print edition of the Heritage; call 407-834-8787 for more information.