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Arab Spring: The Revolution Has Only Just Begun
(Telegraph-UK) Shashank Joshi - The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt will eventually use their new mandate to squeeze out the army, resulting in another wave of violence. Ballooning debt, dangerously thin foreign exchange reserves, and stagnating growth will produce a fresh crisis. All through the beginning of next year, swathes of Syrian territory will slip out of government hands. The Free Syrian Army, a collection of defectors hosted by Turkey, will mount increasingly spectacular attacks at the heart of the regime. The Syrian economy, hit by oil embargoes and drained of tourism, will contract drastically. Smuggling networks will mushroom across the Lebanese and Jordanian borders, and Syria will become awash with weaponry. Iran, which sees the Assad regime as its anchor in the Arab world, will funnel in arms, intelligence and advisers. Within Iran, as the problem of succession looms closer, Supreme Leader Khamenei will begin empowering his son Mojtaba - a hardline cleric who may have overseen the assault on the British embassy. The writer is an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.