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The West and Middle East Dictators

(Wall Street Journal) Walter Russell Mead - Autocratic rulers have fallen in Algeria and Sudan. In both countries, ruling elites are now scrambling to satisfy angry throngs of protesters, but lack the technical competence, political coherence, and public legitimacy required both to impose the necessary reforms and to make them a success. The Middle East will have to find its own way, and the process is likely to be painful and prolonged. It is against this background that we must understand the political experiments in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman seem to have decided they cannot govern their countries by adopting the values and institutions of contemporary Western democracy. Instead they are following a strategy like that of the absolute monarchs and so-called enlightened despots. Western observers can and often must deplore the repression that the new authoritarians impose. But we have no solutions to offer. We may not like what these rulers are doing, but we do not really know what they should be doing instead. The writer is professor of foreign affairs and the humanities at Bard College.
2019-04-17 00:00:00
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