The Arab world is in the midst of its most profound revolutionary change in a century. For America, this transformation is a challenging mix of opportunity and danger. It will require an agile and complex policy which often appears to be inconsistent — because it will be inconsistent. Sound bites and slogans are not a solution.
The Arabs have undergone periodic revolutionary upheavals since the Ottoman Empire was destroyed in 1918. In 1979, for example, after the fall of Iran's Shah, revolutionaries tried to topple the House of Saud by seizing the Grand Mosque in Mecca. In 1980, Shia rebels tried to oust then-president Saddam Hussein in Iraq; in 1981, a jihadist cell assassinated the Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, as part of a revolutionary coup attempt and in 1982, Sunni rebels seized Hamah to topple Syria's then-president, Hafez al Assad. In every case, the regime survived and the secret police destroyed the rebels.
