Greetings! Welcome to the new home of The Big Lipowsky! Some of you (hopefully) followed me from the former Big Lipowsky blog at The Jewish Standard, and others are new, intrigued by the snappy blog title and lured in by my wit and charm.
Shalom aleichem!
To start things off, I want to draw your attention to an editorial I wrote two weeks ago, "Showdown looms in the Middle East."
Well, I hate to say "I told you so," but it looks like things are starting to heat up in Egypt with protests against President Hosni Mubarak's rule. It's entirely possible we could soon see the fall of the Egyptian government. The question is, what would replace it? The Muslim Brotherhood? A democracy? And who would win?
It is entirely possibly that the events in Tunisia could lead to a democratic, friendly government there. It is also entirely possible - and somewhat likely - that once democracy takes hold in countries like Egypt, we could lose allies of the United States and Israel.
Iran under the shah was repressive but pro-Western. As is Mubarak's government in Egypt. The Islamic Revolution of 1979 replaced Iran's dictatorial but pro-Western shah with a "democratic" government headed by a non-democratic supreme leader. We all see how democratic things really are over there now, and that country is hardly BFFs with the United States or Israel. Hamas was also democratically elected, but retains its thirst for Israeli blood.
Political scientists are fond of saying that democracies do not go to war with each other. I hope that what emerges from these protests can truly be called democracies, which will guarantee freedoms that have been missing in the Middle East instead of repressing them further. The last thing we need is another Iran.
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