January 25th and the Egypt the Revolution Has Made

This article was originally posted on ForeignAffairs.com on January 25th, 2012.

The falool remain convinced that Mubarak’s fall was a tragic error that will bring lasting ruin to their country. They still believe the refrain that was so familiar on the eve of the uprising -- that Egypt was an emerging democracy with an emerging economy. They cannot understand how their fellow Egyptians failed to grasp how good Mubarak was. According to their circular logic, Mubarak’s progressive politics brought about his demise: had Mubarak not been a modernizer and democratizer, the protests never would have been permitted in the first place. Hence Suzanne Mubarak’s furtive phone calls to her courtiers, reportedly asking, “Doesn’t anyone see the good we did?”

Indeed, the Egyptian people do not. But the despot’s wife might be forgiven for thinking that the numbers were on her side. Between October 14, 1981, when Mubarak first assumed the Egyptian presidency, and February 11, 2011, when he stepped down, the country ostensibly made progress.

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