TODAY’S ZAMAN - It is still early, but 2011 may prove the year that the status quo in the Middle East proved untenable and began falling apart.” This is how Anthony Shadid, one of the most perceptive observers of Middle Eastern dynamics in the Western media, described the events unfolding in the Arab world over the last few weeks.

It is indeed hard to avoid the impression that something radical is happening in the Arab world. It started with the New Year’s Day bombing in Alexandria, which exposed not only the Christian-Muslim divide in the country but also what little remains from the credibility of the corrupt and repressive gerontocracy of Egypt.

Then came another jolt, this time with Lebanese politics once again unraveling because of a paralyzed government. In certain ways, this was Lebanon resorting to its usual self with chronic crisis. The exit of Hezbullah members from the government may very well be the microcosm of a larger Sunni-Shii tension in the Arab world in general but most particularly in Iraq, where Moqtada Sadr is back with a vengeance. Yet Lebanon is likely to survive this crisis as well. After all, the Lebanese are used to surviving without a government. As it is

often said, the strength of Lebanon comes from its weakness.

Another sign of turmoil in the Arab world is the looming partition of Sudan, where black Africans in the south are voting for independence from their Arab rulers in the north, after having fought two major civil wars. And now, finally, Tunisia spectacularly enters the scene.

The people’s revolution in Tunisia is one of those rare moments of mass rebellion in the Middle East. Last time an authoritarian government was overthrown by a genuinely grassroots mass uprising was in Iran during the 1979 revolution. The repressive and arrogant regime of the shah managed to incite almost everyone to the streets of Tehran in those days. The Tudeh (Communist Party), the students, the unions, the bazaar merchants, the intellectuals and the clergy were all against the status quo. Sadly, the Iranian revolution was hijacked by the clergy – perhaps the most disciplined institution amidst all the chaos.

Now, it is Tunisia’s turn to electrify the Arab world. Shortly after the Iranian revolution in 1979 analysts started talking about a domino effect in the Arab world. Other corrupt and repressive regimes were supposed to follow the shah’s downfall, yet on the fabled Arab street tensions were constantly brewing, but never erupted. The police states established by Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco were simply too strong to fall. Not only did they remain in power but they also became more repressive as they learned from the mistakes of other, softer, regimes crumbling all over the world after the end of the Cold War.

Now, as the Tunisian police state has fallen apart from protests over joblessness, corruption and too many years under one of the most repressive hands in the Arab world, the question facing the rest of the Arab world is a simple one: Who is next? The most important trendsetter in the Arab world is, of course, not Tunisia, but Egypt. So the question on everyone’s mind is whether Egypt is next.

Here is what The New York Times is saying about this: “In Egypt, critics of President Mubarak rushed to embrace the Tunisian example, noting that their country shared the combination of an autocratic ruler, rampant corruption and a large population of frustrated youth. Egyptians traded phone messages like ‘Mubarak, oh, Mubarak, your plane is waiting for you!’ and posted images of the Tunisian flag to their Facebook pages. A major opposition group, led by Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, merged the Egyptian and Tunisian flags into one on its website. One group of young Egyptians set up a Facebook page calling on their fellow citizens to make Jan. 25 “The day of revolution against torture, poverty, corruption and unemployment.”

Despite this sense of palpable enthusiasm in the streets of Cairo, I think it may be still be too soon to herald the demise of the Mubarak regime. Let’s not forget that an important factor that keeps these corrupt, repressive regimes with their large and frustrated young populations relatively stable is the political, economic, and moral support they receive from the West. Tunisia is not as strategically important as Egypt for the West. We will return to this topic next week.