The perils of desert democracy

In the past two weeks, all eyes are shifting from Tunisia to Cairo thanks to Wikileaks. It turns out although the Mubarak seems well liked by the White House and their western allies, they dumped him much faster than road salt for the beltway. Time and time again, it's always easier to find someone else and let the sitting duck take the blame.

George Jonas articulated this point of view wonderfully in his column "The perils of desert democracy" on the National Post. Although it's true that democracy has little hope if there's few democrats, may be this time is different given the Internet/FB/Twitter ago and all. At the same time, I am not as optimistic for Egyptian's short to mid-term perspectives as many of my friends are. Maybe they'd understand my pessimistic view given that time has proven me deadly wrong on a similar point more than 20 (can't believe it's that long) years ago.