None of this should surprise us. Such is the life cycle of revolutions. What begins with euphoric crowds soon slides into a second phase of economic paralysis. The same happened in France after the initial “bliss” of 1789 and in Russia after 1917. In each case, exuberance at the overthrow of the old regime was swiftly succeeded by exasperation at the decline in living standards. And that was what gave the political extremists their opportunity to peddle their radical ideology of war against internal and external foes. Yesterday, the Jacobins and Bolsheviks. Tomorrow, I fear, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda.Well, maybe. But that is what I call a loose analogy (or pair of analogies). A lot of countries have overthrown dictators since 1789; most have probably experienced economic hardship in the aftermath. Not all have devolved into terror and tyranny. In fact, the Egyptians of all stripes who participated in the ovethrow of Mubarak have displayed intense awareness of a revolution-gone-wrong much nearer at hand: Iran's in 1979. All, including the Muslim Brotherhood, publicly rejected that model:
GVF [2/4/11] — Egypt’s main opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood have rejected calls by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei for an Islamic Revolution similar to the Iranian revolution of 1979 to be established in Egypt.
“The MB regards the revolution as the Egyptian People’s Revolution not an Islamic Revolution” said a statement published on the Muslim Brotherhood’s official website just hours after Khamenei's remarks on Friday, while “asserting that the Egyptian People’s Revolution includes Muslims, Christians, from all sects and political.”
Of course, Ayatollah Khomeini made noises about democracy too in 1979. Egypt's revolution could be betrayed (Elliott Abrams sees economic populism as a more likely wrong turn). But if Ferguson has any evidence that full-blown theocracy is around the corner, he doesn't cite it.
Back in February, a Bulgarian novelist, Nikolai Grozni, sketched out a very different analogy between a past revolution and Egypt's. His was offered as a hope, though not unleavened with warning:
