On the Impossibility of Reforming Incumbent Arab Regimes

In the research leading up to this book, it became clear to me that Arab regimes cannot reform– even if they needed to- because it is essentially a self-inflicting exercise. There are multiple justifications for this:

First, they stand to lose the most from change because it was essentially a zero sum game (what society needs, they have to give up in concessions).

Second, assuming the regime still manages to find the goodwill to reform, skyrocketing entropic rates within the regimes due to increasing corruption, nepotism, and massive government payrolls makes it all but impossible to carry through any serious reform without alienating others within the ruling regime- especially the hardliners. The best one could hope for from them is a semblance of reform with carefully paced change. Indeed, by making change eternally slow, their hope was to ultimately avoid it. It didn’t work; and I argued as far back as 2005 through published Op Eds that it wasn’t change that needed to be paced, but rather pace that needed to be changed.

Third, is the age of most of these regimes, most of which have been around for decades. These are not the vibrant catalysts needed, nor will they be willing to take risks that could come back and undermine their own power.

Fourth, they simply do not have the know how (let alone inclination); and those who do have generally been either jailed, executed, or otherwise banished.

I found it quite laughable at the apex of the uprising in Egypt to see some suggesting that a regime such as Mubarak’s should be expected to carry out any meaningful reform. Not only was the man an octogenarian, he had been power for three decades and not done it. The regime did try on some fronts in the middle of the last decade, especially on the economic front. But it made sure it kept things in check, especially on the political front. When it finally realized the magnitude of the problem following the January 2011 uprising, it was too late ...

There is really no reason to believe that fundamentally hollow Arab regimes such as Syria, Libya, and Yemen could possibly hope to fare any better.