RECENTLY CHANGING

MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRIES

TUNISIAIn the country’s first free election in October 2011,

millions of Tunisians cast votes for an assembly to draft a

constitution and shape a new government. The moderate Islamist party Ennahda —

whose name means the renaissance in Arabic —

emerged as the winner in the elections, with a 41 percent

plurality, according to officials. Ennahda tried to reassure

secularists nervous about the prospect of Islamist rule by

saying it would respect women’s rights and not try to

impose a Muslim moral code on society.

ALGERIAIn January 2013, Algeria was drawn into the conflict in Mali, its neighbor to the south, when militants seized dozens of hostages

from an internationally managed gas field in Algeria, saying the act was in retaliation for a French military assault on the Islamist

extremists who had taken control of northern Mali.

EGYPTAlthough such calls are hardly universal and there is no threat of an imminent coup, the growing murmurs that military intervention may be the only solution to the collapse of public security can be heard across the country, especially in circles opposed to the Islamists who have dominated post-Mubarak elections. Others plead for reform to forestall such an outcome. Either way, the talk reflects the dire state of the security crisis, which threatens not only Egypt’s transition to democracy but also its hopes to stave off economic collapse.

And here in Port Said, a focal point of the widening crisis since the police lost control more than a month ago, a form of local military takeover has already taken place.

LIBYAAs of the late 20th

century the regime had sought to introduce

women into the armed forces. In the 1978

Libya's new military academy began training

women, training thousands since. In the early 1980s where the

'Nuns of the Revolution' were created as a

specialist police force attached to

revolutionary committees.

SAUDI ARABIAThe next crown prince and king will clearly come from

among the grandsons, rather than the sons, of the

dynasty’s founder. The two new governors are potential

candidates, as is Interior Minister Prince Muhammad

bin Nayef, 52, who is in charge of the kingdom’s war

on terror. He was in Washington this week for a series of meetings with US

officials, including President Obama.

JORDANCritics have rejected these initiatives as half steps — they complain

that the court, for example, is neutered because the king appoints its judges — and the monarchy has jailed dozens of activists on charges including incitement to change the Constitution and to overthrow the government, which can carry the death penalty. In October, the king

dissolved Parliament and appointed Jordan’s fourth prime minister in a year.

YEMENIn addition, power outages happen many times a day, complicating attempts at economic recovery and

stalling efforts to resume normal daily life. Frustrated by the frequency of power

outages, it is no surprise that the waiter I spoke to believes that Saleh’s men are behind

these disruptions. Although it is not required under the

power transfer agreement, Saleh’s departure to another country could restore some

needed credibility to the political process in Yemen.

SYRIASyria has seen some

changes recently. The Head of Syria’s main opposition coalition,

Mouaz Alkhatib, says he is ready to talk with representatives of

President Bashar al-Assad’s government and for the first time has not made the pre-condition that Assad has to go.

Once upon a time, America was the Saudi Arabia of whale oil, the fuel of its day. Whale oil was displaced by hydrocarbon production, which the United States also dominated. That started changing with enormous geopolitical consequences after easy, high quality

oil was found in the Arabian Peninsula and other parts of the Middle East.

The United States built alliances with autocratic regimes as part of a commitment to satisfy its needs and preserve the free flow of oil, which became the life-blood of the

global economy.

For oil-rich countries, this brought enormous fortunes, but it also brought something known as the "resource curse." With wealth concentrated in the hands of autocrats,

corruption mushroomed, and other sectors of the economy withered.

A trend away from the concentration of oil production in such an unstable, undemocratic part of the world bodes well. It bodes well for human rights, and it also

bodes well, ironically, for the economies of oil-rich countries, which may at long last find an incentive to diversify into other industries. It certainly bodes well for the U.S.

economy, which is already creating tens of thousands of jobs in industries related to the new boom.