Doubtless those who acclaimed change in Egypt as the beginning of this Arab country's return to playing its “pan-Arab role”, asserting that what happened was the first phase before an assault against the peace treaty with Israel and a shift to the “camp of defiance”, have been disappointed. Indeed, the body that has temporarily assumed power in Cairo is the army, which has fostered the peace treaty over the past decades and has today restated its commitment to the same political system and to its international treaties. This will certainly be a binding condition for a civilian president who could be elected in six months if things move forward as planned. As for the youth of the January 25 Revolution, they had not taken foreign policy into account when rising up and demanding that Mubarak leave, as in fact their slogans, speeches and statements focused on putting a stop to corruption, finding job opportunities, boosting Egypt's economy and peaceful alternation of power. And there are none, from among those who sat in front of their computers planning demonstrations and protests, who believe that achieving their demands goes through returning to an atmosphere of war and tension. There are some leaders in the region who consider raising slogans that oppose Israel and the United States to be sufficient for turning away from a poor climate of liberties and a spread of corruption, as well as for covering up unsound domestic policies. However, renewed confrontations in Iran between the opposition and the regime's security apparatus is evidence to the fact that ideology is no alternative to bread and democracy, especially as the simple formula being put forward by the opposition is based on the fact that reducing massive spending on armament, the army, the Revolutionary Guard and the security apparatus as a whole, as well as ceasing to fund allies and movements loyal to Iran, could reduce the deterioration of living standards and defuse the tension felt by citizens as a result of the continued militarization of Iranian society, turning it into a massive security institution with the sole task of protecting the regime. As for the blatant contradiction between, on the one hand, the Iranian leadership's warm applause for Egypt's internet revolution and admiration for its youth's ability to bring change, and, on the other, preventing the Iranian opposition from organizing demonstrations in support of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, for fear of them turning into protests against the regime itself, it is not just ironic as the US considered, but in fact reveals that the regime in Tehran has come to fear even its own slogans, preferring to keep them only for use abroad and only in countries that disagree with its policies and reject its expansion, and that its confusion has reached such a degree that it has made it as one who spends all seasons under one roof. There is certainly no difference between the violence practiced by the Baltagiya against Egyptian protesters and the repression with which Iranian protesters are being confronted, even if motorcycles have replaced the camels. Also falling under the same logic is the call by conservative MPs in the Iranian parliament for prosecuting opposition leaders and sentencing them to death, after it has become plain that it would be difficult to subjugate and terrorize them, and after they have proven their ability to withstand pressures. And if the developments in Tunisia and Egypt have given rise to hope among Arab peoples of the possibility of causing peaceful change and of rejecting lifelong rulers and rigged elections of pure form, Iran will not represent an exception and will not remain immune to the repercussions of the earth-shattering events taking place in the region, so long as it is up to its ears in its own affairs and suffering from its own ills.
