When Arabs see the image of Hosni Mubarak in a courtroom dock, the question comes to mind: Why didn't the deposed Egyptian president, and other leaders, remember the image they had seen a few years earlier: Saddam Hussein, with all his might, in a similar predicament? At the time, many opinion leaders remarked on the image of the Iraqi dictator - who outstripped his authoritarian peers in crimes and atrocities that violated the most basic human principles - along with the members of his family and his cronies. They believed that the scene would have an impact on other leaders; they would curb themselves, alter their behavior and prepare for the possibility that their time would come some day. They would accept some reforms, stop killing opponents and falsifying public opinion, and would resort to a type of pluralism in the political system they led, for if not, they would be surprised when events turn against them and find themselves meeting the same fate as Hussein. The expectations of some of these opinion leaders turned out to be mistaken. Zein al-Abidine bin Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt experienced no loss of confidence in their selves, and in their ability to continue with their policies of authoritarianism, oppression, falsifying the will of the people and seizing their country's resources. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and other leaders, whose societies have been experiencing revolts and revolutions, do not seem to have been affected by the scene of Saddam Hussein, who ended up being executed on the last day of 2006, on the eve of the Eid al-Adha holiday. Hussein's peers were content with the theory that what happened in Iraq resulted from the American military occupation, especially since some of these leaders were classified as friends of America. Others were even less disturbed by his fate, because of the inability of the United States (and the West along with it) to occupy another Arab country in addition to its occupation of Mesopotamia, where Washington fell into the swamp of shifting regional and local conflicts, and the swamp of failed theories of neo-conservatives. They were reassured by the idea that getting rid of Saddam Hussein resulted from an intersection of state interests, and because Iraq was an oil-rich country - these elements did not exist in their countries. Did they not hear, as we are hearing today, in every Arab country, that it is not Iraq, and that Egypt is not Tunisia, and that Yemen is not Egypt, and Libya is not like Tunisia, and that Syria is not Libya? All of this blinded them; they gave no weight to the fact that the Iraqi people, including elements hostile to the American occupation, offered complete cover for the invasion in April 2003. The people's priority was to rid itself of the dictator at any price, while the basis for justifying the invasion was that the people had reached their limit in terms of hating authoritarianism. While these leaders comforted themselves with the idea that they were different from Saddam Hussein, they missed the fact that their peoples had also learned a lesson from Baghdad and the implications of foreign intervention. These peoples' hatred of their oppressors outstripped the hatred on the part of the Iraqi people, which was not embarrassed by relying on foreign occupiers. For these peoples, a level had been reached, with even more significant ramifications: instead of inviting an occupier in, they went into the public squares unarmed, ready to sacrifice themselves. Compared to their dictatorial rulers, the average (defeated) Arab became convinced that it would be difficult to rely on outside powers to rid himself or herself of these leaders; people believed that the outside world preferred to see these dictators remain in place, "over their chests." This popular belief has been proven to be valid. The outside world sought to protect these leaders and only began to change its stance when the protestors insisted on their goal, shedding their own blood and demonstrating exceptional bravery in rejecting any surrender to illegalities and humiliation. Thus, the formula has been overturned: the outside world has been disappointing and its interests have intersected with these regimes; it prefers to see them survive, instead of seeing the people change these regimes. If the change in this formula gradually generates change, with the rise in the "national" costs – based on the situation in each country witnessing popular uprisings during the Arab spring – then the sight of Saddam Hussein's execution in 2006 and its lack of impact for rulers will resemble the impact resulting from seeing the image of Mubarak in court; these rulers are remaining in their positions, and continuing with their murder and oppression. But the movement of peoples in the direction of change will make the spectacle of Mubarak repeat itself, certainly, just as Mubarak repeated the scene of Saddam Hussein.
