The Arab spring would have no meaning if it does not open the door to the emergence of normal states. It would make no sense if it replaces a tyrant with a tyrannical idea. Nor would it have any meaning if it uses the ballot boxes to hollow out democracy and impose a single ideology, similar to what the Inspired Leader had done in a different manner and from different angle. By normal state I mean one where a majority is borne out of fair and free elections; where the government appears before parliament to be held to account, not only for its national stances and haughty slogans, but before that for the outcome of its efforts in development, job creation, education and healthcare – a state where the newspapers are not adjuncts of the national security or counter espionage services. In such a state, the judiciary does not report to the head of the intelligence services and follows his whims, and in such a state, the walls of the dungeons and cells are not adorned with the congealed blood and tears of dissidents. We have missed the normal state. We have missed a school that teaches generations rather than mold them, and a modern university; we have missed a respectable professor who was appointed on account of his skills, rather than allegiance, and a journalist who is not under perpetual surveillance by the security officers, and who does not have to make a daily choice between prison and official fodder. We are tired of fear, coercion, and of eulogies, torture and sycophancy. We have missed a normal state that does not force the people to kneel down every day to secure their livelihoods or their safety. We have missed a state that is normal in both its domestic and foreign policies; a state that respects international borders, international charters, UN resolutions and human rights; a state that does not destabilize its neighbors as it attempts to expropriate their right to self-determination; a state that defends itself with its achievements and its people's trust, and does not attempt to impose its system of governance beyond its borders under the pretext of exporting the revolution and of being entrusted with the interests of the Arabs or Muslims. We have missed a state that does not trespass into other countries by polarizing a certain community or entity to tear down the social and national fabric in the targeted country. We are tired of inspired leaders who address history but forget their own people. We are tired of adventuring tyrants who are obsessed with starting fires and distributing medals and decorations. There is no exaggeration in all this. For instance, a few years ago, the former Iraqi Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Nizar al-Khazraji told me a fascinating story. He said that he was summoned one morning to the headquarters of the General Command, where an officer told him that the Iraqi army had invaded Kuwait a few hours earlier. He added that the Minister of Defense had heard the same in an identical manner: An army goes to a crazy adventure without the knowledge of the Minister of Defense and the Chief of Staff, and at the sole orders of the Leader, Mr. President. This is frightening. Years ago, the infamous Carlos the Jackal sent me a letter from his French prison in which he said that the decision to kidnap OPEC ministers in 1975 was taken by a man called Muammar Gaddafi. In recent months, I heard from Gaddafi's comrades many scary stories that show how one man could make fateful decisions with lives and livelihoods, and terrorize his people and the entire world. The region has paid a steep price for the so-called ambition of this state or that to grab for itself a prominent regional role. Regimes took to defending themselves beyond their borders. In his narrow circles, Yasser Arafat did not hide the fact that “Lebanon has paid the price for Syria's insistence on controlling the Palestinian card” and that divisions within Fatah were just “a Syrian plot enabled by Libya's funding”. Syria also fell to the temptation of subjugating the Lebanese regime, at a time when Syria needed to draw inspiration from its openness, pluralism and prosperity. Iran, too, has attempted to change the features of the region, and lead a coup against historical equilibriums therein. Its insistence that the political and religious leadership of Shiite Arabs should lie in its hands has helped stoke Sunni-Shiite tensions in a number of countries. Most likely, the Iranian regime will collapse under the weight of its Soviet-like obligations. But if Iran were a normal prosperous state, it could have provided the people of the region with an attractive model. There can be no solution for this religiously and ethnically diverse region, except through the emergence of normal states. If only we read our history and the history of others; the history of France and Britain, and of France and Germany; of the millions of dead and of the charred cities. The time of aggression and coercion is gone. The people want a normal state. The Arab spring would have no meaning if it didn't take us away from tension and the dreams of tyranny to the state of the rule of law and institutions, and the respect of numbers rather than the addiction to delusions.
