Hasty Concessions to Save Regimes (Unrest‪)‬

When Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was ousted last week, the question Arab commentators and analysts asked was "Who is going to be next?" There were several Arab leaders already facing domestic unrest--Algeria, Yemen, Libya Jordan and others. Some argued what had happened in Tunisia and Egypt would enhance and strengthen their regimes. Syrian President Bashar Assad, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and their radical group allies are members of this category. Looked at it from the western point of view, this same category must be trembling with fear as a result of what happened in Tunisia and Egypt. Some Arab leaders have rushed to pre-empt such undesirable events by taking steps to appease their people before popular anger explodes into street violence. The Gulf Kingdom of Bahrain, for example, decided to give each Bahraini family a sum of 1,000 dinars (about $3,000). Syrian President Assad decided to give financial subsidy to every "poor" Syrian family. King Abdullah II of Jordan, under domestic pressure, dismissed his government and formed a new with the aim of launching political, social and economic reforms.