It is unfair to equate PJ's comments with those of the kleptocrats in Russia. PJ is urging realism and caution, and reacting against the (predictable and typically American) euphoria that has gripped a lot of my countrymen and women. And it's true, Americans are suckers for anyone rising up and doing their best Braveheart impression. It's a national weakness, granted.
Now, I disagree with PJ's position, but I think you, TuffStuff, are putting proto-fascist sentiment where none was expressed. He's suggesting that the changes taking place may not be in our best interests. This is true. He's saying that revolutions often get really bad, sometimes becoming worse than what they replaced. This is also true. He's saying that the regions experiencing violent change sit on an awful lot of the world's oil supply, and that any disruption to that supply would be jolting, destructive and hard on the same western democracies cheerleading the revolutions. This is true. He's pointing out that the autocracies falling have been nominally pro-western, while the generally anti-western autocracies (Syria, Iran) are standing firm for the moment. This is all true.
And yet, and yet, and yet. The status quo is unsustainable, the people have discovered their power, and there's no going back. So on the basis of the facts on the ground, PJ's perspective is useless. It's like looking at modern-day Russia and wishing that the Soviet Union were back. Fine, wish for it, enumerate all the ways a single, monolithic enemy was more manageable than a multi-polar world. Or better yet, why not wish for the Czars? You can make plenty of valid points about how much better things were under Peter the Great. As a guide to action and what the west should do? Pointless.
Lastly, I can't believe nobody has referenced the classic revolution-gone-wrong song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5yymadwxj8
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Lastly, I would strongly recommend that PJ and TuffStuff and anyone interested in this read the following article, which does a very good job of outlining why the status quo is unsustainable:
Libya is North Africa’s most prosperous country, given its tremendous oil wealth and small population. Yet most Libyans live in deplorable conditions. The state provides little by way of civil society and does not take care of even the most basic government obligations. There are police to control people who stray from supporting the Leader, but there is little else. As a housing crisis has escalated in the past few years, the regime has made no effort to provide adequate public accommodation. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of the very few. It would have been easy for Qaddafi to raise the standard of living for the population as a whole either by creating a sustainable non-oil economy or simply by distributing some portion of oil revenues, but he chose to do neither. [...]
When a third of the population is under fifteen and a further large proportion is under twenty-five, the young become central to coherent governance. Qaddafi has stuck with his old cronies, and has not taken on board the nature of the widespread discontent. The most obvious problem here, as in much of the Middle East, is vast youth unemployment, for the amelioration of which there are no programs at all. Qaddafi has never made any attempt to reach out to disgruntled youth, and they feel that their voices are not heard and carry no weight.
