Predicting the Future of the Middle East -- The Easy Way

Huffington Post -- Avi Spiegel, a fellow at the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin, is Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of San Diego, California. He is completing a book on the next generation of political Islam, based on his fieldwork among young activists from both legal and illegal Islamist movements.

The swift turn of events in the Middle East demands a certain amount of humility on the part of any so-called Middle East expert. Despite what anyone will tell you, no one predicted the rapid and dramatic overthrow of President Ben Ali of Tunisia, let alone the eventual departure of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.

One analyst has even written that if he were asked a month ago which countries might have faced revolutions, Tunisia and Egypt would have been the last two he would have mentioned. Fareed Zakaria says of today's Middle East, "Anyone making predictions with confidence is being foolhardy." (Full Story)