As most people in the world are by now aware, there is serious unrest in northern Africa and some countries in the Middle East right now. The President of Tunisia was removed from office, and protests are going on in Egypt and Lebanon. While the Lebanese protests are mainly peaceful, the Egyptian uprising has escalated to serious levels lately. There doesn't appear to be any unifying thread to the revolt (such as leadership by the Muslim Brotherhood or Al Queda or any other organized group) other than that the people protesting are protesting as Egyptians.
It might be tempting to focus the strategy focus on the responses of President Mubarak, who is escalating by shutting down the internet, cell phone communication, and sending out the military, but I am more fascinated by the stance the US is taking on this. As the rioting spread from Tunisia to Egypt, the US encouraged Mubarak to avoid doing 2 things--shutting down communication (like the internet and cell phones) and involving the military. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Those are the 2 things that Mubarak has done. What hasn't he done? Talked. Communicated with the Egyptian people. Anything, really, that would placate the feelings of deprivation and unrest.
Egypt has been an important country to America for years. While not necessarily an ally, they have certainly been the go-to Arab nation for pushing peace in the Middle East, and outside of Israel, are the Middle Eastern nation that has received the greatest amount of military aid. President Mubarak has been in power for about 30 years, which correlated very closely to the amount of time that Egypt and the US have been on friendly terms. Why did Hilary Clinton come right out and support the Egyptian people instead of the Egyptian President?
I think that the US is taking a good look at the bigger picture here, especially since Mubarak is not only choosing not to follow the advice of the US, he's not even communicating with the US right now. The Muslim world seems to be undergoing a democratic revolution of sorts--Iran had the Twitter-fueled green revolution after last year's elections, a long-standing Tunisian leader was overthrown, and now a revolution rising in Egypt--and the US wants to 1) promote democracy 2) maintain friendly relations with nations instead of just people 3) keep military ties to the area. This may be the future that the Bush administration envisioned when it entered Iraq--destabilization of tyrannical regimes in the region and the spreading of democracy.
What strategy lessons do we take from this? Take a long-term approach, and be aware of the situation in other similar markets/companies. Adapt to the use of new technology. The US encouraged Egypt to keep the Internet running for 2 reasons, in my opinion--to help placate the mobs AND to encourage their communication. If the rioters could be calmed down by not cutting them off, maybe the riots would die down and Mubarak (who is, as mentioned, somewhat US-friendly) could retain power. But if they couldn't be calmed down, then the US could encourage uprising among people who were rioting on a sense of nationalism rather than religious radicalism and could potentially be even friendlier to the US. We learn from this that it is important to keep one's options open and be willing and able to capitalize on whatever situations develop.
NOTE: As I wrote this, Mubarak announced the dissolution of his current government to be replaced by a new government tomorrow (though he will remain).
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