From today’s WSJ:
1. Peggy Noonan — “Social media is a revolutionary force. We know that, but we’re still catching up with its implications. A leader of the Egyptian revolt was a Google executive. Could the future be any clearer?
No takeable dictatorship will survive this era. The ones that do last will be so effectively totalitarian that their very brutishness will be their bulwark.
A Hollywood director once said that a great Western is defined by this dynamic: “The villain has arrived while the hero is evolving.” Egypt itself is evolving. May its people be heroes and do great things.”
2. Fouad Ajami — “The Egyptians will be tested again as to their fidelity to democratic ways. But if this standoff that ended in the demise of the dictator is any guide, the Egyptians may give us a consoling tale of an Islamic people who rose to proclaim their fidelity to liberty, and who provided us with a reminder that tyranny is not fated for the Arabs.”
3. Melik Kaylan about the Iran’s ban on Valentine’s Day –“Theocratic regimes invariably suffer from the same besetting sin: As the world evolves, they must either revise their antiquated doctrines or try to hold the world rigidly in stasis. Iran’s ruling mullahs keep choosing the latter option.
In the end, Iran’s rulers face an impossible task. Their genesis myth of a society based on a codified schema of sacred laws looks neither codified nor sacred. It convinces no one. Instead, the regime seems dedicated above all to stamping out joy wherever it may accidentally arise—a sour, paranoid struggle against irrepressible forces of nature, change, the seasons, music, romance and laughter. The Iranian people can take comfort: No earthly authority has won that particular contest for long.”
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