Heinbecker: If 9/11 defined the last decade, will the Arab Spring define the next?
The Arab Spring is potentially in the same category as the end of colonialism in the Fifties and the collapse of communism in the late Eighties. It is not clear yet what its full consequences will be but it seems likely to produce more representative governance than before and probably much more representative/populist foreign policies. That will mean, probably, that Israel will be given a lot less slack by the new, more representative Arab governments than it was under Mubarak and Gaddafi. It might also mean that leaders whose success is due in some degree to outside support national sovereignty will take a less absolute position on national sovereignty than their autocratic predecessors did.