On Revolution, High Expectations, and Reality

The politicos and the pundits are crowing about a "revolution" in the Middle East, and about how the invasion of Iraq is bringing democracy to the Middle East through a "domino effect." Never mind that the "revolution" is only a month old. Are revolutions necessarily good things, as Martha would say? As Americans we like to think that every revolution is a good one -- after all, look at what it did for America (an observation that Ward Churchill might disagree with, by the way, but that's a subject for another day). Before we get too carried away with the notion that revolutions are always good (especially the idea that somebody else's revolution is necessarily good for us), let's take a glance at reality, and keep in mind that unintended (and unexpected) consequences are more the rule than not. Let's look at just a few real world cases. Perhaps the most obvious example is the French Revolution, which brought the Terror (real terror, not just an occasional shot) to France, and then produced Napoleon, who brought more terror to the rest of Europe for years afterward. Consider the Russian Revolution, which brought the nightmare of Communism (actually, Leninism and Stalinism) to Europe and imposed the Cold War on the US. Consider Cuba and Castro. For that matter, consider the Iraq revolution that put Saddam into power, and the Iran revolution that overthrew the Shah (our friend, by the way) and put the Mullahs into power. The American Revolution was actually an anomoly in the history of revolutions. Most don't turn out well. Having stepped on the tube, can we really control how the toothpaste comes out?