Some Middle Eastern countries may be in “for another popular awakening”

Some Middle Eastern countries may be in “for another popular awakening,” historian and former Israeli diplomat Shlomo Ben-Ami suggests in a piece for Project Syndicate. Ben-Ami’s argument supposes that social conditions in countries where the Arab Spring erupted in 2011 are worse than they were six years ago and that “authorities have run out of options.” Despite that, and the sensitive nature of their respective economies at this time, governments in Egypt, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia still fall into “the autocracy trap,” which has already proved unsustainable. Ben-Ami adds that economic reforms alone will not be enough to keep the peace, as those “will succeed only if they are coupled with far-reaching political reforms, which would inevitably shake the regime’s foundation.” Otherwise, another wave of protests may be imminent, he claims.