Revolutions are by nature unpredictable and unsettling. That the wave of revolutions in North Africa and the Arab Middle East began so unexpectedly and spread with such speed, leading to the fall of the governments of Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, has added to the concern regarding the “new order” that is to come after the initial euphoria. From the outset, the fear has been that these revolutions will follow the same trajectory as Iran did in 1979—in other words, that they will marginalize those who launched the revolutions and provide the grounds for the rise to power of the most savvy, purposeful, and best organized of the opposition groups, namely, the Islamists. Yet when one considers the recent uprisings in the Arab world through the prism of Iran's experiences in 1979, the parallels are not so evident. Mindful of the variations and distinctions between each of the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, it would appear that in broad terms, and beyond superficial similarities, there is little in common between the events of Iran in 1979 and what has happened in the past year in the Arab world.

It is true that in the Iranian Revolution, the demand was for greater freedom and democracy, just as in the recent uprisings in the Arab world. It is also true that the Iranian Revolution was a popular homegrown movement, bringing together a coalition of different groups, from Marxists and leftist guerrilla movements to bazaar merchants, secular nationalists, as well as Islamists. However, the reason why the Islamists won the day in Iran was twofold. The first and foremost reason was the person of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and the role that he played in shaping the unfolding of events, both during and after the revolution. He gave a sense of direction to the protestors from exile, particularly when he moved to Neauphle-le Château in Paris, refusing any form of compromise with the Iranian regime in the course of the revolution. Then, upon the departure of the shah and Khomeini's own return to Iran after fifteen years of exile, he played a major part in giving definition to the new postrevolutionary state. After all, it was his theory of vilāyat-i faqī h or the “Rule of the Jurist,” as expressed in his treatise Islamic Government, that came to be incorporated in the new constitution of the Islamic Republic, providing a blueprint for the postrevolutionary state. In retrospect, historians agree that Khomeini, the ever-astute politician, managed to take advantage of every new crisis in the first year that followed the revolution to consolidate his position and that of his supporters at the expense of the more moderate elements. These crises included the U.S. hostage debacle in 1979–80 and the Iraqi invasion of Iran in September 1980. The taking over of the U.S. embassy in Tehran led to the marginalization and resignation of the moderate provisional government led by Mehdi Bazargan, and Saddam Husayn's invasion of Iran provided the hardliners with the perfect pretext to suppress all dissent and gain complete control of the state. That the Arab uprisings of 2011 have all lacked an obvious leader is both an important point and a major difference with Iran. While this characteristic is seen by many as unsettling and yet another contributing factor to the uncertainty of what is to come, I think that it can actually result in a positive outcome because the lack of a charismatic strongman does provide more space for the expression of competitive views and opinions.

Another point of difference and reason why the Islamists won the day in Iran had to do with the time and context in which the Iranian Revolution took place. It was the era of the cold war, an age of ideology and third-worldism when anti-imperialism was the rallying cry not only in Iran but also in much of the world. One way in which this manifested itself in Iran was a growing popularity for “nativism,”Footnote ¹ a doctrine best defined as a call for the resurgence of native or authentic culture, of going back to one's roots and—inasmuch as Islam was considered to be part of this authentic culture—to all things Islamic, including a more Islamic political discourse. This doctrine had gained much popularity not only among Islamists but also among a broader cross-section of society that included secularists.Footnote ² In 2011, the world is a different place—ideology seems, by and large, to have lost its appeal, and is no longer the order of the day. The demands of the protestors in Tunisia and Egypt, in particular, were pragmatic and devoid of ideology; they consisted of calls for social justice, jobs, and government accountability; a future free of corruption; and more importantly the right to be counted and respected as citizens. What was in fact striking in the case of Egypt was that there was no direct appeal to Islam as a solution. Unlike the situation in 1979 Iran, even if Mubarak and Bin ʿAli were recognized as close allies of the West, there appeared to be little in the way of the expression of anti-Western sentiment among the crowds demonstrating in the streets of Cairo and Tunis. In short, to an observer of the events of this first year of revolutions in the Arab world, it seems that both the world as well as the worldview of the young Arab generations that have been at the forefront of these uprisings are very different from that of the generations that played a part in the Iranian Revolution thirty-three years ago.

Having said this, of course, there is no way one can predict what the future holds, or how the different parties vying for power in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya will manipulate and exploit the imminent political upheaval in order to benefit themselves and promote their own causes. Arguments have been made about how authoritarianism is far too embedded in countries like Egypt for it to give way so easily to democratization,Footnote ³ or that people will soon tire of the turmoil and confusion that come with revolutions and opt for a return to some kind of predictable order.Footnote ⁴ What Iran's 1979 experience suggests is that the way the “new order” treats those associated with the ancien regime is often indicative of the character of what is to come. Mass executions of the shah's officers began very soon after the revolution, unleashing a sense of revenge without any semblance of due process, and constituted the first alarm bells of the arbitrary and brutal system that was to take shape. It is therefore hoped that the image of Husni Mubarak at his trial in August 2011, bedridden and exhibited in a cage amid calls for his execution, does not come to define the Egyptian revolution or, for that matter, the Arab Spring.