The Rage Revolution

Long War: The Jasmine revolution has been turned into the Rage revolution as one "day of rage" after another is announced in Mideastern countries. Two governments have been torn down, and one more (Bahrain) is threatened. The rage protesters have different demands in different countries, none of them is demanding Jeffersonian democracy.
Even Kurdistan has a Rage protest movement, a nasty one in fact. The Kurdish region of Iraq has been a de facto democracy for 20 years. It is prosperous and well run. Iraq is also a democracy and it too has a Rage movement, although a weak one. In Egypt the Rage protesters are no longer demanding democracy but higher wages and government benefits. The protest is now taking the shape of industrial work stoppages or strikes.
Islamic bad guys are beginning to sink their teeth into Rage movements and are acquiring a grip on them. Radical Egyptian clerics that had been exiled are making their way back to their homeland and receiving a hero's welcome. The most powerful is Sheik al-Qaradawi, a theorist for the Muslim Brotherhood. He recently gave a big speech in Cairo telling the protesters to keep on striking and calling for an end to the Egyptian Army's Gaza blockade, sticking the knife in hard where it hurts the most.
And the Egyptian Army blinked. It said that the blockade remains but Iran is for the first time allowed to sail warships through the Suez Canal. Some Western intelligence experts say that the Iranian warships will deliver weapons to Al-Qaeda in Yemen after hooking up with Syria.
And Islamic bad guys have blown up one Egyptian natural gas pipeline as well as attacked several casinos, dealing a blow to Egypt's key tourism industry. But all of this pales in comparison to the threat poised by the Rage movement in Bahrain. Here the fracture line is sectarian, with the Shiite majority pitted against the ruling Sunni minority.
Right next door to Bahrain is Saudi Arabia with its own dangerously rebellious Shiite population. In both Saudi and Bahrain the Shiites look to Iran for support when they get restless. So increasing Iran's mojo by allowing its navy passage through the Suez Canal adds fuel to the tensions in all the Sunni ruled Gulf Arab kingdoms. The Egyptian Army knows this but it feels under the gun as Islamic radicals start to make their voices heard.
On Feb. 26 Egyptian Rage protesters have scheduled a march on the Rafah Crossing on the border of the Gaza Strip. The Rafah Crossing is a key component in the Egyptian Army's Gaza blockade. It has already been opened once during this crisis although it is now closed.
The blockade is the canary in the coalmine for this crisis. The Rafah Crossing is the beating heart of that canary. Let's take a step back and consider the Egypt/Israel treaty. It is extremely unpopular in Egypt. But how logical is that? Israel has a large arsenal of nuclear weapons and no Arab country can say the same. And Israel has devoured Arab army after Arab army in countless 20th century wars. True democracies never go to war with other democracies. Too bad the Rage movements aren't about democracy.