syria is a full blown CW (duh) and it is becoming a trilateral one too boot. The Islamists are now killing and imprisoning the comparative secular rebels, the Kurdish seperatists, and of course Assads guys. Assads guys are doing the same, and FSA is now engaging 2 of the 4.
i don't like to think about Turkey, so I won't.
egypt appears to have 1) MB, 2)the old military which seemed fine but got squeamish when true civilian contrl reared its head particularly that of an increasingly autocratic clerical state, and 3) your "others" (secular democrats) .
say what you will, Iran is domestically a stable regime doing things their way - some democracy, pre-qualified by the clerics (just as US democracy is pre-qualified by the big funders) albeit obviously the clerics exercise considerably greater veto power ... in a sense whereas the US has often trumpted its 4 pillars (the 3 branches + press) it seems Iran is doing the same, but the press is subordinate to the executive, and the judiciary subordinate to the clerics (a 5th pillar). Subordinate, but not powerless and not simply puppets ... mostly so by my standards, but those are my standards.
It seems this is the model that keeps emerging, not one of a secular state, but one of a state where one of the pillars is the clerics.
If the west could just accept that, then the internal dynamics of the other pillars in these places largely (not entirely) keep things somewhat balanced (Iran).
The tossing of the MB in egypt attempted to ignore what appears to be a regional fact, the requirement for a large and powerful clerical pillar in the mix.
Don't like it but it appears to be what IS. And one must start with what is, not start with what one simply wants.
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