Middle Eastern dictators are toppled only by direct Western military intervention or when they lose the backing of their armed forces chiefs, according to Barry Rubin, deputy director of the Tel Aviv-based Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.
When neither factor enters the political mix, Muslims in the Middle East have been unable to remove longstanding dictatorships.
Rubin says that the lesson from Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s assassination is that he, like Ira…