A little history thinking

Although I rarely mention current events in this blog, I'm not immune to them.  In fact I keep up with them pretty well.  I just choose not to write about them too much.  Anyway, I'm very aware of the events in Egypt, and I wonder about the ramifications. 

Frequently revolutions in history work like this:  A government is overthrown, another government takes it place, after a period of time (week, months, maybe even years) another type of government takes over.

That's a broad stroke generalization and it may not always happen that way, but it's a frequent occurrence.  It happened in the USA - our revolution involved an 8 year violent struggle against a must stronger power.  After we won our independence in 1783, the country existed under the Articles of Confederation.  This arrangement where the various states were pretty much sovereign and the central government was very weak apparently was not working well, so there was a constitutional convention, the new constitution was created and ratified, a federal style government created, elections were held in 1789 (I think), George Washington was elected president and we've had this federal form of government ever since.  But we went through that process of Revolution, Interim Government, Different Government.

In 1917 or 1918 the Russian Czar was overthrown.  There was an interim government which I think only lasted a period of months, then the Bolsheviks came to power & the county was pretty much a dictatorship for the next 70 years.

In 1918 the Kaiser in Germany abdicated, and a Republic was established.  The Nazi's came to power in the 1932 elections and that was pretty much that until their government (and much of the country) was destroyed during WWII. 

In Iran the Shah was overthrown, another government established, and it was overthrown, and the country became an ultra-conservative theocracy.

So a defacto dictator in Egypt has resigned as a result of an uprising.  There is apparently an interim government being run by the military.  What happens next remains to be seen.  If I were a betting person, I'd say the odds of a strong European style parliamentary democracy being established in Egypt are not very good.  I'd say the odds are much stronger that another dictatorship (defacto or otherwise) will eventually take hold, though I won't wager on what type of dictatorship it may be.  All I'm pretty sure of  is that eventually things are going to change, and it'll be interesting to see what kind of change it will be.