[Editor's Note: This is the March-A AIM Report, but due to the timeliness of the subject matter, we are posting it now]
The events unfolding in Egypt that began on January 25 were indeed historic, but they may well be obscuring a much bigger story going on in the region, that the media are generally ignoring. The crowds that assembled in Egypt were large indeed, but not unprecedented, as was widely reported. While many in the media stated that the recent uprising in Tunisia, resulting in the removal of a dictator, was what sparked a democratic revolution in the heart of Egypt, the story of revolutions and attempts to democratize began much earlier. Perhaps the spark may have been with the start of the war in Iraq, in March of 2003. Or maybe with the first free elections in Iraq, with the purple ink-stained fingers, in March of 2005.
