It began with Iraq - but this isn't America's victory

Bill Clinton's former secretary of defence, William Cohen, said on CNN at the height of the demonstrations in Egypt that "it started with Iraq". This triumphalism dovetails neatly with the neo-conservative claim that, by invading Iraq in 2003, the US would usher in an era of democracy in the Arab world. There's only one problem with this. It isn't true.

Iraq itself is the scene of violent protests in the Arab south and the Kurdish north, where the US-backed regional government is suffering the same condemnations of corruption that toppled the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt. No demonstrator in Libya, Yemen, Jordan, Algeria, Bahrain or Iran has cited Iraq as a hopeful example. Iraq's regime is just as tainted by corruption and torture as others throughout the region.

This is a popular uprising, lit by the unexpected fuse of a despondent man's self-immolation in Tunisia in December. It is fundamentally neither pro-nor anti-American but nowhere are the people seeking US troops to overthrow their regimes for them.

Lawrence of Arabia, who helped to lead the first Arab Revolt in 1917, had mixed feelings about his role as British agent and Arab liberator. He warned the nominal leader of the revolt, Emir Feisal, "that freedom was taken, not given".

Britain merely replaced Turkish imperial rule with British colonialism. That precedent looms large among people who blame the new Middle Eastern imperial power, the US, for sustaining regimes that have oppressed them for the past two generations. The US supplies weapons, military training and police expertise that allows small cliques to plunder the wealth of their countries and suppress popular dissent.

If the anger sweeping the region were confined to America's client states, Iran would be calm. It isn't. The mullahs have bankrupted their rich oil state through corruption and incompetence and they have imposed punishments (hanging of young people for minor offences, stoning of women for adultery, torture of all who question the theocracy) that an ancient culture can no longer tolerate.

Iran is proof that this is not merely an Arab rebellion. The people of Persian Iran, Kurdish Iraq and Somali Djibouti, none of whom speak Arabic, are demanding the same changes that the Arabs are. This wildfire may yet spread further, like the 1848 Revolution that began in France and engulfed continental Europe.

The 1848 rebellions voiced the demands we heard in Cairo's Tahrir Square: freedom of speech, sharing of wealth beyond a small elite and the right to choose leaders through genuine elections. They made initial gains but reactionary forces ultimately crushed them.

The wave of discontent may end the same way. In Egypt and Tunisia, power remains in the hands of the military rather than the people.

In one sense, the change did start in Iraq: the people of the region saw that a corrupt regime could not protect itself from foreign occupation. That reminded them that their own countries' independence was a sham. If they dared to overstep American bounds, they would be punished as Saddam was. They are saying now that they want governments that represent them, governments that are worth fighting for, not against.

Charles Glass was ABC News chief Middle East correspondent from 1983 to 1993.