"Embrace the Orange"

Others are starting to notice what is happening in Lebanon:

But Dawood al-Shirian, a Saudi talk show host on Dubai TV, had a warning for Arab governments, pointing to Ukraine's Orange Revolution: "Either they embrace the orange, or they will find themselves slipping on the peels of bananas."

Orange, purple; I'm agnostic about color in of itself. Make it magenta for all I care.

I would much prefer that any Middle East revolutions follow the Ukrainian model (no shots fired), instead of the Iraq model (invasion and years of guerrilla warfare against murderous thugs). I do know that the paradigm is not that clean--Yuschenko's face bares the scares of that not-so-peaceful Ukrainian struggle.

The decision to overthrow with violence is not in the hands of the opposition. There are still a lot of shrewd and murderous thugs left in power in the Middle East, so although we are seeing some very good things lately, do not forget that some of these dominoes will try and cement themselves into the ground before they are blown apart by their topplers. The remaining dictatorships in the Middle East have all shown that they will not hesitate to spill the blood of their own to protect their hold on power. In the Lebanon and the Ukraine we all smiled joyously as the thugs stepped aside, however we all held our breaths trying to cover the unspoken fear in knowing it easily could have been another Tiananmen Square. Regardless, the line in the sand has been drawn and, just as in Iraq, those on the side of freedom must be willing to pay any price to see it to fruition.