The events in the Mideast and the television images of thousands of people demonstrating and demanding changes are bringing back memories of my teenage years and watching the evening news as Castro overthrew Batista in Cuba. Batista was a corrupt and oppressive dictator, and Castro was considered to be a liberator. There were celebrations in the streets of Havana when Batista fled, and I recall that the American news media declared it to be a victory for freedom. It wasn’t long before “Che” Guevara (the darling of young people who wear T shirts proclaiming their admiration) was holding televised show trials in an outdoor sports stadium and ordering the execution of hundreds of former government officials and sympathizers.

Another example was when the Shah of Iran was forced from power by the Ayatollah Khomeini after President Carter appealed to the Shah not to destroy the plane carrying the Ayatollah and his supporters. Carter assured the Shah that the United States would not stand by and let him fall, but the opposite happened. The new leadership began arresting, imprisoning, torturing, and executing people who had supported the Shah, repeating the actions by the Shah’s secret police. Carter gave the Shah asylum in the United States to seek medical treatment, the Iranians took over the U.S. embassy, held the people from the embassy hostage, watched Carter lose reelection, and have become a threat to the region and the world.

I should also mention an example where the end of a dictatorship resulted in a more democratic government, and the remarkable example of what happened in Spain when Francisco Franco died is the first (and maybe only example) to come to mind. Franco’s Fascists won the Spanish Civil War against the Stalinist Communists and an agglomeration of allies, perhaps because the Stalinists spent as much time fighting their allies as Franco’s forces. The war and the aftermath was brutal and bloody, and Franco was an oppressive ruler.  He designated Prince Juan Carlos to become monarch after his death, and Carlos began a transition to a parliamentary monarchy within a couple of days of Franco’s death. King Juan Carlos and Queen Sophia preside over a democratic government that has the support of most Spaniards. Of course the country is currently in financial crises, but that seems to be a common problem.

That brings us back to the Mideast. The Egyptian dictator Hosoni Mubarak has been forced out and President Obama has hailed that outcome, which brings to mind a similar reaction from John F. Kennedy when Castro expelled Batista.  The unrest in Egypt had begun when the price of food and fuel inflated, and poor Egyptians could barely afford to survive before that inflation.  The protests ended the needed income from tourism (perhaps temporarily).  Prices of food and fuel haven’t been reduced, and the economy was disrupted by the protests. The military is now in control, as it has always been. I wish the best for the Egyptian people and others who are risking their lives to protest in favor of freedom. However, if the brief history of other examples of the end of dictatorships here is an indication, there is a one chance in three that the outcome will be favorable. The lesson most obvious from history is that those who support a dictator will suffer if the dictator loses.