Even America s Federal Emergency Management Agency, responsible for providing relief after natural disasters and man made catastrophes, was in the hands of inept political cronies rather than professionals. When hurricane Katrina struck America s Gulf Coast, that incompetence proved fatal.

Hamas s emergence as a formidable military force also reflects the Egyptians inept performance in preventing the smuggling of weapons into Gaza. Taming Hamas is in Egypt s interest, but it refuses to pay the price of a direct confrontation because that might lead Egyptian forces to be perceived as Israel s protectors.

The reformers believe that such reforms are the only way for Saudi Arabia to survive the threat of violence, instability, and national fragmentation that is looming on its horizon. Only a constitution, they argue, can restore much needed legitimacy to a political system that is widely perceived as deeply corrupt and inept.

The parties on the right largely embrace free market thinking, while Egypt s Muslim Brotherhood and its kindred parties in Libya and Tunisia are deeply sceptical of the state, which they view as bloated, inept, and ultimately corrupt. Moreover, the existing banks have failed to serve these parties small business and farming constituencies.

Given this history, and the storm of calls for reform in the Arab world, it is a tragic irony that America and the West have paid so little attention to the terrestrial Arab monopoly television channels. Indeed, US criticism of Al Jazeera sounds more like special pleading because of America's inept bumbling in Iraq than a genuine desire for free, open, and critical Arab media.

The attack on the Cheonan may have been particularly useful in cementing the regime s hold on the military, which felt disgraced by North Korea s inept performance in a confrontation with the South Korean navy near the Northern Limit Line in the West Sea in November 2009. But, compared to the more fundamental factors discussed above, I believe that this is probably a secondary motive for the attack on the Cheonan.