Iraq and Lebanon, beset by recent raging protests, present unique challenges for democratic reform. Here "the system" is not a centralized autocracy but rather can be described in three words: a sectarian oligarchic plutocracy.
For this reason there isn't one single dictator to topple, but many - and this becomes an almost impossible task in practice. Citizens in Lebanon and Iraq get to vote, but their votes don't matter because politics, like the economy, is a family run business.
The real challenge isn't to destroy the oligarchy but to build an alternative. If all of this passion and energy goes into building a true national alternative, it would shake the thrones of the oligarchs more than anything else.
Protests alone will not help here. There needs to be work on the political side too. The quota system helped turn current political parties into family run fiefdoms - this has to go. If that goes, it'll allow citizens to punish corrupt politicians at the ballot box instead.
