It is all too easy to forget that Arab Autocracies often have a thriving private business sector.

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In the span of a decade, the world's autocracies will go from having a minority of their citizens online to a majority.

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It transpires that conflicts over water erupt in equal measure in rich and poor countries, democracies and autocracies, fortunately on rare occasions.

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There are autocracies without enough electricity, and democracies with plenty of it.

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However, the transition was difficult, and although some countries like the Czech Republic and Slovenia were able to overcome the early years of transition, becoming the prosperous democracies that they are now, some others eventually adopted new types of autocracies.

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Yet in practice Mr. Obama was friendlier to Hosni Mubarak than George W. Bush had been until Mr. Obama cut him loose in the final days, and he made no effort to push the Arab autocracies toward reform before their downfall.

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