The turmoil in the Middle East is not unique. Half a century ago, a similar series of revolutions shook the ground beneath the Arab rulers. The immediate catalyst was the Suez crisis. After Gamal Abdel Nasser, the charismatic young Egyptian ruler, nationalized the Suez Canal in July 1956, the British and French, in collusion with Israel, invaded Egypt to topple him. They failed; Nasser emerged triumphant.

Much like the ouster of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali from Tunisia in January, the Suez crisis generated a revolutionary spark. Nasser’s victory over Britain and France signaled that the Arab political systems created by European imperialism were living on borrowed time. Regimes tottered and fell, countries fragmented, and armed conflicts erupted. Today’s turmoil represents the second Arab revolution.

In the 1950s, the dominant ideology, pan-Arabism, focused on external threats: gaining independence from imperialism and confronting Israel. In contrast, today’s revolutionary wave is driven by domestic demands: for jobs and political representation. Yet the underlying ethos of both revolutionary waves is very similar. Then, as now, the people in the street believed that the existing order was dominated by corrupt cliques that exploited the power of the state to serve their own interests. In addition, then, as now, the revolutions tended to topple leaders aligned with Washington.

Although there is no personality like Nasser towering over the revolutionary events, there is one state taking a leaf from Nasser’s book: Iran. Under Nasser, Egypt opposed British and French imperialism, which it worked to associate in the public mind with Israel. Iran is taking a similar stand today against Britain’s “imperial successor,” the United States. And like Nasser, Iran has created an anti-status-quo coalition — the resistance bloc which includes Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.