The Arab world can’t feed itself, and that’s how the region’s dictators like it.

Early in the Tahrir Square revolution, a group of retired Egyptian generals sat poolside at Cairo’s Gezira Club and worried about whether the country’s ruling elite could survive a popular uprising. It was February 2011, a week before President Hosni Mubarak was toppled. Millions of freshly politicized Egyptians had already taken to the streets. And yet, some of these career security men were unfazed. “The only thing we really need to worry about is a revolution of the hungry,” said one, a retired Air Force general. “That would be the end of us.” .... ... read more