Munich: The Middle East faces a "perfect storm" of unrest and regional leaders must quickly enact real democratic reforms or risk even greater instability, the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said on Saturday.
Clinton, speaking at a security conference in Munich, said lack of political reform, coupled with a growing young population and new internet technologies, threatened the old order in a region crucial to US security.
"The region is being battered by a perfect storm of powerful trends," Clinton said. "This is what has driven demonstrators into the streets of Tunis, Cairo and cities throughout the region. The status quo is simply not sustainable."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that protests in the Middle East awaken memories of the events that ended communism in eastern Europe and declared that "there will be change in Egypt."
However, Merkel said any transition needs to be orderly and cautioned against assuming that the West's democratic model can simply be exported elsewhere.
