Two very different political trajectories were evident in Egypt and Syria at the start of this week, offering timely comments on the condition of governance and politics in two of the most important Arab countries. Egypt inaugurated its newly elected Parliament in which Islamists of various colors took 73 percent of the vote, while Syria woke up to an Arab League decision to seek the removal of President Bashar Assad and form a national unity government that oversees new elections for a parliament and the presidency.

The sharp contrasts between events in Egypt and Syria provide fitting bookends to the last two generations of political life in the Arab world – as incompetent, exhausted and discredited political orders are in the process of being changed, largely at the instigation of their own people. These two cases can also be compared to a third, Iraq, where an autocratic government led by the Baath Party was overthrown by an Anglo-American-led military invasion in 2003, leaving the country today in a sad and fractured condition of stress and violence.

Historians will long debate the four critical factors we see at play in these countries: the power and limits of domestic civil disobedience, the role of foreign armies, the impact of League action, and the nature and consequences of Islamist politics that seem to inevitably dominate in liberated and democratic Arab states.

It is fair to say that two verdicts among these four issues are clear: foreign invasions to re-order Arab countries are not a good idea because they create lasting chaos more than orderly change, as in Iraq. And domestic mass dissent to overthrow an incompetent and brutal regime and replace it with a more legitimate elected leadership is the preferred route to regime change, as in Tunisia and Egypt.

In between these two extremes are the cases of Libya and Syria, where the Arab League and foreign pressures have both played a role in the drive to unseat incumbent regimes. More interesting than NATO’s military involvement in Libya, in my view, is the role of the Arab League in pressing for protective military action, which crucially paved the way for the Security Council to authorize NATO action, and in the case of Syria, its monitoring mission and calls for the president to step down.

The League’s dynamism in Syria is refreshing and welcome, but it is also perplexing. I am not sure why most Arab countries vote for such intervention in domestic affairs of a member state when they know this precedent could be used against them one day. It is strange to see calls for unity governments and democratic polls by Arab states that are mostly non-democratic and non-representative of their people.

Nevertheless, Arab states are taking more responsibility for developments in their region, which should reduce incidents of foreign armies coming in to re-order the region. They are also important for the political legitimacy this provides to other actors, including Arab and foreign states, opposition movements in Syria, and the Security Council and other multinational bodies that can play a role in ending the Syrian crisis and helping the country find its way to a more humane governance system.

The practical logistics of how Arab and international parties can play a role in protecting Syrian civilians while promoting a democratic transition remain hotly debated. They should be clarified in the coming weeks if Syrian opposition groups take the lead in asking for such intervention to protect civilians and speed up the democratic transition.

Finally, the dominance of political systems by elected Islamists remains a purely domestic issue that Arab states have to experience and judge. The incumbent Islamists are now subjected to legitimacy and accountability. More and more Arab countries are now experiencing that which they have always sought: the ability to manage their affairs without foreign meddling.

Self-determination and democratic transitions achieved through legitimate popular revolt are likely to lead to stable governance systems, while upheavals and change generated by invading foreign armies or engineered coups will only lead to continued instability, because they lack the critical elements of legitimacy and accountability. We should watch those two factors as deliberations continue on intervention in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain, and other Arab lands to follow in due course.

Rami G. Khouri is published twice weekly by THE DAILY STAR.