George Friedman is not jumping on the Twitter bandwagon. He argues that the revolution in Iraq appears to have stalled partly due to its support not branching out beyond the "twittering classes." Western commentators may have misread the level of support that existed on the ground because the only voices they were hearing were those who used the technology:
The global media, obsessively focused on the initial demonstrators — who were supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s opponents — failed to notice that while large, the demonstrations primarily consisted of the same type of people demonstrating. Amid the breathless reporting on the demonstrations, reporters failed to notice that the uprising was not spreading to other classes and to other areas. In constantly interviewing English-speaking demonstrators, they failed to note just how many of the demonstrators spoke English and had smartphones. The media thus did not recognize these as the signs of a failing revolution.
