[hnarn]

It all comes down to how you ask the question. If you ask the question like this instead, the outcome is in my opinion slightly less up for interpretation:

Q: "What happens when a badly governed country, already ripe with corruption and tendencies of sectarianism and local warlords, loses its only real source of income and the economy collapses?"

> There may be local revolutions resulting in more democratic governments.

If we are to entertain this hypothesis, why has this not happened already in the general area? There have been plenty of chances, not only in the Middle East but also in war-torn countries in Africa. The answer in my mind is that armed forces are already concentrated in the hands of the corrupt, and in an environment where surplus is a generation away, power will corrupt the uncorrupted.

When state power collapses, the economy grinds to a halt and the most basic necessities of life can no longer be counted on, in a country that also already has armed para-military groups and tendencies toward sectarianism and warlord leadership, the outcome is predictable: it's civil war, and untold suffering.