There are a lot of smart people out there telling us that the Tunisian revolution is not going to set up a contagious wave of revolutions in the Middle East.

They reason, rightly, that the authoritarian regimes of the Middle East will be capable of fending off the challenge. Really? Stephen Walt is one of them, and he notes that “the actual revolutionary potential of any society is very difficult to read in advance, and a rising revolutionary wave often depends on very particular preferences and information effects within society.” Agreed. However, I believe that there is something special brewing in the Middle East that is conditioned to lead to substantial change in the region.

There are a number of currents, trends and developments in the region that actually show early warning signs. Lebanon is at a crossroad, Yemen is very fragile, Egypt suffers from a significant legitimacy crisis, Syria has made a comeback, and there is of course the Turkish re-entry into the region. Yes, all of these are separate yet simultaneous developments. What I value most, though, is the transformational power of the rapid and easy access to information.

An irresistible wave of information technology is pervading the lives of Middle Easterners. The Al-Jazeeras, the YouTubes and Twitters have proven to influence millions of Middle Easterners. The use of Twitter in Iran, the release of the Palestine Papers to Al-Jazeera and The Guardian, WikiLeaks and others are already changing the old Middle East. The true impact of the Palestine papers has just started to reverberate globally. More is to come.

This is all very welcome from a Turkish perspective. We are, after all, interested in having a stable and integrated region. Stability rests in legitimacy. We are actively pursuing a policy that will enable the free flow of goods, people and ideas throughout our neighborhood. I agree that the Tunisian revolution is probably not going to precipitate instant revolutions across the region. The French Revolution did not, either. Yet, the psychological impact of what happened in Tunisia, the revelations of the Palestine papers, the tension in Lebanon and the continuing human rights abuses in Gaza are all contributing to the shaping of a new consciousness in the region. The world and the region have become smaller, more accessible, and what happens in the region is now readily available through the Internet. In this day and age it will prove increasingly difficult to stem the flow of information as well as the demand for democratic legitimacy.

Turkey’s attractiveness and soft power stem from its democracy and success in facilitating change of governments through orderly elections. One reason why Turkey’s re-entry into the region has been accomplished within a very short period of time and with relative ease is the legitimacy its regime enjoys in the eyes of the citizens of the region. Apparently, former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, herself a lawyer, said to a Palestinian negotiator that she used to be Israel’s minister of justice, but that she is “against law -- international law in particular. Law in general.” Given the way the Israeli government has handled the Mavi Marmara inquiry, the outcome of the Turkel Commission and the blatant disregard for international norms and rules testify to her approach to law.

Regardless of what numerous commentaries suggest about the impossibility of change in the region, the signs I see say otherwise. In fact change is at the door, and it is likely to create conflict both within Middle Eastern societies and maybe even between them. The aftermath is likely to be better.