‘BLISS was it in that dawn to be alive; and to be young was very heaven.”

That’s what silly Willie Wordsworth wrote when the French Revolution broke out in 1789. Many commentators today, observing the uprising in Egypt, echo the same sentiments.

It is very short-sighted of them.

The street protests in Egypt were instigated by the educated middle class, professional and executive types, academics, students and the like. But if and when the tyrant Hosni Mubarak goes, it will not be these moderate people who will control the country.

That privilege will be seized by the radical Islamist party, the Muslim Brotherhood.

The historian, Professor Michael Burleigh, said as much on Any Questions last Friday.

He said: “The Mubarak regime is very corrupt and very brutal.” But the one good thing Mubarak did was to suppress the Islamic extremists, including the Muslim Brotherhood.

He ruled the country with an iron rod and brooked no opposition.

No one would want to live under a regime such as that of Mubarak, but there are worse things, and the next thing in Egypt is going to be that worse thing.

Iranian correspondent Helia Ebrahami wrote about the Egyptian predicament: “The downfall of thirty years of oppressive rule, and a people’s uprising, should create a sense of hope. But, as a Persian born in an earlier period of revolution, the prospect leaves me stone cold scared.”

She is, of course, referring to the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 which brought the mullahs to power to devastate and oppress a youthful, intelligent people and, in time, to produce that warmongering sponsor of terrorism, with nuclear ambitions, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Ebrahami warns of what will happen soon in Egypt: “What follows is the encroachment of Islamic extremism. At first, it may be presented as a return to nationalism and a rejection of Westernisation, but the end game is an Islamic state.”

It would be bad enough if this dire prospect were to be confined to Egypt, but it isn’t. So many countries in the Middle East have been subject to tyrannical despots for decades – men who employ a vast secret police, govern by bribery and cronyism and appoint their own sons to succeed them.

Under these tyrants ordinary people have been relentlessly oppressed and impoverished.

Many of them are young and energetic and they are no longer willing to put up with tyranny. Through the internet and social networking sites they have become acquainted with Western lifestyle which, for all its faults, is infinitely more desirable than the terrors of living under such as Mubarak.

Tunisia was the model for the Egyptian revolution. Where next? Libya, perhaps, or any one of the dictatorships which litter the Gulf. Jordan and Syria may remain relatively stable for a while, but even there we are seeing the beginning of street protests.

Within a short time, most of the Middle East could be ruled by Jihadists. Ebrahami laments: “It is a miserable fate that the choice has to be between self-enriching despots and controlling clerics who covet power over every aspect of life. But, alas, it is all I have seen in my lifetime.”

By the way, the young Wordsworth soon changed his tune. The bright dawn of the French Revolution quickly grew very dark as the tumbrels rolled around Paris and the guillotine was put to work in every part of the country. And the guillotine operators?

The Committee for Public Safety.