One dimension of this failure is being acted out in the riots; the lawlessness is, suddenly, there for all to see.
On the eve of the vote to choose Egypt's first president since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, this pervasive lawlessness is the biggest change in daily life since the revolution and the most salient issue in the presidential race.
Everything was lawless, and the lawlessness was with a purpose, against the state, against control".
No higher court would object to the lawlessness being carried out.
After the long march toward the rule of law China has been tentatively treading since the end of the Mao era, this return to outright lawlessness is shocking even to a hardened dissident like me.
Coming from an administration that has accepted poorly deserved awards for transparency in ironically appropriate secret meetings, this tacit support for executive lawlessness is a spectacular -- though entirely unsurprising -- failure.
Leverage, not lawlessness, is this year's killer plot point.
The first step taken in this direction by the Sunnis was the enunciation that "one day of lawlessness is worse than 30 years of tyranny".
Lawlessness is widespread.
