Remember the “Arab Spring” that was embraced by so many opponents of the US empire as a spontaneous movement in opposition to the hegemonic regional aspirations of the US, Israel, and the dictatorial Gulf Arab states? The Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions were to set the example for the rest of the region and send a message to the hegemons: no more external manipulation of domestic political process and movements, no more propping up of dictators, no more boot on the neck of the Palestinian struggle for a non-apartheid existence. The Arab Spring was said to be an end to the opportunities of external powers to manipulate events in the region.
Any suggestion that the US and its allies long had a finger in that pie was met with harsh recrimination and accusations of attraction to conspiracy theory. As US involvement in training the young Arab Springers became too obvious to deny shortly after the Egypt uprising, it was claimed that the “Arab Spring” was authentic but after it caught the US by surprise the State Department and NED and its various tentacles quickly rushed in to manage the events. This was also blatantly untrue, as US government funding authorization requests for training the Arab Springers had been requested and granted for years before the actual event.
Well here is the final post mortem on the Arab Spring, delivered by the Israeli Ambassador to the US today in the Jerusalem Post (emphasis added):
3:36 pm on September 17, 2013On other issues, Oren – who has contact in Washington with some ambassadors from Persian Gulf countries – said that that “in the last 64 years there has probably never been a greater confluence of interest between us and several Gulf States. With these Gulf States we have agreements on Syria, on Egypt, on the Palestinian issue. We certainly have agreements on Iran. This is one of those opportunities presented by the Arab Spring.”
