Tying The War on Terror with the Arab Spring

Recently, there is this article that ties the ousting of Sadamm Hussein and the Arab Spring together. Very heartening, since at least something good happened out of a horrible war. I personally liked the bit when the article says that Islam is compatible with democracy, which I, living as a Christian in Indonesia (A Muslim majority country), know to be true. Scroll down a bit and you'll find comments that disagree with my point of view. Any thoughts, anyone?

Completely disagree.

Our bombing of Afghanistan and Iraq did not inspire the people to overthrow their government.

Also I can't help but feel that article made it sound like that we somehow "introduced them to democracy" which is bull.

edited 14th Sep '11 1:01:31 AM by Thorn14

Considering Egypt started all this and we were staunch Mubarak allies, I disagree.

The article actually says that if the US didn't take down Sadamm, he might be helping the other dictators defeat the protestors. Oh, and he had chemical weapons, like Sarin bombs.

Very Unlikely. Iraq was poor and destroyed by sanction. beside Dictators don't always get along. Syria and Iraq ba'athist but hated each other. and nobody like Gaddhafi. there is enough dictator in Mideast now, but only Saudi helping bahrain. in other instance, its domestic problem.

@Barkey: Actually, it started in Tunisia (who has been a long time intermediary between Europe, the Arab World, Israel and Palestine). Unrest in Egypt started a month later.

According to Wikipedia, and why should we not trust them, the amin catalyst has been the rise of literacy, higher education and demand for higher standards coupled with lowering living standards, and long tradition of autocratic governements.

To use some of my own analysis, it's usually youth that lead way to these revolts. The curent young adult generation are the ones born after the end of cold war, and during the onset of new information technology.

The article actually makes good points. Did you know the NTC movement in Libya would have been gassed to death had Gaddafi not gotten rid of his WMD program in direct response to Operation: Iraqi Freedom? He didn't want US Marines in Tripoli (again) after his ass and it broke the facade of indomitable strongman when 8 years later the people inspired by a rising Iraqi democracy and other things revolted.

Is the Arab Spring 100% caused by the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts? No, but it does owe its existence at least in part to them.

No, the Arab Spring was clearly caused by the existence of Twitter. I kid you not, I have heard people arguing that this was the main reason for the existence and the (so far) success of the revolts.

Threat of being gassed would not have stopped them, Tom. Especially since he still had a stockpile of it left that had not yet been destroyed.

Even if he hadn't destroyed a single drop, he still wouldn't have been able to use it, since his air force was trashed by NATO within a week. Would some have been used? Maybe. But it wouldn't have stopped anything.

I disagree with the article that the Arab Revolt vindicated the earlier wars. I do agree that Islam and Democracy are just as compatible as anything else.

edited 14th Sep '11 5:40:30 AM by FFShinra

Most of his chemical/biological warheads were missile delivered. His air force was irrelevant on that issue. And he would have been able to use it since he would not have been down to bare bones stuff he possibly didn't know he had until it was too late.

While Libya did finally give up the weapons in 2003, their production plant was inoperative for a decade

This man has more to do with the Arab Spring then either Bush or Blair.

edited 14th Sep '11 5:55:45 AM by Erock

Oh forgive me that I didn't mention explicitly the obvious that I had thought was inferred with the earlier point: That his air force being destroyed meant he couldn't protect his erector-launchers either. NATO having air superiority would not have given him the chance to use it enough to wipe out the rebels. I already accounted for him managing to get a few off.

And "didn't know he had any left"? Are you nuts? Thats the kind of thing you keep track of when you're someone like Gaddafi. Even the authorities dismantling the stuff knew how much was left.

edited 14th Sep '11 7:10:54 AM by FFShinra

When they found the remains of Ghadaffi's supply, it was all degraded, iirc. Chemical weapons don't keep.

edited 14th Sep '11 7:45:32 AM by deathjavu

In one sense, the conclusion of the article is right, but not in the way that the author means. Obama was looking very carefully at the way the Bush administration carried out the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and doing almost exactly the opposite. In other words, the success of the partnership between the NATO and the Libyan opposition was greatly informed by the mistakes of the earlier interventions. We did it right this time, by not doing it wrong.

I completely disagree.

They have total disregard for the Iraqi government which is gunning down protesters with lethal firepower RIGHT NOW, as part of combating the Arab Spring (I forget how many protesters have died so far in Iraq now against the current government). It's pure bs to believe knocking out Saddam helped anything. I think most people at this point believe how sad it is that over a million people died in war-related causes in Iraq, when they could have just peacefully protested their way to victory there and installed a real democracy.

^ Peaceful protests succeeding against Saddam? That worked beautifully...when they got butchered doing both that and violent revolution in 1992.

Iraq so far hasn't done much of anything against the Arab Spring in the present day (even the BBC has little in the way of Iraqi protests being shot down). Syria on the other hand has butchered an estimated 5000-10000 people in the last 3 months. I think you may have your countries in error.

^^

While I do agree with you, I disagree that peaceful protest would have ever gotten rid of Saddam, in that regard you are incorrect.

That being said, the OP title? If we contributed to the Arab Spring, it wasn't directly or on-purpose, it was because all the strife we've been involved with in the Middle East helped set the mood for what's going on right now, as tensions rose and neared boiling point.

So yes, but no.

It depends on which ethnic group would have been involved in the protests. If Sunni, he would basically have been screwed, since he couldnt shoot the children of his own supporters.

The current government is worse, because its starting to become everything Saddam was (not there yet, but give it a war like they had in the 80s....) AND one thing he did not have that will prove very destabilizing and thats tyranny of the majority. Not saying the opposite is better, but this state is not a natural one. As such, it takes a long time for the state functions to mature to the point where democracy can truely thrive peacefully.

As Tom noted, if it wasn't for Iraq Gaddafi would have had chemical weapons to use on the NTC.

However, nothing we did directly or intentionally caused the Arab Spring. Everything was born of latent, unforeseen consequences, and ultimately doesn't really justify the horrific shitstorm of a political fuck up that is the Iraq War...

This. Technically, any major event that happened before the Arab spring could be said to have "caused" it, but at that point the definition of cause has become so broad as to make it useless.

Any positive effects on the Arab Spring caused by the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, either in mood or weapons, are relatively tiny contributors to their occurence.

Imo, from what I've read, the banking crisis that currently has the world markets in a depression had a MUCH bigger impact on the Arab Spring. In short, poor people=pissed off people. They were content, or at least not angry enough to mobilize en mass, right up until their economies slumped.

Or, if you bothered reading the link I posted, wouldn't have had much anyway, since the factory he had was destroyed in an accident (assuming it was an accident) in the 90's, and chemical weapons degrade over time.

It was an armed uprising in which the Americans failed to keep their end of the bargain.

^

That doesn't really address the fact that a peaceful means would not have worked with Saddam.

If anything, it wasn't how Saddam fell that I feel contributed to the atmosphere of the Arab Spring, so much as the simple fact that he was indeed overthrown. It showed that an all-pervasive dictator really can be kicked out, and while Libyans had the support and means to actually kick Gaddafi out, the Egyptians played their cards right and used the media as their weapon instead, because they understood that it could actually work.

edited 15th Sep '11 12:49:48 AM by Barkey