By Brian Murphy JORDAN TIMES
DUBAI – About 18 months before the Egyptian uprising that would doom Hosni Mubarak, a US diplomatic cable was sent from Cairo.
It described Mubarak as the likely president-for-life and said his regime’s ability to intimidate critics and rig elections was as solid as ever.
Around the same time, another dispatch to the US State Department came from the American embassy in Tunisia.
In a precise foreshadowing of the revolts to come, it said the country’s long-time leader, Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali, had “lost touch” and faced escalating anger from the streets, according to once-classified memos posted by WikiLeaks.
So what was it? Was America blindsided or bunkered down for the Arab Spring?
The case is often made that Washington was caught flatfooted and now must adapt to diminished influence in a Middle East with new priorities.
But there is an alternative narrative: that the epic events of 2011 are an opportunity to enhance Washington’s role in a region hungry for democracy and innovation, and to form new strategic alliances.
There is no doubt that Washington was jolted by the downfall of its Egyptian and Tunisian allies. The revolutions blew apart the regimes’ ossified relationships with the US and cleared the way for long-suppressed Islamist groups that eye the West with suspicion.
But declaring a twilight for America in the Mideast ignores a big caveat: The Arabian Gulf.
NOTE BY THE EDITOR: What are the main interest of ‘outside powers’, whether ‘colonial’, ‘post-colonial’? Quoting George Friedman: “It is sufficient for the US to just create some dis-order to ensure the supremacy of themselves as super power”. They used to call it: “Divide and Rule”. What has changed since the colonial empires?