Arab spring

* The Arab spring involved the overthrow of oligarchs and/or tyrants in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and the civil war in Syria. Citizens had plausible grievances, and revolt was the natural, emotionally satisfying response, but I question whether revolt was objectively justified or optimal. More than that, I believe that Obama's support of oppositions, as voiced by Hillary Clinton, was thoughtless and harmful. Benign neglect would have been preferable to that rhetoric. Ideally, we (the outside world) could have acted to minimize harm in the respective societies. That would have required us to imagine likely consequences of various courses of action in the respective societies. It would have required us to contemplate and discuss a better civilization toward which our species might move.
* Tunisia still suffers from the economic ills that caused the uprising--unemployment and inflation--and some business segments have shrunk. Egypt elected a Muslim Brotherhood administration which proceeded to impose Sharia law and was deposed by the military, essentially a mafia with fingers in every kind of business, still Egypt's only stable and trusted institution. This is essentially a return to Mubarak-like rule with less economic activity. Libya is far worse now than under Gaddafi, in that the militias that he assembled to police his people are running amok with no commitment to civil society. Syria's revolution incubated and nourished ISIS, which endangers civilization far and wide. That should be on the conscience of the Syrian rebels.
* I'm a reluctant fatalist, unhappily recognizing that actual events are inevitable. But, what if there had been other ways to replace leaders of societies lacking experience with and institutions of democracy, consisting of mutually hateful tribes and religions, lacking sufficient opportunities for economic participation? Tunisia's Ben Ali lives now in Saudi Arabia, convicted of theft and murder in absentia. What if it were customary, even guaranteed, for rulers to be given comfortable homes and a generous stipends with which to live out their lives after abdication and return of family holdings to their countrys' treasuries, despite badly flawed rule? Mubarak dealt very gently with the mobs in tahrir square, yet he was imprisoned for deaths of a few of them. Mubarak and Gaddafi might have left with less tumult, socioeconomic disruption and/or carnage. Assad might have come to mutually acceptable accommodation with the opposition leaders before the carnage, emigration and ISIS.
* Even the most self-righteous must recognize the difficulty of governing the countries discussed herein, with mutually hateful sectors competing for insufficient sources of self respect. Before repeating the phrase "brutal dictator who killed his own people", consider Abraham Lincoln our greatest president whose death toll was far greater. Finally, the US is becoming more like the countries we malign, as the wealth-power spiral concentrates evermore wealth and too many citizens can't make it. Who will really care, if hoards of homeless people descend on Greenwich Connecticut with crowbars and stink-ball guns.