The Arab Spring Connection
How the War on Terror shaped the conditions for the Arab Spring — and how the uprisings reshaped the War on Terror in return.
How the War on Terror Propped Up Dictators
The War on Terror created perverse incentives for authoritarian regimes across the Middle East and North Africa. The US needed cooperation on counterterrorism — intelligence sharing, basing rights, rendition of suspects, suppression of militant groups — and was willing to overlook democratic deficits in exchange.
Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, who had ruled since 1981, became a key counterterrorism partner. Egypt received approximately $1.3 billion annually in US military aid and tortured suspects on the CIA's behalf through the extraordinary rendition program. Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh leveraged the al-Qaeda threat to secure hundreds of millions in US military assistance while running a kleptocratic state. Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Libya's Muammar Gaddafi (who abandoned his WMD programs in 2003 and became a counterterrorism partner), and Bahrain's Al Khalifa monarchy all benefited from the post-9/11 security framework.
The Bush administration's rhetoric about spreading democracy clashed directly with its operational dependence on autocrats. The 2005 "Freedom Agenda" was quietly shelved when Hamas won Palestinian elections — a reminder that democratic outcomes in the region might not produce pro-Western governments.
