Why do Republicans blame Obama for Arab Spring?

The revolutions in the Arab world in the last few years are constantly being blamed on President Obama by Republicans, however even a quick study shows that these events had nothing whatsoever to do with the President. Rising food prices (due to population growth and global warming), corruption, poverty, and injustice were the reasons the Arabs revolted and overthrew their governments, but for some reason people keep trying to blame it on Obama and claim it's a failing of his foreign policies. I think it's time to set the record straight.

http://fcohrdreport.readandcomment.com/the-arab-spring/the-causes-of-the-arab-spring/

 

Most of the people blaming Obama are Arab leaders themselves. Saudi Arabia was one mad King. Obama didn't let it play out in Egypt. He talked one of America's and Israel's strongest Allies to step down and what happened. Egypt is headed by a Islamic government who is threatening Israel and the Saudi King wonders if Obama will sell him out if protest start there. Jordan's King isn't to happy either. Obama would have been better to keep his mouth shut and let it play out.

 

Help me understand how you think we could have done things differently that would have helped our position and interest. Once it was clear in Egypt that the popular will was very clearly anti Mubarek were we suppose to try to somehow force or even support his continuance? Think off the backlash we would have gotten for that. Really we have little control and actually need to be very careful as not to be seen as trying to meddle in their affairs as much as possible. And that goes for every country in the world.

 

blah, blah, blah.....

Actually, I think it is Bush's fault.

 

If I were Obama, I would have said, Egypt is America's friend and we hope that the trouble brewing there can be settled peacefully. But this is Egypt's problem and we will stand behind her no matter what the outcome.We don't feel it's America;s place to get involved in their domestic offairs. I wouldn't have asked Muberic to step down.

 

Then I think you would have been judged later to have been on the wrong side of history. And that for sure can be very detrimental to our interests. We have had some bad history trying to prop up other leaders and are still dealing today with the fall out of some of those choices. Three examples are.
Cuba and Batista led to Castro and it becoming communist
Nicaragua And Somoza
Iran and The Shah

It's a delicate game and I think the administration played it the best way possible. Same with Syria, support the people's aspirations ,ask for a peaceful transistion , but stay out of it as much as possible.

 

What happened since has been detrimental to not only ours, but Israel's interest. Where she once had an Allie on her border, she now has an enemy she can not count on. We have pissed off Saudi Arabia and Jordan, worrying if we'll sell them out too. By saying we don't think it's our place to interfere in Egypt's internal affairs, we aren't taking any sides and we would still have four friendly countries there that look up to us.

 

Wow you guys have no clue what Arab Spring even means. Republicans consider them a positive thing and mostly attribute it to Bush and the invasion of Iraq for starting it. They blame Obama for not seizing the moment and helping the demonstrations overthrow the rulers we don't like.

They blame Obama for squandering a golden opportunity to rebuild the Middle East into a more democratic form.

 

As far Syria, I think I would have worked behind the scene with other countries. We are involved up to our neck in Syria now and it will look bad for Obama if they don't topple the government.

 

Syria is the one place we can't really mess with because Russia will go to great lengths to protect their naval base there. Tartus is their only military base outside of the former Soviet Union and their only access to the Mediterranean without going through the straights of Turkey from the Black Sea.

They are not going to want to risk that access without strong opposition. We have little to gain for the political cost it would take to effect any real change there.

 

What in the world would make you think we can direct them in any meaningful way? How exactly does america "Seize the moment" ? While sure we would like a western style democracy that really is not in the cards. I'm not convinced Bush and Iraq had much to do with it or that republicans think it's a good thing. Republicans really wanted the Muslim brotherhood to take over from Mubarek? I kinda doubt that. And it was always known that was who would most likely come to power as they were the most popular opposition to Mubarek. Careful what ya wish for if they did wish this all happened. God some are so naive how the world really is.

 

Well to quote George Bush:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bal-te.bush07nov07,0,5347312.story

So now that the grand vision of republicans is coming to fruitition, it is all Obama's fault... right, got it. Ummm... I would love to ask George if he thought that the people of the middle east would all elect christian western loving democracies?

 

You probably said it better then me with less words....

 

We have always tried to build a democratic government with every country we fought and won. But when dealing with Arabs and not fighting them, we are better off keeping our nose out of it. We over threw the Iraqi government who everyone hated, still Muslims despise us for it. Same with Afghanistan. They don't like us any better because of Egypt. Muslims hate us. They hate we back Israel. They hate us for having troops and bases in Muslim countries. There is nothing we can do to change their mind but leave and let them handle their own problems that would make them happy.

 

Now that we are involved and said the government has to go, how is that going to look if Obama can't pull it off? As you say, Russia will do all they can to prevent that from happening. We'll get blamed for meddeling in another country's affairs, trying to topple it.

 

What a dillhole post.

You actually think that all actions which 'shake things up' in the ME can be plastered with the idiotic generalism "well? We're bringing democracy to the Middle East, right?"

How stupid.

Let me buy you vowel: we Conservatives operate in a world where intentions are not nearly as important as outcomes, and - to that end - we don't make asinine generalizations like the type you farted out onto this unfortunate victim of a thread.

We consider myriad factors. It's which side you support, when you throw your weight behind that support; which enemies you have to consider; the overarching geopolitical condition at the moment.

It is a host of factors, and puts your pithy ignorant blanket statement to shame. Let's start with this: there are certainly factions in Egypt, Syria and Libya that NATO allies could have supported. Simply overthrowing one dictator (in many cases more secular than the next strongest force which in these cases have been entities like the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda) may in fact be stupid, without first strengthening the correct insurgent group properly emblematic of true democratic views...and sometimes there is no such group, and actions have to be calculated in degrees of outcome.

But why I'm wasting my time attempting to explain this to someone who is so utterly vacuous on the issue as to attempt to claim that what Obama did in the ME to catalyze the 'Arab Spring' in the ME was synonymous with Bush's general wish for Democracy to take root in the ME is just beyond me.

 

Why do you blame us for everything?

 

You have it completely wrong.. Neither Saudi Arabia nor Jordan blame the US or Obama for the Arab Spring.

These countries and the rest of the GCC also tried to get Saddam Hussein to step down.. They weren't too happy with Bush and warned well in advance that a war on Iraq would leave a vacuum rapidly filled by Iran.

Both knew that the people wanted Mubarak and Ghadafi to step down... These guys rule by consensus..

 

Republicans have never really been known for their deep understanding of complicated situations. They are reactionaries by habit and only know Obama=bad and Muslims=bad therefore Obama=Muslim=bad.

They don't really need more then that.

 

What I want to know is what is the USA supposed to do when the internal affairs in one country on the other side of the world can have a devestating effect on our economy? Are we supposed to just let those affairs play out and accept Americans suffering or should we intervene for our own best interests?

The idea that somehow we should just let other nations internal problems cause major problems for us and simply shrug them off is stupid.

Lets say for a moment that Saud is overthrown and instead an Islamist "democracy" goes up in its place and that democracy decides to embaro all oil sales to the US? Our economy would crash overnight. But we're supposed to just let that (*)(*)(*)(*) happen huh?

If supporting a dictator means I don't have to pay European prices for petrol, then so be it. I couldn't care less about the *********s in the middle east.

 

Setting the record straight from a kook blog? That's funny!

Obama proposed Billions of dollars of taxpayers dollars to support them.

 

One word.. CUSTOMERS.

The Al Saud aren't going anywhere.. Abdullah is a wise king and Salman is coming up right behind him with amazing reforms.

 

That is a very liberal position. I hope you don't consider yourself a conservative.

It's called liberal intervention for a reason.

Fighting a war against the world at the tax payers expense is not even close to a conservative ideal.

 

The Saudis have pledged over 2 billion in transition aid to Egypt...

 

Huh? WTF? Fever dream? Friday night recreational drugs?

Why did Obama SUPPORT the Arab Spring?