"While many American conservatives were quicker to warm to the recent Arab revolutions than the Obama administration, they were wrong to have always assumed that American power was the essential ingredient for change in the region . . .
While conservatives such as Bush spoke enthusiastically about the universality of democracy they remained convinced that beneficial change would come about in only one of two ways: Regime change or gradual internal reform. In either case, American power and support were considered the essential element. American inaction meant either the maintenance of the status quo or the spread of Islamic radicalism.
In many ways, this myopic, American-centric view of power and change continues to govern both conservative and liberal American views of the Arab world. What conservatives never saw coming, along with the majority of American foreign policy analysts, was the manner in which the Arab world has changed in recent months. It turns out America was not the essential catalyst for change that everyone assumed."
Todd M. Thompson is an assistant professor of International Affairs at Qatar University.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
source: What US conservatives never saw coming - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
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