Petrodollar's still stable.

Tunisia?

For once I agree with brainbomb.

Western Intervention in these countries accomplished nothing other than regime change. The people are still fucked

I get a chuckle every so often thinking about how Obama's legacy is a modern renascence of slavery.

I would say Tunisia is better off now, but I would also say western influence in Tunisia's revolution was limited. I'm no scholar on this however

Tunisia, for sure. Morocco has been undergoing slow democratic reform for several years now and that process will continue.

As for Libya, it was pretty much a nightmare before too. It just didn't get press coverage. if anything western intervention was by far too little and too late.

Frankly, this was like watching the US sit on its hands again while the Nazis rolled into Poland or the Communists shot up Hungary in 1956.

A lot of bloodbath could have been avoided had the west been willing to step in or stand up to dictators. Al-Sisi is vastly worse than Mubarak ever was, and Obama could do nothing but coddle him. Americans vacilated in the face of Assad's atrocities.

Now we have a vastly worse situation on our hands that will cost vastly more to deal with than a timely intervention could have.

(And neither Syria nor Libya was cause by the West. Both were going to result in massive bloodshed regardless once the uprising began. If you doubt that Benghazi would have been slaughtered en masse or that the anti-Assad protestors were ever going to be allowed to live, you don't know much about middle eastern history. )

It depends what you define as an Arab Spring. Morocco had some protests and civil unrest because of matters the public were deeply worried about, and the government listened and offered some concessions. That's less of a rebellion, and more the system working. Better, arguably, than America in recent years.

As for the rest of it, there are winners and losers with every change. Trying to guess what would have happened if the Arab Spring revolutions hadn't taken place is more guesswork than not, but I suspect that if the uprisings hadn't happened when they did they would have just happened later. The Arab Spring was the symptom of several failing regimes building up self destructive pressure. Without radical change from the top, that wasn't going to happen, sooner or later it was going to blow.

Oh well, glad you finally admit that Obama and Clinton's foreign policy was a failure/disaster @Brainbomb but I am upset it took you this long LOL!

The Arab Spring created millions of refugees to send to Europe and America to fundamentally transform them. I bet the US policymakers responsible for the Arab Spring would call it a huge success.

ND:

He’s definitely said it before.

Lmao American interventionism has been part of the foreign policy for decades, why are ND and Leon pretending it only existed during the Obama administration? Fucking weird

This all goes back to McKinley, I just know it!

Probably @Eden

Why am I not surprised Ogion is one of those people who want America to always intercede in other countries.

For people that get so upset by violent revolution, what do you propose instead? Dictatorships are sorta trash and we all know that. State-sponsored poverty and genocide aren't all that fun either.

ND are you trying to talk like boyd now

Regardless of which President wins in 2008, the US is still involved in Libya. Mccain was a leading voice and wanted boots on the ground in both Libya and Syria

Not sure what ND is smokin

Republicans were not upset that we intervened in Libya. They were outraged Barak Obama used the same Presidential authority thats been misused for 130 years - to join Nato and begin airstrikes in Libya without their approval.

What it comes down to is, they were just upset he did it without letting them vote in congress. Which worked out great! They can blame him for something they wouldve unanimously approved

@ND - Republican policy under Reagan and both Bush presidencies in the region was worse. Reagan helping Iraq and giving weapons to Iran for hostages made the US look weak to the Arabs encouraging trouble for decades. Bush I did regime change in Israel, the only true Western supporter in the region and our ally. Bush II destabilized the region going into Iraq and then messed up the area even more so Iran could move in when he didn't make a stable government in control.

Clinton and Obama inherited the Republican messes and recessions at home to be fixed.

Good point bb, let's abolish voting altogether since we know how people are going to vote anyway.

Ahhh fallacious reasoning. Makes me so moist

“Why am I not surprised Ogion is one of those people who want America to always intercede in other countries.”

Because if we’re talking realistically, most people do. Most of us here can give Woodrow Wilson as much flack as humanly possible, but when it comes down to some sort of humanitarian crisis that local government has proven incapable of solving, most people’s minds turn to “oh man that’s a problem and we need to do something” which we directly inherit from Wilson.

The IMMEDIATE blitz to bash Hillary and Obama for Libya policy is a classic example of failure to understand why America is addicted to interventionism in the first place. Know thyself.

Understand the precedent is bipartisan to put oyr troops at risk to meddle. Were not gaining anything from these regime changesm its expensive and is basically just military exercises for the sake of blowing ppl up cuz were fucked up

Why am I not surprised that Flum supports fascists dictators at every chance and has zero tolerance for human rights? Typical conservative. more authoritarianism, please.

Actually, I'm just stating what needed to happen to avoid disaster. It didn't. Yes, I'm in favor of saving human life where possible and promoting democracy. I realize conservatives feel those are anathema. And I said the West, not America.

The United states has only ONCE intervened in a country to support a democratically elected government. In almost every other instance, its been to support a dictatorship and overthrow an elected regime or to impose a friendly dictatorship in place of a hostile dictatorship. Humanitarian military interventions are vanishingly rare.

BB, so you're totally cool if a dictator wants to massacre his people? We were wrong to intervene against Hitler I guess?

Obama's foreign policy overall was modestly successful in a number of areas. Of course, all that's being destroyed now.

By time Trump is done, the US will be irrelevant in a Chinese led world.