U.S. May Retreat into Isolationism

The magnitude and meaning of the recent revolts and protests in the Middle East cannot be compared with those that exploded in 2005 after the publication of cartoons in the Danish newspaper “Jyllands-Posten.” Seven years ago, disorder was allowed to spread in the Middle East under a policy of “benign neglect”: various Arab presidents were under domestic pressure and refused to intervene. The same policy also applied in anarchist Lebanon. We now have evidence that some governments sought advantage from the clashes: they abstained from deploying security forces to the contain the mobs in order to avoid displeasing radical factions. As a side effect, they also sent George W. Bush a clear message about the fallout of his controversial military interventions. For better or worse, unrest in 2005 occurred within a situation of political order.