The Arab Spring demonstrated the shortsightedness of the “stability paradigm”— the model of Arab governments doing the West’s bidding in return for the West overlooking the suppression of dissent—that had animated U.S. and European policy for a half-century. Regimes that once seemed resilient crumbled more quickly than anyone could have imagined. If there was a lesson to be learned, it was that human rights and democratic reform would need to be prioritized after the Obama administration had—hoping to distinguish itself from its predecessor—deemphasized their importance.
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