IRAQ AND THE ARAB SPRING

Abstract

I begin with two controversial assumptions:
One: Unlike what most Iraqi scholars believe, post 2003 change of regime in Iraq did not inspire the democratic upheaval known as “the Arab Spring”; in fact it delayed it. Iraq’s turmoil was used by despots across the Arab world as a showcase of how Western-imposed democracy is dripped in sectarian blood.
Two: Contrary to the widely accepted notion, the Arab Spring did not begin in Tunisia (December 2010) rather in Iran right after the June 2009, widely believed to have been doctored to ensure a second term of the Iranian president Ahmadinajad. Iran is rich with grass-root civil dissidence, one that toppled the Shah regime by civil action rather than military coup. Arab countries, by contrast, have been bereft of such civil potency, until the series of mass, urban action that erupted in Tunisia,Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya and Syria.