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Comment by varjag | Hacker News Reader

Which government was relatively moderate? Gaddhafi who threatened to slaughter the rebellious cities block to block on TV? Assad who did just that and gassed his own people for a good measure?

The indecision of the international community to act is what caused the suffering lasting a decade, led to the rise of ISIS and refugee crisis of enormous proportions.

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> Which government was relatively moderate? Gaddhafi who threatened to slaughter the rebellious cities block to block on TV? Assad who did just that and gassed his own people for a good measure?

Both of them were more moderate than ISIS lol.

But yeah, Egypt is more moderate than the Muslim brotherhood. Jordan is moderate. The non-Hezbollah part of Lebanon. UAE, Qatar, Oman all quite moderate. The Saudis are even secularizing a tad to try calming down fundamentalist sentiment. All these states actively suppress Islamism and generally are pro-west.

None of them where Arab Spring had struggled were "moderate", this is ridiculous. Assad has caused death of over 600k people (by the time they stopped counting in 2019). And ISIS is a natural consequence of these secular (if you can call personality cults even that) dictatorships lasting decades.

Ok so you ignored the states I did list and focused on the tongue in cheek comment. Gotcha.

None of the places you listed (sans Egypt) were a part of Arab Spring, I wonder why.

The US supported the Arab Spring not understanding that the public mob is worse than the dictators. No country that's not China and perhaps the most powerful NATO allies can resist US military superiority.

Most of the states I listed stayed on the right side of the US and US military equipment and aid keeps them stable.

Oh, so Obama admin was behind this? Same admin that had to be dragged by the French to help Libyans and that ceded Syria to Assad and Russia in 2013? Gotcha.

I think what was meant was moderate ideologically and religiously. Still extreme in their disregard for human life and their determination to maintain power.

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