This article surveys the contribution of non-state actors to the changes in the Middle East known popularly as the “Arab Spring.” Scholars have developed three prominent schools of thought on the Arab Spring, which emerged in Tunisia and spread to Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, and other countries. One school describes the Arab Spring as a “pristine” popular movement akin to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, the anti-apartheid movement in southern Africa, the fall of the Berlin Wall and communism in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, the Tiananmen Square protests, or the Iranian Green Movement. Another argues that it is a change shaped by the great powers, especially the United States acting through the the State Department, the Pentagon, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the International Republican Institute, and the National Endowment for Democracy. Two strands of this theory exist. The first strand, popular among critics of Arab Spring and the U.S. role, suggests that the United States has perhaps unwittingly allied itself with jihadist non-state actors such as the Muslim Brotherhood and even al Qaeda veterans, and used them to topple relatively moderate and secular regimes with likely disastrous results. The second strand, popular among supporters of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, characterizes U.S. policy as actively promoting popular demands for democracy and freedom, and as sanctioning dictators, torturers, and other forces that are denying freedom and prosperity to majority Arab countries. A third theory evokes Clay Shirky’s book “Here Comes Everybody”: social media (especially Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube) converged with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and satellite television channels such as Al Jazeera to make it possible to have simultaneous revolutions in many different countries.

After presenting a summary of the genesis and course of the Arab Spring from the standpoint of international legal history, this article applies certain key international legal instruments to the crimes of the Arab Spring, and attempts to bring greater local specificity to sweeping generalizations about the Arab Spring and its causes and consequences. Three findings emerge from this analysis. First, the role of the United States cannot be discounted, as illustrated by the divergent response of its leaders to crimes against humanity, such as torture and political persecution, in Egypt and Libya as opposed to in Iraq or Sudan, for example. Depending on U.S. economic and security interests with respect to a country and its military, crimes may be excused, and tyrants granted a new lease on life despite overseeing failed states and resentful populations. This is most obvious in the case of Sudan, where the United States has not called for regime change despite far worse crimes against civilians, significantly harsher tyranny and social malaise, and greatly inferior economic and human development statistics than in Egypt, Libya, or Tunisia. Second, the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda veterans have played a unique role in the Arab Spring, as compared to prior social movements, but their interventions have been mediated by U.S. policy, social media, and Al Jazeera. Focusing unduly on technology or foreign states and neglecting local political and religious movements distracts attention from the interdependence of these social and technological forces on one another. Third, the lessons of Iraq since 2003 and the Gaza Strip since 2005 should not be ignored in wargaming (or predicting the results of) what may be called the “Twitterlutions.” Reprisals against politicians and security forces that perpetrated or tolerated mass violence against civilians, chaos and rampant violence, religious extremism, and economic disaster may be inevitable after the abrupt collapse of regimes such as those in Libya. These lessons suggest explanations for Washington’s strong support for the central role of the military in Egypt, while possibly foretelling a humanitarian disaster after a chaotic regime change in other Arab states.

Looking to the future, the United Nations must strive to apply the foundational multilateral treaties relating to genocide, war crimes, the political independence of states, refugee flows, and human rights. These covenants provide an adequate legal structure, despite some gaps, for responding to the Arab Spring’s principal dangers. The challenge is to apply them more equitably and consistently. Unfortunately, international judicial institutions are a pale shadow of what they should be. A politicized and selective response to the Arab Spring threatens to create a double standard to political violence in Egypt, Libya, or Syria as compared with ethnic and religious violence in Iraq, Palestine, or Sudan, a standard which gives extremist regimes and movements a decisive advantage. Permitting this trend to continue will create more and more enclaves for al Qaeda activity beyond those existing in Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. For the United Nations to respond adequately to the threats faced by diverse populations in Asia and Africa in particular, it must return to first principles, namely respect for territorial integrity and political independence, promotion of international peace, settlement of international controversies in accordance with law, the prevention of genocide, insistence on the equal rights of peoples, and greater regard for human rights.

American intervention in the “Muslim World” over the past several years has by no means been non-controversial; rather, critics often charge that we alternatively violate international law or selectively use its protective cloak to advance our own interests. Viewed through this lens, American pronouncements might understandably be received as edicts encroaching upon local autonomy and reminiscent of colonial days. Still, the unfolding acts of violence against Americans and Western embassies in the “Muslim World” following the online posting of a United States-made “Mohammad video” were not foreseen. If they had been, we can assume – and hope – that the relevant embassies would have recalled or at least reduced their staffs especially as violence in the region is not a new phenomenon. However, these unfortunate events present us with an opportunity to query whether these attacks were foreseeable, and to review the psychology behind our being caught off guard.

This solemn occasion perhaps reflects a warped understanding of our hosts’ cultural sensitivities, or even our limited genuine interest in what concerns them at all. We are led to question the ability and willingness of American policymakers to consider – and thereby respect – local priorities. Insofar as Islam permeates the culture of many of these host nations, our priorities reflect our foreign policy’s willingness to accommodate it; is this foreign policy so decidedly grounded in values antagonistic to Islam? To further pressurize the situation, the present conundrum coincidentally presents “Mr. Obama’s most serious foreign policy crisis of the election season.”

In order to strike a respectful balance among nations’ competing interests, international customary law provides standards that all states must respect in order to maintain the peace and stability. Additionally, all members of the United Nations must adhere to the tenets of its charter including principles relating to the use of force and the “sovereign equality of all its Members.” Moreover, the community of nations continues to have a duty to protect populations suffering from a humanitarian disaster. The issue presented before us, is whether we have failed to live up to this responsibility in our dealings with the “Muslim World.” Specifically, has the current Administration acted in violation of international law just as its predecessors are commonly charged to have done? Armed with this knowledge, we might re-consider our regional security expectations.