Security/Insecurity Concerns in the Aftermath of the Arab Spring and US Implications

Abstract

It is unequivocally conspicuous the increase in violence and insecurity in most of the Arab countries after 2011. Suicide bombings, terrorist abductions and daily killings became the order of the day for many Arabs and Muslims. Jihadi terrorism and violence became the poster child of life in Arab and Muslim countries. While the Arab Spring of 2011 has been a watershed towards the democratization of the Arab regimes in the MENA region, however it turned into a mirage for most of the people of these countries. When the Arab revolutions aimed at sacking authoritarian regimes in the region, the result was the creation of a power vacuum by the destruction of the pillars of the state power which led to the emergence of violent contending ethno-sectarian entities and the rise of unprecedented wholesale wave of violence threatening the every-day life of peoples and their properties. Throughout the Arab world and parts of Islamic Africa, revolutions have encouraged Al Qaeda ‘look­alikes’ to set up recruitment strongholds for support. On the other hand, the U.S. incoherent behavior in the ‘war on terrorism’ has ended up serving to breed terrorism. The U.S. State Department officials seem to watch helplessly as sympathizers to Al Qaeda in Mali, Libya, Syria and Iraq gain strength and support, while the U.S. Defense department scrambles to react to inept foreign policies. The U.S. policy towards the Arab world has been one cause of terrorism. The hypocritical policy has created havoc for some of the area’s nations. The emergence of the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq has also brought U.S. cold war nemesis, Russia, into the battle and pushed President Obma into forming a policy to defeat IS.

This aim of this paper is to look into the legacy of the Arab revolutions with regard to the seemingly endless security concerns in the region. The main point is to find out whether the Arab spring has contributed in one way or another to the rise of this violence in the MENA region and by extension the fate of democracy and if so how and why. It also traces the implications of US foreign policy and the effects of such violence on US future interests in the region.

Keywords: Security/Insecurity, Arab Spring, US, ISIS, Terrorism, Islamism, MENA