Richard Engel Quotes

As you know with the Arab Spring, there were no dividends.

Had you asked an expert on the Middle East what changes would be likely to tke place in 2011, almost none would have predicted the Arab Spring and none would have chosen Tunisia as the flashpoint.

The Arab Awakening or Arab Spring has transformed the geopolitical landscape.

The most striking thing is that even before Osama bin Laden was killed, he seemed largely irrelevant to the Arab Spring.

It is hard to know exactly when the Arab Spring, a phrase used to describe the beginning of the Arab peoples' demand for democracy and human-rights reform, started.

Dictators aren't stupid, or regimes could be toppled easily by young people mobilizing on Facebook.

Some in the West have long argued that because of the lack of a viable liberal alternative, supporting authoritarian regimes in Arab countries is the only political choice against the Islamists. Now, in Tunisia, as people flood into the streets demanding democracy, we see that this is not the case. It was not the case in Iran in 1979 either, but the West was so invested in the Shah that it failed to strongly back the liberal opposition. We don't have to repeat that error today.

The so called “Arab Spring” … is really a situation which is creating more threats so far than positive incentives.

Rebellions broke out, from the full-scale political revolution of Dorr’s rebellion in Rhode Island to urban violence and protest, often by out of work whites taking out their anger on African Americans or Irish Americans. In response, leaders had to come to terms with the role of force in a democracy.

When Tunisians overthrew Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 29 days and Egyptians Hosni Mubarak in 18 days, it was an appropriate rebuke to dictators and Bin Laden.

The Arab world is erupting, which is extraordinary, and to see it happen is like watching rings spreading on a pool - it goes out; it varies so much. The spontaneity is wonderful, but very often, if it's not well organized, it breaks up, and it peters out.

Few, if any, political analysts predicted the Arab Spring. The raw energy of millions of protestors in the streets of Tunis and Cairo came as a surprise to many who believed that Arabs were essentially reconciled to their governments and non-democratic rule.

The Arab Spring showed that people are not going to wait for an American president to make good on his big talk about democracy and human rights; they are going to fight for those rights themselves and overthrow pro-American dictators who stand in their way.

None of us is certain about the outcome of the Arab Spring.

Certainly we've seen the enormous changes across the whole of the Middle East. The democratic genie is out of the bottle.

The Arab Spring I think we will look back whether it's two years, five years, ten or fifteen. And say it's a good thing.

Lebanon is restless, Syria got its walking papers, Egypt is scheduling elections with more than one candidate, and even Saudi Arabia, whose rulers are perhaps more terrified of women than rulers anywhere else in the world, allowed limited municipal elections.

You would be wrong to assume democracy would be the only alternative if the old regimes [in the Middle East] fell. There is a much better-organized alternative already waiting, and that is ... fundamentalism.

In a democracy, when you have 20 million people in the street, you resign. Unfortunately, we don’t have a process of recall or impeachment as you have. It was a popular uprising rejecting Mr. Morsi’s continuing in power. Unfortunately, people had to call on the army to intervene. The army had to intervene because short of that, we would have ended up in a civil war.

In Arab countries where rebellion has succeeded in ousting leaders (or will), painful makeovers lie ahead. None will get through the change quickly. Most will stumble over daunting political and economic challenges. Some may fail. All will grapple to find the right blend of freedom and faith.

You see people being lynched in public, while others take pictures of the scene. Mind you, this is the 21st century—not the French Revolution.

Muslims have been subjected to so many tyrants and oppressive regimes. That's what the Arab Spring was about, but the problem comes in trying to direct a revolution.

We are not a failed Arab republic, so we should not fear Arab Spring. We should embrace Arab Spring. That's what I hope Saudi Arabia will do.

It is hard to imagine two more final endings to the 'war on terror' than the popular revolts against the authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and the death of bin Laden.

The color revolution virus affects only weak countries. Belarus does not have any breeding ground for this.