Middle East Lost - By Shadi Hamid | Foreign Policy: Instead of offering clear, consistent support for the Arab uprisings, the Obama administration's response has been characterized by what I call "aggressive hedging." As a result, the United States has somehow managed to alienate both sides of the Arab cold war: Dictators think we're naively pro-revolution, and Arab protesters and rebels worry we're still siding with the dictators.
To be sure, this particular problem predates the past four years. Candidate Obama, being the anti-Bush option, had never been a proponent of a more aggressive pro-democracy posture in the region. But, even as the uprisings unfolded, capturing the imagination of millions of Americans, the Obama administration remained unwilling to come to terms with new realities. In the third presidential debate in Boca Raton, Obama said that the United States stood with the Tunisian people "earlier than just about any other country." This is not quite true: As late as January 12, two days before Tunisian strongman Zein al-Abidine Ben Ali fell, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted -- twice -- that the United States was "not taking sides."