ABSTRACT
In June 2009, President Barack Obama gave a major agenda-setting speech in Cairo, Egypt. The president asserted that the spread to Muslim-majority countries of democratic “governments that reflect the will of the people” would be a key outcome that would make these states “ultimately more stable, successful and secure.” Although Obama in his 2009 speech in Cairo had called for the spread of democracy in the Muslim world, his administration’s reactions to the Arab Spring beginning in late 2010 were most likely not the same as they would have been nearly two years earlier. The Obama administration did not adopt a “one size fits all” set of policies toward countries that experienced mass political protests during the Arab Spring. The United States was quickest to support protestors and to work for regime change in states hostile to America, but much less consistent in this area toward countries that were US allies.
