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CREDIT AND COUNTERFACTUALS....
...One of the most misleading ideas out there has to do with the supposed novelty of Arab demands for democratic reforms. The conventional wisdom that the invasion of Iraq triggered the first public Arab conversations about democracy is just flat wrong. Arabs have been talking about the need for reform and protesting against the status quo since long before the Iraqi war. Al-Jazeera talk shows were full of heated debates about democracy and the need for reform as far back as the late 1990s. During the run-up to the Iraq war, most Arab governments clamped down hard because they were afraid of what might happen if demonstrations got out of hand (the first big anti-Mubarak protest back in 2003 began as a protest against the invasion of Iraq). After the crisis passed they relaxed a bit, and Arab activists renewed their long-stated criticisms of the status quo. Iraq, and Bush, may have helped to open up some political opportunities (and to foreclose others), but credit for the so-called Arab spring should go to the Arab intellectuals and activists who have long been pushing for change for their own reasons....