Western governments defended allied autocrats during the Egyptian uprising

Evidence

Governments in the West didn’t know how to respond to all of this. In early February, with Tahrir still packed to the brim, former UK prime minister Tony Blair came out to publicly defend longtime ally Hosni Mubarak as “immensely courageous and a force for good,” mostly because of his friendship with Israel. US president Barack Obama sent veteran diplomat Frank Wisner Jr.—the son of Frank Wisner, the man who pioneered the use of covert operations at the CIA in the 1950s—to Cairo to represent the State Department and assist with negotiations. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 228

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Pro-Western Arab leaders governed against prevailing popular sentiment — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 1186; US policy backed dictators and counterrevolution against the Arab Spring — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 580

Broader Connections

• US policy backed dictators and counterrevolution against the Arab Spring #corroborates (0.93) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 580
• Pro-Western Arab leaders governed against prevailing popular sentiment #expands (0.78) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1186