48 MAHA YAHYA is Director of the Carnegie
Middle East Center.widely shared view among Western
observers o¡ the Middle East: that the
Arab world’s dysfunction was a product
o¡ social and political arrangements that
thwarted human potential, furthered
inequality, and favored a small elite to
the detriment o¡ the broader population.
During the ̄rst decade o¡ this
century, progress was slow. Under the
surface, however, d¾scontent was r¾s¾ng.
This discontent culminated in the protests
o¡ 2010–11, commonly known as the
Arab Spring. In countries as diverse as
Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Tunisia, ordinary
citizens took to the streets to challenge
their authoritarian rulers and demand
dignity, equality, and social justice. For
a moment, it seemed as i¡ change had
̄nally arrived in the Middle East.
Yet in the aftermath o¡ the Arab
Spring, development stalled. Although
some countries, such as Tunisia, were
able to consolidate democratic systems,
authoritarian leaders in much o¡ the
region successfully counterattacked. In
Egypt, the military led a coup in 2013
to depose the democratically elected
government; in Libya and Syria, dicta-
tors responded to peaceful protests with
violence, precipitating brutal civil wars
that turned into international proxy
con¥icts. Even in countries that did not
descend into violence, autocrats clamped
down on dissent and poured resources
into suppressing their own people and
undermining democratic transitions across
the Middle East. Meanwhile, progress
on the human development indicators
prioritized by both international experts
and U.S. policymakers either stagnated
or went into reverse.
Today, nearly ten years later, the
situation in the Middle East looks even
worse than it did before the Arab Spring.The Middle East’s
Lost Decades
Development, Dissent, and
the Future of the Arab WorldMaha Yahya
S
ince the 9/11 attacks, the Arab
world’s relative economic, social,
and political underdevelopment
has been a topic o¡ near-constant inter-
national concern. In a landmark 2002
report, the ® Development Program
(®ÀÁ) concluded that Arab countries
lagged behind much o¡ the world in
development indicators such as political
freedom, scienti ̄c progress, and the
rights o¡ women. Under U.S. President
George W. Bush, this analysis helped
drive the “freedom agenda,” which
aimed to democratize the Middle
East—by force i¡ necessary—in order to
eradicate the underdevelopment and
authoritarianism that some o¼cials in
Washington believed were the root
causes o¡ terrorism. Bush’s successor,
Barack Obama, criticized one o¡ the
cornerstones o¡ the freedom agenda—
the U.S. invasion o ́ Iraq in 2003—but
he shared Bush’s diagnosis. In his ̄rst
major foreign policy speech as presi-
dent, delivered in Cairo in 2009,
Obama called on Middle Eastern gov-
ernments to make progress in democracy,
religious freedom, gender equality, and
“economic development and opportu-
nity.” Implicit in his remarks was aTRUMP’S MIDDLE EAST