AHC: Butterfly the Arab spring

Eliminate the green revolution, so that Arab farmers are not so heavily dependent on petroleum. That way Arab farmers would not be hit as hard - by rising oil prices - when we passed peak oil in 2007.
Poor Arabs would not risk starvation because of rising food prices.
News black-outs and censored internet and censored cell-phones would also limit public protests during the Arab Spring.
 
That Tunisian dude doesn't light himself on fire. Tunisia remains in an uneasy state, but nothing significant happens. The rest of the arab world remains on the brink of rebellion, but without the Tunisian example, no grand scale uprising happen. Smaller, repressed demostrations might still happen, but the Arab Spring doesn't happen.

Usually, history is a matter of processes and removing one Great Man either delays the inevitable or makes it happen in a different way, because of the larger economical and technological trends. I don't think this is the case with the Arab Spring.
 
Short circuit events in Tunisia and the arab spring will be radically different. It doesnt remove the underlying factors in the likes of Egypt etc like endemic corruption, supressed political life and so on.
 
Okay. Hussein Kamil talks to the BBC instead of CNN. As a result, more people know about Iraq's destruction of their WMD. When Bush pushes for war in 2003, people bring up Kamil's interviews, the Tories oppose the war, and take Blair's government down with it. (Unlike the Syria vote, a failure of the Iraq vote could lead to no confidence in Blair.) The US loses a major ally's support and has to scramble for more troops. Meanwhile, UNSCOM is still inspecting since Bush and company did not order them to leave. They swiftly debunk many of Bush and company's assertions. Bush loses face severely- even from Republicans. US troops return home (Though there is a covert operation in Iraq- Viking Hammer, which takes out most of the Al-Quaida sympathizers, near Gulp in Northern Iraq), and Howard Dean takes over in 2004. Zarquawi dies with his legs on after being executed by Saddam's forces.
With no Iraq War, not only is the Mideast less tense, but Al-Quaida has less support. Dean focuses attention and troops on Al-Quaida, driving them out of Afghanistan and back into Pakistan. Pakistan destabilizes, with nukes leaving the country. Some make it into Al-Quaida hands, though the Saudis pick up several, some are secured, and one or two are purchased by Libya.
In 2007, the night over Riyadh is blown away by a bright light. The US and other nations wind up stabilizing the Saudi Civil War, and defeating the Al-Quaida-linked factions. The other attempts of Al-Quaida to use nukes (in Bombay and in Cairo) fail, due to fortunate interventions by local forces. The former Saudi nukes are captured by UN peacekeeping forces and are currently due for processing into MOX fuel at Savannah River.
Meanwhile, the revelations of UNSCOM and Kamil aid in the transparency movement. People are more suspicious of governments and using the internet to spread information. Sites like Wikileaks are major contributors to this trend, as are journalism organizations like the BBC (with reporters like Andrew Gilligan and Greg Palast). Governments have two choices. They can fight the transparency wave or ride it. Mideast governments began a slow period of reform, with Libya in the lead, giving up its NBC warfare programs and Ghadafi transitioning out of power in favor of the Jamhiriyas. The US under Presidents Dean and Rohrabacher, along with the UK under PMs Davis and Short helped lead the way in the West.
BTW, while Wikileaks is still around, at least three contributors aren't contributors ITTL. Edward Snowden is technology adviser to Ron Paul. Chelsea Manning helped raise awareness for transgender right, though she was still discharged from the army. Daniel Domscheit-Berg is currently a security consultant for the private sector.
 
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