What if the Arab Spring occurred in 2001 as opposed to 2011?

Suppose the preliminary events occur sometime in 2000, just as the preliminary events for the OTL Arab Spring occurred in 2010? How might the Spring occur without the presence of social media that was so prominent in the OTL Arab Spring? If there were different heads of government present at the time, how might means of protest change? Could this affect 9/11? What about the results of the 2000 election, assuming the preliminary events occurred early enough in 2000.
 
Well the Arab Spring was caused by (among other things but IMO this is the primary one) the 2008 financial crisis/Great Recession, so you'd need something like that to take place in the 90s- a bigger East Asian crisis that crashes the global economy should do the trick.

The US would probably use protests in Iraq (which are definitely happening) to take out Saddam earlier. I'd say they succeed at that, but with most of the US' attention there Gaddafi hangs on. Mubarak might survive as well, his relationship with the military had begun to deteriorate in the late aughts, so ITTL they wouldn't turn on him. IDK about Tunisia.
 
The Arab Spring in many ways was driven by the cascading population pressures in the Arab World (Egypt in particular) and was ultimately triggered by food insecurity. If you have food insecurity be a big deal in 2001, its possible.

The big issue of course is that the Second Intifada was occurring at the time, and would inevitably be dragged into the Arab Spring rhetorically or otherwise.

Keep in mind that all of this was before George W. Bush's Freedom Diplomacy, which began in his second term, took hold, and ideas like the Town Square test and tying military aid to democratic progress had not yet begun. This would therefore embolden the autocratic leaders from making any damaging concessions prior to the Arab Spring, and would allow them to take a harder line on the protests.

Bashar al-Assad would be very new to power and perhaps would be ousted in a coup, as he would not have developed the kinds of relationships he did over the 10 years before the Arab Spring OTL and would have looked quite weak.

Mubarak probably would clamped down on the protests with more force and perhaps could have stayed in power.

Saddam Hussein, who had wrapped his regime in the colors of Sunni Fundamentalism in the late 90s (remember the Blood Quran? The purge of secular Republican Guard officers?), would have quickly turned any protests into an ethnic competition, and would have slaughtered the Shiites again, while the Kurds would have been protected by NATO airpower.

The French would have ensured nothing too drastic happens in Tunisia. The Algerian Civil War would not be impacted.

Lebanon might have an expedited Cedar Revolution. If Hezbollah seizes power in the ensuing vacuum, it is possible that Israel invades Southern Lebanon, and likely does the job more competently than OTL because of Lebanon only having 1 year to consolidate their positions, and the Sharon government being way more competent militarily than the later Olmert government.

Qaddafi would have stayed in power without NATO interference. Bush's pre-9/11 foreign policy likely would not induce him to want to intervene, and after 9/11, too much attention would be focused on Bin Laden.

The role of AlQaeda is interesting in this scenario. They were not the pariahs that they were after 9/11 as of yet. Its possible that they could have been big influencers on rebel movements.
 
Top