Hussain Abdul-Hussain

While many might attribute the discrepancy in Washington's positions on the Arab Spring to a conflict between America's principles and its interests, one should not disregard the fading popular interest of the events in the Middle East among Americans.

Tunisia, a country with little strategic significance for the United States, saw a revolution that deposed President Zeineddine Ben Ali so swiftly that America and the world could barely catch a glimpse of what had happened.

Tunisia's events, however, alerted Americans and the world to a brewing revolution in an Arab country much more strategically important: Egypt. By the time Egyptians had taken to the streets, the world had already and correctly anticipated the contagious effect of the Arab Spring. From the very first hours of Egyptian protests on January 25, the world was watching.

For 18 days, the world—including America—was focused on Egypt. Primetime talk shows, whether MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on the left or Fox's Sean Hannity on the right, suspended their scheduled rundowns and started broadcasting live from Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Over the span of three weeks, Egypt's events also dominated the front pages of leading American dailies, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. So interested was America in Egypt's revolution that the popular comedian Stephen Colbert questioned on his show how a single news item could command the usually short attention span of most Americans.

The surge in popular interest, and sympathy with the Egyptian revolution, forced the hand of President Barack Obama, who found himself with little choice other than to search for post-Mubarak alternatives. He quickly found the military.
Washington asked Mubarak to leave immediately. "When we said now, we meant yesterday,” former Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters.

Mubarak stepped down on February 11.
Six days later, the flames of the Arab Spring reached Libya. Even though Moammar Qaddafi was—like Mubarak—just another Arab autocrat, he proved to be incomparably brutal and smashed protests with tanks, forcing his militarily ill-prepared opponents to respond in kind.

By the time Qaddafi's forces were preparing to invade the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, undoubtedly to go on a punitive killing spree, the Americans had lost interest in the Arab Spring. America helped launch the international military operation against Qaddafi's forces, but only after the whole world had OK’d the campaign. Coverage of the Libyan war still found its way to the front pages, but only intermittently.

By mid-March, the Syrians had started their revolt. The Arab Spring was now raging in four countries: Yemen, Syria, Libya and Bahrain, with scattered protests in Morocco, Jordan and Iraq.

The various revolutions then started competing for American attention. In newspapers, reports on one revolution would make it to the front page, with teasers about other revolutions inviting readers to look inside for more Arab Spring coverage. This bundle-style coverage persisted until about 10 days ago, when the Arab Spring suddenly vanished, almost completely, from newspapers and talk shows.

Before disappearing, news about the Syrian revolution would sometimes creep onto the front page, especially on Saturdays, to tell the story of the atrocities the regime had committed during the protests the day before. Often, Anthony Shadid of the New York Times and Liz Sly of the Washington Post would file features about Syria from Beirut.

Debra Amos of National Public Radio was allowed into Damascus and reported on the regime-sponsored dialogue sessions. But when the so-called dialogue failed, Amos fell silent.

In Washington, the Arab Spring has come to an end. Unlike in Egypt, America is not putting pressure on the Obama administration to take a position, let alone act, in favor of the people revolting against the brutal tyrants leading their countries, even in a place with as large a death toll as Syria.

To add insult to injury, even though Assad's supporters in Washington's think tank community have distanced themselves from him, at least for now, none of them seems willing to hold panel discussions, debates or lectures that could raise public awareness and turn the heat up on Assad.

So far, Assad and his regime have killed around 1,500 people out of a population of 22 million. If one applied the ratio of Syria's death toll to America, it would be the equivalent of 55,000 US citizens killed. That is 14 times that of 9/11. And yet reporting on Syrian deaths has vanished in the American media.
Americans have lost interest in the Arab Spring. This frees Obama of any need to intervene politically in Syria.

When Washington was about to let go of its longtime ally, Hosni Mubarak, the Obama administration argued that America stands for its principles, which should come before its interests. With Americans not watching Syria, it is back to its realist calculations. Principles, for now, are on the shelf.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai