WASHINGTON – US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday that protests across the Arab world have dealt a major setback to Al Qaeda militants and Iran by endorsing democratic change.
“It basically gives the lie to Al Qaeda’s claim that the only way to get rid of authoritarian governments is through extremist violence,” Gates told reporters. With a wave of unrest and protests toppling regimes in Egypt and Tunisia and prompting reforms elsewhere, Gates said grassroots movements “are an extraordinary setback for Al-Qaeda.”
The Pentagon chief, a former intelligence analyst and CIA director, said that the example of mostly peaceful uprisings also posed a problem for Iran that might become more acute over time. “Because the contrast in the behavior of the militaries in Tunisia and in Egypt, and – except for a brief period of violence – in Bahrain, contrast vividly with the savage repression that the Iranians have undertaken against anybody who dares to demonstrate,” Gates explained.
Describing himself as “an optimist about these changes,” Gates said it could take months or years for the unrest to play out but a process of change has begun after decades of frozen political arrangements.
