While public relations officers of the Empire (Obama, Sarkozy, Clinton, etc) have been making noises in support of the Arab Spring and the democratic forces behind it, the real story is gradually emerging.
As state security forces across the region cracked down on democratic dissent, the Pentagon also repeatedly dispatched American troops on training missions to allied militaries there. During more than 40 such operations with names like Eager Lion and Friendship Two that sometimes lasted for weeks or months at a time, they taught Middle Eastern security forces the finer points of counterinsurgency, small unit tactics, intelligence gathering, and information operations -- skills crucial to defeating popular uprisings.The Pentagon's strategy to insure the Empire's dominance is always to wed a target country's military with the Empire's military in order to co-opt them and to subvert any kind of legitimate government. Thus, they lavish training junkets, perks, military equipment, etc on the target country's military leaders.