That said, it should be noted that the U.S. still has "deep connections" among small but economically powerful "monarchies, emirates and sheikdoms" in the Persian Gulf. In fact the U.S. has its Navy 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, and the U.S. needs those strategic allies notwithstanding the lack of democratic policies in those countries. In Egypt's revolution, dictator Mubarak was sent from power, but notwithstanding his brutal control over the population, he was an ally of the U.S. because he cooperated in the U.S. negotiations with Israel. And in fact Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1979, so Mubarak -- who went against public opinion in Egypt by cooperating with Israel and the U.S. -- was a key player the U.S. counted on. Still, there are oil-rich allies in the Gulf states that America depends on, and this was made plain, the CBS News article continues, when the Unite Arab Emirates and Qatar contributed warplanes to the NATO-led war against Gaddafi.

What about Syria & Saudi Arabia?

Syria has not avoided the Arab Spring; in fact when demonstrations broke out in early 2011 Bashar al-Assad (dictator) paid pro-government gang members $100 per day to shoot protestors, according to an article in CNN.com (Damon, 2012). That information comes from former Ministry of Defense official Mahmoud Suleiman al-Hamad in Syria, who defected to Egypt. Among the most egregious events that al-Hamad witnessed were the vans that drove through the streets with the Red Crescent (Red Cross) symbol, and citizens thought those were ambulances but in fact men inside the vans would "…start firing at protestors," al-Hamad explained to CNN. In Saudi Arabia, the Arab Spring was...

In fact there is a new law going into effect in Saudi Arabia that makes dissent "a terrorist crime" (Fisher, 2012). Thousands of people are being held in prisons in Saudi Arabia, according to the Amnesty International; many of them have been tortured (Fisher, p. 1).
Works Cited

Anderson, Lisa. "Demystifying the Arab Spring." Foreign Affairs, 90.3 (2011): 1-7.

CBS News. "Arab Spring's uprisings reshape U.S. influence." Retrieved January 4, 2012, from http://www.cbsnews.com. 2011.

Damon, Arwa. "Syrian defector says government has lost control of 'human monsters'."

CNN.com. Retrieved January 5, 2012, from http://www.cnn.com.

Fisher, William. "Saudis to Reinforce Crackdown On Peaceful Protestors, Amnesty Says."

The Public Record. Retrieved January 4, 2012, from http://pubrecord.org.

Gilbert, Ben. "Tunisia's Democratic Intentions Questioned." The World. Retrieved January 4,

2012, from http://www.theworld.org. 2012.

Habboush, Mahmoud, and Shauib, Ali. "Militias may drag Libya into civil war, transitional government chief says." The Washington Post. Retrieved January 4, 2012, from http://www.washingtonpost.com.

Nelson, Soraya Sarhaddi. "Egypt's Street Kids Are Revolution's Smallest Soldiers." National

Public Radio. Retrieved January 4, 2012, from http://www.npr.org. 2012.

Voice of America. "Thousands of Egyptians Protest Violence Against Women." Retrieved

January 5, 2012, from http://blogs.voanews.com.