John Major Quotes

As you know with the Arab Spring, there were no dividends.

The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it.

The 'Arab Spring' is the most spectacular example of the dispersal of power.

The Arab world is ripe for internal revolution like the USSR and China in the past decade.

Some in the West have long argued that because of the lack of a viable liberal alternative, supporting authoritarian regimes in Arab countries is the only political choice against the Islamists. Now, in Tunisia, as people flood into the streets demanding democracy, we see that this is not the case. It was not the case in Iran in 1979 either, but the West was so invested in the Shah that it failed to strongly back the liberal opposition. We don't have to repeat that error today.

The Arab world is erupting, which is extraordinary, and to see it happen is like watching rings spreading on a pool - it goes out; it varies so much. The spontaneity is wonderful, but very often, if it's not well organized, it breaks up, and it peters out.

It is hard to know exactly when the Arab Spring, a phrase used to describe the beginning of the Arab peoples' demand for democracy and human-rights reform, started.

A great democratic revolution is taking place in our midst.

Al Qaeda's message that violence, terrorism and extremism are the only answer for Arabs seeking dignity and hope is being rejected each day in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and throughout the Arab lands.

The Arab Spring showed that people are not going to wait for an American president to make good on his big talk about democracy and human rights; they are going to fight for those rights themselves and overthrow pro-American dictators who stand in their way.

The Arab spring was not as radical as the French or Iranian revolutions. It did not pull out the deeply entrenched roots of the state. Instead, it was satisfied to replace the top of the pyramid with newly elected, but inexperienced, leaders.

The Arab Awakening or Arab Spring has transformed the geopolitical landscape.

The Arab Spring is over. The days of the protesters with laptops and BlackBerrys in Tahrir Square are long gone.

The Arab Spring I think we will look back whether it's two years, five years, ten or fifteen. And say it's a good thing.

The most striking thing is that even before Osama bin Laden was killed, he seemed largely irrelevant to the Arab Spring.

The peaceful path out of totalitarianism has never been tested.

It is the growing periphery of the Arab world - the masses at its margins, not its feeble and decaying center - that is shaping the future of the region.

If reforms do not come when people are at peace, of course, they have to come through violent upheavals. No wonder the peoples who have democratic forms of government cling to them.

In Arab countries where rebellion has succeeded in ousting leaders (or will), painful makeovers lie ahead. None will get through the change quickly. Most will stumble over daunting political and economic challenges. Some may fail. All will grapple to find the right blend of freedom and faith.

The Arab world’s wave of change was a century in the making, Why expect its effects to become clear in the space of months

Had you asked an expert on the Middle East what changes would be likely to tke place in 2011, almost none would have predicted the Arab Spring and none would have chosen Tunisia as the flashpoint.

The so called “Arab Spring” … is really a situation which is creating more threats so far than positive incentives.

Across the region, those rights that we take for granted are being claimed with joy by those who are prying loose the grip of an iron fist.

Muslims have been subjected to so many tyrants and oppressive regimes. That's what the Arab Spring was about, but the problem comes in trying to direct a revolution.

Mass movements do not usually rise until the prevailing order has been discredited.