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The Arab Spring, a revolutionary movement for democracy that swept across the Arab Middle East in 2010, has contributed to the downfall of several oppressive authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen. The movement represented several uprisings that placed the United States in a precarious position. While the uprisings have shaken U.S. policy to the core, they also presented a historic opportunity for American policymakers to craft a new and comprehensive policy that is compatible with the much-coveted principles of democracy, freedom, and justice in a region that has historically been unable to grasp such principles. This article argues that the American administration under President Barak Obama squandered this opportunity by pursuing an incoherent and inconsistent policy. This policy revealed Obama's support of the uprisings calls for political reforms that aligned with American liberal values. However, the policy also reflected a commitment to ensure security and stability by maintaining autocratic regimes the protesters hoped to overthrow. This article demonstrates that the policy lacked consistency and clarity as it shifted from one uprising to another.

The formation of NH2 and NH radicals as well as H and N atoms during the thermal decomposition of hydrazine was investigated over a wide temperature range. For the first time frequency-modulated spectroscopy was used for the detection of NH2 radicals behind shock waves. In comparison with the dual beam laser absorption technique, the detection limit has been improved by one and a half orders of magnitude. For reaction (5a) NH2 + M NH + H + M the rate constants were obtained in the temperature range from 2200 to 4000 K k5a = (1.2 ± 0.5)1015 · exp[-(318±10) kJ mol−1/RT] cm3/mol s and for reaction (6) NH + M N + H + M in the temperature range from 2500 to 3400 K k6 = (1.8 ± 0.8)1014 · exp[-(313 ± 15)kJ mol−1/RT] cm3/mol s. The experimental apparent activation energies were found to be in good agreement with theoretical calculations and recently recommended enthalpies of formation for NH2 and NH. The competing NH2 decomposition channel (5b) NH2 + M N + H2 + M was shown to be of minor importance (⩽ 5%). The kinetic behavior of the unimolecular decomposition of NH2 is compared with that of H20 and 3CH2.