has been a tragedy pretty much for the united states interests in the region and what it led to. i think our problem is not that we didn't predict correctly it was hard to predict, there was no way you would know that in tunisia it might succeed but not elsewhere. the real problem is what we did when it became clear that the arab spring had failed. in egypt in a state in what was not in the end moving away from a dictator who couldn't hang on anyway wouldn't have done any good. but elm -- embracing the muslim brotherhood after they won and began destroying democracy. so we ended up with everybody hating us in egypt the brotherhood and, of course, the establishment. and look at syria. that was a place where we don't know. we might not have had a successful arab spring if we had done something at the point where there was a genuine democratic rebellion and a regime teetering. we did nothing and in the vacuum entered iran, entered russia and entered