American analysts felt this claim was unfounded. Outside of a few cases like Libya in 2011, the United States played little or no meaningful role in the Arab Spring or the color revolutions.55 In fact, US policy makers and US intelligence agencies were repeatedly blindsided by the rapid developments in the countries highlighted by Gerasimov. As acting CIA director Mike Morell lamented, US intelligence agencies and diplomats failed to fully anticipate the Arab Spring, in part because they had become too dependent on their counterparts in Middle Eastern governments for insights. “We were lax in
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