World Bulletin / News Desk

Former FBI agent and whistleblower Coleen Rowley said on Tuesday, commenting in a soon to be published book by former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell, that the US failed to realise the scope of the Arab Spring and how it brought about a vacuum of which the al-Qaeda took advantage of.

In an article to Sputnik International, former FBI agent, and whistleblower Coleen Rowley said that the US failed to anticipate that al-Qaeda would take advantage of the turbulence in the Middle East during the Arab Spring,  ultimately enabling the group to regain strength despite the death of their leader, Osama bin Laden in 2011. Rowly mentioned that the eventual chaos of the Arab Spring  would be used as a distraction from pointing blame at the War on Terror.

Rowly did say  Arab Spring was only partly responsible for the violence than ensued in the Middle East and  pointed out that the crises in the region are a result of the “deceit that went into launching pre-emptive, illegal US wars,” not to mention the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and the destruction of their infrastructures. Not only was the occupation to blame, but also the arming of Saudi Arabia and other countries, while turning a blind eye to their support for al-Qaeda groups also contributed to the unrest that followed.

Added to the arming of Saudi Arabia was also the highly destructive nature of the United States’ covert activities to achieve regime change in the countries through destabilization, torture, kidnappings, indefinite detentions and drone assassinations carried out in the War on Terror.