When the Arab Spring swept through the Middle East in 2011, overthrowing several regimes and threatening others, American policymakers and scholars were taken entirely by surprise. They were no better prepared for the eruption of protests in Sudan (where they overthrew a brutal Islamist dictatorship), Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt in 2019. In both years, Washington’s response was clumsy and occasionally destructive. Since the experts are unlikely to become much better at predicting such “black-swan” events, Sarah Feuer and David Schenker suggest some guidelines that American diplomats can follow the next time unexpected unrest strikes:

If the United States appears to back protestors in friendly states equally or more than demonstrators in adversarial states, it may damage bilateral ties with longstanding partners or reduce precisely the leverage such bilateral ties afford to Washington. Where possible, then, peaceful protests erupting in friendly states should be met by private, but firm, insistence from Washington that governments allow demonstrations to proceed while working to enact meaningful reforms that address the protesters’ grievances. Given the likely lack of U.S. influence on the trajectory of events, more robust—i.e., public—U.S. rhetorical support for protestors may be merited in unfriendly states.

Along these lines, Washington must consider the most appropriate approach toward states that have signed normalization agreements with Israel. Signatory states to the Abraham Accords . . . have periodically engaged in various degrees of repression of political dissent. What policy should Washington adopt toward these states?

In answering this question, it bears keeping in mind that U.S. interests would not be served by the fall of these governments. . . . At the very least, should major protests break out in these states, Washington will need to convey privately the expectation that peaceful demonstrations be permitted, even as it works with these governments to nurture the normalization deals and to ensure they can be leveraged to bring greater economic prosperity to the region.

[In addition, the U.S. should not] lose sight of great-power dynamics. Although there may be circumstances in which U.S. interests align with those of Russia and China, Washington should beware of cooperation offers with the two powers when it comes to engagement in the Arab world, not least when seeking to stave off or to respond to instability. Washington should avoid unforced errors that provide easy wins to China and Russia in the region.

Above all, they argue, America should “focus on the intersection of [its] interests and values.”

This week, there have been numerous unconfirmed reports about the fate of Esmail Qaani, who is the head of the Quds Force, the expeditionary arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Benny Avni writes:

On Thursday, Sky News Arabic reported that Mr. Qaani was rushed to a hospital after suffering a heart attack. He became [the Quds Force] commander in 2020, after an American drone strike killed his predecessor, Qassem Suleimani. The unit oversees the Islamic Republic’s various Mideast proxies, as well as the exporting of the Iranian revolution to the region and beyond.

The Sky News report attempts to put to rest earlier claims that Mr. Qaani was killed at Beirut. It follows several reports asserting he has been arrested and interrogated at Tehran over suspicion that he, or a top lieutenant, leaked information to Israel. Five days ago, the Arabic-language al-Arabiya network reported that Mr. Qaani “is under surveillance and isolation, following the Israeli assassinations of prominent Iranian leaders.”

Iranians are desperately scrambling to plug possible leaks that gave Israel precise intelligence to conduct pinpoint strikes against Hizballah commanders. . . . “I find it hard to believe that Qaani was compromised,” an Iran watcher at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, Beni Sabti, tells the Sun. Perhaps one or more of [Qaani’s] top aides have been recruited by Israel, he says, adding that “psychological warfare” could well be stoking the rumor mill.

If so, prominent Iranians seem to be exacerbating the internal turmoil by alleging that the country’s security apparatus has been infiltrated.