Dayuhan:

Your trying to separate reality from delusion. There are no people in the State Department doing any of this, nor is it their role.

There was a high-level meeting with Ambassador Crocker/Gen. Petreaus in 2008, where they went to Bahrain to thank the leaders for their support on Iraq matters (Wikileaks source).

I doubt any delegation from the US would really accomplish much other than what they did. Absent curtailing US funding (not likely), this is just one of those duck and cover events.

Rex:

Really? The US effectively excluded 70% of the population (the poor, women, non-whites) and from effective political participation until 1920 or so. While you did have that nasty civil war over slavery, I'm not sure that the history of the United States between 1776 and 1920 could be described as a "disaster."

China has effectively excluded 95% of the population from political participation since 1949, and has been stunningly successful over the past 20 years.

I'm being provocative, of course--we academics get paid to be argumentative. I certainly think democracy is, in the long run, a good thing. I'm also with you on the overall merits of a stronger US stance in favour of political reform in the Arab world.

However, I am suggesting that the relationship between political exclusion, revolt, and national "success" is far murkier than we might wish.
This dumbass question of a government which operates with the "consent of the people" seldom seems to mean active, participation or universal sufferage. There are many ways and means where "consent of the people" can actually be interpreted as many are pissed off and disenfranchised but not enough to either do something about it, or change the status quo.

JCustis's point about the 60's and 70's is a case in point where many things in the US reached a Billy Jack moment (Civil Rights, Viet nam, etc...) which led to notable changes, but did not rise to wide-spread conflict.

Certainly, the level of violence and destruction in many urban areas did reach catastrophic levels, but limited to urban neighborhoods. Nonetheless, it was part and parcel of a successful shift in civil rights.

Vietnam protests, without dispute, marked the end of universal conscription, and the shift to a volunteer army, the results of which are still playing out in US History. Can we trace elective wars to that shift? Would we have ever considered Iraq with universal conscription still in operation? (I think Afghanistan would have been different as to a limited incursion/occupation).

I'm constantly aware of Bob's arguments for an Afghan constitutional change, but wary that it is all too easy to forget that power politics in a capital does not always equate to "consent of the people," nor that "consent of a majority" might not mean oppression of substantial minorities.

This government stuff sure seems to be complicated!!!!