Why 'Color Revolutions' Can't Be Exported

On Wednesday, former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, one of the few politicians in history to hold top posts in two countries, arrived in the Netherlands to apply for residence there. This is something of an admission of failure: Neither his native Georgia nor Ukraine, where he was a regional governor and then an opposition rabble-rouser, wants him anymore, and the Dutch aren't interested in his skillset as a professional revolutionary.

Saakashvili's remarkable career has hit rock bottom. More importantly, so has the idea that Western plotters engineered his rise and the broader set of "color revolutions." Unfortunately for the authoritarians who have spent years blaming U.S. agents -- and fearing them -- the explanation involves the opposite of international intrigue: local causes, passing impulses and inscrutable peculiarities.