Claims Regarding Democracy in the Middle East

From "This Is Not an Islamic Revolution," an article in the New Statesman by Olivier Roy:

But the "democracy" that is being called for is not foreign, and therein
lies the difference from the Bush administration's attempt to promote democracy
in Iraq in 2003. That did not work, because it lacked political legitimacy and
was associated with a military intervention. Today, paradoxically, it is the
waning of US influence in the Middle East, together with the pragmatism of the
Obama administration, that has allowed a native and fully legitimate demand for
democracy to be expressed.

Would democracy have come sooner to Egypt and Tunisia if the United States had never supported military dictatorships there? Has the U.S. foreign policy produced more or less stability and security on the Middle East on balance?