This is exactly how I would have responded to the above comment. I'd just add that there is tons of evidence for liberal democracies attempting to help or entice those countries to become less corrupt, more transparent and more democratic. Saying that countries that have been independent of colonial rule for a hundred years, which incidentally were mostly handed democratic systems, have become autocracies because of liberal democracies want them that way is sheer insanity.
Your point about agency should be the standard rebuttal to all forms of third-worldism that attempt to blame homegrown problems on external actors. But having someone external to blame for homegrown repression isn't just post-hoc rationalization. It actually serves to reinforce the oppression in those states, both as a pressure-release valve for autocrats, and the failure to evaluate internal problems serves as an underlying reason why they have not successfully overthrown those regimes and transitioned to democracy.
Mostly, though, that type of talk comes out of the mouths of Westerners who know nothing about the situation in, e.g. Egypt.
Your comment can be adjusted a bit and it would work for “do black men have no agency” contrasted with white people in a country like America. Or any number of other oppressive dynamics.
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This all ignores that Egypt’s current regime right now is propped up by America.