Another look at the Arab Springs

The worsening civil war in Syria, the authoritarian restoration in Egypt, the political tension in Tunisia, the destabilization of Lebanon, the perpetuation of chaos in Iraq and Libya, the increasingly authoritarian posture of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, the spectre of a resumption of armed conflict in Afghanistan – if indeed that conflict has ever ended – can give rise to facile puns on the ‘Arab Autumn’ or the ‘Arab Winter’, and the crocodile tears and malign glee that go with the refrain ‘We told you so (we told you that Muslims were unfit for democracy)!’