If you spend time talking to western officials about the uprisings in the Arab world, you are likely to hear two contradictory views advanced – sometimes by the same person. The first view is that the “Arab spring” is, as one European diplomat puts it, “the best thing that has ever happened in my lifetime in the Arab world”. The second is that this is the most dangerous moment in the Arab world in decades.
The same people can believe both things simultaneously because this is a clash between long-term and short-term views. Look at the great sweep of history, and the maintenance of the status quo in the Arab world was neither possible nor desirable. This was a region mired in dictatorship and poverty. It was the only part of the world that has seen no significant advance for democracy over the past 30 years. It has spawned backward-looking and violent ideologies. Who could want to preserve that? And yet the collapse of the old Arab order threatens, in the here and now, to produce wars, the break-up of states and new opportunities for militant Islamists.
This is not a case of that famous glass that can be regarded as half full or half empty. It is more like looking at two glasses side-by-side. The first contains a fine wine that promises to be marvellous to drink in 20 years’ time – but that is not yet ready to consume. The second glass has to be consumed now – its contents look murky and could even prove to be poisonous.