"Why no one really understood enough to call it the 'Arab Spring'"

At the time, we all thought it was 'cute'. The term 'Arab Spring' suggested a repeat of the 1990's when Eastern Europe came to life, when we had "Life-coming-back-to-normal-after-Communism". So, that was "spring" for the West.

And, logically, "Spring" was bound to come to the Arabic speaking world, right? Of course! Didn't everybody know that every nation wanted democracy and freedom? Democracy would arrive full blown in less than a year, right?

But, a centuries old mistrust was a cracked foundation. The two new pillars of "liberty" and "democracy" could not prevent the roof, the new ideals, from caving in, and in a short period of time, the new construct had fallen apart, causing great harm to the House of Islam, especially in the "Room of the Arabian Nights".

After all, who in the West understood the complexities of the interpretation of the Quran? Or, the deep polarization between social opposites, such as the Brotherhood movement and the Egyptian army? or the vision of the young people devoted to Egyptian television against the Salafist desire to control everyone under the Sharia Law?

A new book gives a lot of insight into this. Read more. and concludes, "The chaos we see at the moment is a long way from the hopes that filled the streets in 2011. And this chaos is likely to continue for many more years."