The Arab Uprisings, After the Euphoria

The peaceful protests that started the Arab uprisings at the end of 2010 have succeeded in overthrowing governments in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. They have also been suppressed in some countries or escalated into outright warfare in others. In Syria, insurgents and government forces are waging a civil war that has begun to equal, in savagery and hate, the Lebanese civil war of 1975–90 and the Iraqi civil war of 2004–09. This past summer, rebels managed to assassinate senior Syrian security leaders and capture parts of Damascus and Aleppo, yet the regime, far from imploding (as Muammar el-Qaddafi’s did in Libya a year earlier under similar pressure), has recaptured part of what it lost. The ever more violent struggle continues with little sign of a clear winner emerging.