Mr. Ben-Ami, if hope is bound to be born in the Middle East, then "birth pains" are worth all the while. The Arab Spring was conceived in 2011, yet the development or transition had been so treacherous that democracy was stillborn.

It's true that the "West’s pernicious colonial legacy and wrongheaded policies" had been responsible for tumoil in the region, where modern states were built on ancient civilisations. It was a venue of empire culture and rivalry. Their borders were finalised after WWI and came under British and French rule until they became independent. Unfortunately power-holders couldn't cope with "challenges of modernity". For decades autocrats resort to regime violence "to impose unity on multi-ethnic societies".

No doubt "George W. Bush’s Iraqi enterprise was calamitously ill-conceived", which Mr. Ben-Ami sees as a mistake, as it "cut short the maturation process that major historical changes demand" to achieve democracy, as it was the case in Europe.

Yet it is equally wrong to criticise "Obama’s subsequent failure to leave an adequate residual force in Iraq after the United States withdrew its troops". The decision was right at that time. Nobody had predicted the Arab Spring and the civil war in Syria, which drew the Islamists from Iraq, Europe and America to wage jihad.

"Even if the US never invaded Iraq", the Arab Spring would have caught up with Saddam Hussein and Iraq could have descended into anarchy, with ethnic groups fighting a Lebanon-style civil war. Even if the US had left behind a residual force, it would not have prevented violence from erupting. Sectarian strife broke out in February 2006, while US troops were still there.

The Arab Spring uprisings "are not just about the new Arab generation’s yearning for democracy", but also for a better future. It is not just "minorities", that are frustrated, but the majority of the population - the 99%. Due to youth bulge, young people feel neglected and are not willing to accept social inequalities. Lacking education and having no jobs, they make an explosive bunch.

It's true that Arab leaders are ethnic- and tribal-minded. Following their belief, "blood is thicker than water", they see have incentive to "accommodate religiously diverse societies". and it is "not a problem that a foreign power can resolve". They have to "engage in a long process of trial and error" to write their own history. After all the path to freedom and stability is always tortuous.

