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The New Middle East: The World After the Arab Spring by Paul Danahar
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June 5, 2024
A JOURNALIST LOOKS AT THE ARAB SPRING FROM A 2013 PERSPECTIVE
Paul Danahar is a bureau chief for the BBC. He wrote in the Introduction to this 2013 book, “The old Middle East stopped making sense years ago. The Soviet Union had been dead for decades. One by one, around the world, in Africa, South America and in Eastern Europe, brutal regimes had fallen, or been abandoned by their foreign sponsors. Elsewhere, for better or worse, the world had moved on---but not here. In the old Middle East the unholy alliance between ‘the Land of the Free’ and the world of dictatorship limped on because no one knew what else to do. It took schoolteachers, farmers and accountants to achieve… .The creation of a New Middle East… We can see now that this journey is leaving behind the old socialist ideologies of Ba’athism and Pan-Arabism, and those carried by the founders of Zionism. There is a stronger Sunni, and a weaker Shia, Islam. There is a growing religious divide in Israel. The regional powers are now more strongly divided along sectarian lines. Christians and other minorities wonder if they still have a safe place in the new societies being formed. Religion, not nationalism or Arabism, is now the dominant force. God has returned to the Middle East.” (Pg. 3)
He continues, “The countries engulfed by the Arab Spring are on the road from dictatorships to democracy. Together they will shape the New Middle East. But why did some uprisings lead to the overthrow of regimes while others did not?... Why in some of the most undemocratic countries in the Arab region did widespread protests not take place at all? Where revolutions did happen, why did some countries then vote for Islamist parties while other equally pious nations rejected them?... To answer these questions properly it helps to have seen the transformation of the region from the beginning, when American troops drove into Baghdad a decade ago to impose a democratic ‘Freedom Agenda’ on the Arab world… We in the West need to understand this region, because … What happens in the Middle East does NOT stay in the Middle East.” (Pg. 14)
He adds, “The road to democracy for the Arab world has been harder and longer than for almost any other region on the planet. It took so long that a casual assumption was made in parts of the West that it simply couldn’t work there. That conclusion propped up dictators for decades. The key test for the revolutionaries of the New Middle East… is this: Can they accept democracy’s fundamental characteristic? It expresses the will of the MAJORITY of the people. So many of them may not like what they are going to get.” (Pg. 17)
He suggests, “some revolutions took weeks and others took months and years. Some of the regimes built by the dictatorships had been hollowed out with age. The socialist ideologies that created them were long gone. The regimes had died inside but the façade was still standing. It still looked menacing, but when the young people pushed against it, it collapsed. The regimes that still had a purpose---in Syria’s case to protect a particular sect…---were more resilient... By the time the Syrian conflict entered its third year, those people who by now were living in shattered cities… wondered if it would ever end and whether the revolt had been worth it.” (Pg. 28)
He points out, “The spontaneous overthrow of authoritarian rulers by the people of overwhelmingly Muslim nations gave the democracies that followed Arab, not American, roots. It undercuts the argument made by the kingdoms in the Gulf that democracy is un-Islamic and unwanted… there is no real debate about who nurtured it and brought it to fruition. That surely makes the democratization process irreversible in the countries where it has started, and possible where it has not.” (Pg. 50) He continues, “there shouldn’t be disappointment when [these countries] don’t embrace Western-style everything else. Voting like Europeans is not going to make the people think like Europeans… Democracy absorbs the flavor of the culture and society it is mixed with. Democracy in the Arab world will have its own flavor too.” (Pg. 52)
He argues, “Islam is a religion that has a lot to say about politics. It offers guidance … about wider society and governance… the vast majority of Egyptian Muslims are quite comfortable about having aspects of Islamic law and tradition as a cornerstone of their new society. Political Islam is a reality that American and the wider West need to build into the foundations of their new foreign policies for the region. It is not going to wane in influence, even if, eventually, the [Muslim] Brotherhood does.” (Pg. 123)
He suggests, “The reason why many Israelis do not care much about the peace process with the Palestinians on the West Bank is that they do not have as much to fear from the Palestinians any more… They have the American-funded ‘Iron Dome’ anti-missile system to defend them in the skies. On the ground they have built a physical barrier to keep the Palestinians away. The Israeli government thinks it has the situation in the West Bank under control. It knows that is not true in Gaza. (Pg. 135) Later, he adds, “while Palestine will remain an emotional draw for the people of the Arab world, until they have got their own house in order it is not a cause they are able to make great sacrifices for. If Israel has never been more isolated, then also for the time being the issue of Palestine has rarely been less important to the lives of its core supporters in the region.” (Pg. 179) He summarizes, “God and the role of religion in society and politics is at the heart of the debate in Israel too. Israel is becoming more religious and more nationalist, and those two things put it at risk of becoming less democratic… The antireligious Zionists were needed to create the state of Israel, but they no longer define it.” (Pg. 229)
He observes, “The Arab Spring was at first an ideological catastrophe for al-Qaeda. It fundamentally undermined one of the key planks of the Global Jihad philosophy, which was that the West will not allow peaceful change, so it must first be dealt a moral blow before work can begin on the model Islamic society. The peaceful overthrown of the American-backed dictator in Egypt… destroyed that argument. The chaos in Syria gave groups like al-Qaeda another chance… That money would start flowing from the Gulf states to back jihadist groups fighting in Syria was entirely predictable.” (Pg. 394-395)
He concludes, “The Arab Spring was the beginning of the reshaping of the Middle East. The process is not over yet… China has been looking to fill any space the US leaves behind… Europe is becoming more engaged in the Middle East but it is too divided to speak with one firm voice. The temptation to leave the Arab people to sort things out for themselves may be strong for the U.S., which has reaped very little reward for its efforts in the region. But to bow to it would be a mistake. America’s decades-long support for the dictatorships helped break the Middle East. The US should help fix it. But in the eyes of the Arab world American has lost too much credibility … The people of the New Middle East now have a voice. Whether the West likes what they have to say or not the world after the Arab Spring means it is going to have to listen to them.” (Pg. 428)
While in retrospect this book was clearly unduly optimistic, it is still an excellent resource for those wanting to know more about the Arab Spring.
Paul Danahar is a bureau chief for the BBC. He wrote in the Introduction to this 2013 book, “The old Middle East stopped making sense years ago. The Soviet Union had been dead for decades. One by one, around the world, in Africa, South America and in Eastern Europe, brutal regimes had fallen, or been abandoned by their foreign sponsors. Elsewhere, for better or worse, the world had moved on---but not here. In the old Middle East the unholy alliance between ‘the Land of the Free’ and the world of dictatorship limped on because no one knew what else to do. It took schoolteachers, farmers and accountants to achieve… .The creation of a New Middle East… We can see now that this journey is leaving behind the old socialist ideologies of Ba’athism and Pan-Arabism, and those carried by the founders of Zionism. There is a stronger Sunni, and a weaker Shia, Islam. There is a growing religious divide in Israel. The regional powers are now more strongly divided along sectarian lines. Christians and other minorities wonder if they still have a safe place in the new societies being formed. Religion, not nationalism or Arabism, is now the dominant force. God has returned to the Middle East.” (Pg. 3)
He continues, “The countries engulfed by the Arab Spring are on the road from dictatorships to democracy. Together they will shape the New Middle East. But why did some uprisings lead to the overthrow of regimes while others did not?... Why in some of the most undemocratic countries in the Arab region did widespread protests not take place at all? Where revolutions did happen, why did some countries then vote for Islamist parties while other equally pious nations rejected them?... To answer these questions properly it helps to have seen the transformation of the region from the beginning, when American troops drove into Baghdad a decade ago to impose a democratic ‘Freedom Agenda’ on the Arab world… We in the West need to understand this region, because … What happens in the Middle East does NOT stay in the Middle East.” (Pg. 14)
He adds, “The road to democracy for the Arab world has been harder and longer than for almost any other region on the planet. It took so long that a casual assumption was made in parts of the West that it simply couldn’t work there. That conclusion propped up dictators for decades. The key test for the revolutionaries of the New Middle East… is this: Can they accept democracy’s fundamental characteristic? It expresses the will of the MAJORITY of the people. So many of them may not like what they are going to get.” (Pg. 17)
He suggests, “some revolutions took weeks and others took months and years. Some of the regimes built by the dictatorships had been hollowed out with age. The socialist ideologies that created them were long gone. The regimes had died inside but the façade was still standing. It still looked menacing, but when the young people pushed against it, it collapsed. The regimes that still had a purpose---in Syria’s case to protect a particular sect…---were more resilient... By the time the Syrian conflict entered its third year, those people who by now were living in shattered cities… wondered if it would ever end and whether the revolt had been worth it.” (Pg. 28)
He points out, “The spontaneous overthrow of authoritarian rulers by the people of overwhelmingly Muslim nations gave the democracies that followed Arab, not American, roots. It undercuts the argument made by the kingdoms in the Gulf that democracy is un-Islamic and unwanted… there is no real debate about who nurtured it and brought it to fruition. That surely makes the democratization process irreversible in the countries where it has started, and possible where it has not.” (Pg. 50) He continues, “there shouldn’t be disappointment when [these countries] don’t embrace Western-style everything else. Voting like Europeans is not going to make the people think like Europeans… Democracy absorbs the flavor of the culture and society it is mixed with. Democracy in the Arab world will have its own flavor too.” (Pg. 52)
He argues, “Islam is a religion that has a lot to say about politics. It offers guidance … about wider society and governance… the vast majority of Egyptian Muslims are quite comfortable about having aspects of Islamic law and tradition as a cornerstone of their new society. Political Islam is a reality that American and the wider West need to build into the foundations of their new foreign policies for the region. It is not going to wane in influence, even if, eventually, the [Muslim] Brotherhood does.” (Pg. 123)
He suggests, “The reason why many Israelis do not care much about the peace process with the Palestinians on the West Bank is that they do not have as much to fear from the Palestinians any more… They have the American-funded ‘Iron Dome’ anti-missile system to defend them in the skies. On the ground they have built a physical barrier to keep the Palestinians away. The Israeli government thinks it has the situation in the West Bank under control. It knows that is not true in Gaza. (Pg. 135) Later, he adds, “while Palestine will remain an emotional draw for the people of the Arab world, until they have got their own house in order it is not a cause they are able to make great sacrifices for. If Israel has never been more isolated, then also for the time being the issue of Palestine has rarely been less important to the lives of its core supporters in the region.” (Pg. 179) He summarizes, “God and the role of religion in society and politics is at the heart of the debate in Israel too. Israel is becoming more religious and more nationalist, and those two things put it at risk of becoming less democratic… The antireligious Zionists were needed to create the state of Israel, but they no longer define it.” (Pg. 229)
He observes, “The Arab Spring was at first an ideological catastrophe for al-Qaeda. It fundamentally undermined one of the key planks of the Global Jihad philosophy, which was that the West will not allow peaceful change, so it must first be dealt a moral blow before work can begin on the model Islamic society. The peaceful overthrown of the American-backed dictator in Egypt… destroyed that argument. The chaos in Syria gave groups like al-Qaeda another chance… That money would start flowing from the Gulf states to back jihadist groups fighting in Syria was entirely predictable.” (Pg. 394-395)
He concludes, “The Arab Spring was the beginning of the reshaping of the Middle East. The process is not over yet… China has been looking to fill any space the US leaves behind… Europe is becoming more engaged in the Middle East but it is too divided to speak with one firm voice. The temptation to leave the Arab people to sort things out for themselves may be strong for the U.S., which has reaped very little reward for its efforts in the region. But to bow to it would be a mistake. America’s decades-long support for the dictatorships helped break the Middle East. The US should help fix it. But in the eyes of the Arab world American has lost too much credibility … The people of the New Middle East now have a voice. Whether the West likes what they have to say or not the world after the Arab Spring means it is going to have to listen to them.” (Pg. 428)
While in retrospect this book was clearly unduly optimistic, it is still an excellent resource for those wanting to know more about the Arab Spring.
September 29, 2025
Pretty dense. I had to look up a good amount, but definitely very educational on the Arab spring
November 26, 2025
9.6/10
Amazing book, hard and gruesome at times
Amazing book, hard and gruesome at times
March 10, 2025
A great introduction to the Arab Spring with explanation on historical context of each Arab Spring country
I found the discussion around Israel and Palestine a little biased especially when the author explained the reasons why both Arabs and Israel’s rejected a two-state solution - it simply wasn’t a true reflection of reality
I found the discussion around Israel and Palestine a little biased especially when the author explained the reasons why both Arabs and Israel’s rejected a two-state solution - it simply wasn’t a true reflection of reality
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews