Shashank Joshi: Arab Spring - The Revolution has only Just Begun

The Middle East faces a long, bumpy and bloody ride, as nations struggle to build a new order while battling internal factions and outside interference. This year, the certitudes of the old Middle East dissolved with unseemly haste. A regional order frozen in place since the death of Egypt's Colonel Nasser 40 years ago finally thawed. It produced a torrent of uprisings, coups, standoffs, civil wars, and an orgy of state-sponsored bloodletting. This was the earthquake. In 2012, prepare for the aftershocks, but revolution is not, and never has been, an event. It is a project, and one whose gestation spans not only months, or even years, but decades. The raw violence of the Arab awakening is uncomfortable for those of us accustomed to a different sort of revolution. This month, Vaclav Havel died. His was the era of the pure revolution. The dissolution of the Soviet empire in Europe, and Havel's ascent to the Czech presidency, was tidier than we had any right to expect. It was the age of prison-to-presidency leaps by distinguished statesmen, not undignified rabbles. Today, we confront slow-burning revolutions of barbed wire and blood, not velvet. In Egypt, the army began the year as a savior of the revolution; it ended it as tormentor.