IT all started so well.
They were freedom fighters, and they were protesting for democracy. They were, after all, overthrowing tyrants. Some still are.
And so the Arab Spring won the hearts and minds of the entire Western world. Western resources were piled in to help the democratic revolution on its way. But now the elections have begun and, well, all was not as it seemed.
In Tunisia, rather than voting for western, democratic-style parties, the electorate have returned a resounding victory for Islamists. The Ennahda Party has pledged a secular Islamic state a bit like Turkey, for now at any rate. In Morocco, a month later, the same.
But Morocco and Tunisa are small fry in the world of Middle Eastern politics. The big one is Egypt.
Well, the first round of Egypt’s election results are in. Because of the complicated voting system, we won’t know the full results until January.
However, in the first round of results it is clear that the Muslim Brotherhood, a relatively moderate Islamist party has won taking over a third of the votes. They’ve been followed closely by The Nour Party, representing the more hard-line Salafi Islamists.
The Muslim Brotherhood were well known in Egypt, having provided social support and healthcare for many years, and it was hardly surprising that they did well, even if the result has proved a dreadful shock to the West. But the Nour Party has come from nowhere and has - astonishingly - amassed very nearly a quarter of the vote. That kind of meteoric rise means it is likely that the Nour Party will be a major player in Egyptian politics for the foreseeable future.
The Nour Party has pledged to introduce full Sharia Law, to ban alcohol, to make all women wear veils and to ban women from driving. The Nour Party, despite having achieved its current level of success through democracy, is fundamentally opposed to democracy. Had it achieved an overall majority it is likely that the recent elections would not have been repeated any decade soon.
And, of course, that’s the problem. They may not have won this time, but they will at the next election, or the one after that. And then there will be no more elections.
The big decision for the Muslim Brotherhood, which won’t have sufficient seats in Parliament to govern on its own, will be whether to go into coalition with the Nour Party or with the smaller, western-liberal-democratic parties, none of which did particularly well.
And as elections in one Arab state after another don?t go to the West’s grand plan it is becoming all too obvious what the Arab Spring was actually about.
There may well have been democracy protesters in the crowds but it is becoming quite apparent that the demonstrations were not fundamentally about democracy or freedom; they were a protest against governments which had become too close to and supportive of Western causes.
One thing’s for sure. Israel will be shaking in its shoes.
To my way of thinking, religious states are never good news and Israel has been right up there in illustrating why religion and politics don’t mix. Its aggressive belligerence and appalling treatment of its Palestinian neighbours has made it a true pariah state in the region.
But since the Camp David agreements of the 1980s Egypt has been Israel’s buffer against its many enemies in the Arab world. That buffer has now gone. It is almost inevitable that, with an increasing Islamic bloc in the Middle East, there will be a major war with Israel at its heart.
Israel is, of course, a nuclear weapons state. So, on the other side is Pakistan and, in the not too distant future, Iran.
It is unthinkable that the United States could allow Israel to be wiped off the map, so it is likely also to wade in to any future conflict.
When Osama Bin Laden’s men launched the 9/11 attacks back in 2001 the idea was to start a world war. There were those who thought this aim had failed or been contained.
They were wrong. The chickens are just beginning to come home to roost.
