What Did the Arab Spring Change?

Let's take a look around, shall we? Egypt remains in thrall to its military, and even if the Muslim Brotherhood manages to wrest control from it, that certainly portends no great success for democracy. Dr. Roy is as clear-eyed as can be on this: He will have none of the ignorant foolishness that tries to characterize the Brotherhood as an organization devoted, or potentially converted, to democracy, let alone to liberal values. The situation in Tunisia is not much better than it is in Egypt, and the situations in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Sudan, the UAE, Oman, Syria, and Lebanon are either the same as before, more or less, or worse by any reasonable measure of political decency. Only in Iran in recent years has there been visible agitation from the street for greater democracy, and that did not get very far at the hands of the regime’s enthusiastic thugs.