Egypt is another Middle Eastern country lapsing into civil war

The situation in Cairo is getting worse and worse. For us in the UK the gradual slide of another Middle Eastern country into civil war is a disaster: Egypt is the most populous Arab nation and violence has flared again: the news comes on the back of 2 years of civil war in Syria. Recently there have been 24 policemen loyal to the military regime gunned down execution-style by Islamist militants in the Sinai desert and counter allegations concerning 36 Islamist prisoners suffocated when teargas was fired into their van as they were being moved out of the capital in a convoy. At the same time former President Mubarak is to be freed and the army continue to control having ousted the Islamist government of Mohammad Morsi.
William Hague put it well recently when he said:
‘There may be years of turbulence in Egypt and other countries going through this profound debate about the nature of democracy and the role of religion in their society. Whats happening now in the Middle East is the most important event so far of the 21st century, even compared to the financial crisis we’ve been through in terms of its impact on world affairs and I think it will take years and maybe decades for it to play out."

Was the Arab Spring a false dawn?

Remember our heady optimism that democracy would spread across the Middle East as peace and equality triumphed over dictatorships? This is beginning to look like a distant memory. I have visited the Middle East a lot but not as much as I would like. The area fascinates me, and I know that there is no prospect of peace in this world if we do not resolve some of the issues and problems in the region.
Yet it is not a good thing that the US embassies in the Muslim world are closing, as is the British embassy in Yemen, combined with the warning to Americans and other nations about overseas travel.
The Islamist terrorist threat has not gone away. Indeed, the decision of the military to remove Egypt’s democratically elected president has not created the uproar many thought it would - but sadly this shows that democracy is not going to come easily to the region. We may not have liked the democractically elected leader of Egypt but his country chose him. Now the military rules once more.
I look at the situation in Syria with horror, but what worries me almost more is the way in which Lebanon, Turkey, and potentially Jordan are being sucked into this Syrian civil conflict that is being increasingly taken over by a sectarian and religious war. My concern is also for Israel, and how it can stay stable and not involved. One commentator described how:

‘It’s as if the Middle East were simultaneously experiencing the French Revolution and the Thirty Years’ Wars.’
We, in the UK, are observers in an ever worsening conflict not 5 hours flight from us. I would like to predicts this ends well but it is going to take a lot of time and is going to be very messy. The French Revolution and the 30 Years War were similarly long, bloody and very messy but democracy and peace prevailed in the end.