What a difference a day makes. When I went to bed on 2 January what seemed to be the most important issue in the Middle East was the long-term impact of the brave – if desperate – mass protests in Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. Many were trying to extract some positive meaning: were they the precursor of a renewed popular drive for better governance in some of the key states of the region? Could they shake the stability of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its grip on the greater Levant? Or would they be suppressed and ignored, only to...