When the “Arab Spring” erupted in December 2010, its aspirations were ambitious: liberty, dignity, and social justice. But the democratic backlash in Tunisia, the coup d’état in Egypt, and civil wars in Syria, Libya, Yemen, and more recently Sudan, have left little doubt that the Spring devolved into a nightmare, a failure of what began as pacifist demonstrations for change. The Arab monarchies and emirates, meanwhile, absorbed the protests quickly through a mix of measures, from modest constitutional reforms to expanded subsidies for the unemployed and the poor.