FRENCH President Francois Hollande said recently that "the attacks on Islamic State will be intensified" in December following his meetings with US President Barack Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and UK Prime Minister David Cameron. What could now be a pivotal period for the military campaign in Syria comes on the fifth anniversary of the beginnings of the so-called Arab Spring.

Starting in Tunisia in late 2010, a wave of political activity spread out across the Arab world. This includes revolutionary changes of power in Egypt and Libya; transfer of power in Yemen; plus demonstrations and uprisings in countries as disparate as Algeria, Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco and Oman.

The use of the word "Spring", with the allusions to the 1848 Revolutions and the so-called Prague Spring of 1968, was widely used initially as a positive reference indicating potentially major movement towards self-determination and opportunity in the Arab world. However, that initial hope has failed to translate into durable democratic change in state after state.