 I think it is clear now that people became too hopeful about the uprisings that gripped the Arab world three years ago. It was premature to declare that the Arab Spring had arrived, but it is also premature to declare that we are now in an Arab winter. I confess that I myself was probably too hopeful, in part because of the remarkable, successful transitions that have taken place in Central and Eastern Europe, in East Asia and in South Africa and throughout most of Latin America, and even in northern Iraq in the region called Kurdistan that was liberated from Saddam Hussein's control in 1991 and has developed positively since then. It will be many years before we know the true results of this upheaval, but the West, and particularly Europe, has a very large stake in the outcome, and it is important to remain engaged. Libya need not have turned out the way it is today if the West had engaged actively after the fall of Qaddafi. At that time, the population was very pro-Western. Because of the assistance the West had provided during the Revolution. And the first two elections in post-Qaddafi Libya were victories for the moderate parties, but instead of providing support to the new authorities so that Libya would have effective security forces or organizing some kind of international peacekeeping force, the West walked away and left it to the Islamist militias which are now effectively ruling the country. It has often been observed correctly that democracy is about more than just elections. Elections are a means to an end, and the end should be freedom, justice, and the rule of law. The desire to be free from tyrannical rule is a powerful force, as we have been witnessing recently in the Arab world. But simply getting rid of tyrants is not the same as embracing the responsibilities required to make democratic institutions work. Even in the best of circumstances, that is a process that takes time, and all the more so for societies that have been deformed by decades of abuse. Just think about how long it took in South Korea. The armistice that ended the Korean War was signed 61 years ago. For the first 10 years that country was a wretched, corrupt pseudo-democracy. Then it was a slightly less corrupt but brutal dictatorship. It wasn't really until 1981 that you could begin to see the signs of what is now a modern miracle story. We need, I think, a longer term perspective than frankly Americans usually want to take.