Comprehending Islamism and Dissent?

"There is no reason to believe that IAS did any worse than other Five Eyes and allied agencies in its analysis of the Arab Spring, and in a few areas it appears to have done somewhat better. In general, there has been little attention to the 'dogs that didn't bark' -- that is, underlying medium- and long-term trends in countries without ongoing protests or civil violence."
Analysis, Department of National Defence

The 'IAS', referred to means the Intelligence Assessment Secretariat responsible to produce a regular range of reports to senior government officials, an assignment it takes seriously, as an arm of the Privy Council Office, reporting directly to the office of the Prime Minister of Canada. It, along with other analysts located in the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand - a bevy of western countries which, along with Canada, make up the 'Five Eyes' intelligence network, failed to appreciate fully the results of the region-wide uprising taking place in the Middle East.

The very potential of such a broad-based symptom of public discontent that would spread from one Arab and Muslim country of the Middle East and North Africa was unforeseen. Let alone the final results, still unrealized. All those analysts failed to fully understand the possible outcomes of the fledgling disturbances that took place resulting in regime change first in Tunisia, then Libya, and finally Egypt. With dissonances continuing in Bahrain, Jordan, and searingly brutally, Syria.

Nor did they adequately parse the possibilities inherent in the duration of Libya's civil war, where local militias remain armed, remain a threat underscored by their infiltration by Islamist extremists and the inability of the western-approved government to de-militarize and disarm the militias. Much less the Egyptian government under the Muslim Brotherhood experiencing ongoing internal dissent from their political opponents.

"With regard to the Arab Spring, the study found that the wave of protests and regime changes that swept the Middle East in 2011 had not been anticipated." Once the crises had surfaced and were in full play, analysts picked up with the "dogs that barked" Middle East events. Long-term trends in the area remain unpredictable, however.

The miasma of sectarian violence that has pitted Shia against Sunni, moderate Islam against extremist Islamism with its emphasis on violent jihad remains a conundrum to the non-Arab, non-Muslim mind. Even while it plays hell with the minds of those who have been beset by the uncontrolled viciousness of sect against sect, ideology against moderation. Mostly because they're bemused that 'their side' does not yet emerge triumphant.

Moderation: Now there's a word and a concept that is entirely absent in the Middle East, though the Golden Mean is more ancient than Islam.