It is the season to remember the third anniversary of the beginning of the Arab Spring, a name that captures the grand historic scale of events. It is also misleading. It suggests auniform Arab world. Understanding the events, however, and formulating a European response, depends on grasping the regional differences.

The Arab Levant, comprising Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and Iraq, is more fragmentedby ethnic and religious differences than the Arab west. The region also has two non-Arab states in the neighbourhood, Israel and Iran, with which relations are,at best, tense. Both factors mean the region is always more volatile.

My memorable personal experiences in the region have often brought me in direct contact with these salient features.

In Syria, I travelled to ancient Christian monasteries, hidden and mysterious, closely bound up with early Christian history. I also met President Hafiz Al-Assad, the father of the current President, whose soft-spoken, old-fashioned courtesy and bureaucratic manner seemed utterly at odds with his ruthless reputation.

In the Palestinian territories, during the lifetime of the historic leader, Yasser Arafat, I remember travelling in a car that suddenly had to reverse with screeching alacrity as it came under a hail of stones. Then, there was the visit to Arafat himself, into what was literally his labyrinth in Ramallah, a bunker designed to foil an armed incursion.

In Iraq, after the fall of Saddam Hussein, I remember the security of the Green Zone. It is a security achieved by extreme measures: frequent check-points, bomb searches, concrete barricades...

Unlike the Arab Revolt, the outcome of the Arab Spring in the Levant has been fragmentation

In Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq, the tensions predate the Arab Spring by several years. If we choose to go back further, we would find that coups d’etatwere frequent in both Syria and Iraq between the 1950s and end of the 1960s.

News of the present violence in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq reaches us daily. It might seem to fit well with the past. A longer historical perspective, however, will reveal a striking contrast between past and present.

It is now almost 100 years ago that the Arab Revolt began in 1916, an uprising against Ottoman rule, which spanned from the Arabian Gulf to the Levant. The revolt is associated mainly with T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) but there were many officers, British and French, guiding Arab fighters and urging their coordination.

The contrast of the Arab Revolt with the Arab Spring is striking. The outcome of the former was a concerted effort to unite the Arab region under a single State, a kingdom called Greater Syria. The most ambitious plan was to have the State go from the Mediterranean down to Yemen.

For various reasons, this did not happen. One cannot just blame European colonial interests since the rivalry of Arab leaders was just as important. For a short period, there were several small Syrian states. Eventually, the current major State emerged.

The dream of greater unity, encompassing Lebanon and beyond, remained. The basisof the unity was seen to be nationalism, which stood against any other kind of sectarian or religious identity. Up till today, in Syria itself about 30 per cent of the population is considered to belong to one minority or another.

The dream of unity continued to have currency. Hafiz Al-Assad justified his interference in Lebanese politics (and wars) on this basis.

What a contrast with today’s situation. Since the fall of Saddam, the possible breakup of Iraq has been on the cards, as factionalism between Sunnis and Shiites has broken out, with Christian Iraqis caught in the crossfire.

Now, Syria appears to be on the brink of a breakup. The rebels fighting the regime are themselves divided. There is a real possibility that the regime itself will not be defeated but merely restricted to a much smaller enclave than it controls now.

In Lebanon, meanwhile, this week saw another two suicide bombings in a Beirut neighbourhood, with an Al-Qaeda-linked brigade claiming responsibility. Five people were killed and80 were injured. As a sign ofthe times, the rationale was given on Twitter!

It was retaliation for soldiers belonging to Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite group, fighting as allies of the regime in Syria. The bombers vowed that Hezbollah and its followerswill not have security in Lebanon until ‘security in Syria’ is restored.

Unlike the Arab Revolt, the outcome of the Arab Spring in the Levant has been fragmentation. The historical view helps us see three points clearly.

Firstly, the regional tensions and aggression following the failures of the Arab Revolt lasted for a long time, some up till the present day. There is no reason to think that the failure of the Arab Spring will not have similarly long-lasting consequences.

Secondly, this time round, the fragmentation of the Levant is coming about because of interventions from the Arabian and Persian Gulf. The stability of the latter is being earned at the cost of instability in the former.

Thirdly, European intervention was key both to the success and the subsequent failure of the Arab Revolt. It seems to be crucial this time round, as well.

John Attard Montalto is a Labour member of the European Parliament.