The success of Hamas in the Palestinian elections [3] is the latest election result to temper earlier claims by pundits that a spin-off benefit of the invasion of Iraq [4] would be the flowering of Western-friendly Middle East democracies. Numerous columnists pondered on what they dubbed the "Arab spring." "So what happened to the Arab spring? This time last year, as we faced the prospect of a series of elections in the Middle East, many commentators hit their keyboards to welcome the Arab spring - about 160 of them, according to one news database," writes Paul McGeough in the Sydney Morning Herald. "But it seems that with the results in we don't like the term any more - only 23 mentions in the past six months. Funny that."