THERE is going to be a war in the Middle East. I don’t know exactly where it will start, it could break out at any one of half a dozen or more flashpoints, or exactly when: but it will be soon.

When the socalled Arab Spring began with all those nice, semi-westernised young people directing the uprisings across North Africa, this column warned that the pretty faces of these revolutions would soon be replaced by forces far uglier and catastrophic. Of course, I was castigated for my pessimism by some readers who urged me to lay aside my dark premonitions of disaster and look instead to the burgeoning democratic movements in these former tyrannies.

It is a terribly hollow pleasure with which I now say, “Told you so”. For one example among many, take Tunisia, the country where the first rumblings of protests and dissent occurred. Surely the transition to democracy could not be held back? Well, here is the news from Tunisia this week: the Islamist politician most likely to become Tunisia’s first prime minister is Hamadi Jebali.

He is the secretary-general of the Islamic party called Ennahda which won handsomely in the recent elections. Jebali announced last week “the arrival of the sixth caliphate”.

“My brothers,” he said “you are at a historic moment in a new cycle of civilisation.

God willing, we are in sixth caliphate.”

What did he mean? Well, the sixth caliphate is the hoped-for resurgence of militant Islam which, according to its supporters, will result in a Muslim supremacy throughout all the lands of the Middle East.

It is a term constantly used by the Muslim Brotherhood party and by Al Qaida. Naturally, the democrats in the Tunisian left-ofcentre Ettakol party, which includes many of those nice, bright-eyed teenage enthusiasts who were prominent in the early days of the insurrection, are not pleased. Their senior spokesman, Khemais Ksila, said last week: “We thought we were going to build a second republic with our partners, not a sixth caliphate.” Well, think again old son.

Move east from Tunisia into Egypt and recall the ecstatic cheers of blind optimists and wishful-thinkers in the British press when thousands more young people packed Tahrir Square in Cairo calling for the removal of President Mubarak. The young insurrectionists thought they had the Egyptian army on their side. Now Mubarak has long gone but there is little sign of the progress to full democracy. So the protestors are back but the most vociferous voice this time is the Muslim Brotherhood. You can bet democracy will not be coming to Egypt in the near future.

One of the most dangerous probabilities in the Middle East is that the uprising in Syria, ruthlessly persecuted by President Assad, will turn into a civil war between Assad’s supporters and the Sunni Muslims. These two groups are already fighting each other.

When the day comes that Assad understands he is beaten, he will seek to divert attention by launching a surprise attack on Israel.

That would cause a conflagration, into which the West is bound to be drawn, between Israel and a nuclear-armed Iran.

But the biggest and imminent peril facing the whole world order is Iran’s development of the atomic bomb. And the response of the Western powers? Same as that towards Hitler in the Thirties: dithering appeasement, hoping it will all go away. It won’t.