The personal cost of tyranny in the Arab world is rising. Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali escaped from Tunisia to Saudi Arabia, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt is to stand trial for murder and corruption, and now Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen has been evacuated to Riyadh with burns and a shrapnel wound.

In each case, the president, once supported by the West as a stabilizing factor, resisted the demands of protesters and became a liability. Saleh, who repeatedly equivocated over a peace plan proposed by the Gulf Cooperation Council, had long passed that point. Instead of the “honorable exit” which he said he sought, he has suffered the humiliation of being injured in a rocket attack on his palace in Sana’a and forced to seek medical treatment abroad.

Saudi Arabia is most immediately threatened by Yemen’s descent toward civil war. With Saleh out of the way, we hope permanently, the prospects for the GCC plan have improved. But success will require persistent pressure. …

Saudi Arabia, Yemen’s main source of aid, is best placed to find a way out of this chaos. In the eastern Mediterranean, the Turks could likewise play a key role in resolving the impasse in Syria, where Bashar al-Assad’s murderous regime continues to fire on protesters. …

Moreover, the outcome of the West’s intervention in Libya remains far from certain, while the advent of some sort of democracy in Egypt is turning into a nightmarish prospect for that country’s Christians. The term “Arab spring” may have passed into the language, but it is increasingly being used ironically, and that is not a good sign.