The bombs and the bluster in the Middle East are tediously familiar. Less so is what is arguably the most daunting strategic challenge facing the Arab countries: the youth bulge.

As a special report in the Financial Times this week spelled out, up to two-thirds of Arabs are under 25 and more than one in four have no job, in a deeply troubled region with the world's worst employment rate. A World Bank study on the Middle East and North Africa five years ago reckoned the region would need to create 80m-100m jobs by 2020.