snapcap wrote:
I bet the whole Arab Spring, practically, was orchestrated by US/Israel and their allies.
No, the U.S. & Israel surely didn't WANT what developed in Egypt or Tunisia or Yemen. In these 3 countries they much preferred the devils they knew in Mubarak, Ben Ali & Saleh. But once the uprisings were in motion & the dominoes started falling, they, along with France, saw a golden opportunity to expand their influence & flip regional alliances - as in Libya & now in Syria.
The Saudis, though, were positively freaked & thus intervened to snuff out the revolution in Bahrain, which would have replaced a Sunni monarch with a Shi'a regime that would presumably have been friendly toward Iran & menacing to the conservative status quo that Saudi Arabia seeks to uphold.
As for Syria, it doesn't appear, at least from what I can glean, that Israel is really counting on the downfall of the Assad regime, nor that it necessarily even wants that outcome. Of all the Israeli security concerns on its borders - Lebanon & Hizbullah, Gaza & Hamas, lawlessness in Sinai, potential new intifada in the West Bank - Syria was low on its list of worries, because the Assad regime, even if hostile to Israel, is at least rational & highly unlikely to start a war.
Across the region, there was enough discontent with all these sclerotic, corrupt & authoritarian regimes, especially among young people, that all that was needed was a single spark - the events in Tunisia. Once people lose their fear, a dictatorial regime is in trouble, even a totalitarian police state like Syria. That said, I'm still not ready to believe that Bashar Assad's ouster is imminent. His regime has vastly superior firepower & no compunction about using it on unarmed civilians, while the U.S., Turkey & NATO are (for good reason) loath to intervene, & Iran & Russia are willing to support him all the way. He, his family & inner circle certainly have to know that if they let up one iota, they are all dead men.