This article behind a pay wall asks if the Arab Spring really failed. This site has it and quotes one author:
The fact that dictators once again sit on the thrones of the Middle East is far from evidence that the [Arab Spring] uprisings failed. Democracy was only one part of the protesters’ demands. The movement was engaged in a generations-long struggle that rejected a regional order that had delivered nothing but corruption, disastrous governance, and economic failure. By that standard, the uprisings have profoundly reshaped every conceivable dimension of Arab politics, including individual attitudes, political systems, ideologies, and international relations.
Too many people assumed it failed because it didn't solve the corruption, governance, and economic problems. I called it a beginning of the process to solve the governance problem because it finally broke the pattern of Arab governance that only recognized secular autocrats or mullah-run governments to consider democracy as an alternative.
And we have to help reformers to protect ourselves. If it was easy, they wouldn't need our help.
So not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning?
