The Arab Spring was stupid as most movements of that kind are. It started mostly as teenagers and young twenty somethings rebelling against their governments and each and every country collapsed for the same stupid reason.

Dumbass kids "protest", the government uses force to end said "protest" dumbass kids throw rocks, despots order the use of guns on kids. Then the adults get pissed at the use of force and it turns into a viscous cycle of more and more force being used till it becomes a war.

The Syrian Civil War was the result of an incredibly brutal and oppressive regime dominated by a soviet backed alawite minority in a primarily sunni country that has a very long history of religious oppression and human rights abuses. It was the result of societal pressures that built for decades as the middle east was used as a chessboard during the cold war. These were regimes where corruption ran rampant and people were regularly tortured and imprisoned for expressing opinions.

The governments that fell in the Arab Spring were regimes that were completely unable to function. They weren't better than the current chaos because they were stable. They were already unacceptable to live under and were deposed because they refused to acknowledge the needs of the people.

If the Russians weren't propping up the Syrian Government, it would have fallen a long time ago. The same could be said of Israel, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the US. The current Iranian Government took power after deposing a US backed monarchy, which is largely why they are considered such a threat.

This is the product of trends and forces that have been in motion for decades that were initiated and maintained to suit the needs of foreign interests. We are now finally at the point where it is widely apparent that this system is unsustainable and those "dumbass kids" are just one of a long list of symptoms to indicate that.