John Kampfner: For Russia and China, the Arab Spring only offers a warning

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/john-kampfner-for-russia-and-china-the-arab-spring-only-offers-a-warning-6579542.html

Western support for the opposition will increase. Here lies the rub. In any post-Assad Syria, the various Islamist factions would see their power increase. It has happened in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, although there the constellation remains unclear, just as the stability of the democratic settlement remains shaky. There is nothing ignoble in this. The idea that countries which have lived under dictatorship for decades can suddenly emerge into a brave new world of democracy, stability and economic progress was always the stuff of fantasy. It would always take more than one "spring" to get there.