A Story of the Arab Spring as Tragedy, Betrayal and Hope*

I've had the chance to reconsider what I know and guess about the "Arab Spring" and the Syrian civil war upon watching a video that discusses them. The video is that of a talk given by an Arab Spring activist named Iyad al-Baghdadi. I don't know him and cannot comment on what kind of a person he is, but his speech was interesting, though a bit sentimental: Iyad el-Baghdadi - إياد البغدادي - The Arab Spring Manifesto. I believe that in one sense the Arab Spring was made by the common people of the involved countries but was hijacked by the Western "Great Powers" that used it to install new tyrannies instead of the previous outworn ones. In another sense, the opposite happened: It was made by the Western Great Powers, that is, their intelligence services and then was hijacked by the common people. Let me try to briefly explain what I mean by this.