This far into the Arab Spring, the vision is getting a little clearer and I will venture and attempt to draw a possible future scenario of how things may unfold over the next 5-8 years and the positions of the key stake holders. Of course there is always the wild unseen developments but its still worth the try.
North Africa where the transition of power has been completed, and as was clear to all they are now paying the economic price of this transition in political turbulence, security and the associated economic deterioration and it is going to take its time. I believe it will need some 5-8 years or two to three presidents, before it starts to settle down and economies start to grow sufficiently again.
I believe the Islamic Brotherhood party has made the major mistake of taking full power and hence the responsibility for this period. This is a period that NO ONE CAN WIN and a wise decision for any party would be to govern through a coalition, and not stand out or better stay in the opposition. Now that the Islamic Brotherhood has made that mistake, there is no going back, they are likely to pay the price in reduced support with voters and see a strong opposition emerging. So if I was to make a bet, the bet is over the next 8 years the President or Prime Minister managing the return to stability and economic growth would be a moderate center right (if right is Islamists and left is liberal in the Arab World Today).
The Islamic party in Turkey took up responsibility when the economy was in its worst and had no where to go but get better. In the Arab Spring nations, it’s the other way round.
These developments suits the conservative GCC, Europe & USA as such they would just let the process take its time, injecting sufficient financial resources to show good will and avoid disaster, try to manage the situation if possible so it does not blow up or spill over, and if successful the end result should be reasonable.
The move from Left (liberal and anti-Islamic old regimes) to Right (conservative Islamic regimes) and eventually gradually gravitating toward the centre is an indication of political maturity of the Arab World.
If this is actually how things do unfold, then this region should regain interesting economic growth, supported by cheap input, available capacity, strong growing pool of young man power, a more transparent and competitive political system and increased confidence and creativity.
The monarchies in the Arab World (especially the GCC & Jordan) at that point would be more challenged to deliver the same level of freedom and political participation with the same level of economic growth which may be double that of the GCC by then and its at that point that the serious challenges posed by the Arab Spring will hit the conservative GCC, challenge it and vitalize it. At that point, oil revenue increases would have flattened out and economic growth would have slowed down in the GCC.
As for Syria it is developing as the Afghanistan for Russia, Iran & Hezballah. Syria is developing into the opposite of Iraq. In Iraq the USA and allies were sucked into replacing Saddam and stabilizing the country and finally sort of losing it to Iran.
Syria is sucking Russia , Iran and allies, it will hurt them financially and militarily, will consume their willingness to initiateother conflicts, will push them to compromise on may other global issues and at the end they will sort of lose to Turkey the GCC and allies. But this is going to be a long and difficult process for the Syrian population, very much like Iraq was tough on the Iraqi people and its going to be much more economically painful to Russia ( for Russia is not the USA) but disastrous to Iran, a country already economically challenged. As for Hezballah, its going to be the killer war, at the end of which Hezballah would be devastated, losing a big part of its grass root support in Lebanon and turned into a smaller political party that does not dominate Shia voters in Lebanon and most likely the current speaker of Parliament, Mr. Ziad Barry will merge as the powerful Representative of the Lebanese Shia community.