The 'Arab Spring' 5 years later: has the expectations of U.S. involvement matched the reality?

Faida Hamdy confiscated a vegetable stall in Tunisia five years ago today. Neither she nor the rest of the world could have imagined the consequences...Mrs Hamdy was the council inspector who, five years ago today confiscated the vegetable stall of a street vendor in her dusty town in central Tunisia. In despair, that young man set himself on fire in a protest outside the council offices. Within weeks, he was dead, dozens of young Arab men had copied him, riots had overthrown his president, and the Arab Spring was under way. As the world marks the anniversary, Syria and Iraq are in flames, Libya has broken down, and the twin evils of militant terror and repression stalk the region.

“Sometimes I wish I’d never done it,” Mrs Hamdy told The Telegraph, in her only interview to mark the occasion.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/tunisia/12054657/I-started-the-Arab-Spring.-Now-death-is-everywhere-and-extremism-blooming.html

What will happen if the United States remains disengaged? Effective support from outside powers will not be the only factor determining where the Arab transition countries go, but the history of other democratization experiences around the world shows that it is a significant one. If the United States fails to marshal international support for the Arab transitions and stands mute while vital actors (such as the judiciary, media, and civil society) are eviscerated, it will increase the chances that Arab Spring countries ultimately will fail in their aspiration to build democratic systems.

It is a fantasy that these countries can return safely to the repressive but relatively stable autocratic systems that existed before 2011. Should democratization fail, Islamist or military authoritarian systems would be likely to emerge, and in turn provoke more unrest and deepen instability.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/21/remember-that-historic-arab-spring-speech/