So far the Arab Spring may have benefited Iran overall. Majid Rafizadeh, an Iranian-Syrian Fulbright scholar and columnist for Harvard International Review, wrote on Fox: “In terms of the nuclear proliferation, the events of the Arab Spring seem to have benefited the Iranian regime due to the fact that it has diverted the attention of the international community from Iranian nuclear development to the socio-political transitions in neighboring Arab nations.”
That may have been true up to this point. But with the upcoming fall of the Assad regime Iran’s power will be weakened, at least locally. The pernicious overland route between Iran and Hezbollah will be hampered or broken. Hezbollah will have to go at it alone and maybe face their own Arab Spring down the line. Without the Assad-state, the Iranian backing of Hamas and Hezbollah will wither and leave the terror proxies more vulnerable to an Israeli attack as well.
No one knows what will replace the brutal Assad regime: a Jihadist junta, a drawn out civil war or, or even the eventual rise of a freedom loving society. But it is certain that breaking the Syria-Iran axis will benefit Israel and the world also stands to gain through any weakening of the ambitious Iranian war machine.