How Hugo Chavez botched the Arab Spring

The Syrian revolution is the most significant alteration of power for twenty years, more significant for the Western Left than economically more significant Egypt because it is harder to work out how to relate to the fall of régimes outside the Western sphere of influence.
A test many on the left are failing which is unfortunate for them, and may be unfortunate for Syrians, who will be faced with the problem of how to create a society in which the mass of people have real control over their lives, and if most of the best answers would come from those who bemoan that their revolution might be taken over by al-Qaida or the State Department rather than offer any actual solidarity, who pretend that the struggle of the FSA is a Western take-over of a peaceful revolution, then I don't see post-revolutionary events working out for the best.
The last Kozloff piece I saw [http://www.aljazeera.com/…/…/2012/10/201210975353819725.html] had some noticeable deficiencies which I mentioned at the time. This one seems to the point, and have general application.