But Libya had a bona fide, actual revolution. So they had help from outside -- so did the Chinese comrades in 1949, and the Vietnamese comrades in 1975.
The structural importance of the Arab Spring is that the days when media innovations came from the First World and then spread elsewhere are over. The mobilizations of the Arab Spring have torn up all the play-books. E.g. the people of Libya have been online, writing, posting, commenting and texting like mad -- Hisham Matar's novels and interviews, Ibn Thabit's rap songs (there are translations online), the list goes on and on.
-- DRR