(CNN) -- I was living in Syria when the statues of Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq came toppling down. Saddam, who had arrogantly had his name inscribed on bricks at the ancient city of Babylon, did not expect his rule to end so abruptly, so humiliatingly. And at the University of Damascus, students told me that they expected Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to fall soon, too. They were not alone. With 250,000 U.S. troops amassed in Iraq in 2003, George W. Bush's White House had contemplated rolling American tanks into the Syrian capital. The Middle East was to be reshaped in the image of American democracy. But events in Iraq, Afghanistan, and North Korea distracted the Pentagon, and the "democratic domino theory" did not come to pass.
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Husain: Fall of Saddam Hussein pyschologically empowered Arab opposition
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Other, more direct developments had greater effect on Arab Spring
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Iraq War has prevented more from being done to aid Arab Spring, especially in Syria
But it is a mistake to suggest that @placeholder across the region were directly inspired by the fall of Saddam -- if that were true, they would have risen a decade ago.