I believe all ME revolutions, in our lifetime, will result in empowering Jihad. Sunni and Shiite are joined at the hip as soon as they have a non-Moslem to focus upon. Eg., USA and Israel are the primary targets(enemies) of Jihad.
So lets be smart and coax them to focus on each other. We have that opportunity in Syria, so why don’t we let the Sunnis and Shiites go to war against each other. And let the Sunnis know from smart propaganda that Russia and China stand behind the Shiites also. Syria is a great strategic opporunity just waiting to be played right. It is low hanging fruit if the US plays chess not checkers.