The Tunisian revolution worked because the system was overloaded with protests in almost every single region of the country. Contrary to previous localized protests in 2008, that were more contained and effectively suppressed by the regime.

But it is also worth to remember that unarmed protestors rarely "just" overrun the barricades and enter the palace (figuratively). Someone with power (police or military) has to decide that they're OK with letting the protests go through, that is the signal of the end.

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Obviously my opinion, but I was in Tunis, Tunisia during those times.

One of the oddest bits of recent American news was seeing armed protestors occupy a capitol building .. and then leave again, with no shots fired by either side.

The Tunisian Army was impartial (still largely impartial to these days) and would not intervene. They did protect some government buildings so nobody really overrun the palace. What happened is that support for the old dictator become too low and most of his supporters decided to bail on him (many people hates him too).

The Tunisian army was mostly impartial, but there were instances where they actively protected protestors from the police (which gained them a lot of good faith).

And there was this rumor that Ben Ali and his close family were "tricked" by the palace guard and the military to leave the country "temporarily" because protestors were going to be closing in (which never happened).

But that is exactly my point, supporters in key power positions decided that it was too much trouble to keep Ben Ali around.

That blows my mind. I have no idea how the USA would react to something like that.

> I have no idea how the USA would react to something like that.

We know how USA has reacted in the past; it carries on as if nothing happened.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/us/politics/immolation-wh...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/15/david-bu...

I assume there are more examples, that's just first page picks from a cursory google search.

Malachi Ritscher's suicide by self immolation in protest of the Iraq war made a strong impression on me at the time. That was near the end of 2006. It seemed to go unnoticed by most everyone else, though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malachi_Ritscher