[lionhearted]

> As an American, I am glad that the arab youth is escaping the imperialistic shadow that US has casted over the middle east.

Have you done any studying of the history of revolutions? The track record on what usually happens after them ain't so good...

Sometimes Americans underestimate how poorly and bloody and vicious revolutions usually are. Something like 80%+ of them wind up worse than the original regime they overthrew. If you've never looked into, I could try to compile some sort of list of revolutions. It really wouldn't be a pretty list. And revolutions led by angry youth have an even worse track record than the general one...

[lmkg]

I came to this thread specifically to ask this question. If you would be so kind, I would appreciate a listing.

[lionhearted]

Not a bad starting for the modern era:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebelli...

...it errs on the side of too much information though, and doesn't distinguish between successful/failed, and major/minor. Also, stuff like "the Mexican drug war" is on there from 2006-present - it clearly has elements of violence against the current government, but I think it's fair to say their objective isn't regime change.

I'm having a hard time coming up with a good source, because "revolution" is used for a lot of stuff in Google and having hard time narrowing it down. I study a lot of history, though, and the vast majority of revolutions go really poorly... you almost always wind up with a revolutionary military government in charge, which don't historically govern well. The U.S. is kind of a weird outlier in revolutionary history, in that the first President was a military leader who honestly didn't want the job, and abdicated after eight years to civilian government... that just doesn't ever happen. Like, ever.

[dataminer]

Beside having very thoughtful founders, I think US revolution succeeded because the power was not concentrated in federal government, states were more or less as powerful. Most other revolutions failed because a dictator was removed to install another dictator without any devolution of power.