A key moment during weeks of protests came earlier this week, when the Army's chief of staff was said to have refused Ben Ali's order to have his men open fire on unarmed protesters.
We shall also see if the former regime's security police choose to resist the way Saddam's Baathist apparatus resisted after the fall of Baghdad and the collapse of the army. Do they have money and weapons stashed away? Do they have the skills in IEDs and other tools to wage a terror campaign? Do they have the will to do so--is there a society sub-group like the Sunni Arabs who flourished under Ali's rule? Saddam lived under our shadow and so had motives to have those factors going for him He still lost, but he increased the bloodshed before losing.
Tunisia did not have a foreign enemy to inspire such moves and seemed very secure, so I suspect these ingredients are not present. And if the army truly flipped to side with the people (hello Iranian and North Korean militaries), the security people would have a tougher time starting up a significant resistance.
Still, before you get all worked up about Twitter and Facebook, remember that the key decision was made the old fashioned way--the senior soldier would not shoot to kill as ordered. Had he obeyed, nobody would wonder about the miracle role of social networking in overthrowing a tyrant.
UPDATE: Here we go, getting worked up about the role of Twitter and Facebook. If the army had obeyed Ali's order to kill protesters on the streets, we wouldn't be talking about this. We need a corollary to my "When you Twitter a king, kill him" rule: "If you Twitter a king, pray he doesn't simply decide to kill you." Ask the Iranian Twitterati, if you like:
Iranian authorities have unleashed an "execution binge" with an average rate of one person hanged every eight hours since the beginning of the year, a rights group monitoring the Islamic Republic said Sunday.
"The Iranian Judiciary is on an execution binge orchestrated by the intelligence and security agencies," stated Aaron Rhodes, a spokesman for the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.
Let's not give dissidents the wrong idea about what it takes to defeat despots.
UPDATE: Learning from Tunisia in Egypt and Mauritania:
Two men have set themselves on fire in Egypt and Mauritania in echoes of the suicide that triggered the uprising in Tunisia.
A lot of things happened in Tunisia to topple one despot. A lot more needs to happen to achieve a real democracy. It would help to have an accurate understanding of what worked before people try to repeat the events of Tunisia in their own country.
The desire for change is clear, however.
UPDATE: Add an Algerian to the list.
