an interesting and useful essay by olivier roy that looks at tunisia and egypt as "post-islamicist revolutions"....an excerpt:
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What we see are people whose demands are focused mainly on dignity, on “respect” – a motto that emerged in Algeria in the late 1990s. Protestors are making demands in the name of universal human values. But what is important is that today people are demanding democracy as a right that is no longer something imported from the West. That is what makes it so crucially different from what the Bush administration promoted as democracy in 2003, which was unacceptable because it lacked any political legitimacy in the region, and instead was associated with a U.S. military intervention. However paradoxical it sounds, the fact is that the weakened position of the U.S. In the Middle East and the pragmatic posture of the Obama administration today have opened the way for an indigenous demand for democracy to emerge and take hold with its own legitimacy.
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the piece is worth a read:
Post-Islamic Revolution" -- Events in Egypt Analyzed by French Expert on Political Islam | February 2011
meanwhile it appears the the government of bahrain has authorized a violent attack on the protestors there:
Live Blog - Bahrain | Al Jazeera Blogs