I caught a little bit of flak around the Internet for my piece, “Why Isn’t Violence the Answer?,” during the early days of the Egypt protests. I was galled by official demands from the U.S. government and other places that Egyptian protestors remain nonviolent, no matter what. Thankfully, significant violence wasn’t required to get rid of Mubarak, although if protestors had not fought back against the thugs that invaded Tahrir Square, who knows what would have happened?
Libya is an even clearer case of just rebellion. Gaddafi has been one of the region’s most repressive dictators, and his reaction to what started as peaceful protests shows us all we need to know about his regime. But if Libyans hadn’t undertaken an armed rebellion, there would be no chance of getting him out of power.
PILEUS 
What if the Tea Party hadn’t remained Nonviolent? No; that’s not a non sequitur.
These Muslim protesters / insurrectionists are rebelling against the same things that the Tea Party has been. It may be more immediate and extreme in their situations, but it’s still the same.
That question is, in my opinion, the answer to your question about our government’s response to the Jasmine Revolution.
Governments are always chary of endorsing foreign revolutions when they’ve a lot of unrest domestically…
I don’t pretend to know much about Libyan society. But on the surface, we seem to have a clear demonstration recently that nonviolent protest can topple entrenched dictators like Mubarak and Ben Ali, while the Libyan route of armed rebellion has been disastrous.
Except that the demonstrations were far from non-violent, though the MSM tried it best to downplay the violence except when they could make it look like it was pro-government forces committing it.
I’ll admit though that it was more rioting and looting than the open, armed insurrection that one would normally expect.
Also, the Libyans had no choice but to become violent. Had the protests remained nonviolent, the revolution would now be over.
The “protests” never were nonviolent in Libya. The few protesters in Tripoli are not connected to the uprising in eastern Libya at all – except for possibly a small number of agents provocateur sent to Tripoli to stir things up.
Think about for a moment. The Libyan situation doesn’t even come close mirroring the events commonly known as the Jasmine Revolution.
It didn’t start in the capital and involve mass protests; it started in the east, away from capital and in an area that is home to differing tribes than Libya’s current ruling class.
The rebels didn’t protest in those cities; they took armed control of them and expanded south and westward toward the capital.
This is nothing but a civil / tribal war over oil revenues, with a few Islamists loose cannons thrown into the mix as jokers.