In December 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi a 26 year old university educated vegetable seller set himself on fire in Tunisia in protest of government corruption and tyranny. This happened after having his produce confiscated for not having a proper permit. He was following an example set some 40 years ago by a buddhist monk in South Vietnam.
So two strategies for Regime change:
7 years of war, 777 Billion Dollar War, (http://costofwar.com/en/) thousands of dead soldiers, hundreds of thousand injured American servicemen and women, torture prison, hundreds of thousands dead civilians ( http://www.iraqbodycount.org/)
Or. Wikileak style transparency
http://www.businessinsider.com/tunisia-wikileaks-2011-1
Followed by self immolation,
Followed by social media organised protest, followed by clueless responses by the Regimes.
6 people attempted self immolation in Egypt this week, in case you think things were “pretty okay” in Egypt before the protests began.