On supporting revolutions

With all of the uprising that is going on in the middle east, and the questions of what America should do about them has gotten me to thinking about revolution in general. In Egypt for a lot of people it seemed very natural to support the protestors and to cheer on the ousting of a dictator. And this is all well in line with Americas history. We were founded on revolution, the founding fathers were all very much for throwing off the chains of tyranny, making statements such as: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”.

But in looking at the history of people rising up against their current masters to form new government, America stands almost completely alone in achieving positive results. I admit that I'm not a historian and may be overlooking some historical events, but off the top of my head the only revolution that I can think of that was even arguably good in its immediate after math would be Cromwell's revolution in England.

But the rest of the list is quite ugly

• The French Revolution. It left the country in chaos. There are estimates as high as 40,000 people were killed without trial to please the blood lust of the revolutionaries.
• The Bolshevik Revolution. Lead to the communist take over of Russia, the USSR, Gulags, millions of people dead, etc.
• The communist revolution in China (1949). Lead to the rise of communism in China, show trials, Tienanmen Square, etc.
• The communist revolution in Korea. Lead to North Korea, need I say more.
• The communist revolution in Vietnam. Though it was overshadowed by the revolution in Cambodia, the victory of the communists in Vietnam lead to a blood bath for those who had either fought with, or were accused of fighting with the US.
• The communist revolution in Cambodia. Something like one 10^th of the total population was slaughtered in the killing fields.
• The Iranian Revolution. Lead to the US hostage crisis, and the throwing of an otherwise modernized nation back into the dark ages.

I admit that I know that revolutions happen all the time in Africa, and I'm not all that aware of them on the whole. But looking at how most African nations currently stand, although it may not have hurt them, it also didn't seem to help them too much. And if you think that they are doing ok, they just started way behind, look at Japan. There is a nation that both before and after WWII was able rise from the ashes (or from a realization that they were about 1 millennium behind the rest of the world). That is what a nation can do with the government is not actively hurting its people's attempts to better themselves.

So with this in mind, why do we feel like as Americans we should stand be the protestors in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Libya and all the other muslim countries were the people are in a state of unrest?