The Libya Model?

With "victory" in Libya, we were bound to hear about the new "Libya" model. I don't have anything against the Libya model other than the cautionary comment that Libya will be unique from conditions in Syria, Libya, North Korea, or whatever regime we think we ought to oust.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

I'm more interested, however, in what protesters in Syria will do now that the verdict is out with Libya. Protests in Hom and elsewhere in Syria were relatively peaceful. Assad's government resorted to brutal force a la Tiananmen to quash resistance. Will protests embrace the type of armed resistance as taken up by the Libyan rebels? This leads to an interesting policy and academic question.

1) When do protests resort to armed resistance? I mean, when do they decide that nonviolence won't work and they ante up to meet force with force? Obviously a movement will have numerous factions so it probably depends on whether a "militant" wing rises to take leadership in the resistance movement.

2)How do we distinguish protests from rebellions to revolutions to civil war? If someone knows a really good article which spells this out, let me know. B/c I still have a hard time explaining this to students. To me, these concepts fall along a violent/non-violent spectrum of contention. Protests are non-violent and are a base form of contention. Revolutions offer a specific category of contention which call for the overthrow of the government in power. They may be violent or non-violent. Not all protests are revolutions - often the goals of protestors are less far-reaching. Ditto for rebellion.