Revolution as Model or Metaphor?

In May, Der Spiegel interviewed Emmanuel Todd, who "sees himself as an 'empirical Hegelian' who recognizes a universal course of history," about the emergent Arab Spring. Both Der Spiegel and Todd ransacked European history for the appropriate comparative model. For Der Spiegel it was "a breathtaking acceleration of history, similar to the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989." For Todd it was the cycle of phases, or, more darkly, that a revolution eats its young:

• "Revolutions often end up as something different from what their supporters proclaim at the beginning.... It took almost a century from the time of the French Revolution in 1789 until the democratic form of government, in the form of the Third Republic, finally took shape after France had lost a war against the Germans in 1871. In the interim, there was Napoleon, the royalist restoration and the Second Empire under Napoleon III, the 'little one,' as Victor Hugo said derisively." (05/20/2011, "Rising Literacy and a Shrinking Birth Rate: A Look at the Root Causes of the Arab Revolution," Der Spiegel)

That last comment is a conscious echo of Marx's observation that history repeats itself, "the first as tragedy, then as farce" (The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, 1852).  If France, 1789-1871, seems a bit broad, in the third part of the interview Todd expands to all of Europe in 1848.

• The Arab Spring resembles the European Spring of 1848 more closely than the fall of 1989, when communism collapsed. The initial spark in France triggered unrest in Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, Austria, Italy, Spain and Romania -- a classic chain reaction, despite major regional differences. 

More recently, the Syrian Protests, which most viewed at best as a "revolutionary situation," has now become viewed as entering a second radical phase.  At least that is the claim of "The Age of the Guillotine!" (Syrian Revolution Digest, September 18, 2011): "Ideologies will soon flourish, and compromises will be harder to reach, even between the revolutionaries, pragmatism is now more necessary and harder to attain."  2011 as 1793?