Yes, and your blog citations were at odds with information freely available from the CIA.
I'm contending, based on a good familiarity with reports, that no such inspiration exists.
There you go again. "Familiarity with reports". Why don't the rest of us ever get these "reports"?
If you can't find a single example of protestors admiring or citing Iraq as an inspiration, wouldn't you consider that to be fairly good evidence that Krauthammer's claims are baseless?
I don't have anyone I know in the Middle East to ask questions of. Then again, I'm not saying that Krauthammer is wrong or right, as you are, but that he has an interesting opinion.
In the last year there's been uprisings against the governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Algeria, Iran, Lebanon, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and other ME countries with fairly oppressive regimes. Some of these governments, such as Libya's, Iran's, and Egypt's, have been in power for 30, 40 or even nearly 50 years.
There seems to be more than a coincidence, which is reason to ask why. It's not a reason to draw firm conclusions.