Pakistan, a Muslim nation, gleefully supported the uprising and backed factions that favored annexation by Islamabad.
Israel also occupied southern Lebanon for nearly two decades, backed factions in Lebanon's civil war and fought a 34-day war with Hezbollah in 2006 that killed hundreds of people.
Today, few countries appear ready to back factions in the same way.
In places such as Libya and Syria they have also backed factions opposed to the Brothers; in the case of the UAE they have even conducted undeclared long-range bombing raids to thwart Islamists in Libya.Such pressure has worked.
There Mr. Bay, 44, was given a thorough education on the narrative embedded in the 25-year-old toy line: a back story about warring factions of valiant Autobots and nefarious Decepticons, who bring their battle to Earth from their home planet, Cybertron.
But as al-Jazeera's influence has grown, Qatar's regional ambitions have also become increasingly complex, especially in Libya, where the emir is deeply committed and has taken a risky bet backing an Islamist faction within the anti-Gaddafi forces, and in Bahrain, where in March he deployed troops to help quell the uprising.
In May 2000 Fiji saw its second coup, led by a civilian, George Speight, but backed by a faction from an elite army squadron.
Islamic Jihad, a smaller faction backed by Iran, also respects the ceasefire.
They each back a rebel faction fighting to oust Congo's president, Laurent Kabila -- but they have been clashing in Kisangani off and on for months.
In 1987, he backed a rebel faction of the ruling party against the prime minister of the day, Mahathir Mohamad, and wound up spending several years in the political wilderness.
In early 1996, when Ms. Megawati began to play a more prominent role as the leader of one of the two legal quasi-opposition parties, the Government backed a rival faction of the party and engineered her removal.
