Quite frankly, I do not share that conclusions for a reason I explain below. I just noted that I disagree with the "immaculate conception" view of social movements cherished by the left. I think that one can get a far better understanding of the success or failure of various insurgencies by concentrating on the states - their relative power and specific behavior - both those targeted by the insurgents as well as those that are not directly targeted but take sides.
By that logic, the US would be just an extension of Canada if the French state did not support the revolutionaries against the British, and the United States would be split into North and South today if the Brits and French did get involved in the Civil War. There would be no USSR if the corrupt Russian state did not collapse at the end of World War I and no Communist China without Japanese colonization and subsequent defeat (which I believe is Chalmers Johnson's argument that earned him much enmity among the 1960 lefties).
In the same vein, the Ukrainian nationalist uprising, the Hungarian revolution and the Prague Spring were all squashed by the Soviet tanks because no state lifted its finger to aid the insurgents (bitching does not count). The Afghan mujahadeen kicked out the Soviets because they received substantial US and Pakistani help, but they were defeated by a handful of US soldiers in 2001 because no state came to their aid.
I can go on an on - the bottom line is that popular insurgencies are, at least until recently, a fly on a horse's ass they can make the horse mad but cannot defeat him - this requires a much bigger animal.
Having said that, however, I would to stress that guerilla warfare is changing dramatically in the era globalization. If they is only one thing that get globalized, it is guerilla warfare. In the past, the guerillas could operate only on its own territory, but thanks to advances to transportation and communication technologies, they can now bring war to any country of their choosing. That changes the dynamic of guerilla war quite dramatically - albeit I am not sure to what effect. That is why I do not think that overwhelming force can be very effective in Iraq or Middle east - in fact it can create more incentives for Mid Easterners to fight back, on the US soil.
Wojtek