The swift collapse of President Omar al-Bashir’s regime in Sudan after protests began last year has reverberated throughout North Africa, perhaps most of all in neighboring Chad. President Idriss Deby faces similar vulnerabilities, even if he enjoys closer Western security ties than Bashir did.

Protests have become a regular sight across Algeria since February, when then-President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced he would seek a fifth consecutive term. It only took a few months for Algerians to bring down their 20-year ruler. But dislodging the army from power is an incomparably harder task.