Roundup: Media's Take

David Rothkopf: In the Middle East, too much knowledge of history can be dangerous

[David Rothkopf is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and President and CEO of Garten Rothkopf.] The problem with experience is that it doesn't prepare you for what you have never seen before. This is also a challenge for experts, for whom their knowledge of the past is usually an advantage, but sometimes can be their worst limitation. This has certainly been the case in the past several weeks with the events in Tunisia and Egypt. Old M

Neil Buckley: Arab wave unlikely to hit former Soviet states

[Neil Buckley is the FT's Eastern Europe Editor.] The jubilant scenes on Cairo’s Tahrir Square that greeted the fall of Hosni Mubarak have been likened to those that accompanied the toppling of communist regimes across eastern Europe in 1989. But in many states inside the former Soviet Union democracy never fully took root. So, could the wildfires of Tunisia and Egypt spread to them? Some are already making bold forecasts. Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, t

Bret Stephens: Understanding the Muslim Brotherhood

[Mr. Stephens writes the Journal's "Global View" column on foreign affairs.] It's what the good people on West 40th Street like to call a "Times Classic." On Feb. 16, 1979, the New York Times ran a lengthy op-ed by Richard Falk, a professor of international law at Princeton, under the headline "Trusting Khomeini." "The depiction of [Khomeini] as fanatical, reactionary and the bearer of crude prejudices seems certainly and happily false

Roya Hakakian: Egypt Through the Lens of Iran's 1979 Revolution

[Roya Hakakian is the author of Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran (Crown 2004) and the forthcoming Assassins of the Turquoise Palace (Grove/Atlantic Press 2011).] Ever since the crowds flooded into Tahrir Square, I've begun talking to the living-room television. "Drop that hand!" I shouted at the raised fist of a pro-Mubarak thug a few days ago. On Friday, watching the fireworks over the skies of Cairo, I enviously mumbled: "How come

Frances Fox Piven: Crazy Talk and American Politics: or, My Glenn Beck Story

[Frances Fox Piven is a professor of political science and sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and a past president of the American Sociological Association.] Most academics probably paid little attention at the end of January when Glenn Beck explained to his listeners that the protests in Egypt would lead to the establishment of a Muslim caliphate that would engulf Europe while China would extend its domination to New Zealand and, curiously, the Neth

Joseph Nye: The Misleading Metaphor of Decline

[Mr. Nye is a professor at Harvard and author of "The Future of Power" (Public Affairs, 2011).] Is the United States in decline? Many Americans think so, and they are not alone. A recent Pew poll showed that pluralities in 13 of 25 countries believe that China will replace the U.S. as the world's leading superpower. But describing the future of power as inevitable American decline is both misleading and dangerous if it encourages China to engage in adventurous policies or

Roger Cohen: The U.S. Can Overcome 9/11 Through 2/11

[Roger Cohen is a British-born New York Times columnist.] Perhaps the most effective antidote to 9/11 will prove to be 2/11, the day Hosni Mubarak conceded the game was up with his 30-year-old dictatorship and left town under military escort for the beach. We’ve tried invasions of Muslim lands. We’ve tried imposing new systems of government on them. We’ve tried wars on terror. We’ve tried spending billions of dollars. What we haven’t tried is tackling what’s been rotten

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, David Held and Alia Brahimi: The Arab 1989?

[Kristian Coates Ulrichsen is a Research Fellow at LSE Global Governance. David Held is Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Co-Director of LSE Global Governance. Alia Brahimi is a Research Fellow at LSE Global Governance.] An extraordinary wave of upheaval is beginning to sweep across the Arab world, with the potential to transform the political order in the Middle East. Mohamed Bouazizi’s desperate act of self-i

Martin Indyk: How to bend history’s arc for the better

[The writer is vice-president and director of the foreign policy programme at Brookings Institution.] Hosni Mubarak had a rendezvous with history last week. So did Barack Obama. For Mr Mubarak it was an ignominious end to three decades of Pharaonic rule. For Mr Obama it was the opening of a new page in his presidency in which the promotion of democracy in the Middle East is bound to become a hallmark. For two years, Mr Obama has sought to bend the “arc of history” – his

Joan DelFattore: Huck Finn, Hostile? Hardly.

[Joan DelFattore is a professor of English and legal studies at the University of Delaware. She is the author of Knowledge in the Making: Academic Freedom and Free Speech in America's Schools and Universities, recently published by Yale University Press.] In their new book, Academically Adrift, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa report that after two years of college, 45 percent of students show no improvement in critical thinking and complex reasoning. A week after that study appeared,

Michael Barone: Which Uprising? Iran, China, East Germany?

[Michael Barone is senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner.] It looks like 2/11/11 will go down in history with 11/9/89, not 6/4/89. 6/4/89 is when the Chinese military obeyed orders to massacre protesters in Tiananmen Square; 11/9/89 is when East German leaders announced the opening of the Berlin Wall and declined to order border guards to shoot the Berliners who began dismantling the barrier that had stood for 28 years. On 2/11/11, last Friday, as the Egy

Larry Kudlow: Obama = Reagan?

[Larry Kudlow, NRO’s Economics Editor, is host of CNBC’s The Kudlow Report and author of the daily web blog, Kudlow’s Money Politic$.] A week after Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday celebration, comparisons between presidents Obama and Reagan continue. The conversation began when Obama praised Reagan in a USA Today op-ed. He commended Reagan’s leadership, his confidence in and optimism for America, and his great ability to communicate his vision for the country. Reaganites

Jacob Bronsther: Mubarak Steps Down. Will Obama Step Up?

[Jacob Bronsther, a former Fulbright Scholar and graduate student in political theory at Oxford University, is a law student at New York University.] H.L. Mencken wrote that for every complex problem there is one solution “that is simple, neat, and wrong.” When it comes to the American response to the crisis in Egypt, it appears we have two of them. One relies on the idea that the US can determine the outcome of this new transition period. The other depends on the notio

Haider Khan: Egypt after Mubarak: History Has Been Made, but What's Next?

[Haider Khan is a professor of economics at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.] ...There is no denying that history has already been made by the power of the people in Egypt. Many questions, however, remain during this crucial phase of transition. Former Egyptian Army General Samah Seif El Yazal has told the BBC: “There are two directions the Higher Military Council can go. The first is to ask the existing government to run the country for

Michael Medved: Obama Isn't Trying to 'Weaken America'

[Mr. Medved hosts a daily, nationally syndicated radio show and is the author of "The 5 Big Lies About American Business" (recently out in paperback by Three Rivers Press).] Some conservative commentators may feel inclined to spend Presidents Day ruminating over Barack Obama's evil intentions, or denouncing the chief executive as an alien interloper and ideologue perversely determined to damage the republic. Instead, they should consider the history of John Adams's White H

Russell Shorto: The Irish Affliction

[Russell Shorto, a contributing writer, is the author of “Descartes’ Bones” and other books.] To reach the geographical heart of Irish Catholicism, you leave the main road in windswept County Donegal and drive through miles of gorsy heath, past sheep poised on gray knuckles of rock, until you come to Lough Derg, a wilderness lake edged with pines. Half a mile offshore lies Station Island, where according to legend, St. Patrick had a meditative epiphany in the fifth century, during h

Bernard Avishai: A Plan for Peace That Still Could Be

[Bernard Avishai is author of “The Hebrew Republic: How Secular Democracy and Global Enterprise Will Bring Israel Peace at Last.”] The street demonstrations roiling the Arab world have riveted and moved many Americans, who have visions of democracy sweeping through northern Africa and the Middle East. As I write this, Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s president, has announced he will not stand for re-election, as has Yemen’s longtime ruler, Ali Abdullah Saleh. Tunisia’s ruler fled, and the nat

Nikolai Grozni: The Ghost of Revolutions Past

[Nikolai Grozni is the author of the forthcoming novel “Wunderkind.”] EVER since the uprising in Egypt began on Jan. 25, I have hardly moved an inch away from the TV screen. I may be in France, but my spirit is in Tahrir Square. I’m throwing stones. I’m breathing in tear gas. I’m lighting up Molotov cocktails. I’m dodging bullets. I’m fighting thick-headed policemen. I’m cursing every symbol of the regime until my voice cracks. Why? Because I’ve already done all that be

E.J. Dionne Jr.: Jim Webb, The Last Jacksonian Democrat

[E.J. Dionne Jr. is a columnist for the WaPo.] Much of the focus on Sen. Jim Webb's retirement will be on how this might make the Democrats' already hard job of holding their Senate majority even more difficult. But more important than a single Virginia Senate seat is that Webb was one of a kind. He was not only a Reagan Democrat who became a Republican and then came back. He was also a self-described Jacksonian Democrat. Democrats often speak at Jefferson-Jackson day d

Geoffrey Wheatcroft: America's Unraveling Power

[Geoffrey Wheatcroft is the author of “The Controversy of Zion,” “The Strange Death of Tory England” and “Yo, Blair!” is the author of “The Controversy of Zion,” “The Strange Death of Tory England” and “Yo, Blair!”] We don’t know what will happen. After the high drama of Tahrir Square and Hosni Mubarak’s imminent departure we don’t know what will come next. But if detailed prognostication is foolish and presumptuous, some things can be said with confidence. No regime th