Obama Egypt

Obama's approach to the Middle East is hopelessly adrift. He is hesitant to truly embrace the Arab freedom movements and failing to lead Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

Clearly, this administration has opted to be populist, breaking away with traditional U.S. foreign policy, whose cornerstone was developing relations with governments. But words are not always coupled with deeds everywhere.

Reporting from Washington -- President Obama is challenging his administration to formulate a new Middle East policy that emphasizes political and eco...

Memo to Obama: Since your intelligence people didn't tell you, let me fill you in on why, by simply staying in the streets, the Egyptian people were able to topple a tyrant with 30 years seniority, sweeping him into the dustbin of history.

It seems clear that for the young revolutionaries in the streets of Cairo, America and Israel are some of the last things on their minds. This is an indigenous Egyptian movement. It's about lifting 30 years of political repression.

Arianna appeared on ABC's "This Week with Christiane Amanpour" on Sunday, as part of a roundtable discussion on the protests in Egypt with George Will...

In response to Mubarak stepping down, President Obama delivered a pitch perfect speech calling for "nothing less than genuine democracy," not just a government aligned with U.S. interests. There will be many foreign policy takeaways from Egypt, but here's an obvious one: invading a country, toppling its regime, destroying civil society, and then trying to put all the pieces back together with a ten-year occupation and a few trillion dollars turns out not to be the only way to increase the spread of democracy in the Middle East. Wired was more effective than warred. People can now connect to each other faster than any government can connect with its people. And while governments may be able to shut down the hardware, they can't shut off the social effects of digital networks. Any leader who doesn't understand this dynamic should book a room next to wherever Mubarak is heading.

There is a global culture present in the Arab world populated by citizens that are worldly, informed, speak perfect English and know what's happening around the world, from Brazil to China. We have a responsibility to these people.

Our recommendation to the American administration for dealing with Egypt going forward is simple: Learn from history and do no harm.

Support for Cairo and the peaceful relinquishment of governing power by Mubarak presents a formidable challenge for Obama: the future of Egypt's peace treaty with Israel.

Secular democrats' next challenge is the Muslim Brotherhood. They must waste no time in persuading the Egyptian electorate why a Sharia-based government would be bad for them.

The liberation of Egypt seems to be just the start. Who will be next? If Jordan and Yemen follow, so will Saudi Arabia and Riyadh would be in a critical position, with no choice but to evolve towards a more open political system.

CAIRO -- A young leader of Egypt's anti-government protesters, newly released from detention, joined a massive crowd in Cairo's Tahrir Square for the ...

Although conservatives are split on whether to support Mubarak, many are echoing Kirkpatrick's old mantra about the two kinds of dictatorships: the ones we can tolerate and the ones we can't.

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is urging Egyptian leaders to include more people in a national dialogue on reform but won't endorse demands fr...

The administration has been shaken. Officials are undoubtedly worried about a domestic political future in which the question could be -- who lost the Middle East? Like the Cheshire Cat's grin, only the rhetoric of the last decades seems to be left.

With chaos still roiling Egypt, it's hard to tell if this uprising is Iran 1979, China 1989, or East Germany 1989. We'll have to wait and watch before we can know. But it's not too early to know that if America had done more to nurture a moderate opposition for the last 30 years, instead of choosing a strongman who sided with us over uncertain democracy, we might have some better choices right now. More importantly, so would the Egyptian people. Social media is once again playing an integral role in a popular uprising. Mubarak and his saber-wielding thugs have desperately tried to shut down the Internet and the press in a frantic attempt to keep the whole world from watching. But that's so much harder to do in the age of Twitter, Facebook, cell phone cameras, and YouTube uploads. These new media tools will play a key role in determining whether Tahrir Square 2011 is more Berlin Wall or more Tiananmen Square.