Many are the substitutes for God invented by non-believers; they have turned out to be no substitutes at all. But can the West recover its. . .

 “If American politicians had treated [Andrei] Sakharov the way American leaders today are treating Egyptian dissidents, the Soviet Union might still exist.” (Interview by David Horovitz.) 

To understand the Arab world’s encounter with democratic modernity—one of the titanic political struggles of our age—it helps to know your Alexis de Tocqueville.

Arabs are horrified at the thought that the Syrian civil war could once again redraw the map of the Middle East. Infinitely more worrying. . .

Those who doubted administration claims that moderate Islamists would bring democracy were called racists and Islamophobes. Turns out they were also right.

Egypt’s so-called liberals grew out of a functionary class that was never interested in limiting the power of the state and has always been ambivalent. . .

The world’s most populous Muslim country has made the transition from authoritarianism to democracy in little over a decade. Can it serve as a model?

What if the “Arab Spring” was not a demand for democracy or Islam but instead for free enterprise?

The struggle in Cairo is not about the future of Egyptian democracy; it is the desperate flailing of a revolutionary movement with no agenda beyond rage and dissatisfaction.