"Enough we say, the decision belongs to the people of the brotherly Egyptian and Tunisian nations... Turkey shares the grief of these nations as well as their hopes." So-declared a self-confident Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday in his prime-time speech on recent events in the Middle East that received broad coverage regionally. While commentators point to the protests and revolutions in the Arab world as being the most recent example of the crumbling vestiges of the Cold War, the more significant long-term global trend is strangely familiar to the Turks. Protests in Tunisia have already overthrown the rule of a 23 year-old regime and inspired a similar uprising in the form of Egypt's ongoing protest movement. Lebanon's continuing instability and threats of Tunisian-inspired revolutions in Yemen and even Jordan further add to the significance of the moment we are witnessing in the Arab world.

The unprecedented levels and inter-linkages of the protests against the traditional authoritarian regimes represented most starkly by President Mubarak, has brought the Middle East back to a period more reminiscent of the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Arab nationalism than anything seen in recent memory.

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If the regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak falls, the tipping point will have been mid-afternoon of January 28. For several hours after the conclusion of Friday noon prayers, the police and Central Security Forces successfully kept demonstrators away from the center of Cairo. About 2:00 pm, 20,000 protestors broke through the blockades and took over the Qasr al-Nil Bridge connecting Giza and Zamalek to Tahrir Square, the hub of the downtown district. Two hours later the headquarters of the ruling National Democratic Party, which President Mubarak leads, was on fire.

Earlier in the afternoon, crowds stormed regional NDP headquarters in the Suez Canal city of Isma‘iliyya and the Delta provincial capital of Mansura. The provincial NDP headquarters in Fayyum was torched a few hours later. Hundreds of thousands of protesters throughout the country defied the 6:00 PM curfew proclaimed by the regime and remained in the streets throughout the night. In Alexandria, Egypt's second city, demonstrators drove the police and Central Security Force out of town. By the time President Mubarak addressed the nation that evening and announced he had requested the resignation of the entire cabinet, the army had begun to assume security responsibility for Egypt's major cities.

The targets of angry crowds are rarely accidental. In this case, assaulting the offices of the ruling party, and other official buildings in Alexandria, Suez, and Tanta underscored one of the main chants of the demonstrators: "The people want an end to the regime." Not "reform" and the resignation of the cabinet, which is a technocratic and administrative body with limited powers, but a regime change and a transition to democracy which would only begin with the resignation of President Mubarak.

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As Tunisian President-for-Life Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali fled into ignominious exile two weeks ago, democrats around the world found hope in the notion that Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution would spread to Iran. The images of demonstrations from Sidi Bouzid to Tunis reminded Americans of the massive 2009 protests that gave rise to Iran's opposition Green Movement, and as pro-democracy movements inspired by Tunisia emerged in Egypt and Yemen, many observers saw a chance for Iran to be next. But looking closer, it's clear that Iranians -- from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on down to the Green Movement opposition -- view the Tunisia situation as vastly different from their own, and not one that's likely to spill over into a renewed push for democratic reform in their own country.

Despite the examples of Ben Ali and Egypt's beleaguered President Hosni Mubarak, Iran's leaders are far from running scared. In fact, Tehran is taking a distinctly more triumphalist understanding of the roots and effects of the Tunisian protests than American commentators would expect from another authoritarian Middle Eastern government -- particularly from one facing its own challenges from opposition forces.

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This week's release of the Palestine Papers by Al Jazeera television might well be a classic example of "burying the lede." While the revelations sparked revulsion among Palestinians about how much their leadership conceded in talks with Israel, for an American reporter the real story of the leaks is not in the West Bank, but in America; the focus of the story is not Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat; it's Barack Obama -- and U.S. special envoy George Mitchell.

A series of core documents of the Palestine Papers (dated September and October 2009) shows just how far the Obama administration has been willing to go to satisfy Israel -- to the point of abandoning prior pledges, international agreements, and American principles. At issue is the U.S.-negotiated "Roadmap for Peace," agreed to by the Quartet (the U.S., European Union, Russia, and the U.N.) in mid-2003. Among other things, Phase One of the "roadmap" envisioned a simple swap: In exchange for an end to violence, the Israelis would freeze all settlement building. 

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Did the Wikileaked State Department cables that described Tunisia's deposed leader Zine el-Abedin Ben Ali as the head of a corrupt police state play any role in encouraging the democratic uprising against him -- and thus spark the wave of protests now spreading across Egypt?

I asked our experts at Human Rights Watch to canvass their sources in the country, and the consensus was that while Tunisians didn't need American diplomats to tell them how bad their government was, the cables did have an impact. The candid appraisal of Ben Ali by U.S. diplomats showed Tunisians that the rottenness of the regime was obvious not just to them but to the whole world -- and that it was a source of shame for Tunisia on an international stage. The cables also contradicted the prevailing view among Tunisians that Washington would back Ben Ali to the bloody end, giving them added impetus to take to the streets. They further delegitimized the Tunisian leader and boosted the morale of his opponents at a pivotal moment in the drama that unfolded over the last few weeks.

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Even as Tunisians struggle to create a new political order, the popular overthrow of Tunisia's dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, is reshaping politics across the Middle East. That's the bad news. Arab regimes have often been criticized as sclerotic and archaic; they are neither. Over the past two decades, they have confronted and overcome a wide range of challenges that have caused authoritarian governments to collapse in many other world regions. Arab regimes have demonstrated their resilience in the past, and they continue to do so in the wake of the Tunisian uprising. If the United States and its allies wish to exploit the Tunisian example to widen processes of democratic change in the Arab world, they will need to adapt as well. Tunisia holds lessons both for Arab autocrats and for Western promoters of democracy. Which lessons turn out to be decisive will depend, if only in part, on whether democracy promoters demonstrate the same flexibility and responsiveness shown by Arab regimes.     

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In bringing about the fall of Lebanon's government, Hezbollah has deployed its "nuclear option." The move underscores Hezbollah's ruthlessness and determination in its campaign to force Prime Minister Saad Hariri to reject the results of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) -- which is expected to issue its long-delayed indictments soon and identify Hezbollah as complicit in the assassination of Saad's father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, in February 2005. The government's collapse followed the breakdown of attempts by Syria and Saudi Arabia to broker a deal between Hariri's forces and Hezbollah's that would permit the prime minister to avoid the politically untenable and personally repugnant option of denouncing the tribunal's indictments and thus lend his support to his father's killers. Syrian sources, predictably, blame the collapse of negotiations on Hariri's refusal to accept what they characterize as joint Saudi-Syrian demands for concessions. What this latest twist tells us about Syrian intentions and the limits of Saudi influence over both Syria and Saad Hariri may be no less telling.

Hezbollah is playing a high stakes game, confident that its military dominance gives it a decisive upper hand should politics move from parliament into the streets. The tea leaves are still settling and will no doubt be further stirred up in coming days. Yet whether Hezbollah's withdrawal from the Hariri government will have the effects it desires is far from clear.

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The center of gravity in the Middle East has shifted dramatically in the past few decades from the Arab heartland comprising Egypt and the Fertile Crescent to what was once considered the non-Arab periphery -- Turkey and Iran. The exciting era of Arab nationalism in the 1950s and 1960s, especially Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal and the all too brief union of Egypt with Syria, had made the Arab heartland the symbol par excellence of the reassertion of the Third World's dignity and its aspirations for autonomy from the great powers. Since the 1970s, that air of excitement and hope has given way to the moribund nature of Arab politics and the perpetuation of autocratic and kleptocratic rule, which have contributed in large measure to the diminution in the regional role of major Arab states such as Egypt. Regimes that were once considered "liberalizing autocracies", such as Egypt with its controlled elections and Jordan with an increasingly vocal parliamentary opposition, have now reverted to an unalloyed autocratic model.

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The Obama administration will face a moment of truth in deciding how to vote on a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements under international law now being drafted on behalf of the Palestinians for presentation early this year. But the administration's thwarted efforts to freeze settlements, the huge obstacle settlements pose to a two-state peace, Israel's aggressive expansion of settlements, and the need to restore U.S. credibility as a peace maker are all powerful reasons for supporting this initiative. 

Nevertheless, the State Department has said it prefers that settlements be resolved through negotiations as "the only viable path" for ending the conflict. This position is also being pressed by Israel and domestic groups that support Israeli policies unconditionally, and by the House of Representatives which has already called for an American veto of U.N. resolutions not approved by Israel. The Obama administration has not yet said how it would vote on such a resolution. It still has time to decide that the U.S. should vote yes, for compelling reasons.

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If the peace process gods have a sense of humor (and history), sometime around next summer -- the 11th anniversary of Bill Clinton's failed Camp David summit -- another Democratic president's peace initiative will be tested.

Right now, the arc of President Barack Obama's peace process efforts (and the other Clinton's, too) is leading inexorably to American "bridging" proposals -- ideas on the core issues meant to literally bridge the gaps between Israeli and Palestinian positions -- if not a U.S. plan to reach a framework accord on all the big issues, which would constitute an extraordinary breakthrough. Currently, neither Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are able to bridge the gaps on Jerusalem, borders, security, and the fate of Palestinian refugees. But with the Obama administration's inability to resist engaging, the president might end up in another make or break summit.

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In March 2010, then-CENTCOM chief Gen. David Petraeus set off a storm of protest among neoconservatives when, in his statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee, he named "insufficient progress toward a comprehensive Middle East peace" as an obstacle to U.S. goals in the region.

"The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the AOR [area of responsibility]," read the statement. "Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world." At the same time, Petraeus concluded, "Al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas."

While this represented only one of a number of "cross cutting challenges to security and stability" detailed in his statement, Petraeus' analysis was too much for the Anti-Defamation League's Abe Foxman, who quickly issued a scolding: "Gen. Petraeus has simply erred in linking the challenges faced by the U.S. and coalition forces in the region to a solution of the Israeli-Arab conflict," said Foxman. "This linkage is dangerous and counterproductive."

That such a carefully calibrated statement of the obvious should draw condemnation from the ADL -- as if the very suggestion that Israel's conflicts could create difficulties for its American patron were itself a form of defamation -- indicates how uncomfortable the notion of "linkage" makes many Israel hawks.

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A 'peace process' that, from its inception, took Israel's self-definition of its own security needs as the sole determinate of the walls within which any solution for Palestinians was to be conducted, has reached exhaustion. Based on such a reductive premise, its arrival at this deathly nadir, with no more than a prospect of disjointed alleviated occupation, possessing the most hollow trappings of statehood as its final security-led outcome, should evoke no surprise.

The non-solution to which such a premise would take us would defuse nothing: indeed, it might well prove to be the spark that could exacerbate or explode simmering regional animosities -- even if these animosities were not ostensibly linked directly to the Palestinian issue.   

Any thought that such a hollowed-out solution -- alleviated occupation, posing as statehood -- will defuse anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world is likely to prove to be resoundingly misplaced. On this, the critics from the political Right are correct: a flawed Israeli-Palestinian agreement, per se, will not drain-off anti-western regional sentiment; it will exacerbate it. It will feed it. But the corollary the Right pushes in its place, that defeating Iran somehow precisely is that elusive magic bullet the West so ardently desires (the key to soothing regional tensions and defusing hostility towards the West) represents an even greater pathology and disassociation from reality. It is one that is no less illusory for having the apparent endorsement of America's Arab clients, whose talk is no more than a reflection back into the looking-glass of American diplomacy, as it stares at its own face.

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The 'weakness' of Europe -- and also that of the US -- in the Middle East is not essentially one of waning power and influence. Although the scent of decline always has had a powerful affect in this region, the root of this western debilitation consists of a more profound ailment:  that its solution, its generic cure for a range of ills in the Muslim world, is seen to provide no conceivable cure to these regional and Islamic stresses and maladies, which it is supposed to alleviate. 

The nature of the two-state solution -- but not the idea of a Palestinian state per se -- that the US and Europe prosecutes as the solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, even were it to be pursued to a successful conclusion, is likely to resolve nothing: the West Bank would stay much as it is currently -- as would Gaza. And the external refugees would molder on, in some form of unfunded, unresolved international limbo. 

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RAMALLAH and WASHINGTON--When asked at a recent press conference what his strategy in the Middle East will be if the current round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks founder, President Obama stated that the United States will remain engaged.Though this is encouraging to everyone who lived through the unconscionable violence that filled the vacuum following the collapse of the Oslo Peace Process and the disengagement of the Bush administration, it is nonetheless insufficient if the goal is to produce a two-state solution.

While a firmly non-violent Palestinian leadership and an aversion among the majority of the people toward renewed fighting indicate that a repeat of the second intifada is unlikely, a collapse of the two-state paradigm is not. Beyond the surface-level discrediting of the moderate Palestinian leadership which will ensue if negotiations fail, granting Hamas yet another "I told you so" moment, the dynamics within moderate Palestinian political circles may themselves take a significant turn away from an ideology that, at least in theory, backs a two-state solution.

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