James Zogby

President, Arab American Institute; author, 'Arab Voices'

The crisis created by the film The Innocence of Muslims that many feared might spin out of control seems to be subsiding across the Arab World. The appeal by extremists to escalate the situation appears to have given way to more stable and thoughtful leadership.

Christopher Holshek

Col. (ret.), U.S. Army Civil Affairs; Civil-Military Strategic Analyst, Wikistrat; Senior Fellow, Alliance for Peacebuilding

The violent riots that have been going on at U.S. embassies and other places in the "Arab Spring" countries in particular are certainly cause for alarm, but what's really going on here?

Eliza Wood

Founder, ProgressPlanet.com

Let's say that either we Christians or we Americans could get to the bottom of who "they" are and are able to figure out the true enemy or enemies, who exactly do "they" think they are fighting?

Raghida Dergham

Columnist and Senior Diplomatic Correspondent, Al Hayat

There is a new tyrant in the Arab region, which is going through a troubled transitional phase in the wake of the revolutions of change that have toppled the dictators: It is the unruly mobs that are threatening the course of democracy and imposing dangerous tendencies on the future of the Arabs, and their relations with both West and East.

Christian Piatt

Author, editor, speaker

The Libyans sorting through the wreckage found a still-alive Ambassador Stevens, which elicited cheers of joy from them and shouts of "God is great!"

Joel Rubin

Director of Policy and Government Affairs, Ploughshares Fund

Let us remember that, just like the Libyans who today denounce the killing of Ambassador Stevens, there are those in the new Arab world who we can work with to build a better future.

Harut Sassounian

Publisher of The California Courier

The list of serious missteps by successive U.S. administrations is lengthy enough to fill many volumes.

Mike Ghouse

Speaker, thinker, writer, pluralist, activist

The Muslims who murdered Ambassador Christopher Stevens were purportedly defending the name of Prophet Muhammad. But they have done the exact opposite of their intention: tarnished the name of the Prophet in the eyes of the few non-Muslims.

Ahmed Charai

Publisher of the weekly Moroccan magazine 'L'Observateur'

In the Arab world, there is always a large segment of the population that views American policy as an imperialist conspiracy, even if that policy was designed to help them.

Lex Paulson

Fmr. Capitol Hill staffer; Ph.D. candidate in classics, Université de Paris-Sorbonne

As he neared his third and final retirement after 45 years of service, George Washington drafted the letter we know as his "Farewell Address," a letter from which Mitt Romney could take two important lessons.

Andy Ostroy

Political & pop culture analyst

As you know, I am locked in a tight race with President Obama (Kenyan Tribal Leader in exile). The simple truth is, we both have a very different vision for America (Check this out... he actually cares about poor people!).

Mark_Levine

Talk Radio Host; Fellow, Truman Nat'l Security Project

When the day comes that the "Arab Street" cares more about the on-going brutal murder of tens of thousands of innocent civilians by the Syrian Government than a crude, offensive diatribe put forward by an obscure idiot, that will give me hope.

Stephen Zunes

Professor of Politics and Chair of Mid-Eastern Studies, University of San Francisco

What incited many of the protests was an outrageously offensive anti-Islamic movie produced by a Christian extremist in California, but there is a lot more to the protests than this triggering event.

Michael Vlahos

Writer and National Security expert

We know as little now about the Muslim world as we did on 9/11, because we do not wish to know. For better or worse, the Bush administration shaped our worldview of Islam. We have not yet escaped their theocratic vision of a Muslim world in need of American redemption.

William Bradley

Political Analyst, NewWestNotes.com

Romney missed a big opportunity last week when he so foolishly and shallowly attacked President Barack Obama after the attacks on U.S. diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt.

John Tirman

Executive Director, MIT Center for International Studies

There is a narrative in Arab countries that regards U.S. actions in the region as being mainly military and mainly harmful to ordinary Arabs and other Muslims. The less the U.S. is involved militarily in this region, the better for us in the long run.