Nobody believed that Egyptian democracy would come easily. The recent clashes between protesters and security forces in Tahrir Square generated widespread foreboding. But this week's parliamentary election shows that Egyptians deserve more credit for making progress than they usually receive in the pessimistic headlines.

True, the 10 months...

Friday's announcement of George Mitchell's planned resignation as the U.S. mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict appears to be yet another sign of the disarray and failure in President Obama's handling of the Middle East. Recently, two articles provided a troubling inside look at the ineptitude that makes Mitchell's...

There was a theatrical air about Osama bin Laden. He cultivated mystique. For example, he relished inviting selected international journalists -- some known for their own theatricality -- to meet him in dangerous or shadowy circumstances that facilitated dramatic storytelling. I had a minor part in bringing Bin Laden...

Three months after the January 25 Revolution in Egypt, President Obama's approach to the Middle East is hopelessly adrift. He is hesitant to truly embrace the Arab freedom movements, failing to lead Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations and lacking effective diplomacy to counter Iran's nuclear ambitions. Two years after his ballyhooed Cairo...

How sweet is the air of Egyptian freedom.

In all of Cairo and Egypt, a nation exalts in its liberation. Through the evening and into the early morning, I stood in Tahrir Square with tens of thousands of Egyptians as they sang and danced, flashed V-signs and prayed, and...

In Tahrir Square, among the hundreds of thousands of Egyptians anticipating President Hosni Mubarak's resignation, the feeling came over me: Egypt is another Iran.

I don't mean in the sense that Egypt's revolution will bring a radical, Islamist regime into power. That will not happen, despite the fears of...

In Tahrir Square, are we going to witness Prague in 1968 or Beijing in 1989? Many commentators are speculating about an eventual violent clampdown on the Egyptian protests. The signs are all there, however, that this is rather the Arab equivalent of the fall of the Berlin Wall. There may...

Friends following the revolt on the Nile on their television screens in the U.S. are asking: "Are you leaving?" Planeloads of American expats, trapped tourists and other assorted foreigners are being evacuated. But the departures should not leave a false impression. Living conditions in Cairo and the risks to foreigners...

The Obama administration, and the rest of the world, must get used to the idea that there is a new Egypt and a new Middle East. The old order that was so comforting to Washington -- based on authoritarian regimes ruling over docile populations -- is over. The Arab world...