Even in a predominantly religious and conservative Arab world, the under-30, the most populous generation of Arabs, is determined to sustain a strong trend toward more civilian participation and representative government. It's a genie-out-of-the-bottle predicament.

Contrary to this recent pessimism, there is strong reason to believe that the Arab spring will spread in the short term and succeed over the longer term.

A woman appeared at the gate of a local school, her inked-dipped pinkie proof positive that she had succeeded in what the rest of us stuck in a three-hour long line still aspired to: voting.

As history unfolds itself across the Arab World, observers of the region are compelled to take a more closer and nuanced view of the events, since it is apparent that the complexity of change is confounding both advocates and cynics.

In the context of unfolding events in Egypt and throughout the region, Woodrow Wilson offers an important lesson for President Obama and his administration.

We must marginalize and defeat the ideas of political Islam which ultimately drive the dreams of militant Islamists.