How exactly do you convince a population that's energized by having at long last deposed a dictator to hold off on elections until the conditions are right? Who decides what those conditions are and when they are present in sufficient strength?

The irony of the Western invention of the "Arab Spring" is that regardless of citizenry remonstrations for "self-determination," we still continue to see the Arab region in our eyes and not through theirs.

The year 2011 represents the first time since the birth of the modern Middle East that Western powers are collectively standing with the bulk of Arab public opinion.

It may be that the Obama Administration conducted itself clumsily and slowly with regard to Syria, but military intervention has never been an option, and what is the policy now is the one realistic course of action open for the U.S., therefore the correct one.

With all the news of uprisings, I've been rocketed back in time and space to the Congo, to Vietnam, where I got some first-hand experiences of what it's like when people make such dramatic moves.