By Fareed Zakaria

I couldn't help but notice a speech this week by a man who has all but disappeared from many of our radars.

In a rare public speech, former President George W. Bush said: "America does not get to choose if a freedom revolution should begin or end in the Middle East. It only gets to choose what side it is on ... America's message should ring clear and strong: We stand for freedom."

Over the years, and long before the start of the Arab Spring, Bush has been consistent in pressing his freedom agenda in Africa and the Middle East — in fact, the world over.

It's an optimistic conservatism that contrasts strongly with the pessimism of many other conservatives.

Take for example Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who last November called the Arab Spring an "Islamic, anti-Western, anti-liberal, anti-Israeli, undemocratic wave."

The irony is that in his deep suspicion about the Arab Spring, Bibi has a strange bedfellow — the Saudi monarchy. FULL POST

Editor's note: Barak Barfi is a research fellow at the New America Foundation. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Barak Barfi.

By Barak Barfi, Special to CNN

With Middle East heavyweights such as Egypt rocked by instability, Qatar has helped fill the leadership vacuum in the region.

The tiny Persian Gulf emirate has been hyperactive on the diplomatic front, leading the campaign to topple the regime in Libya and now working to do the same in Syria.

Its moment in the sun, however, is likely to be a transient one. The convergence of factors that have fueled its rise are sure to unravel as fallen Arab powers regain their stature. And Qatar lacks the intrinsic qualities that have made perennial regional titans such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

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Editor's Note: Eric Trager is is the Ira Weiner Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The views contained herein are his own.

By Eric Trager, Foreign Affairs

The second revolution has, supposedly, come to Egypt.

Over the past twelve days, tens of thousands of Egyptians have gathered in Tahrir Square to demand that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) cede power to a civilian-led National Salvation Government.

Egyptian security forces responded by killing at least 40 people, wounding more than 1,000, and blanketing parts of downtown Cairo with weapons-grade tear gas. The ugly scenes recall the earliest days of the mass uprising in January and February, the first revolution, which ended Hosni Mubarak’s reign. But this second revolution has one major problem: so long as Egyptians avoid Tahrir Square, it is somewhat easy to ignore.

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By John Cookson, CNN

Tunisia’s election is being praised as a promising start to political reform, but the success of the Arab Spring will depend on a lot more, not least of which is creating economies that will drive growth and create jobs.

A new report from the World Economic Forum says the Middle East and North Africa will need to create 25 million new jobs and sustain an average growth rate of 5.5 percent over the next decade just to remain at current levels. The World Bank thinks more is required, saying the region will need at least 50 million new jobs and growth rates of 6.5 percent to ensure social and political stability. Fifty million jobs, for comparison, is about a third of the U.S. labor force. As for growth rates, Egypt’s economy is projected to grow by 1.2 percent this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. Tunisia’s 2011 growth rate is effectively zero.

Youth unemployment is a particular problem. Jobless rates among the young average 25 percent across the Middle East and North Africa, which is almost eight percent higher than the average of developed counties. Adding to concern about this issue is the fact that each year another 2.8 million workers enter the work force.

Editor's Note: Rasmus Alenius Boserup is a researcher, and Fabrizio Tassinari is a senior researcher, at the Danish Institute for International Studies.

By Fabrizio Tassinari and Rasmus Alenius Boserup, Project Syndicate

Ten months after the collapse of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s authoritarian regime, Tunisia has produced a remarkable balancing act between the revolutionary urge for change and a pragmatic need for continuity. With elections for a constitutional assembly due to take place on October 23, the country that ignited the “Arab Awakening” is emerging as a regional paradigm for a stable democratic transition.

A number of preconditions have smoothed Tunisia’s path. Whereas Egypt struggles with the need to assert civilian control over the military, the Tunisian army has stayed out of politics. And, in contrast to Libya, the Tunisian population never took up arms during the protests. The economy does not run on hydrocarbons. And, notwithstanding serious inequalities between Tunisia’s littoral and inland areas, this small country of 10 million people is, according to the World Bank, an upper-middle-income economy. FULL POST

Egypt's economy and government coffers lost $9 billion since ousting Hosni Mubarak from power, according to a new report from they consulting group Geopolicity. Libya's revolution has cost its economy $14 billion. The ongoing unrest in Syria has cost another $27 billion.

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Editor's Note: Jonathan Steinberg is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Modern European History at the University of Pennsylvania and the author, most recently, of Bismarck: A Life.

By Jonathan Steinberg, Foreign Affairs

The similarities between the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt last spring and the ones in Europe in 1848 are striking. In the early months of 1848, the sclerotic and reactionary political systems that the European monarchs had developed after Napoleon Bonaparte's 1815 defeat collapsed. Prince Klemens Wenzel Metternich, who was the state chancellor of the Austrian empire and a symbol of the despised old order, slipped out of Vienna on March 15 as an angry mob marched in. Along with Metternich, the Austrian empire's 23-year-old repressive dictatorship vanished. In Italy, France, and the German states, the old order crumbled as well. The scene was not unlike that of Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali's own flight from Tunis 163 years later and the wave of revolutions across the Middle East that followed. In both cases, the crowds in the streets were glad to see the dictators go but unclear on the social and political orders that should replace them. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Christopher R. Hill, a former US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Ambassador to Iraq and numerous other countries.He is now Dean of the Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. For more from Christopher R. Hill, visit Project Syndicate or follow it on Facebook and Twitter.

By Christopher R. Hill, Project Syndicate

Yemen’s renewed violence is just the latest sign that the Arab Spring may be joining the list of those historical contagions that, in the fullness of time, did not turn out well. Indeed, its effect may be reaching countries in ways that we did not expect.

Israel, in particular, can be forgiven for curbing its enthusiasm over the effect of the Arab Spring on its own security. On August 19, Israel absorbed an attack in the Negev Desert, through an increasingly dangerous border with Egypt, which left eight civilians dead. Just a few weeks later, a mob attacked Israel’s embassy in Cairo, forcing the evacuation of Israeli diplomats and creating a major row with Egypt’s fragile interim government. In Syria, nobody is prepared to predict the outcome of what is turning into a bloody battle with sectarian overtones. And in Libya, while getting rid of Moammar Gadhafi is a good first step, democracy and the rule of law are, to be optimistic, years away. FULL POST