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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By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

As Egypt's election campaign gathers pace, we are seeing the rise of candidates from Islamic parties, one more radical than the next. Across the Arab world, the promise of a new birth of freedom has been followed by a much messier reality.

It raises the question in many people's minds: Why does it seem that democracy has such a hard time taking root in the Arab world?

As it happens, a Harvard economics professor, Eric Chaney, recently presented a rigorous paper that helps unravel that knot. Chaney asks why there is a "democracy deficit" in the Arab world and systematically tests various hypotheses against the data. He notes that such majority-Muslim nations as Turkey, Indonesia, Albania, Bangladesh and Malaysia have functioning democratic systems, so the mere presence of Islam or Islamic culture cannot be to blame. FULL POST

Editor's note: Mohammed Ayoob is University Distinguished Professor of International Relations at Michigan State University and adjunct scholar at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. The views expressed in this article are his own.

By Mohammed Ayoob – Special to CNN

During the past few weeks the drums of war have been beating loud and clear. Prime Minister Netanyahu, during his meeting with President Obama and his speech to AIPAC, made it very clear that Israel reserves the right to attack Iran if it comes to it - even against the wishes of the United States. Ostensibly the difference between Washington and Tel Aviv seems to be on the issue of timing. This, in turn, is based on divergent interpretations of where the red line should be drawn in terms of Iran’s presumed nuclear capacity. While a highly subjective definition of “nuclear capability” appears to be the red line for Israel, “weaponization” or at least clear evidence of it is Washington’s preferred red line.

This semantic difference hides a fundamental disjuncture between American and Israeli approaches to the subject. Israel defines the red line in terms of its narrow strategic and political interests in the Middle East.  Israel believes it is threatened by the perception, leave alone the reality, of an Iranian nuclear weapons capability. America, as a world power, has larger interests at stake both in the region and in terms of its image and credibility globally.

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Editor’s Note: The following piece, exclusive to GPS, comes from Wikistrat, the world's first massively multiplayer online consultancy.  It leverages a global network of subject-matter experts via a crowd-sourcing methodology to provide unique insights.

Is the Arab Spring over? Or are there other countries that might rise up in the year ahead? Wikistrat asked its global community of analysts to consider this question. Here’s what they came up with:

1) Algeria

Up to now the regimes that have fallen - Libya, Tunisia, Egypt - have been led by strongman dictators who kept a lid on religious extremism. With Syria in flames and Yemen undergoing gradual reforms, that leaves only Algeria’s strongman Abdelaziz Bouteflika. FULL POST

Editor's note: Anthony H. Cordesman holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Follow CSIS on Twitter @CSIS_org.

By Anthony H. Cordesman - Special to CNN

We may have to use force against Iran. It may provoke clashes or a conflict in the Gulf, or it may refuse any realistic diplomatic solution to its growing capabilities to produce nuclear weapons. If there is anything we should have learned from 10 years of two wars, however, it is that the cautions that senior officers like Admiral Mullen and General Dempsey have given about the risks of war are all too accurate. War is the perfect recipe for unpredictable and uncontrollable events, and the primary law of war is the law of unintended consequences.

We do not need another economic crisis triggered by the shock of a massive rise in oil prices or what in the worst case could be several weeks in which the Gulf could not export oil through the Strait of Hormuz. We do need a slow battle of attrition in the Gulf, and we need to be truly careful about what Iran might do if Israel or the U.S. launches a preventive attack. FULL POST

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

The video above shows a strange cartoon from Egypt. It's of Uncle Sam looking sinister and mean, hunched over a door with a keyhole. The implication, I suppose, is that the U.S. is spying on Egyptians. Another cartoon shows him with a pistol and he's pointing it at an Egyptian man with a cannon. The caption in Arabic says "dignity". The point here is quite clear: Americans are robbing Egyptians of their dignity.

What in the world?

These cartoons were published recently in a state-run newspaper and they highlight a disturbing trend: Egypt's transitional government is trying to whip up anti-American fervor.

Its latest ploy is a high-publicity trial. Forty-three people, nearly half of them U.S. citizens, stand accused of illegally receiving foreign funds to promote democracy. The government claims they didn't have a license to do their work but in reality these people had filed their registration papers under the old regime of Hosni Mubarak. They were told their papers were in order.

It's a little rich for the Egyptian government - which receives $1.2 billion from the United States every year - to harass charities for getting funds from America. So what's going on?

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By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

The situation in Syria is spiraling downward. The country is inching towards full scale civil war. Violence is increasingly sustained and the Syrian regime seems unable to stop the opposition.

At the same time, we are watching an open Cold War between Saudi Arabia and Iran with Syria as the battle ground. The Saudi King publicly said (and, remember, the Saudis are very reluctant to say things publicly) to the Russian President that any dialogue with Syria is "futile" - that we  need to push the regime of Bashar al-Assad out. The Iranians, on the other side, are warning the outside world against intervening in Syria.

This is all a huge security boon for Israel. Iran - the country that Israel views as its principle threat in the region - is finding itself in a very weakened position because it chose to go all-in on Syria. Iran made the decision to simply to back the Syrian regime no matter what and now they're getting further and further isolated. The Russians have stopped publicly speaking out in favor of Syria. The Chinese have never been very vocal. And the Iraqis, who had initially taken a relatively supportive position, have retreated. FULL POST

Editor’s Note: This is an edited version of an article from the ‘Oxford Analytica Daily Brief’. Oxford Analytica is a global analysis and advisory firm that draws on a worldwide network of experts to advise its clients on their strategy and performance.

The three traditional pillars of Washington's strategy for the Middle East have long been energy security, the security of Israel, and protecting ‘friendly leaders’. In the last decade, countering terrorism became another pillar. Pursuing all four of these pillars simultaneously has always been challenging.  The last year of political upheavals in the region has made the balancing act even trickier.

Washington’s policymakers remain stuck in a reactive mode, struggling to understand what the future might hold forU.S.interests in the region. Whereas most Middle East governments had fairly positive relations with Washington a year ago, their successors keeping their distance. Untested populists are coming to power with different priorities from their predecessors. Previously friendly rulers are more wary ofU.S.ties, or are making things awkward for relations by cracking down on civic groups. FULL POST

Steve Coll of The New Yorker remembers interviewing the late Anthony Shadid for a job at The Washington Post:

"Shadid, who died on Thursday at the age of forty-three, apparently of an asthma attack, while covering the conflict in Syria for the Times, was over the last decade or more the most intrepid, empathetic, fully engaged correspondent working in the Middle East for American audiences. He had many gifts and was an exceptionally graceful, easy, and generous man, but among the qualities that distinguished his work was the sheer commitment of it.

When he came to the Washington Post about a decade ago to serve as a correspondent, I was working as an editor at the paper. I asked a standard job-interview question about his goals in the years ahead, and he provided one of the most striking, emphatic answers I can recall from countless discussions of that type: He intended to move to the Middle East, to chronicle in every dimension possible the upheavals in Arab societies that would inevitably follow the September 11th attacks, and to do nothing else, professionally. If we, the Post, would facilitate this ambition, he would be grateful, but that was the only job he was interested in or would be for years to come, he said. It is rare for anyone—never mind a writer—to possess such clarity. And Shadid carried out his plan exactly as he said he would, just not for the full measure of years that we would have wished."

Read on here.

Editor's Note: Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former director of policy planning in the US State Department (2009-2011), is Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. For more from Slaughter, visit Project Syndicate or follow it on Facebook and Twitter. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Anne-Marie Slaughter.

By Anne-Marie Slaughter, Project Syndicate

As the world watches the obliteration of the Syrian city of Homs and the crisis spills into neighboring Lebanon, it is time to ask what separates great powers from small powers. Turkey’s international star has risen steadily over the past few years, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan being lionized in many Middle Eastern and North African countries, and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu traveling the world as the representative of an increasingly influential power. Indeed, Turkey and Indonesia have joined the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) on the list of the most important rising global players.

Now, in Syria’s carnage, Turkey is facing a critical test of its regional and global aspirations. It is time for its leaders to stop talking and start acting. FULL POST