During most of the Bush administration, human rights and democracy in Egypt were on the front burner.

First impressions matter. Experts say we size up new people in somewhere between 30 seconds and two minutes.

There are examples of fraternal dictatorships, or one, anyway: the passing of power from Fidel to Raul Castro.

As the Palestinian leadership never seems to pay any penalty for its words, America's seriousness about the peace process is in doubt.

It’s unlikely to change – there’s nothing in King Salman’s past as governor of Riyadh for about forty years that suggests that he was particularly a reformer, not on the role of women, not on democratic development. There’s been a rumor in the last couple of days that he said to someone in an e-mail that he’s in favor of a constitutional monarchy, but I would be surprised if the level of repression started to go down … I think the kind of thing that we would view as significant reforms is unlikely.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned, it seems, to direct the Middle East policy of the Obama administration.

The Obama administration rarely demonstrated the ability to shift gears and change policy in its first year. Even in the face of historic events such as the continuing demonstrations against Iran's regime, it stuck devotedly to prior plans.