There are cultures that produce different kinds of attitudes, whether it's religion, fatalism, sense of fear, repression, the culture of God and the police minimizes confidence in people.

From 1991 till the present, Iraq sovereignty has been trampled by the United States.

Mr. Obama needs to make a phone call to Ankara and have a serious conversation about why the current government in Turkey isn't going to seal its border, why it doesn't take a stronger position against the Islamic State.

Where there is a living memory of struggle, they have a living memory of the rebellion. Where there's no struggle afterward the rebellion is forgotten.

Interestingly, if you write preparation out of history, leadership and preparation, the building of confidence among people who are exploited, you've actually methodologically written out the Communists because, when an uprising takes place, you don't necessarily see red flags everywhere.

You see, one strand...of anarchism believed that you needed to use essentially homeopathic doses of terror by assassinating people, et cetera, the so-called 'propaganda of the deed', and that this propaganda of the deed would rouse people up, give them confidence to rise up. Another section believed 'No, it was not by seeing something happen that people get confidence, but it's by acting', in other words, the movements must go among the people and produce small struggles, bigger struggles, to give people greater and greater confidence.

We have to be vigilant on two fronts: (1) to not let our anti-imperialism lead to the defense of authoritarian regimes in the region and (2) to not let our enthusiasm for rebellion lead to cheering on the cruise missiles from US warships. These two sirens should worry us as we make our hesitant way alongside the rebirth of a New Left in the Arab world.