With secular autocrats and rigid Islamists equally discredited in the Arab world, the space is wide open for progressive democrats to save the Arab spring.
How John Maynard Keynes Can Save the Arab Spring
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economic justice
Three Killings
The note left next to the bloodied body of Shaima Alawadi read “go back to your country, you terrorist.” Alawadi, who died on Saturday after being taken off life support, was an Iraqi-born mother of five living outside of San Diego. Someone had delivered a similar note to the family earlier in the month. It was likely the same person who returned with a tire iron and struck her repeatedly on the head. Alawadi had lived in the United States for 17 years. Several family members reportedly provided cultural training to U.S. soldiers deployed to the Middle East. In a very sad coda, Alawadi is indeed going back to her country – to be buried.
The Twilight of Tyranny?
Back in 2005, Congress considered a bill to remove two dictators a year for the next 20 years. “Some people think a world without tyrants is utopian,” former U.S. ambassador to Hungary Mark Palmer told me that year. “And they think it’s more utopian to have a deadline.” Palmer, whose book Breaking the Real Axis of Evil inspired the ADVANCE Democracy Act of 2005, continued: “we’re down to a limited number of dictators, and it’s entirely feasible to get the rest of them out. Most are pretty creaky and won’t even live until 2025!”