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It feels strange visiting a country like Morocco and listening to people extol the virtues of a political system my country waged a revolution against. Morocco has a king, and he’s a real one too, not some kind of a figurehead. But I went there, I listened, and after almost ten years of visiting Middle Eastern countries wracked by tyranny, terrorism, botched revolutions, and wars, I was perhaps a bit more willing to hear what they had to say than I might have been a decade ago. A monarchy is a tough sell for Americans. The founders of our country...

An Egyptian appeals court on Sunday overturned the life sentence of former President Hosni Mubarak for directing the killing of protesters, a ruling that could prolong a politically fraught legal battle over the fate of Egypt’s deposed autocrat two years after he was ousted. The court is said to have ordered a new trial. Although expected, the decision may also put the issue of retribution for Mr. Mubarak and his inner circle back in the news just as a campaign begins for new parliamentary elections, which are scheduled for April. The decision may also bolster the prospects of the Islamist...

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi made several decrees Thursday that will shape the country’s constitution and, he says, safeguard its “revolutionary” future. They include a ruling that none of his decisions can be overturned by any authority. Morsi gave the Constituent Assembly a two month deadline to finish drafting a new constitution, ruling that no authority may dissolve it until the country's defining document is completed. He further ruled that no authority may dissolve the Shura Council, the upper house of Egypt's parliament. In a move likely to bring criticism that the Egyptian president is inappropriately expanding his powers, he also...

Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya leader Mostafa Hamza, detained for terrorist activity and attempt on Hosni Mubarak's life, released Tuesday by President Morsi's pardon Egypt's security authorities released, Tuesday, Mostafa Hamza, a prominent radical Sheikh charged with attempting to assassinate former president Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia in1995. Hamza, a leading member of Islamic organisation Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya, was extradited to Egypt from Iran in 2004. He was detained following terrorism-related charges that included being a member of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. SNIP(The wire services are ignoring this news. We learned about it via FrontPageMag which highlighted that Hamza was behind the Luxor massacre. FPM excerpted...

President Hosni Mubarak did not even wait for President Obama’s words to be translated before he shot back. “You don’t understand this part of the world,” the Egyptian leader broke in. “You’re young.” Mr. Obama, during a tense telephone call the evening of Feb. 1, 2011, had just told Mr. Mubarak that his speech, broadcast to hundreds of thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo, had not gone far enough. Mr. Mubarak had to step down, the president said. Minutes later, a grim Mr. Obama appeared before hastily summoned cameras in the Grand Foyer of the White House. The...

FBI affidavit details Abdel-Rahman's jailhouse pipeline JUNE 3--Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman laughed at the ease with which his legal team improperly smuggled messages that allowed the Muslim extremist to continue directing terrorist operations while serving a life sentence in a Minnesota prison cell, according to a sealed FBI affidavit obtained by The Smoking Gun. Abdel-Rahman joked that "trained doves" were transporting messages to his disciples. "I really would like that they arrest those doves. I wish that one day I read, 'The FBI was able to arrest the doves that are contacting the Sheikh.'" The convicted terrorist then added, "as...

CAIRO - Hundreds of riot police sealed off the area near the US Embassy in Cairo on Saturday and the interior minister said he would restore calm after four days of clashes between police and Egyptians incensed by a film denigrating the Prophet Mohammad. A 35-year-old protester was killed and dozens of people were injured in clashes overnight. The authorities closed the street leading to the embassy where the demonstrators had spent four days throwing rocks and petrol bombs at police. The area was quieter early on Saturday. A Reuters reporter saw police push several young men into trucks. Two...

The administration of US President Barack Obama reacted sharply to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s recent comment that Obama had “thrown allies like Israel under the bus” regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons program. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters that assistance “… provided to Israel by the United States has never been greater than it has been under President Obama. We have an extremely close relationship with Israel, which is appropriate given our unshakable commitment to Israel’s security.” Barack Obama an erstwhile supporter of the Zionist enterprise? Such drivel may stick with Hollywood’s glitterati, but outside of Tinseltown, the...

At a stroke, President Mohammed Morsi struck the biggest blow against the army's political power since the "Free Officers" established the military's dominance by toppling the monarchy in 1952. The biggest casualty of the purge was Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, who served as Mr Mubarak's defence minister for 20 years. But the president has done his best to preserve Field Marshal Tantawi's dignity, awarding him a medal and a special payment on top of his pension. Addressing the nation, Mr Morsi said his move had not been aimed at individuals....

Egypt's newly elected president must order an end to military trials of civilians to bring the country in line with international law, campaign group Human Rights Watch said in a report on Sunday. Egypt's army generals handed over power to the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Mursi last month but are likely to keep parts of the state apparatus under their control, limiting the president's influence over the military. At least 12,000 civilians, including children, have been tried by military courts behind closed doors since the uprising in January last year that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak - more than in Mubarak's...

When Jihad Came to America by Andrew C. McCarthy On May 2 and 3, 1990, the U.S. embassy in Cairo alerted its counterpart in Khartoum that Egypt’s “leading radical,” Omar Abdel Rahman, was on his way to Sudan. Warning that his ultimate plan might be to seek exile in the United States, the Cairo embassy asked its colleagues to pass along any information they might learn about his activities on Sudanese soil. What did U.S. officials already know about Abdel Rahman in 1990? As the 9/11 Commission would later determine, they knew that he had been arrested repeatedly in Egypt...

Mubarak was moved out of prison to a military hospital Tuesday after the 84-year-old ousted leader suffered a stroke and his condition rapidly deteriorated, officials said, adding a new element of uncertainty just as a potentially explosive fight opened over who will succeed him, with both candidates claiming to have won last weekend's presidential election. The developments add further layers to what is threatening to become a new chapter of unrest and political power struggles in Egypt, 16 months after Mubarak was ousted by a popular uprising demanding democracy. The campaign of Mubarak's former prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, said Tuesday...

Who could not despise the tottering Bashar al-Assad dictatorship in Syria? The Syrian strongman has killed some 10,000 protestors over the last year; thousands of Syrians are now refugees. The autocracy arms and aids the terrorist organization Hezbollah. It targets democratic Israel with thousands of missiles, and still does its best to ruin neighboring Lebanon. Theocratic and terrorist-sponsoring Iran has few allies -- but Syria remains its staunchest. Almost no country over the last half-century has proved more hostile to the United States than has Syria. With sanctions not working, and with the Chinese, Iranians and Russians not eager to...

Mideast: As the president sneaks more money in the budget for Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood thugs he helped install in Cairo show their gratitude by threatening to attack Israel. For three decades, the U.S. essentially paid Egypt not to attack our closest ally in the region. The policy worked to maintain peace. But Obama nullified that deal by backing Islamist revolutionaries against reliably pro-U.S. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Now the bribe has lost its effect. The new Egyptian leadership, led by the virulently anti-Jewish Muslim Brotherhood, this week issued a warning to Washington that it should understand that "what was...

This is breaking news: Ayman al-Zawahiri has officially been named ‘emir’ of Al Qaeda. This makes him the successor of Obama bin Laden, who was taken out by a team of Navy Seals earlier this month. Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reports that it has read classified documents from the Dutch secret intelligence organization (AIVD). According to the documents, Al-Zawahiri was appointed as Al Qaeda’s new leader during a meeting on May 9, a week after the death of OBL. “On May 9, the leadership of Al Qaeda elected Al-Zawahiri during a meeting in the tribal areas, between Afghanistan and Pakistan”,...

Cairo (CNN) -- Kamal Ganzouri has agreed to become Egypt's prime minister and will form a new government, an Egyptian army spokesman said Thursday. This development -- announced by Lt. Col. Amr Imam -- comes days after former Prime Minister Essam Sharaf and his government quit en masse, and just days before Monday's parliamentary elections, which Egypt's military rulers vowed Thursday will go on despite ongoing violence and unrest. Ganzouri, who was Egypt's prime minister between 1996 and 1999 under President Hosni Mubarak, could not be reached to confirm his appointment. He met Thursday with Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, field marshal...

Rule Of Law: What does it say about the prospects for democracy in Egypt when its military rulers put former dictator Hosni Mubarak, caged and on a gurney, through a show trial? Very little, if history is any guide. The Arab world is cringing with apprehension at the hasty, desperate trial of the former despot, who until February ruled Egypt with an iron hand for 30 years. It's not that the charges against Mubarak — corruption and violence against protestors — are likely false. It's that this trial has all the earmarks of mob-pleasing revanchism that will shake citizens' trust...

Egypt has released 950 jailed members of the militant Islamist group Gamaa Islamiya. Some of them have been in prison since the assassination of President Anwar Sadat 25 years ago. The group's lawyer says about 950 members of Gamaa Islamiya have been released over the last 10 days. The largest group, several hundred, were freed Tuesday, in honor of a Muslim holiday marking the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad. Those released include several senior figures, some of whom have been imprisoned for more than 20 years. Gamaa Islamiya was once Egypt's largest militant Islamist group, responsible for a string of...

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt -- Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was abruptly hospitalized Tuesday at a Red Sea resort on the day he was set to be summoned for questioning by prosecutors over corruption allegations and abuse of power, Egyptian officials said. Egypt's prosecutor general had issued a summons for the 82-year-old president Monday to be interrogated over corruption allegations from his three decade reign and violence against protesters during the 18-day uprising that forced him out of office.

America's current armed conflict with Muammar Gaddafi raises a cluster of familiar questions about U.S. intervention, democracy promotion, and nation building, not only in relation to Libya but also in relation to ongoing cases such as Egypt and Afghanistan. Conservatives and Republicans are wrestling with these questions, like everyone else, but with their own distinct values and priorities in mind. Let us take a step back to consider what a conservative foreign policy might look like on issues of democracy promotion and intervention. When American conservatives reflect on concrete examples of undeniably successful, modern, conservative foreign policy presidents, they think...