Free Republic

Illustrating that the jihadist enterprise transcends all borders, American Islamist groups typically preoccupied with remaking the U.S. have been leaving their fingerprints on the campaign to exchange secular authoritarianism for religious authoritarianism in the Middle East. As these organizations labor stateside to nudge the governing class to embrace Arab Islamists at the expense of liberals — prompting Egyptian intellectual Essam Abdallah to lament that "the most dramatic oppression of the region's civil societies and the Arab Spring … is led by the powerful Islamist lobbies in Washington" — several of the groups' past and current officials have emerged as key...

counterrevolutions against Islamist rule in Egypt and Tunisia. The Muslim Brotherhood fell hard and fast in Egypt. In Tunisia it’s been more of a slow drawn out fight ... now the Arab Spring wellspring has fallen. A few days ago the New York Times was predicting that the Islamist Ennahda party would rebound and portraying them as the victims. So much for that. ... Ennahda isn’t as done as the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, it could still climb back, but this is a severe blow to the political Islamists and their Western backers who hoped to propel them to power through...

World leaders weigh in after Egypt's army commander announces that president had been removed The Egyptian army's suspension of the constitution and removal of President Mohamed Morsi has drawn mixed responses from world leaders: European Union The EU has called for a rapid return to democracy in Egypt. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said: "I urge all sides to rapidly return to the democratic process, including the holding of free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections and the approval of a constitution, to be done in a fully inclusive manner, so as to permit the country to resume and...

The rich heritage of Tunisia, maybe the only place where the Arab Spring stands a chance Modern-day Tunisians, more Westernized than most Arabs, see themselves as descendants of the great Carthaginian general who invaded Italy. The Arab Spring began in Sidi Bouzid, a small Tunisian town, at the end of 2010. In a desperate protest against the corrupt and oppressive government that had made it impossible for him to earn a living, food-cart vendor Mohamed Bouazizi stood before City Hall, doused himself with gasoline, and lit a match. His suicide seeded a revolutionary storm that swept the countryside and eventually...

Tunisian opposition leader Chokri Belaid was buried as a martyr for freedom and democracy in a country that is threatened with the loss of both, as an uprising against the ruling Islamist party gained momentum. Mr. Belaid’s assassination triggered a ferocious backlash against the main Islamist party, Ennahda, one that continued during the funeral Friday, attended by as many as 100,000 people. The midafternoon funeral on Friday was a largely peaceful event marred by bouts of violence – and brief periods of panic – as crowds tried to outrun billowing clouds of tear gas aimed at demonstrators and looters on...

As dozens of riot police fired volleys of tear gas towards crowds of angry youths on Bourghiba Avenue this week, the scene was disturbingly reminiscent of what happened on this very avenue two years ago. Even the chanting was the same: "We want the downfall of the regime!" The target of the crowd's anger may be a different government, but many here feel their efforts in 2011, when they succeeded in removing Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, may have been for nought. Many outsiders, myself included, always believed the Tunisian "Jasmine" uprising had the best chance of succeeding, of building a...

SNIPPET: "A radical Tunisian Islamist leader, denied an entry visa into the United States during the 1990s, is scheduled to make two appearances on Capitol Hill Tuesday. Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of Tunisia's Ennahda Party, will attend a forum on the Arab Spring at the Cannon Office Building, an announcement from the event's sponsor, the Muslim Public Affairs Council's (MPAC) said. He'll also attend a special dinner Tuesday evening. Ghannouchi's Ennahda Party recently won the majority in the first free parliamentary elections since the ouster of Tunisia's longtime ruler, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali." SNIPPET: "In a May interview with the...