Free Republic

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...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 20 (UPI) -- A slow breeze of change is drifting across Morocco, sweeping in long-awaited democratic reforms in this North African former French protectorate. King Mohammad VI, who ascended to the throne July 30, 1999, when he succeeded his father King Hassan II, began making history as the atypical leader in the Greater Middle East Region. Intent on setting his own pace and bringing his own imprint, the new king wanted to avoid following in his father's footsteps. He is diverging from strict policies put in place decades earlier by his father, King Hassan II. Mohammad has taken...