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President George Bush said in 2005, that if someone wanted to get a glimpse of how he thinks on foreign policy, he should read Nathan Sharansky's book "The Case for Democracy." Sharansky was an aide to soviet physicist and human rights advocate Andrei Sakharov. Here he is interviewed by David Feith of the Wall Street Journal. His outspoken activism in favor of the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate got him 9 years in the Soviet Gulag. He was released from prison in 1986, with the strong support of President Reagan. He emigrated to Israel and served in ministerial posts and in the Israeli parliament. Sharansky says the recent protests in Egypt prove his fundamental points. That there are limits to how much you can control people through the use of fear, and that all people, regardless of religion and culture, desire and want freedom. This is a very human message, it showed its power when the Berlin Wall fell, and it is true today in the Arab world. He says the fear that this endangers the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty is not well founded. Over the last 30 years the border with Syria has been quiet, because it is really Israeli deterrance that is responsible for this and the quiet border with Egypt. He adds there is no justification for Mubarak remaining, as it only creates hostility in the Arab world against the US and Israel. And he says that Mubarak was no friend of the Jewish people, because even as he made peace with Israel, he continued to let anti-Semitism thrive and used Jews as the enemy to enhance his control. Sharansky says Gaza and Hamas control after the election was an unusual situation because of the corruption of the people around Arafat, so that even Christian villages supported Hamas. And he says the longer a dictatorship is in place the worse the situation becomes in creating more hostility to all those who support the dictatorship, including the US and Israel. For Sharansky, the Obama adminstration's response to the Iranian protests after what is seen as a stolen election in Iran, were one of the greatest betrayals of freedom in modern history. To prevent a one time, one person, one vote, Sharansky says the democratic institutions have to take root and this will take more than 8 months, so guarantees need to be put in place that this is not allowed to happen. Safeguards put in place to ensure that whoever is elected cannot survive if democratic institutions and reforms and democracy building does not occur. Dissidents like Mr Ibrahim and others should enjoy the ability to build trade unions and women's organizations. Sharansky says this is a real chance, a chance for the US and the free world to become a partner in change. In change that will help Egypt pass the town square test. Can people freely protest and express their grievances in the town square. And move from this fundamental change to establishing democratic processes and institutions. ...

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After 5 months as president of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi, issues decrees giving the president powers to dissolve the current deadlocked constitutional assembly. Liberals and Coptic Christians in the constitutional assembly had walked out in disagreement with the majority of about 75% appointed by the newly elected Egyptian parliament, which has an absolute majority for the Muslim Brotherhood party of Morsi. The deadline for the constitutional assembly completing its work was extended 2 months. A key demand of the opposition was that the work of the constitutional assembly was being rushed. Morsi also replaced the Mubarak appointed public prosecutor with Ibrahim Talaat, a leader for the movement for judicial independence, and ordered a new trial of Mubarak and others involved in the death of democracy protesters. The decrees were announced just as a ceasefire arranged by Morsi and U.S. president Obama has taken effect in the Israel-Gaza conflict. Morsi placed his actions above judicial oversight saying they were temporary. This came under heavy criticism from the opposition to Morsi in Egypt, as a threat to the gains from the hard fought freedom fight by creating a situation where too many powers are concentrated in one person....

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Pulitzer prize winning journalist reporting on the Middle East and Saudi Arabia, Karen Elliott House, describes the changes in Saudi society and politics against the backdrop of the changes in the Middle East. Her exceptional reporting and insights provide a look into the Middle East at a time when young people make up the largest demographic and are looking for jobs and economic opportunity, with political structures lagging far behind in meeting the growing aspirations. The larger backdrop of the region extends into South Asia, with large Muslim populations unable to make the right choices for freedom and economic progress because of internal divisions, widespread illiteracy and lack of education of the rural population, and poor leadership. The lag affects western society in different ways, including the threat of terrorism, sporadic involvement in the region's conflicts, and a sense of not being able to do the right thing by its own ideals.

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Sarkozy says he has spoken on the phone with Abdel Basset, the head of the main Syrian opposition group, and had found many similiarities between the situation in Syria and the situation in Libya. Former French president Sarkozy took the initiative to help Libya's democracy movement in its struggle against the Gaddafi regime. It was only after Sarkozy's support with French airpower that other western nations joined the effort. It also came at a critical moment in the struggle where a few days could make all the difference in the outcome. French newspapers published remarks from other opposition leaders calling for president Hollande to provide more support to the democracy movement in Syria.

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Israeli public officials believe the poor socio-economic conditions and the need to keep foreign aid and investment will be deciding factor after presidential elections in Egypt, regardless of who wins. The Muslim Brotherhood candidate Morsi is also likely to keep the Israel-Egypt peace treaty for this reason, even though differences with Israel remain.

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French surgeon, Dr Jacques Beres, who is 71, was one of the founders of Medecins San Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders. He operated on 89 people in Homs and Homs province, during the attack on the region by forces loyal to President Bashar of Syria. Hager, Hodge and Rouselle give an account of the efforts to save lives by Dr. Beres. His trip to Syria was supported by the France-Syria Democracy group and by UAM93, which represents Muslim associations in the Paris suburb of Seine St-Dennis. Dr. Beres told the French radio network RTL that he was sad, and that he saw useless suffering in Homs, with cruelty and meanness for children and families.

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The British parliament defeated a measure put forward by prime minister Cameron for military response to the chemical weapons attack in Syria in August 2013. The vote against British intervention was 285 to 272 with members of his own party and Liberals voting against the measure. The case put forward by Cameron was based on humanitarian grounds, and to prevent the use of chemical weapons in the future. Under pressure from politicians from all parties Cameron decided to put this to a vote in parliament following a debate on Aug. 29, 2013. In calling for the vote Cameron said he was deeply mindful of the deep concerns about Britain's intervention in Iraq in 2003.

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Khairat el-Shatar, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. He was the main voice for the Brotherhood for many years and guided its direction to a movement that supports moderation and modernization. He also guided the Brotherhood in its participation in electoral politics in the Mubarak days and recently in the elections for the new parliament. He is also a businessman and provides financial support to the Brotherhood.

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Tom Wright shows the results of an examination by the WSJ of the operations of 1Malaysia Development Fund BhD, setup in 2009 for economic development. This report shows lack of transparency and use of the state owned and operated fund to indirectly help the ruling UMNO party and prime minister Najib Razak in the tight 2013 Malaysian general elections. The 1MDB fund is becoming a huge controversy in Malaysia as the former head of the UNMO party and prime minister for 22 years Mr. Mahathir Mohammed, and the opposition parties in Malaysia, are questioning the lack of transparency at 1MDB fund and misuse of funds. Prime minister Najib Razak is chairman of the board of advisors of the fund. The problem is serious because of the $11 billion in debt of the fund- and the need to reschedule debt repayments. The financial report of the fund of March 31, 2014 shows interest costs taking up half of revenues. A $260 million emergency credit was provided by the government in 2015, and a Abu Dhabi state fund provided $1 billion, in an effort to meet loan repayments. Moody's Investors Service and private investment funds see the government eventually coming up with a bailout of 1MDB. Malaysia's currency the ringgit has lost 6% of its value in the first 6 months of 2015, and foreign investors are taking funds out of the country. On the questions of transparency the WSJ examination shows a questionable deal with the Genting Group which owns a casino in New York, and $ 4 billion casino in Las Vegas, plantations, real estate, and power plants in Malaysia. In one deal between Genting and 1MDB, a 75% interest in a power plant near Kuala Lumpur was bought at highly inflated prices, according to the WSJ examination. Genting is shown to have helped the UMNO in the Najib 2013 election campaign. 1MDB has also raised money just before the 2013 election with a $3 billion bond offering arranged by Goldman Sachs in March 2013. The United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party which openly favors Malays has ruled Malaysia for all the years since independence from Britain in 1957. In the 2013 election a key battleground was in Penang state which went to the opposition Democratic Action Party, and the UMNO failed to get a majority of the vote. It held onto government through electoral rules that gave a higher number of parliamentary seats for the rural areas where UMNO draws large support. The situation in Malaysia is unusual because power has shifted to opposition parties in most of the countries in the region- Indonesia, Philippines following dictatorships, Pakistan and Bangladesh following military rule, India and Japan following a long spell under the Congress party and the LDP. Only in Malaysia and Singapore have the UMNO and the PAP party of Lee Kuan Yew held on for almost 6 decades, by keeping opposition parties weak and not allowing a two party system to develop. Indonesia, another Muslim country, has moved ahead with free and fair elections with the recent election of Widodo as president, leading to significant efforts to improve infrastructure development and other parts of the economy. Experts say healthy two party systems and free elections provide economic benefits by giving voters a choice between competing economic plans for the future, as is seen in the higher future growth prospects under new leadership for India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, the Philippines, and including Japan with the shift back to the LDP with Abe. Corruption, lack of transparency, and poor management of the economy, are major issues with entrenched parties. ...