How ironic that a regime that so insistently perpetuated the cult of martyrdom may itself become undone with the aid of an Iranian martyr: a 26-year-old woman named Neda Agha-Solton.

 With images of fatally wounded Neda's bloodied face ricocheting around Iran and the world via the Internet, her tragic death exactly a week ago instantly made her the symbol of Iran's extraordinary protests. The regime appears increasingly successful at crushing the demonstrations, which erupted two weeks ago to protest apparent election fraud that enabled President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to win re-election to a second term. Yet Neda's memory will be a significant influence on Iran's future.

 The main reason is that Neda's killing utterly exposed the repression that has increasingly underpinned Iran's regime and thus ups the stakes for continuing to employ that repression. For most of the years since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran's rulers have been able to justify repression in the name of going after counter-revolutionaries or blocking foreign conspiracies. Freedom activists like Akbar Ganji and Emad Baghi were jailed, and student protesters were roughed up, but generally the regime managed to use fear to keep dissenters in check without upsetting the public at large. Now, that has completely changed. For the first time since the Revolution, the regime found it necessary to unleash the full brunt of the basij, the paramilitary group seen in the videos beating and dragging away fellow Iranians and Muslims. Neda is really not so much the symbol of the protests as she is a symbol of the repression that crushed peaceful demonstrations.

  The brutality that killed Neda, furthermore, powerfully reinforces the growing challenge to the regime's claim for the right to rule, putting its hold on power on notice as never before. The Islamic regime's legitimacy has been steadily slipping ever since the death of the father of the revolution, Ayatullah Khomeini, 20 years ago.  It received a boost in 1997, when a liberal cleric, Mohammed Khatami, captured the imagination of millions of Iranian voters and won a landslide victory. However, the ability of hard-line religious and military organs to block Khatami's reform agenda left a multitude of Iranians disillusioned—until this year's presidential election. Many voters put their hopes in a Khatami ally, former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Moussavi, only to be outraged, as Moussavi himself was, when it appeared the outcome was stolen for the benefit of hard-liner Ahmadinejad's re-election. Moussavi's rejection of the results and call for protests amounted to the single greatest act of defiance of the regime in 30 years. Coming from a loyal participant in the system itself, the challenge had the effect of exposing the naked grab for power by some surrounding the Supreme Leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, whose standing evaporated overnight when he blessed Ahmadinejad's victory. The brutality that killed Neda threatens to erode whatever legitimacy Khamenei and the regime have left.

 Neda, as it happens, means “voice” in Farsi, and she's being called the Voice of Iran. Certainly, her death—either at the hands of a basiji or perhaps an unknown sniper-- angers the generation of women and young people who have been at the forefront of the protests. The regime may have proved itself capable of securing the election outcome and quelling the protests. But the last two weeks have put Iran on an irreversible course of change. After the protests and the death of a daughter and sister like Neda, Iranians will be far more skeptical about the Islamic regime. The regime, in turn, must know that it will have to reform, or else wait for the inevitable deluge. The regime continues to tout the martyrs of Hizballah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine, but the Iranian victims of the regime's  basij squads are the martyrs that Iranians truly care about.

 Neda was born in 1982. She had known nothing but the Islamic Republic. She took singing lessons and worked at a travel agency, a typical member of a young generation that wants more freedom at home and to live in harmony with the world. The streets that bore witness to protests against the U.S.-backed Shah three decades ago have been filled with Iranians whose demands for change are now directed at the Islamic regime. It's hard to see how they can be long ignored, especially in an age where an Iranian woman's martyrdom can be witnessed by millions around the world with the click of a computer or cell phone.

 --By Scott MacLeod

A few readers raised the very reasonable complaint that none of us has blogged about the events in Iran. You're right. A few feeble excuses: Andrew was in Saudi, Scott back in the U.S. and I was traveling through Lebanon and Syria.  This may come as something of a shock to a few of the commentators, who actually think that I just rip stories out of the Israeli newspapers and re-cycle them as my own, but I actually find it hard, not to mention pointless, to write about things and places of which I have no immediate, first-hand knowledge. Iran is one of them. The last time I was there was in 2005, when I hiked up to the castle of the Assassins on a windy crag outside Teheran.

So I don't want to add to the hysterical and often wildly inaccurate punditry about Iran. It was infuriating watching how CNN  flailed to stretch a meaningless scrap of Youtube video of a street demo  into  something portentious.

What I can tell you about, though, is how it all went down in Syria, a close ally of the ayatollahs. If you were following the local TV and newspapers in Syria, you'd think there was no uprising in Iran and that Ahmedinejad was more popular in Iran than Elvis in Memphis, with perhaps a slightly less flamboyant taste in windbreakers.

That's no surprise, really. In the Middle East, there are a few, more than a few, autocrats who  must be alarmed about the groundswell of reform surging through Iran. These leaders sitting on their ornate but uncomfortable thrones must be wondering what's going on beyond their palace walls, in the bazaars and in the universities inside their own little kingdoms and republics. I'm sure the secret police reassure them that they are much loved by their subjects, and then, as proof,  they run out and erect even more giant portraits or statues of their heroic leader. But if these despots have any sense at all, they have to be worried about the reformist movement in Iran. The difference is, in these other Middle Eastern countries, any democratic change would probably bring in the Islamists, as happened in the Palestinian territories.

Going back to when I was in Teheran…  It was after witnessing some annoying piece of behavior by an Iranian Pasdaran –-scolding a schoolgirl for letting a lock of her hair slip from her hijab-- that I turned to my Iranian friend. “Could there ever be another uprising here?” My friend had left Britain at 16 to return to Iran after the fall of the Shah. Those were euphoric, revolutionary days. But they didn't last long. The revolution turned on itself, as they often do, and my friend found himself in prison. When the Iran-Iraq war broke out, the ayatollahs emptied the prisons and sent the undesirables to the front-line as cannon fodder. By luck, my friend survived, but it gave him a lasting wariness towards violent regime change. Any Iranian who survived those tormented times must be aware of the consequences: uprisings and popular movements have a nasty habit of spinning out of control and are inevitably hijacked by extremists. Be careful what you wish for in Iran.

By Tim McGirk/Jerusalem

Republican critics of the Obama Administration are having a field day with the crisis in Iran. To them, Obama's less than forceful criticism of the Iranian government's crackdown on protesters  in Tehran smacks of the lack of resolve typical of Democrats. Some have compared Obama to Jimmy Carter, whose bungled handling of the hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 irreparably hurt his presidency. Others have noted the the popular uprising in Tehran is a vindication of the Bush Administrations confrontational policies towards Iran, and the former President's emphasis on bring democracy to the Middle East, if necessary by force.

But the reality is that there isn't much that the Obama Administration can do to put pressure on Iran that hasn't already been tried. The U.S. already has sanctions in place. The two countries haven't had diplomatic relations since 1979. Most Iranian assets in the U.S. have long been frozen. The U.S. has already designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp -- the highly politicized miltary wing most likely overseeing the crackdown on opposition protests -- as a terrorist organization. And already the U.S. government spends millions of dollars a year on regime-change propaganda and covert operations inside Iran.

These policies failed to change Iranian behavior in the past. Iran's nuclear program continues apace, and Iran continues to support what the U.S. considers to be terrorist groups -- Hamas and Hizballah. Tough talk has back-fired too. Fundamentalist leaders in Iran have been cracking down on reformists ever since Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech in 2002.

And there's no reason to believe that a harder line would work in the future. America's interference in Iranian domestic affairs have made it easy for the allies of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to portray those protesting his re-election as tools of U.S. counter-revolutionary elements. To many of his supporters that makes sense. After all, the CIA engineered a coup that retuned the hated Shah of Iran to power in 1953, and today U.S. funding earmarked for covert operations may in fact be leaking its way into the hands of al-Qaeda linked terrorists inside Iran responsible for a domestic bombing campaign.

The legacy of Bush doctrine's have limited even U.S. military options against Iran. Should the U.S. (or Israel) have a go at Iran's nuclear development sites, or at key regime strongholds, Iranian sponsored-militias can retaliate against American soldiers still stuck in Iraq.

The truth is that the Obama Administration seems be playing the only hand it has by trying to settle the unresolved conflicts of the Middle East that have helped autocratic regimes stay in power. If it didn't have economic sanctions by the great Great Satan to blame, the Iranian government would have a harder time explaining to its people why the oil-rich country is running out of money. If the Palestinian people had their own sustainable state, it would be harder for the Iranian government to portray itself as the bulwark against a Zionist and American plan to subjugate Muslims.

It's tempting to see the Twittering, Facebooking, video-uploading demonstrators in Tehran as natural allies of American values who deserve our support. But their true strength isn't their tech savvy or liberalism, but the metaphors of resistance that are truly Iranian, Islamic, and Shiite: the right of the people to stand up to oppression, and courage in the face of impossible odds. Americans can add little directly to the ideological battle taking place in Iran; but if we really want to see change in Iran, we can start by changing ourselves.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut

Arriving in Saudi Arabia for the first time is initially anti-climactic. I guess I was expecting Riyadh, the capital of this fabulously wealthy desert kingdom, to have a little more bling. In reality, Riyadh has just two tall buildings, including the iconic Kingdom Center (pictured left.) Not much to compare with with Dubai's skyscraper alley -- Sheik Zayed Road, and the world tallest building, Burj Dubai. Riyadh's airport and many major government buildings have a distinctly 70's concrete-style, relics of the first big oil boom.

The retro-feel of Riyadh is partly explainable by the fact that while Dubai was a 24-contruction lot during the recent oil boom, Saudi Arabia was suffering through an al Qaeda terrorist campaign: not a great time to be building glass houses. Saudis also tend to be less inclined to overt displays of wealth than Gulfies (I saw a Maserati on the road yesterday, which made me realise how comparatively few such sports cars there are) in part because wealthy Saudis do need to be more concerned about public opinion and income inequality than the Gulf city states, where most inhabitants are foreigners.

But it's also because Saudi Arabia -- which almost went bankrupt during the 90's when oil prices were low -- had much more retrained fiscal and banking policies during the most recent boom than the go-go Gulfies. Now that the Saudi government's new counter-terrorism campaign has pushed much of al Qaeda's insurgent network out of the country (mostly to Yemen), and now that Dubai dizzying real estate boom has fallen back to earth, boring old Riyadh is starting to re-assert itself. The city is expanding universities and hospitals. planning its own Silicon Valley-style technology center. and planning a huge new financial center, which could be the home of the future central bank for the future common currency of the Gulf (if that finally happens.)

There are, however, no plans for nightclubs. Word is that King Abdullah has been clamping down on the illegal alcohol trade, either through better border and customs security, or else by putting pressure on powerful families previously immune from the law. A black market bottle of Johnnie Walker has jumped from about $100 to $250. One could really die of thirst here in the desert.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Riyadh

So far most Arab leaders have reacted to the Iranian electoral crisis in typical Middle Eastern fashion: they haven't. Amir Moussa, the head of the Arab League, took one for the team and made this non-statement statement: "We hope that the next term will witness progress on the relations between Iran and the Arab world and co-operation in establishing peace in the Middle East." Other than such empty formalities, there has been an awkward silence from most Arab capitals.

Which is no doubt pragmatic. Tensions between Iran and much of the Arab world are already bad enough. Ever since the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, America's Arab allies -- especially Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia -- have been ringing the alarm bell about the rise of Iranian power in the Middle East. Besides the age-old animosity between these mostly Sunni Muslim countries and their ethnic and sectarian rivals in Shia Muslim Persia, they worry that Iran's support for radical anti-Israeli and anti-American groups in the region is destabilizing their hold on their own countries, who populations are less moderate than their governments.

So on the surface at least, the surprise victory of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would seem to be a blow to the Arab countries circling the wagons against Iran. But it may actually make their job much easier.

Like the Israeli right and neo-conservatives in America, the leaders of moderate Arab states have been concerned that the Obama Administration's plans to engage Iran would leave them out in the cold. But with Ahmadinejad returning to power, it's going to be much easier for them to keep their fingers pointed at the Islamic Republic. Although the policies of the defeated reform candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi would not have been much different from Ahmadinejad's, and though Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei controls foreign policy, Ahmadinejad, with his Holocaust denials and his outspoken support for Iran's nuclear program, is the poster boy of the Persian threat.

And in fact, an Ahmadinejad victory tainted by allegations of fraud by Iran's defeated reformers may be the best of all outcomes. One of the reasons that Saudi Arabia and other Arab governments are afraid of Iran is that for all the flaws of the Islamic Republic's clerical democracy, Iran's citizens have much more of a voice and effect on their country's power structure than do the citizens of Arab dictatorships, according to Mohammad Al-Qahtani, a reform advocate and economics professor at the Saudi foreign ministry's diplomatic training institute, whom I met today. "Iran's power comes from its democracy," he said. Watching Iran's democracy self-combust is enough to make an Arab oligarch smile.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Riyadh

 “I am the absolute winner of the election by a very large margin. It is our duty to defend people's votes. There is no turning back.”

 Challenger Mir Hossein Moussavi spoke those words before the Iranian regime announced that he had been roundly defeated in Iran's presidential election by the controversial, hard-line incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A statement on Moussavi's website later called on his supporters to resist “lies and dictatorship.”

 Moussavi is correct in saying “there is no turning back.” Thirty years after the Islamic Revolution, the Iranian regime has cracked. The fault lines have been there for years, certainly since the stunning upset victory by reformist Mohammed Khatami in the 1997 presidential election. But the crack has never been so palpable as today. The whoosh you hear is the sound of the last remnants of revolutionary legitimacy being sucked away by a young generation that is web-connected to the outside world and doesn't buy the slogans any more.

  Even some of the most astute Iran-watchers are taken aback. "I don't think anyone anticipated this level of fraudulence,” says Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “This was a selection, not an election. At least authoritarian regimes like Syria and Egypt have no democratic pretenses. In retrospect it appears this entire campaign was a show: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wasn't ever going to let Ahmadinejad lose." Says Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council. “The disappointment and disorientation of people in Iran that I've spoken to is unmistakable.” Parsi suggested even Khamenei's role in the results is unclear. “Khamenei, most experts agree, is addicted to the perception of legitimacy for himself and the system,” he explains. “But this coup does away with any chances for such legitimacy. Indeed, it is difficult to see why he would view this situation as terribly favorable.”

The regime's security apparatus may be strong enough to withstand the outpouring of street anger we're seeing. Nonetheless, a page has turned in Iranian history. Here's why.

 Mohammed Khatami won an astounding 20.7 million votes in 1997 and was re-elected easily with 21.6 million in 2001. Nobody disputed those results, or could. The wave of support for Khatami and the hunger for reform and change in Iran was unmistakable.

 The 2005 election was a different story. After reformists were prevented from standing up a serious contender, the poll came down to a race between two pragmatic, middle of the road old-timers—former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and former Speaker Mehdi Karroubi. Ahmadinejad. the mayor of Tehran, a populist and an ideological hard-liner, snuck into second place in an election marked by widespread cynicism toward traditional Iranian politicians. He pulled in a mere 5.7 million votes amid accusations of ballot stuffing that prevented the better known Karroubi from capturing the No. 2 spot. Ahmadinejad then won the mandated run-off against the widely despised Rafsanjani, but with only 17.2 million votes in the two-man race.

 Now, the second presidential election in a row is under a dark cloud of suspicion. Ahmadinejad had managed to boost his domestic popularity in the early days of his presidency by skillfully turning the standoff with the West over Iran's nuclear program into a nationalist cause that appealed to Iranians across the political spectrum. But his mishandling of the economy, dangerous provocations toward the West and feuds with other Iranian politicians undermined his support in public opinion. In the campaign, Moussavi, a former prime minister with solid revolutionary credentials, attracted a strong following by challenging Ahmadinejad's direction. He openly called Ahmadinejad an extremist, arguing that Iran needed to pursue a policy of détente with the West in the name of Iranian national interests. Ahmadinejad doubtless has important support across Iran, but it is certainly questionable that he had the strength to pull off a Khatami-style landslide victory.

 It remains to be seen how the dispute over election fraud will be resolved. Whatever the case, Ahmadinejad may have won the election but the regime has lost much.  When he voted in Tehran Friday morning, Supreme Leader Khamenei praised, as he always does on these occasions, the “people's awareness.” But as the results of the election were announced, the regime's security forces were on the streets of Tehran battling angry demonstrators, a rare scene in Iran, some of them chanting “Death to the dictator!” That's a far cry from 1979, when the streets reverberated with the slogan, “Death to America!”

 --By Scott MacLeod

In a surprising boost for the Obama Administration Middle East agenda, Lebanon's American-backed ruling coalition maintained its majority in parliament after the country voted in record numbers yesterday. 

Over half of the country's eligible voters turned out for a contest between a government that came to power in 2005 after a popular uprising against the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, and an opposition movement led by the militant group Hizballah and backed by Iran and Syria.  Though many polls had shown that a Hizballah victory was likely, in the end the government won 71 of parliament's 128 seats, against 57 for the opposition.

Even before it took place, it was clear that the country's Christian voters would decide the election. Unlike Sunni Muslims who have solidly backed the government, and Shia Muslims who have lined up behind Hizballah and other opposition parties, Christians have been split. Traditional westward-looking Christian parties supported the American-backed government, while a breakaway party led by former general Michael Aoun gambled that the best way to protect the dwindling Christian presence in Lebanon was to look east towards Syrian, Iran, and the rising tide of Shia Islam in the region.

But that alliance appears to have cost Aoun. Many Christians were alienated by Hizballah's use of force last spring, when it brought out its militant wing on the streets of Beirut to fight political parties loyal to the government. While maintaining power in some Christian districts, and while he still leads one of the largest Christian blocs in the country, Aoun's allies lost heavily in the populous Christian areas of east Beirut and the Bekaa Valley town of Zahle.  

Because the country is so diverse, and because the region's major players often fight out their political and military disputes here, Lebanon is often regarded as a bellwether for the Middle East. In that sense, it would appear that the region is taking a step back from the radicalism that coincided with the Bush Administration's invasion of Iraq and its pointed neglect of the Arab-Israeli peace process. 

That could help the Obama Administration in its push for a regional peace settlement. The Administration can avoid the difficult question of how to continue aiding a country that is nominally run by a group that it considers to be a terrorist organization. Before the election, Israeli officials said that a Hizballah win in Lebanon would make that country a "terror state." A win by the pro-American government would appear to diffuse some of the tension between Lebanon and Israel. For now.

The question is whether this settles the Lebanese political crisis, which began in the aftermath of the 2006 war between Hizballah and Israel. Hizballah and its supporters accused the governing coalition of cooperating with an American plan to disarm the group. Those concerns are not going to go away, and, as the largest party in Lebanon, and as the world's most successful guerilla organization, neither is Hizballah.

One of Hizballah's demands during those demonstrations against the government was that the group should have at least a "blocking minority" in the cabinet, so that it could veto any major government decisions, especially those attempting to weaken Hizballah's military power.

By law, all of the country's religious groups must be represented in the government cabinet. And since opposition parties have a virtual lock on Shia representation, it would appear that the opposition will have to play at least a small role in the new government.  So far, leaders from the ruling coalition have been offering the opposition representation in the cabinet, but without the blocking veto.

 --By Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut

Today's  election in Lebanon has been billed as one of the most important in the country's history, and it certainly feels that way. Polling stations have been packed this morning, and the country is on a military semi-lockdown. Nightclubs and bars closed early last night, and almost everything else has been shut since. 

The electoral battle lines are drawn between a Hizballah-led opposition coalition that is hoping to oust the American supported ruling coalition that has been in power since the 2005 Cedar Revolution pushed the Syria -- on of Hizballah's main patron states -- out of Lebanon.

Pre-election polls have shown that the opposition is poised to increase its role in whatever new government is formed. Outright victory for Hizballah would culminate an almost three years struggle to bring down a government that it views as an accomplice to an American project to disarm the group's anti-Israeli armed wing.

That struggle turned violent last May, when Hizballah militants and forces loyal to government clashed in the streets of Beirut. Though Hizballah made quick work of its foes, such use of force alienated some of the supporters of a breakaway Christian party that allied itself with the Shia Muslim Resistance group. Today's contest will largely be decided by the extent to which the Hizballah opposition can hold on to its Christian voters.

A victory for Hizballah would put the Obama administration in a quandary: Can it keep supporting a country that is nominally run by what the U.S. considers a terrorist organization? So far American officials have only said that they will review American aid to Lebanon if Hizballah wins.

No matter which side wins today, Lebanon's future will be turbulent. The country is divided between those who would like it to be a Western-oriented country open to business and tourism, and those who see Lebanon as the front-line in the defense against American and Israeli power in the Middle East. That's a question that won't be solved by one election. Even if Hizballah loses at the polls, its military wing isn't going anywhere.

By Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut

Politician's wives at a rally for the Lebanese Forces and other Christian parties on Wednesday night in East Beirut.

Though Election Day isn't until Sunday, Lebanon has already gone on holiday to get ready. Many Lebanese are worried that the contest -- billed as one of the most important in this country's history -- could turn violent. Which is understandable considering that the years since the last election in 2005 have been marked by tumult, war, and political crisis.

But there are a few factors that mitigate against serious violence. (Fingers crossed.)

As part of the Doha agreement last spring that stopped the fighting that broke out between Hizballah and the parties backing the American-supported government, there won't be competitive races in those neighborhoods in Beirut where tensions ran highest.

Also, there isn't going to be much competition in the country as a whole. After four years or so of political upheaval, most Lebanese know where they stand, most Lebanese vote according to their sectarian bloc, and most of those sectarian blocs are geographically fixed -- the Bekka Valley and the South are mostly Shia, Tripoli and Sidon mostly Sunni, Mt Lebanon mostly Christian, etc.  And with the exception of Christians, most of Lebanon's sects are united behind one or two political parties.

The only real competition is among Lebanese Christians, who are split between the traditional parties such as the Lebanese Forces -- who are part of the American-backed ruling coalition --  and a breakaway faction led by former General Michael Aoun -- who had a huge following in the last election in 2005 when he split away from the mainstream Christian groups. Now it remains to be seen if his followers are happy with the new political company he keeps -- Hizballah and the Syrian and Iranian backed opposition.

But even though fist fights break out all the time between Christian parties, so far they are drawing the line at gun play. Perhaps that's because the intra-Christian conflict isn't sectarian (ie between Greek Orthodox and Maronites, for example) but political. So it's common for Christian families to be split between Aounists and the LF; and families aren't ready to shoot each other... yet.

But the most important reason that there won't be big trouble in little Lebanon is that trouble is in no one's interest right now. War usually breaks out when regional powers decide to use Lebanon's fragile sectarian political system to fight out their disagreements here rather than in their own countries. But right now, most of the regional players are in talking mode, or talking about talking, or at least holding their fire. It's now Obama engagement time. But it's when -- sorry, if -- talking fails that Lebanese should run for cover.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut

 In referring to conflict and religious wars that have marred relations between Islam and the West over the centuries, President Obama's Cairo speech mentioned the problems of colonialism and great power rivalries in more recent times. “Tension,” Obama said, “has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations.” The reference struck a chord with his Middle East audience, and reminded me of the story of “Roosevelt's erection.”

 Arabs are habitually frustrated by Western interference in their affairs. Colonialism, imperialism—call it what you like, but for the last century, Arabs have lived with burdens ranging from outright occupation and control of their countries to meddling in the form of support or opposition, depending on how it suited the West's interests, of the Middle East's autocratic regimes.

 Egypt has been at the center of “The Game of Nations,” as it was aptly described in a 1969 book of that title by former CIA operative Miles Copeland. American meddling in Cairo dates back, ironically, 99 years when Teddy Roosevelt, having just finished his presidency, delivered a speech at the future Cairo University—where Obama spoke Thursday. Roosevelt infuriated Egyptian nationalists by supporting the British occupation of the country and deeming Egyptians unprepared for independence or democracy.

 Flash forward to the 1950s, when Col. Gamal Abdul Nasser decided Egyptians were ready for independence and overthrew the British-backed monarchy and took power in a military coup.  Initially, the Eisenhower administration was inclined to see Nasser as a potential asset in the Cold War.  The problem was that Nasser was more interested in getting British hands off Egypt than he was in fighting the Soviets. For all the follies and disastrous missteps of his rule, Nasser primarily wanted to achieve Egypt's independence and restore dignity after decades of British control. Although he cordially began talks on accepting U.S. military aid, Nasser grew steadily defiant of the West and drew closer to the Soviets after the creation of the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact. In retaliation, Eisenhower cut off funding for the Aswan Dam, Nasser nationalized the British-controlled Suez Canal, and then Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt in 1956.

 In the days when the U.S. was trying to woo Nasser to its side in the game of nations, Kermit Roosevelt Jr.—a senior CIA official and Teddy's grandson—arranged for a bribe to be handed over to Nasser in the form of $3 million cash contained in two suitcases and delivered in the dead of night. To illustrate his contempt for the Yankee maneuver, Nasser immediately used the funds to construct the Cairo Tower, a useless structure taller than the Pyramids on the Nile across from the U.S. embassy. Urban legend has it that the tower is meant to symbolize an extended middle finger directed at the American diplomatic mission in Egypt. But Nasser's aides, according to Miles Copeland, who personally handed over the suitcases, took to calling it el wa'ef Rusfel, or “Roosevelt's erection.

 It was not all downhill afterwards, however. Despite Egyptian bitterness over U.S. support for Israel in the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars, Richard Nixon enjoyed brief popularity in Egypt at the end of his scandal-plagued presidency. Two months before he resigned in the Watergate affair, Nixon received a tumultuous welcome in Cairo when he toured in the Middle East in pursuit of an Arab-Israeli peace agreement. Nasser's successor, Anwar Sadat, was a hero due to Egypt's partial success in the '73 conflict, and the country was full of hope that Nixon would help return the occupied Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. Some 1 million Egyptians lined the streets when Nixon and Sadat drove past. Nixon suspected it was partly a rent-a-crowd phenomenon, but Sadat told him, “You can bring people out, but you can't make them smile.”

 Egypt eventually got the Sinai back in the Camp David accords negotiated by Jimmy Carter. But Egyptians increasingly soured on the U.S., partly because of America's continuing tilt toward Israel but also because of Washington's automatic backing of authoritarianism in Egypt—first in support of Sadat, then since his assassination in 1981, of Hosni Mubarak.

 Thus, Barack Obama turned a page in U.S.-Egyptian history this week, moving the Game of Nations under Obama's rules instead of the Roosevelts. Of course, the last chapter remains to be written. Yet, Obama acknowledged the West's harmful policies during the colonial and Cold War eras, and proposed a new relationship based on mutual interest and respect—and that includes a committed interest in peace, and a credible respect for human rights. “I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world,” Obama said in Cairo. “We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning.” It was a day neither Teddy nor Kermit could have imagined, and one that Egypt will never forget.

 --By Scott MacLeod/Cairo