Marc Lynch to 'Moderate' Arab leaders: Get off your patouches!

I am on a Marc Lynch kick. (See two posts below.) He wrote an important article in The National, "Don't Just Watch", this week encouraging "so-called moderate Arab leaders" not to "get too comfortable" and instead to be proactive in taking advantage of recent developments, "with Obama reaching out to the Muslim world from Cairo and battling with the Israeli government over settlements, Iran imploding over its contested electoral outcome, and Hezbollah failing to unseat the March 14 coalition in Lebanon".

Arab leaders can not just sit back and relax as Obama does the work. They must reciprocate; for example, prepare for negotiations with Israel, fill the void in Iraq, develop productive, engaging, rather than confrontational, policies toward Iran.

In the end, solutions must come from within, or at least seem to come mostly from them, for them to last.

Rami Khouri on Arab reaction to Iran.

Rami Khoury writes an broad yet important synopsis of reactions in the Arab world to the situation in Iran. Sad, but true.