Political Quotes

“When a Tunisian fruit vendor set himself on fire nearly 3 years ago to protest his lack of economic opportunity and maltreatment at the hands of local police, his desperate act touched off a political revolution that has convulsed the Arab world from the Maghreb to the Gulf. First in Tunisia and then in Egypt, popular protests toppled long- serving autocrats while Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi was ousted by NATO-backed rebels. Elsewhere, from Bahrain to Syria, regimes have proven more resilient and, in several cases, willing to use extreme levels of violence to maintain their survival. So, in the waning months of the third year of what has been dubbed the ``Arab Spring,'' the future of a large swath of the global community remains uncertain. With Egypt under military control and Syria ablaze, it is not surprising that many here in the United States and elsewhere in the West view each new development with concern that an already volatile region could spiral completely out of control. The situation in Syria is undoubtedly grim and Egypt faces a prolonged period of instability, but the news is not uniformly bad. In Tunisia, the Islamist government, headed by the Enhadda Party, has acceded to opposition demands that it hand over power to a caretaker government and schedule new elections.…”