America on the sidelines -- another reading for Islamic Civilization

Here's an informative and opinionated post from Tomdispatch.com. The most striking passage:

Arab regimes most closely allied to the U.S. face mounting crises of legitimacy at home, damned not only by their authoritarianism, but also by their paralysis in the face of U.S. and Israeli violence against Arab populations. Delivering the Palestinians to statehood is now seen by those regimes as essential to their own domestic political survival.