Let’s face it. The reason we’ve been glued to the TV and Internet to learn of the freedom and democracy movements in North Africa and the Middle East is not simple curiosity. There’s something palpably resonant in what is being expressed. It touches our quintessentially American, freedom-loving psyche. Deeply, as few international developments ever have. The question we must ask is whether we’re willing to provide real leadership for the brave people in those places or slide down the wrong side of history. 
Only once in a while does the world seem to pivot on events. Pearl Harbor was such a moment. 9/11 was such a moment.  And we’re in that kind of moment with this wave of popular uprisings. Notably, one thing the uprisings ALL have in common is that they’re not propelled by personalities, factions, or political parties. No “claimant” to represent the people’s wishes. It’s the people themselves, often risking life and limb, showing tremendously more courage than is being asked of us, and sadly, too often paying with their lives as they make their feelings plain.
This is about as self-evident a truth as one could hope for and it’s about time that the leaders of the “free” world do now proclaim loudly and in unison. Enough!
We must stop dithering over whether we’ll be seen as reliable allies to world leaders, or to weigh the consequences for a strategic naval base. Whether or not we get behind the common people’s ambitions in Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, Jordan, and Iran, all indications are that things won’t finish with a return to the status quo ante with a quelling of such powerfully uncontainable spirit. Failing to act will mean that indeed we will have been on the wrong side of history. Remember, strategically speaking, those places will be just as important for us after the people overthrow their oppressive rulers as they are now.
Ronald Reagan was clear. Yes, there might be détente, but an evil empire is an evil empire. Like Reagan, President Obama must demonstrate that America’s values are morally hallowed, not hollowed. Indeed, how empty might our claim now seem for bringing democracy to Iraq—one ostensible purpose of the 2003 invasion—when we said we expected a domino effect throughout the region? Is Muammar Gaddafi any less deserving of overthrow than Saddam Hussain? And no popular revolt had gathered force in Iraq’s case. Libya surely provides more clear evidence of a need than Iraq ever did.
The dominoes are falling. And they’re falling faster than anyone might have predicted. Once more, the United States of America can provide not only leadership through military force, but through the force of ideas. Now we must demonstrate that those claims about wanting democracy were genuine and that our values are not simply just so many words on aging pieces of parchment. Tourist attractions to be gawked at under bulletproof glass. They’re in our hearts and minds which is why these events resonate with us. By extension, they should be our government’s values as well. 
But in these events also lies a different kind of opportunity. We probably won’t see another chance to get on the right side of the Muslim world. A world of 1.6 billion people that has for long treasured America’s values while ruing the absence of the spirit of those values in America’s realpolitik dealings with the princes and presidents of their world. Nothing is likely to take the steam out of al-Qaeda’s recruiting engine more effectively than America’s clear, unequivocal demonstration of its own belief in democracy. Let us show the Muslim world that we do actually hold as self-evident that all people are endowed by their creator with those inalienable rights.
With the priceless aid of such uniquely American ingenuity as the iPhone, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, the people of these countries are speaking out against their oppressors while crying out for our help.  It’s time to get our political ingenuity on their side and assist them in their pursuit of happiness. Do we recall, for example that it was Morocco that first acknowledged the fledgling aspirations of the United States of America, by recognizing this country as a newborn, free, and independent nation?
So what can the Obama Administration do? It should certainly provide moral encouragement through its own considerable propaganda apparatus as in the case of Iran. It should warn those rulers of the inevitability of the outcome, to step down in an orderly fashion and not to resort to futile blood-letting. It should engage the UN more fully. (While it’s been popular to denigrate the institution in this country, these are precisely the kinds of circumstances when tough stances and even physical intervention can be given legitimacy by such a body). 
We should never forget that should the people prevail as is almost certain with the courage they’ve shown, then our failure to act will offer them more reason to despise an America that has to such a degree forgotten the meanings of its own anthems and declarations. We will stand ashamed of what we stand for if, when it comes to the crunch, all we can silently intimate is that we didn’t really mean it.