It’s a shocking historical juxtaposition. The pro-democracy movement known as the Arab Spring is in significant part a consequence of rising literacy and declining birth rates in the Mideast. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the Right is mounting a direct assault on education and a renewed war on contraception. This ought to tell us something.

The core of Obama’s speech aims to highlight the value of ordinary citizens sparking movements for change. But this focus is deceitful on many levels.

One thing will be key – whether Obama calls on Bashar al-Assad to step down. He also should press for continued reform in Egypt: an Amnesty International report shows that the interim government in Egypt is still abusing human rights, and the security agencies remain unfettered by such concerns. There will also be a nod to the Middle East peace process, and the need to restart stalled negotiations.

Erik Prince’s latest scam–to hide from the trial lawyers–involves using retired US servicemen to train Colombian mercenaries to “defend” the United Arab Emirates.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, through an advisor, made a vow prior to planned protests on Friday; he would not order protesters to be shot dead in the streets. At least, not this time. Because he’s a humanitarian. Sure, the UN estimates that 850 Syrians have died from government suppression. But today, the people will speak in a bullet-free manner.

I don’t think the protest movement had any reason to believe that.

John McCain has, on balance, a good op-ed in the Washigton Post refuting Michael Mukasey’s embrace of torture. McCain’s larger point is that our approach to the Arab Spring will have a key role in our ability to defeat terrorists, which is a point not being made vociferously enough.

For seven weeks, Fridays have been a time of protest and government repression in Syria, and despite estimates of 600 deaths during the uprising, that didn’t change today. Thousands took to the streets again in large numbers, suggesting that Bashar al-Assad’s efforts to put down the uprising are not having the intended effect.

A deal that would have had Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh leave office within thirty days fell through over the weekend, as he refused to sign the deal brokered by fellow Gulf states. The formal signing ceremony was supposed to happen today.

After pausing for a day to placate another bleating billionaire, President Obama stepped to the first microphone Thursday to announce that Leon Panetta would soon sit where Bob Gates now sits, and that David Patraeus would sit in Panetta’s old chair, and that John Allen would grab King David’s throne, and so on and so forth until someone pulled the needle off the record. At which point we were told that the president had re-tooled his national security team for the challenges that lie ahead.

But if that sounds less like re-tooling and more like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, well, that’s because it should.

Let’s make no mistake, this incursion into Deraa is a preface to a massacre, along the lines of the massacre of Benghazi that was halted by coalition airstrikes. Press Secretary Jay Carney tried a pass at describing Libya as a unique situation to prevent mass carnage, but you have tanks rolling into the streets of Deraa. That just doesn’t logically follow.

But Carney also said something else, letting his slip show. He said that Libya was unique because of the support of the Arab League. And that’s the real point here. Syria is a member of the Arab League, as was Libya until Moammar Gadhafi was expelled.