While these divisions, as evidenced by the racial and xenophobic violence in Libya, are real and destructive, they are not eternal. Rather, they are the result of a particular historical narrative that has constructed Arabs and Africans as intrinsically different and eternally divided.

This week, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran asserted that Iran was ready for negotiations on its nuclear (weapons) program. Indeed, he insisted that it always had been, and that European and American declarations to the contrary were, in fact, “excuses.”

In the past year, revolutions have swept through Northern Africa and the Middle East in what has been dubbed the Arab Spring. How has this wave of reformative spirit affected the condition of countries around the Middle East, either in terms of internal or diplomatic change? What do you foresee as potential reconciliation for the instability and popular dissatisfaction that persists?

Syria's Suspension