Anyone with a brain or a heart cannot help but be deeply disturbed by the unending and seemingly accelerating torrent of grim -- sometimes horrifying -- stories emanating from the Middle East. This week's gruesome, heartbreaking news of the beheading of American photojournalist James Foley is shocking evidence to this effect. 

Egypt's generals appear to have an awfully short memory. A year after they massacred supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood in the streets of Cairo, they have some advice for American authorities on how to handle the spiraling unrest in Ferguson, Mo.

Barack Obama may recall a tricky moment when he first met King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia five years ago. Bending to shake hands with the octogenarian monarch, the taller American appeared to bow deeply. Republican snipers in America gleefully blasted the president for “kowtowing” to rich Arabs.

Arab leaders openly feuded over the region's most intractable problems at their annual summit on Tuesday, particularly the inability to resolve Syria's civil war and anger at Qatar for its support of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Saudi royal decree against terrorism in February 2014, and later the Interior Ministry declaration in March banning several Islamist groups, can be considered as the general framework of the new security doctrine that will govern the behavior of the Saudi government in the coming period.

The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) had not fully recovered from last November's disagreement between Saudi Arabia and Oman when it was hit by a deeper rift involving Qatar. 

"The good times are over," a Doha-based diplomat told me glumly last week, as if foretelling the political earthquake about to hit Qatar. On March 5, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain announced in a joint statement that they were withdrawing their ambassadors from Doha -- a move that escalates their long-running feud with the tiny, gas-rich emirate to its most fraught point in recent memory.

Egypt is spiraling toward instability and radicalization. Since last summer’s coup, the military-backed regime has used brute force to try to restore peace and manage its form of “democratic transition.” But its repressive strategy to physically eliminate political opponents, restore stability and end society’s acute polarization is backfiring.