Social media users can easily mobilize demonstrations of millions in Tahrir Square and elsewhere in Egypt. However, to see the real prospects for political and economic reforms, we must examine the nature of the grass-root movement, the core issues that the newly-emerging governments face and the choices they are likely to make.

If Iran today has substantial soft power in the Middle East—as we believe it does—it has that power in no small part because it has picked winners rather than losers as its allies in key regional theaters.

Guangzhou's new Waqqas Mosque is one of many of China's recent forays into Islamic infrastructure -- a market that promises to earn Beijing as much in soft power with the resource-rich Muslim world as it does contract revenues.

“We shouldn’t be afraid to speak out, to say what we believe in. There are enough people who support us and they want to hear it from us. We shouldn’t be apologetic all the time. We should be strong and right, and that’s the message we’re sending from the Knesset.”

Israel has changed its attitude toward the Diaspora and is more interested in a relationship of equals than it was before. Speaking at the Women’s International Zionist Organization’s Enlarged General Meeting, the Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister boasted that the government not only accepts donations from Jews living abroad but also invests in them.

Thus, one should not be very optimistic about the US ability to create effective linkages with the nascent civilian governments of the region, not even Turkey's. It is “INT'L 101” level knowledge that the main US weakness is public diplomacy.

APDS Blogger: Hend Alhinnawi

Al Jazeera's English-language news channel reaches an estimated 220 million households worldwide. Currently celebrating its fifth anniversary, even its fiercest critics have come to acknowledge both its increasing global impact and, more recently, its indispensable role in covering the wave of revolutionary ferment sweeping the Middle East.