With the rise of al-Qaeda, increasingly repressive regimes, and weak, even collapsing states, the Arab Spring is looking more and more like a nightmare for U.S. security interests. Perhaps, then, it makes some sense that the Obama administration would increase security assistance to the Middle East, from 69 percent of the total budget request for 2014 to 80 percent. However, this also entails a significant reduction in democracy assistance to the region, which will drop from $459.2 million to $298.3 million. Congress might further deepen these cuts.

Egypt’s deposed government filed a complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC), requesting investigations into what it described as crimes committed by the military against its members. The complaint accused the military of staging a coup d’etat against the country’s first elected president Mohamed Morsi and his government, which was followed by the detention of its members and the usage of “extreme force to remove civilians who gathered to protest against the coup."

While bombings in Baghdad killed at least 34 people Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said America would help Iraq battle the al Qaeda militants that overtaken two of the nation’s western cities — but emphasized that the fight belonged to them. Kerry said that the U.S. was concerned over the mounting violence in the Anbar province, where al Qaeda militants have overtaken the capital city of Ramadi as well as Fallujah, USA Today reports. But he cautioned that intervention was not an option.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry landed in Israel yesterday for the 10th time in less than a year. Shortly afterward, he made clear what has become more evident over the past month – that, within a few weeks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will have to make decisions that will determine whether the peace process is on the verge of a historic breakthrough or on the road to failure and a dangerous blowup.

Iran is a country of many contradictions. You have have heard that before. Unrelated men and women aren't allowed to mingle freely, yet they find a way to do so. Women are required to cover their hair, but many cover it in a way that becomes a fashion statement. There are many others. Here's another contradiction: Iranian officials — including the President Hassan Rouhani and foreign minister Javad Zarif — are frequent users of social media. Yet Iranian citizens are officially banned from signing up.

Egypt’s government has arrested four journalists working for Al Jazeera English in Cairo. Police took Peter Greste, a correspondent from Australia, Cairo bureau chief Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, who has Canadian and Egyptian citizenship, and producer Baher Mohamed and cameraman Mohamed Fawzy, both Egyptian, into custody on Sunday. Egyptian police accused the men of “broadcasting news that threatens internal security and spreading false news.”

More than two-thirds of the Iranian parliament has signed on to a bill that would accelerate Iran’s nuclear program if Congress adopts new sanctions legislation, official news agencies said. The bill would direct Iran’s nuclear agency to enrich uranium to 60%, close to the 90% needed for the material to be used as nuclear bomb fuel. It is currently enriched to a maximum of 20%. The legislation also calls for the start-up of Iran’s partially built Arak heavy-water nuclear reactor.

The Huffington Post headline “Saboteur Sen. Launching War Push” on December 19 and the enraged Jewish reactions to it escaped intense scrutiny because of end-of-the-year vacations and the media’s need to sum up 2013. The incendiary headline, however, should serve as a shot across the bow, intended or not, about the malevolent maelstrom that could engulf the American Jewish establishment in the wake of its unequivocal and nearly unanimous support for new sanctions on Iran.