In Egypt and Tunisia, the unions are at their most influential position in decades.

The value of the Egyptian alliance is less than meets the eye.

Every revolution is a surprise. Still, the latest Russian Revolution must be counted among the greatest of surprises. The failure of Western experts to anticipate the Soviet Union's collapse may in part be attributed to a sort of historical revisionism -- call it anti-anti-communism -- that tended to exaggerate the Soviet regime's stability and legitimacy.

The great surprise is not that millions took to the streets in Egypt but rather that the United States had for so long predicated its regional security on Mubarak.