At this AEI event, Baroness Emma Nicholson of the AMAR International Charitable Foundation will discuss the role of public-private partnerships in delivering essential services after a regime change.

Wednesday and Thursday mark Egypt’s first post-Mubarak presidential elections. Sadly, what should be a purple-fingered moment brings some hope and much disappointment. Don’t get me wrong – Mubarak was a loathsome stooge, a petty and incompetent rentier tyrant who deserved what he got and more.

The United States and its allies and partners must not only understand Iran’s regional strategy and influence but also develop a coherent strategy of their own with which to confront them. Considering the relative economic, political, and diplomatic power of the two sides, it is unacceptable for the United States and its allies to allow Iran even such progress as it has made in these realms.

What to think about the Arab Spring? Dour pundits insist that spring is a misnomer. Many are less preoccupied by the odd pairing of spring and death and more troubled by the fact that the spring seems, well, springier for Islamists than it does for secular democrats.

The new president will need to decide whether democracy in the process is more important than democracy as the final result. How should the United States react if, as the new regimes rewrite their constitutions, they turn from democracy toward theocracy? (INCLUDES VIDEO)

The transformative events of the Arab Spring have presented the Islamic Republic with new challenges and opportunities.

The waves of change are indeed sweeping across the shores of the Middle East and North Africa. However, the Islamist regime in Iran is better geared to suppressing internal dissent than other regional autocracies and, therefore, has better prospects of surviving the crisis--for now at least.