A panel of leading experts on Islam in America will discuss the critical issues to consider as Muslims in the US assume their responsibilities as American citizens.

Several years ago, Farid Ghadry​--a Syrian exile activist--published a piece in the Middle East Quarterly looking at what political trends lay beneath the surface of Syria's Baathist dictatorship. He identified the discussions groups that arose during the short-lived "Damascus Spring" and hypothesized that they represented the proto-political parties which might develop.

If there is one success story since 9/11, it has been the efforts to combat terror finance. If military action is sometimes akin to conducting surgery with an axe, efforts to dry up sources of funding are like wielding a scalpel.

Bin Laden's murder is not the end of Al Qaeda. And even if Al Qaeda were totally eliminated, the world would still have to deal with Al Qaeda's progenitor. Just how likely is it that Egypt will end up-after the inevitable transition period-being ruled indirectly or directly by the Muslim Brotherhood?

The very fact that an American president talks about extremist Muslims validates them as the most important and significant of Muslim individuals.

Mubarak cannot stay in office until the September elections; Egypt needs a transitional government until that time.