On 11 September 2001, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said, in his first comment on the strike against the World Trade Towers in New York by al-Qaida, that at that moment, the world had changed. In fact, the last decade has witnessed huge changes. The American military machine rushed to take revenge, under the slogan of fighting terror, by occupying countries. The “historical coincidence” that saw an alliance of neoconservatives, with their imperial dreams, and American weapons firms, with their need to sell their products and new inventions, led to America's contempt for allies in Europe and the rest of the world, and leading regional powers. The United States became mired in multi-front wars, taking down its tired economy. The US increased anti-American feeling by Muslims in the world because Washington waged wars based on preconceived notions about Islam, giving Israel a green light to work for the liquidation of the Palestinian cause. The "war on terror" entered a portion of the programs of governments that wanted to please America, or engage in a deal with it, through answering its call for this war in return for Washington's turning a blind eye to their dictatorial and autocratic regimes. To the same extent, the regimes that benefited from this deal sought to cement their authority over their people and increase their repression of these populations. This was either because of the stumbling project for American control over the Middle East, or because they secured legitimacy for their continued existence from the support of America itself. These regimes felt that they were now more "in charge" domestically than in the past, at a time in which leading regional powers were on the rise in dealing with international crises, due to the economic growth achieved by some of these countries (such as India, Brazil and Turkey), or because of their military capabilities and intervention in regions in which they were active (such as Iran and Syria). However, Schroeder's envisioned changing world of 2001 saw the birth, over the last ten years, of factors of change that have begun to appear in the world of this new decade. It is no exaggeration at all to say that the changes in the Arab world and the Middle East are the chief engine of change in the world in the new decade. America's success in killing Osama bin Laden might be an important development in Washington's war on terror. However, the most important development, as proven by the real and fundamental Arab transformations enshrined by revolutions, has involved placing peoples before two options – bin Laden and al-Qaeda versus supporting American policy in its entirety. This has been a mistaken choice, generating mistaken and deadly policies. These transformations have proven to Arab peoples that very different options exist, and that their development produces choices of another type: freedom and a dignified life versus sinking into extremism, submission and "enlightened dictatorships"; modernity and modernization, which are used to cover oppression and the backwardness of political structures, versus democracy; absolute loyalty to America versus a minimum level of national dignity that does not contradict economic globalization and the intertwined interests of nations. America, and with it the West, now face one of two options: abandon preconceived notions about Muslims and Arabs, or ignore their will and their aspirations. In their doing away with extremism and reigning in hard-line stances, the Arab transformations preceded the killing of bin Laden, since the Arab revolutions have seen Islamists display a degree of flexibility. The birth pangs that accompany the features of change on the international scene, and the attendant huge complications, might obscure the process of observing this change. However, would we have witnessed imminent European recognition of a Palestinian state, and Israeli fear of American pressure to come on the Jewish state, had it not been for the impact of Arab transformations on Tel Aviv's position in the region, as its "only democracy"? Would the Palestinian Hamas-Fatah reconciliation have happened if not for the impact of these transformations in liberating this reconciliation from regional constraints, with Egypt now sponsoring the effort, after previous conflicts prevented success in completing the rapprochement? One of the aspects of change in the world is that Hamas, in its reconciliation with Fatah, is displaying a readiness to provide the political cover needed to give the peace process another chance.
