New York Times journalist Anthony Shadid on Democracy Now!:
I think for the first time—absolutely, since I can remember, but perhaps that a lot of people can remember—the region [Arab world] is speaking with an indigenous vocabulary. You know, it’s speaking about its own vision. It’s articulating its own vision. It’s so radically, fundamentally different from the change that was imposed on Iraq through invasion and violence in 2003. This is a remarkable moment, I think, in the history of the modern Arab world, and it’s being articulated in a very forceful, fundamental way, in a way that’s never been done before.