At a recent foreign ministers’ meeting in New York, the “Forum of the Future”, which was first imagined at a G-8 conference earlier this year, was finally scheduled for December in Morocco. Not without its detractors, the planning and broad support within the G-8 and a number of Middle Eastern nations for the conference – which is intended to discuss political and economic liberalization – has already began to blossom into positive results. Notes Mr. Diehl, “independent human rights groups and pro-democracy movements around the region are continuing to sprout, gather and issue manifestos – all in the name of supporting the intergovernmental discussion [of the Forum of the Future].” A new voice, Diehl says, is beginning to emerge in the Arab states –where they have been too long absent.