But Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, the right’s go-to foreign policy thinkers, suggested on Fox News last night that conservatives should stand down:

KRISTOL: This is a tough policy, situation they are dealing with. I don’t — I think ultimately the failure to deal with Syria and Iran is what the administration is going to be judged on more than this complicated minuet with of different groups of Egypt. [...]

KRAUTHAMMER: You have to speak of the Brotherhood because it’s now in control of parliament and it’s likely to win the presidential election. It will end up sharing the power or monopolizing it with the military, depending whether the military can hang on the part of the power it has now. So to be realistic, you have to talk to them.

Watch the clip:

White House spokesman Jay Carney said called the meetings “the appropriate and right thing to do” because of the Muslim Brotherhood’s post-revolution leadership position. Carney added that Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) had also recently met with Muslim Brotherhood representatives.

Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, noted the context of the meetings:

“And to everyone’s surprise, the threat to the Muslim Brotherhood ended up being less from the liberals and more from the more conservative Salafis, including their presidential candidate, who is doing far better than anyone would have expected a few weeks ago. And so, in that sense, the Muslim Brotherhood looks a little bit more moderate, I think.”

Indeed, as the New York Times noted this week, that conservative candidate, Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, “is an old-school Islamist.” “His success,” the Times adds, “may help explain why the United States offered signs of tacit approval over the weekend when the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest Islamic group, broke its pledge not to field its own candidate.”

But what made Shadid’s work most powerful for me was the stories he wrote about about people going on with their lives even under pressure that would be unfathomable, and shattering, to Americans forced to endure it. There was as much moral force to his stories about checkpoints, and shawarma sellers as there was to his portraits and analysis of intractable dictators. And taken together, those pieces demanded that readers recognize that the places Americans only saw as strategic considerations were in fact worlds as full, and rich as their own. Here are 20 great stories from Shadid that captured the changing dynamics of the Middle East, from Iraq’s leaders in self-reflection to the cheery persistance of a Jordanian coffee-seller:

Civil Society: In 2010, Shadid chronicled Iraqi leaders’ profound self-doubt and their reflections about the failure to build a stable regime there. In 2011, he visited a hospital in Libya staffed by volunteers, more than 100 of whom came from overseas to participate in the changes underway in the country. And in 2008, Shadid examined the alternative societies of Jordan’s long-term refugee camps and the hopelessness of the residents’ attitudes towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Commerce: During the Egyptian Revolution, Shadid used the death of a prominent member to reflect on the limitations of Egypt’s patronage economy. In 2009, Shadid spent two hours at a shawarma stand in Baghdad run by Bahloul Younes. He analyzed the scene at the Bab al-Yemen market in Sanaa, a city that’s grown from tends of thousands to two million.

Transportation: Shadid bridged the Middle East’s colonial past and its future on the train from Baghdad to Basra. He parsed the desires of Iraqis in the graffiti they left at Baghdad checkpoints. Shadid spent the day with a coffee- and tea-seller who sets up shop on a critical stretch of highway in Jordan. In 2008, he examined the roles that Baghdad’s walls play in the city’s transportation routes and emotional geography. And when the Syrian government denied Shadid a visa after a 2005 story that angered them, Shadid ended up going over water to Lebanon and experiencing the tricky world of Middle Eastern sea transport for himself.

Culture: A month before his death, Shadid checked in on the United Arab Emirates’ commitment to a plan to build three enormous museums. He parsed the cultural artifacts that the U.S. occupation of Iraq would leave behind, from fairytales of American soldiers to the rise of tattoos as a positive cultural marker. Shadid broke down how the controversy over the Dutch newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad grew out of control. He visited librarians in Beirut who were committed to making banned and so-called offensive volumes available to their readers, and profiled the editor of Dubai’s al-Arabiya news channel.

Faith: In 2011, Shadid traced the changes in a crowded Egyptian neighborhood once known as the Islamic Republic of Imbaba to explain the role of faith in the Egyptian Revolution—and later looked at how the Muslim Brotherhood was building a base of political support by providing city services. He analyzed how Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi had used threats of an Islamist rising in a Libyan port town to gain Western support, and then explored the town’s balance between the secular and the religious. And he reflected on the role of Arab Christians in a Middle East in the process of dramatically reshaping itself.

Then, yesterday, three Republican senators ignored Inhofe and Boxer’s calls to keep the bill free from controversy and attempted to attach an amendment mandating the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which Democrats warned could “kill the bill.” Now, Sen. Rand Paul (R) has put a hold on the bill until leadership promises him a vote on an amendment that would suspend foreign aid to Egypt, Politico reports:

Paul wants to offer an amendment to the Senate transportation bill that would cut off aid to Egypt if nongovernmental employees working with the U.S. government are detained or held in the country, as Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s son, Sam, currently is. And unless the senator decides to offer consent to move forward to the transportation bill, the Senate would be stuck in a 30-hour holding pattern.

“We’re not going to grant back our 30 hours unless we get a discussion on Egypt. We’re not asking for a lot of time; we just want a discussion and a vote on whether or not we should continue sending money to Egypt,” Paul told POLITICO.

Paul said he is taking action now because he fears his amendment won’t be allowed if he waits until debate on the transportation bill begins.

Noting the urgency of the transportation bill, Boxer and Inhofe agreed not to attach amendments or provisions that could be controversial. It contains no taxes and none of the other traditionally controversial measures included in such bills.

“2.8 million jobs hang in the balance” of the bill’s passage before the current transportation package expires, Boxer told Politico. “And we have obstruction from our friends on the Republican side.”

-Fans of Lizzy Caplan should be happy to hear this.

-Bad news for Egyptian comedians under the new regime.

-It’s so weird to me that Dave Grohl will be more identified with the Foo Fighters in history than he is with Nirvana.

-Taxing violent video games to pay for programs to combat childhood obesity and bullying.

-Kanye West will dispel your stereotypes about the Middle East.

-M.I.A. has a new video out:

Egyptian women at a demonstration in Tahrir Square

Women agitating for political change in these countries face the ever-present threat of sexual abuse and the societal stigma that results from sexual violence in highly patriarchal societies. Unlike physical violence, rape and other forms of sexual violence can permanently damage a woman’s reputation and status within her community. Not only is she considered unfit for marriage but rape causes profound humiliation to the male members of her family and, potentially, her community.

Rape was used excessively during Moammar Qaddafi’s attempt to remain in power in Libya. Towards the end of his struggle, his regime ordered soldiers to go into villages and rape the female adults and children, some as young as 8 years old, in front of family members. Condoms and Viagra were found in pockets of dead Qaddafi soldiers. Benghazi journalists reported seeing the ground littered with Viagra after troops had been through.

Rhetoric related to women and sexual violence always comes back to ideas of honor, which is held in the highest regard within Islamic societies. Raping a woman strips the woman, her family, and her community of “honor.” Qaddafi understood this dynamic and used it as a tool to prevent women from organizing opposition to his regime.

Despite Egypt’s notorious reputation for sexual harassment and violence against women, female activists have been at the forefront of efforts to change Egypt’s political system from the very beginning. Perhaps predictably, Egyptian women have also faced sexual violence as they seek to effect political change.

On March 9, 2011, just under a month after President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, protesters returned to Tahrir Square to express frustration with the slow pace of reforms. The Egyptian military broke up the demonstration and arrested demonstrators, including at least 18 women. These women were beaten, charged with prostitution, and forced to submit to “virginity checks.” When confronted, a senior general said, “The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine… these were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square.” In a patriarchal religious society in which female sexuality is heavily policed, accusations of promiscuity serve to damage the reputations of female protesters.

By casting protesting women as “not like your daughter or mine” and subjecting them to sexual violence, Egyptian authorities delegitimize their political voices in a social context that does not consider women attempting to access the public-justice system to be “respectable.”

The Norwegian Nobel Committee in October announced it would award a Nobel Peace Prize to Tawakkul Karman, a female Yemeni activist involved in ongoing protests against the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. In Yemen, women celebrated Karman’s peace prize — but were caught off guard when they were systematically sought out and brutally attacked by regime supporters. Forty women were attacked in Taez as they marched and celebrated in support of Karman. “We were attacked by regime thugs with empty bottles and stones,” an organizer said on condition of anonymity. Karman’s Nobel prize has made her the face of the revolt against President Saleh. Yemeni women have, in her words, transformed “from their traditional role as victims, into leaders playing a major role in the revolution.”

As these transformations continue to unfold, it is unclear what the role of women will be in the newly formed societies. However, early stages of the revolutions have not fared well in women’s rights, and international actors can do little but stand by and hope that during and after these social and political uprisings, vulnerable demographics are protected.

Download the issue brief “Rape and the Arab Spring: The Dark Side of the Popular Uprisings in the Middle East” [PDF]