DOHA --- In past sessions of the Al Jazeera Forum, held each year in the network’s Qatar hometown, reform in the Arab world was discussed with an air of resignation: “Someday…maybe.”

The Bush administration was designating the Arab language network Al Jazeera the network of Osama Bin Laden. It was almost as if they were warning the American people that watching non-American news was aiding and abetting the enemy.

The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.
-- Edward R. Murrow

The dashboard tallies the daily number of tweets about developments in each listed country (the site is currently tracking Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Bahrain) and shows the average number of such tweets per minute for each country.

If America wants to strengthen its relationship with the Arab world, connecting with the next generation of Arab leaders is key. As President Obama's special representative to Muslim communities, Farah Pandith, once explained, "These youth are keen to be connected to others, to share ideas and to take part in building stronger communities."

Recent developments in the Arab world have shown signs that the so-called “demonstration effect” has been working. That is, Egyptians watching the uprising in Tunisia against President Ben Ali on al Jazeera Television were inspired to copy it...

In testimony to Congress last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged the existence of an ongoing “information war” that the United States is losing. In addition to saying that “Al Jazeera is winning,” Clinton pointed to the major investments in international broadcasting being made by China and Russia.

As a democratic revolution led by tech-empowered young people sweeps the Arab world, Wadah Khanfar, the head of Al Jazeera, shares a profoundly optimistic view of what’s happening in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and beyond — at this powerful moment when people realized they could step out of their houses and ask for change.