Over a year has passed since the “Arab Spring” came to Egypt, and the evidence continues to accumulate demonstrating that what has come of last year’s revolution is bringing a "chill" to the relationship between the United States and Egypt.

The conflict in Nigeria between the government and Islamic terrorists has claimed its latest victims, with at least 10 people dead and five wounded. The growing problem of Islamic terrorism in Nigeria drew brief, worldwide attention when dozens were killed and at least 100 were injured in a series of Christmas Day attacks last year. The two most recent assaults once again targeted Christians, and raise questions about the ability of the government to successfully combat Islamist terrorism.

While Americans are being murdered in Afghanistan after the accidental burning of the Koran and an Iranian general is advocating the destruction of the White House, similar Islamist extremists have gained control of the Egyptian parliament (pictured at left). The Islamist Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party took 58 percent of the available seats in the upper house of Egypt’s parliament, while the even more extremist Salafist Al-Nour party took a quarter of the seats. In all, more than 80 percent of the contended seats in Egypt’s upper parliament are now in the hands of Muslim extremists. Last year’s “Arab Spring” is now more fully manifesting its true character: the transformation of Egypt into a more stridently Islamist regime.

While the purported reforms brought on by last year’s “Arab Spring” appeared to be floundering in Egypt, the Obama administration is preparing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to advance those same reforms throughout the Islamic world.

Egypt’s purportedly ‘transitional’ government — upheld throughout the past year as the example of the “Arab Spring” movement that was destined to bring Western-style democracy to the Muslim world — is proving its inability to live up to the hype. While many warning signs have been in evidence since the emergence of the anti-Mubarak revolution — including a dramatic increase in anti-Christian persecution — many such omens have received little attention in the American media. Now, however, with the Obama administration threatening to cut the $1.3 billion in military aid that the U.S. doles out annually to the Egyptian regime, that nation’s "democratic" experiment is being examined once again.

In the aftermath of a series of bombings on Christmas Day, Nigerians have reason to worry that Islamic terrorism will continue to increase in their country. Boko Haram, the organization behind much of the escalating anti-Christian violence in that African country, is dedicated to a campaign of fear and murder in a society where Muslims and Christians constitute nearly equal proportions of the population.

The prayers of faithful Christians in Nigeria were interrupted by bombs detonated by Islamic militants during worship services on Christmas Day — attacks that are becoming perennial in a nation that rests on one of the theological fault lines between Christianity and Islam.

As militant Islamists celebrate their decisive victory in the recent Egyptian election, Coptic Christians are bracing themselves for the next round of violence directed against them. A year which began with Muslim terrorists bombing a church in Alexandria, Egypt, during the Coptic Church’s celebration of Christmas on January 7 has now witnessed the rise of militant Islam to the point of having utter control of the goverment of that nation.

The Obama administration has flaunted its advocacy of the Islamist parties that have been gaining power since the Arab Spring overturned several governments in the Muslim world the past year, and that skewed perspective is contributing to a misrepresentation of the violence that is now taking place in post-Mubarak Egypt. In the words of Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J., left), President Obama “seems to have completely missed the point” of the massacre of Coptic Christians. “This is not a situation of equal power and equal responsibility for violence," he points out. "The Copts called on the military government to treat the Copts as equal citizens and protect their rights; the government itself turned on them with a massacre.”

The anti-Christian policy of the Egypt military rulers became even more readily apparent as they blamed Christian victims and “enemies of the revolution” for a series of violent clashes which left over two dozen people dead. In another tragic example of a military junta blaming its victims for its oppressive actions, Major General Adel Emara denied widespread reports of the military’s actions, which murdered dozens of Christians, According to one Associated Press report, Emara “tried to clear the military of any blame in the killings. He denied troops opened fire at protesters, claiming their weapons did not even have live ammunition. He said it was not in ‘the dictionary of the armed forces to run over bodies ... even when battling our enemy.’ "