Thursday, July 4, 2013

Winners and Losers in Egypt

It’s too soon to say who won the latest showdown between the Egyptian people and Islamic fundamentalism, but we know who lost.

We do not know whether Egypt’s new rulers will put it on the road to liberal democracy, or better, whether they will promote free enterprise, but we do know that the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the UAE are cheering the military coup in Egypt. They, as opposed to the Obama administration, know what the Muslim Brotherhood is really about.

Today, as the new rulers of Egypt round up leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Obama administration has again been shown to be inept and incompetent.

Jonathan Tobin offered a concise analysis on the Commentary Contentions blog:

The end of the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt is a blow to the cause of radical Islam. The rise of the Brotherhood and the now deposed President Mohamed Morsi was a disaster for Egypt as well as for the West. Had Morsi and his party been left in place to continue their drive to impose their Islamist vision on the world’s most populous Arab country it might have been impossible to depose them, thus locking Egypt into the same nightmare scenario of theocratic tyranny that we have seen unfold in Iran in the last generation.

Tobin explainedthat the Obama administration, having pinned its hopes and illusions on the Muslim Brotherhood, had told the Egyptian Army not to intervene. Happily for Egypt, the Army ignored the earnest entreaties of our incompetent president.

Tobin wrote:

The even better news is that the Egyptian Army didn’t listen to the Obama administration when it asked them not to launch what is, for all intents and purposes, a military coup that toppled a democratically elected government. The embrace of Morsi and the Brotherhood by President Obama and his foreign policy over the last year has further poisoned Egyptian public opinion against the United States as well as strengthened the confidence of Islamists that America will not oppose their efforts to transform the region. After having been intimidated by U.S. pressure aimed at ensuring that the military would not prevent Morsi’s election, the military ran the risk that this time Obama meant what he said about using the billions in aid Egypt gets from the United States to prevent them from stopping the Brotherhood’s push for power. The willingness of the Egyptian army to step in and stop the confrontation in the streets not only avoided clashes that might have produced unimaginable casualties but also kept open the possibility that a new government could emerge in Cairo without having to fight a civil war in order to survive.

Since the Obama administration wanted Egypt to be transformed into another Turkey, the popular uprising and the military coup was not at all to its liking. One suspects that it did not like being revealed as incompetent and that it did not want the world to see how widely it was reviled in Egypt.

After the administration offered its first comment on the events in Cairo, Tobin commented:

… you don’t have to read too closely between the lines to understand that Obama is angrier about regime change in Cairo than he ever was about the Islamist attempt to remake Egypt in their own image.http://www.commentarymagazine.com/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/wordpress/img/trans.gif

President Obama stood by passively for a year as Morsi and the Brotherhood began to seize total power, repress critics and pave the way for a complete transformation of Egypt into an Islamist state without threatening a cutoff of U.S. aid. Now Obama has finally found the guts to use America’s leverage over the country but only to register his protest against the downfall of the Brotherhood.

Tobin said that Obama is doubling down on failure. One would not be surprised. Yet, there might be another piece of good news in the debacle of the Obama administration foreign policy. Perhaps another reputation has been damaged:

 

5 comments:

Lastango said...

I suspect the Obama administration has two problems here. The first, and most obvious, it that they joined with the Europeans to throw their weight behind Islamists across North Africa (and elsewhere). Now, the Administration is confronted with the spectacle of a popular revolt against a regime it has backed to the extent of equipping it with F-16 fighters and some 200 Abrams tanks. That the revolt is perceived, abroad, as being in response to the regime's thuggish, anti-democratic behavior places a special spotlight on the Administration's choices. How could it happen that President Hope-and-Change supports brutal dictatorships? The White House won't dare to throw Hillary under the bus for this one, so there's no one handy to shift the blame to.

But perhaps there's something even more fundamental here that's causing the Administration to wag its finger at the revolutionaries: the liberals now deeply fear the spectacle of people taking to the streets against an abusive government. That's because, here at home, the liberals ARE the power, and the establishment. They control the permanent bureaucracy, all levels of the educational system, the media, law enforcement, and are in crony cahoots with major corporations and the Wall Street kleptocracy.

The last thing the Obama regime wants Americans to see is a popular, take-to-the-streets revolt succeed against the established order. I think that when the White House looks at the demonstrating Egyptians it sees Tea Partiers and other disaffected Americans rising up. And that's terrifying -- especially if something similar starts happening in other parts of the world, such as China and Europe (the EU project has already begun to spiral toward collapse).

Here at home, the triggers are starting to pile up. The national debt is exploding, the debt-driven university system is fraying at the edges, a police-state level of surveillance had been revealed for all to see, the banking system is utterly insolvent, Obamacare is a megacostly trainwreck, governments at all levels are broke, and friends-of-the-state (especially the coastal elites) are accumulating heretofore undreamed-of wealth. And like the Islamists in Egypt, Washington will not be able to count on the military to brutalize the public (hence the creation and militarization of brownshirt forces like Homeland Security).

So, the Obama regime and its countless co-parasites here at home are dismayed to see Egyptians in the streets. Who knows what could happen if it gives ordinary Americans the idea that they aren't helpless and don't have to take it anymore.




Sam L. said...

Given the number of times this administration/regime has shot itself in the foot, it's amazing that at least one foot hasn't come off.

Dennis said...

Lastango,

Nicely stated. Ask yourself how does Obama and his cadre of fellow travelers react to anyone, group or to movements that disagree with him? It would seem to be with anger, the use of government agencies to punish those people, name calling, et al. Much as any dictator would who does not YET control the military.
An aside here, this is why what is being taught in the service academies disturb me. That and how political some Generals and Admirals have become vice being a member of the profession of arms who know that their duty is to the people of this country. One only needs to look at the number of active duty and retire O6s and above who have been caught misleading the people they were sworn to protect.
You speak of brownshirts and one wonders why so many of these agencies need to stockpile so much ammunition? The NSA data mining which can easily be used to create a lists of gun owners, people who might not agree with the administration or other "rabble." The IRS is virtually acting like the citizens of this country have no rights and and that it is one of the political arms of the administration. Add Obamacare and its ability to determine who lives and who dies and one wonders how close we are to that dictatorship. Include the "dumbing down' of the education system and it being populated by people who have cause to look to the government as a "Daddy" and one sees a country growing less free each day with people trading freedom for security. Add to that the increasing numbers of people total dependent upon the government. Not the portrait of a free country.
It does not take much analysis before one is forced to ask how much does Obama and this administration have in common with Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood?

Dennis said...

http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/07/03/59061.htm
For your edification. One wonders where the police got the idea that they could ignore the Third Amendment rights of the plaintiff? Could it be the administration's selective enforcement/non enforcement of the laws and the Constitution of this nation?
Add the desire to lessen the affect of "posse comatatus" without a valid replacement. http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/gaynor/050827

Anonymous said...

Must be part of the "vast, right-wing conspiracy."

Tip