Israel - Egypt's Zionist Ally

Egypt is in President Obama's doghouse. The ill-advised investment made by the Administration in the country's short-lived experiment with "democratic Islamism" has been wiped out by a military coup / populist rebellion (or whatever else one wants to call it). Team Obama has been settling scores by giving Egyptian dignitaries the cold shoulder, and is now cutting back on some of the US-made military toys that the Egyptian armed forces love to parade around. The direct effect of these moves may be negligible, but a strained or worse relationship with the United States would over time expose Egypt to being ever more diminished on the international stage, while hardening the links of its politics, economy and culture to regressive Gulf Arabs. Neither a fickle Obama nor a self-absorbed, xenophobic and inept Egyptian body politic hold out much promise of breaking the ice.  

The Ralph Peters Echo Chamber

Terrorist lovers

Ralph Peters has become an overnight cult hero in Egypt. An interview of the retired US army officer on Fox News criticizing the Obama Administration's alleged softness toward the Muslim Brotherhood made the rounds over and over and over again among Egypt's self-defined liberals. Never mind that Mr. Peters is but one obscure voice with little or no tangible influence in the United States, nor that he is a commentator on right wing US media with views that might make many Egyptians squirm. The fact that he has presented an opinion consistent with what the Ministry of Truth espouses as truth deems him a knowledgeable expert, as opposed to the ignoramuses in the rest of the world media who are under the Brotherhood's nefarious spell.

CNN is biased for not reporting as fact that 20 million or 33 million (informed sources say it was 77,321,754) Egyptians on June 30 took to the streets protesting against the Muslim Brotherhood and in favor of military rule (clearly, the two must go hand in hand). BBC gives too much face-time to the terrorist barbarians faking their deaths whom a month ago were the country's elected leaders. And, of course, Al Jazeera is simply beyond reproach. Egyptian state media once derided as hopelessly biased is now the benchmark of gravitas, because it hosts serious-looking men who can explain the epic US, European, Israeli, Palestinian, Qatari, Turkish, Iranian, Syrian, Ethiopian, Indonesian, Malaysian conspiracy against the mighty Egyptian military. Talking heads in the "independent" Egyptian media repeat and repackage everything that state media says to further underline the sole and unique truth. 

It's All America's Fault

• Nearly forty percent female illiteracy rate:  America’s fault

• Quarter of population below poverty line:  America's fault

• Ranking #118 on global corruption index (behind Djibouti, but still beating Sudan):  America's fault

• Ranking #107 on global competitiveness index (Sudan was not ranked): America's fault

• Rampant and institutionalized religious discrimination:  America's fault 

• Over 12,000 deaths in auto accidents per year:  America's fault

• Single World Cup appearance since 1934:  America's fault

• Mama Nagwa retarding an entire generation of Egyptians:  Maybe not America's fault

Another Message from The Hand

In the name of the most merciful who has bestowed upon you the ever-presence of The Hand:

Since we last communicated there have been certain notable developments in the country, so The Hand has deemed it appropriate to provide all you lesser beings with a brief assessment from The Hand's omnipotent vantage point at Minipax:

1. Mass showings of solidarity in the streets have been suitable, but next time there will be less tolerance for those grumbling of missed beach time.
2. Undulations to The Hand's greatness need improvement. Still lacking a uniquely catchy tune. Brava to Ghada El Sherif; this is the kind of incisive coverage The Hand is looking for. 
3. To you die-hard supporters of the deposed, stop being so stubborn. The Hand can and will out-God and out-gun you, but really, what are we fighting for? You know and The Hand knows that the so-called "liberal" wussies have been rendered impotent by their fickleness and fear. Get back to your core competency of controlling culture, knowing, naturally, that the rest is for The Hand, and only The Hand, to handle.
4. To you Christian people, just a gentle reminder less you get too carried away...
5. Finally, to you Mr. Obama, اتنيل بنيلة. Of course, that means The Hand is fully committed to a democratic transition, respectful of tolerance and universal human rights, et cetera et cetera. Funding and our strategic partnership will be keenly protected. See you soon at Tysons.

Now what to do with Egypt?

No love

After seeing one of its purported headline foreign policy achievements implode and instead become a lightening rod for criticisms that go far and wide (very far, and very wide in the case of conspiracy-loving Egyptians), the Administration may be tempted to simply give up on Egypt. That temptation must be resisted. The United States has massive influence in, and must stay engaged with, Egypt. In doing so, it should be guided by a few insurmountable principles that are too often overlooked:

Obama's Egypt Disaster

Strained alliance

The Obama Administration did not cause the mess in Egypt over the past two and a half years, but it has nonetheless made a mess out of U.S. policy in the country. Born out of an ill-considered gamble on populist foreign policy, followed by a fateful approach to retrograde Islamists, then ultimately damned by an unimaginative, tepid and defeatist positioning of American influence in the region, the Administration has failed miserably. While U.S. perseverance may have helped Egypt's hopelessly inept leaders avoid a total train-wreck, Obama never should have supported the "revolution" (speaking of coups...) against Mubarak in the first instance, and never should have aligned the United States with political Islam. Once the Administration did do these things, however, it managed to make matters insurmountably worse by not using U.S. influence to drive the fundamental change that Egypt desperately needs to its body politic, economy and society at large.  

Kill Twitter

Twitter might be a convenient platform for passing along quick thoughts or building up one's vanity, as the case may be. It is not the appropriate way to run U.S. foreign policy. The Obama twits need to grow up.

From the Monroe Doctrine to 140 characters or less

What to do with Egypt?

Need more Happy Meals

There have been endless, mostly bad ideas from in and around the small-minded Obama Administration on how to deal with the chaos that is Egypt today. From fateful resignation, to enthusiastic support, to demands for aggressive confrontation, such approaches are at best insufficient, and are more likely to be counterproductive to the goal of a stable Egypt emerging from the foggy aftermath of January 25, 2011. A concise way forward is offered by the editors of Bloomberg (who somehow are more attuned to an effective foreign policy and the circumstances in Egypt than the phalanx of "experts" in Washington and Cairo). The call for active but measured U.S. engagement that can steer Egypt toward fuller integration with the modern world -- through such things as a free trade agreement and an IMF loan package -- is right for the United States and right for Egypt.  

Egypt’s Transition Needs Some Quiet U.S. Help

By the Editors Jan 25, 2013 12:30 AM GMT+0100

In Defense of America

"S" is for Salafi!

Of the many idiotic explanations for the mess transpiring these days in Egypt, one of the most incongruous is that this is all America's fault. U.S. policy toward Egypt under Obama has been far from perfect, especially in too eagerly accommodating, and hence legitimizing, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood. But to assign all, most or even any significant part the chaos of the last twenty-three months to the United States, amounts to little more than a limp attempt to shift the blame for Egypt's demise since January 25. From the outset, and unfortunately still continuing, the self-proclaimed revolutionary vanguard that triggered the events leading to the present has been lacking in vision, leadership, organization, responsibility, accountability, and credibility, even if being full of energy and passion. The ensuring takeover by the Islamists was as much a victory by default as it was anything else. 

And in other news...

Heaping praises on El Dictator

While President Obama impressed himself with the link he formed with Morsi to cool the political hot potato of Israel and the Palestinians, the "pragmatically confident" Morsi was busy at that very same time usurping near total power on the domestic front in Egypt.  The contrast between U.S. perceptions of a moderate and democratic Egypt and the realities of a theocratic dictatorship in the making could not be sharper, and the rosey perception is most definitely aiding and abetting the culmination of the crude reality.  

What the President of the United States thinks matters.  It matters because the United States is the world's sole superpower, and it has, does and will continue to dominate in the Middle East generally, and in Egypt specifically.  Unfortunately, this president has managed to convince himself early on that Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood can be accommodating partners, whether because he really believes so, or because he lowered the standard so much as to make the concept of partnership nearly irrelevant, or some of both. Whatever the case, Morsi has taken note of the air cover, and the ground offensive is now in full swing.  

The world rejoices the annointed one

Fall in Chicago

Trojans and Hooters: Morsi's America

The U.S. press are suckers for foreigners that can say something remotely familiar about American culture.  In this case, a flabby interview by the New York Times with Morsi on the occasion of his upcoming trip to New York, offers the following on his insights into America:

He was also eager to reminisce about his taste of American culture as a graduate student at the University of Southern California. “Go, Trojans!” he said, and he remembered learning about the world from Barbara Walters in the morning and Walter Cronkite at night. “And that’s the way it is!” Mr. Morsi said with a smile.

But he also displayed some ambivalence. He effused about his admiration for American work habits, punctuality and time management. But when an interpreter said that Mr. Morsi had “learned a lot” in the United States, he quickly interjected a qualifier in English: “Scientifically!” 

He was troubled by the gangs and street of violence of Los Angeles, he said, and dismayed by the West’s looser sexual mores, mentioning couples living together out of wedlock and what he called “naked restaurants,” like Hooters. 

I don’t admire that,” he said. “But that is the society. They are living their way.”

Morsi's support for a USC team shamed by the NCAA for its serial cheating shows his appreciation of college football is considerably less refined, and less principled, than it is of domestic football in Egypt.  The President of Egypt learning about the world through Barbara Walters also is unsettling. But most troubling is his lack of esteem for Hooters, that beacon of American culture heavily frequented by every man, woman and child in the United States.

The New York Times Sucks

Not always fit to print

It is not really notable to point out that the editorial board of the New York Times has strong biases that influence not only its opinion pieces, but also its allegedly neutral news department.  This is self-evident when it comes to almost anything they cover on the U.S. domestic front, whether political, economic or social.  Less noticed, at least to a wide spectrum of disinterested Americans, is the bias of the New York Times on foreign policy coverage, which unfortunately is of disproportionate influence to the ignoramuses in government in Washington, whose interaction with the world is limited by language, culture, experience and basic intellect.

When it has come to the arrival of the "Arab Spring" in Egypt, the New York Times from the outset decided to portray the happenings as a revolution a la 1776, 1789 and Eastern Europe circa. 1989, conveniently overlooking the near complete absence of evidence of this being true.  Facebook and Twitter messages from a handful of self-declared, English speaking "activists" became the barometer for the emotions of 85 million Egyptians.  Islamist retrogrades were recast as enlightened and free-thinking.  Unionist failures have been somehow elevated as vanguards of the Left against "the Establishment."

Charm City

Baltimore, Maryland:  eclectic, electric America.

The land of Poe.

Surprise, Surprise: Obama's US without Friends

Blowing it

After blindly championing a policy of trying to look popular and ignoring the consequences of undercutting a leadership nurtured over decades, and then pursuing a hopelessly flawed accommodation with regressive Islamists, the U.S. Government finds itself desperate to find friends in Egypt.  With the years of dominant U.S. military, political and economic presence, this is nothing short of outrageous.

So what does Team Obama do next?  It carries on with its amateurish attitude of getting into highly publicized tiffs with junior ministers over peripheral issues, and acts with a chip on its shoulder through a self-defeating policy of turning international financial institutions against Egypt.   

Small-Minded Defeatism of Washington

It is understandable, if not terribly illuminating, to see some uninformed, unorthodox and outright silly analysis of a normally relatively sedate topic, once the matter becomes publicized at the highest level by this highly politicized White House.  As such, much of the wacky views about what to do with Egypt -- ranging from tying the country to a global jihad to sugar-coating clearly anti-modern Islamists as Jeffersonian democrats -- can be dismissed as part of the expected Beltway reaction. 

What is far less acceptable, however, is when leading experts of Egypt policy in Washington can offer so little in terms of a constructive approach for putting Egypt on a modernist path of reform in this time of transformation.  The central assumption of the CSIS's Egypt in Transition:  Insights and Options for U.S. Policy is that the United States has a very limited role in Egypt and, as such, can basically not do much apart from watching on the sidelines and occasionally making a point here or there.  The assumption is inaccurate and leads to a dangerous conclusion of inaction. 

Obama's Egypt: An Exclusionary Christmas



Copts

Even when he tries to appear accommodating to a Christian community whom he has dangerously undermined through his wrong-headed policies, he gets it wrong.  In offering Christmas greetings to Coptic Orthodox Christians, President Obama is specifically excluding all non-Orthodox Copts also celebrating Christmas on January 7, and reinforcing the very prejudices that he claims to want to help Egypt overcome.  Copts are Egyptians, and Egyptians are Copts, not just Orthodox, and not even just Christians.  All are celebrating the birth of Jesus.  

Who is advising this guy?   

Brothers in Arms: Team Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood

Ughh

Senator John Kerry’s recent high-profile visit to the ostentatious new headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood (query the funding source) is the latest in the continuing outrages of the Obama Administration's placation of regressive Islamists. Never mind that the lower house election cycle in Egypt is only one-third complete. Never mind that secular forces naturally allied to U.S. ideals of civil and individual rights are being suffocated by religious demagogues of whom the Muslim Brotherhood are the patron saint. Never mind that U.S. attention and recognition remain decisive factors on the Egyptian political scene. The head of the Salafist party - supposedly distinct and separate from the supposedly moderate Brotherhood party - synthezied it all quite well: "[t]he American administration's contact with Islamists is a sign of victory for us." 

Dear President Obama: Shut the Hell Up

Thanks for Nothing

President Obama and his clan of “experts” middling in the affairs of Egypt is going from bad to worse. The continuous effort to accommodate Islamists generally, and the Muslim Brotherhood specifically, is legitimizing and empowering a movement that is antithetical to a modern Egypt. Now Team Obama is injecting itself even further into the domestic debate by recklessly advising that Article 2 of the Egyptian Constitution – an article that is per se discriminatory and against the principle of a country that treats its citizens equally – should not be part of the reform discussions. Not only is a public comment on the what to change and not change in the Egyptian constitution stepping well over the bounds of what any U.S. official should be doing, but to single out this particular issue is putting the U.S. squarely on the wrong side the debate.

The U.S. Government can and should be a force for positive change in Egypt, but this Administration is ill serving Egypt, the United States and indeed the world.