Libya/Egypt: An Opportunity

As with all international incidents, it takes time to understand what is really going on across the Middle East. There are a lot of conflicting reports and some obviously false ideas being batted about. With several days to observe, here are my thoughts, and what I think needs to be done next.

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With Friends Like These. . .

It’s been a slow news summer, with the exception of one or two HUGE items. . . but how many times can we talk about Justin Beiber’s new album? ;) So let’s do a couple small items, then we can all get back to preparing for tryanmax's and T-Rav's birthdays!

● Silly Gays: You know that gays think with their genitalia, right? At least, that’s what Joy Behar tells us. She’s upset that a group of gay Republicans have endorsed Romney. More specifically, she questions their motives. She actually suggested that GOProud only endorsed Romney because they’re attracted to his sons:

“Could it be that the GOProud guys are just attracted to Mitt Romney's sons Matt, Mutt, Tag, Tip, Tack, and Bashful? Do you think that's the issue?”

No doubt she'll claim this was a joke, but could you imagine the outrage if a Republican suggested (even as a joke) that gays only voted for Obama because they were attracted to his children? Gays should be insulted because here is a prominent (idiot) liberal suggesting that they think through their sex organs. This woman is a mess.

● Brother Can You Spare A Stadium?: The Democrats are running so low on money that they are thinking of cancelling the opening kickoff to their convention in North Carolina. At the least, they apparently plan to move it to a smaller venue. Ha ha. This is despite Obama supposedly being prepared to raise a billion dollars, despite the unions being flush with billions in stimulus money, despite Hollywood emptying their pockets to help out. Where did it all go wrong? Oh, that's right, they proved to be idiots and everyone knows they’re going to lose!

Speaking of Hollywood, it looks like Obama is starting to skip the fundraisers they are doing for him. Apparently, it doesn’t fit with his manufactured image of “caring about normal people.”

● Fleeing A Sinking Convention: In a sign of how bad the PR is for the Democrats at the moment, Missouri Democrat (and neighbor of Mr. T. Rav) Sen. Claire McCaskill will apparently skip the convention. She gets added to a growing list of other Democrats who fear that being seen at that toxic venue will cause them problems with the voters. This list includes the Clintons and the West Virginia delegation. This is a bad, bad sign for Obama. When your friends don’t want to be seen with you, you know you’re in trouble.

● Patriotism Is The Last Refuge of Short Scoundrels: Clinton Labor Secretary and noted dwarf Robert Reich just said that Republicans aren’t patriots because we don’t want to pay taxes. Specifically, he said this: “True patriotism means paying for America.” This is interesting, since Republicans actually are the ones who are paying. Democrats don’t work, they leech, be they Democratic billionaires who avoid their taxes and demand federal subsidies for their business (cough cough Warren Buffett) or be they the army of Democratic voters who live on welfare and demand subsidies for everything they buy from their homes, to their student loans, to their heating fuel, to their food, to their kids’ school lunches. So using Reich’s formula, it turns out that Republicans are true patriots and Democrats aren’t. But then, we knew that already.

● No Habla Liberalismo: So get this, we all KNOW that Hispanics only care about immigration, right? That’s what we’re told by the left. Well, it turns out that’s not true. USA/Gallup just did a poll and it turns out that Hispanics care most about. . . get this. . . healthcare (21%), then unemployment (19%) and then comes immigration at 12%. Imagine that, they’re just like the rest of us.

● No One Could Have Known!: As usual, The Economist is slowly discovering what conservatives already knew. When the Arab Spring hit, The Economist went all giddy. They saw visions of westernized-socialist Arab diplomats taking over these countries and turning them into mini-Greeces. They dismissed anyone who suggested that things might not go so well. Arabs didn't really want fundamentalist Islam, we were assured. Well, now that Egypt has had its elections, The Economist has discovered to its horror that the same people who demand the destruction of Israel, who persecute Christians, and who murder their wives for no reason whatsoever, didn’t make the wisest choices as voters after all. Shocking. The selection of the Muslim Brotherhood candidate is not as bad as people fear, but The Economist has gone into full panic mode and is now wondering how nobody could have seen this coming. . . just like all liberals do when their fantasies implode.

Anything you'd like to add?

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Polls Show Obama Trouncing Romney

If the election were held today, Barack Obama would be reelected by a major landslide. See, you’ve been reading all the wrong polls. There’s no possibility of a close election, let alone a Romney victory. Here are the results of the polls from last week, in order from highest to lowest. The question asked was: “Would you like to see Barack Obama reelected?” Yes: 92%, 89%, 73%, 71%, 69% and 67%.

Now don’t quibble with me. I’m not sure if this was a poll of likely voters or merely preferences, but either way, it’s pretty stunning. So let’s take a closer look at the demographics of the polling. Also in order from highest to lowest, the poll responders are in France, Germany, England, Spain, Italy and last, but not least, the Czech Republic. In other words, if Obama were running for President of the Eurozone, he would be a shoo-in.

Is this another example of American exceptionalism? Maybe. After all, every American poll has the race as a small Obama victory, a small Romney victory, or “too close to call.” In other words, Obama would win by a huge margin, except that Americans aren’t Europeans. I find that to be an exceptionally good thing, don’t you?

Poland is a bit of a downer for Emperor Obama, however. Only 40% of Poles polled pulled for the prissy president. It may have something to do with missile defenses and Russia’s own prize prickly president Putin, but we can’t be sure. This is bound to bring Polack jokes back into vogue.

Pew Global Attitudes Project polls also found that in the same countries, the poll respondents can be as silly as a lot of Americans. In all the nations where Obama is highly popular, the overall opinion of the United States has slipped consistently each year for the past three years. Though the numbers are still better for the United States than they were in 2008, Bush’s final year in office, they have dropped consistently since the emperor’s coronation and lofty speechifying at the Berlin Wall.

Obama came into office proclaiming that the era of American unilateralism is over. The Euros liked that. But as Obama has acted more and more arbitrarily, or worse, ignored Europe’s demands, the United States is once again being perceived as arrogant. The old anti-Semitic joke about the Jewish people has been revised somewhat. “Individually, I like Americans, but as a group, they’re pushy.”

Interestingly, outside of Europe the reverse phenomenon has occurred. In the Islamic world, the favorable opinion of America has gone up, and its view of the president has gone down. George Bush actually had higher poll ratings in Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon than Obama over the past two years. Guess there’s something to that “hell hath no fury” thing. Obama came into office practically begging Jihadistan to give him enough time to extend the caliphate to Washington DC. Instead he delivered a surge in Afghanistan and drones in Pakistan. During the “Arab Spring,” Obama did a whole lot of talking and very little acting.. That hasn’t sat well, particularly with the Egyptians.

Don’t get overly-thrilled by the results in the Islamic world, however. They still really, really don’t like the United States very much, so the increased favorability of the US and the decreased popularity of Obama are purely relative. When a people thinks its prime Western enemy has elected the first American Muslim president only to find out he demonstrates the same neglect toward Islam as he does for Christianity and Judaism, there’s bound to be a show of disappointment.

The Euroweenies seem to be doing the same thing a large number of Americans are doing. They like Obama personally, but can’t entirely explain why. They don’t support the US as much as in the recent past, but they don’t seem to be able to connect Obama to any of their decreased respect for America. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that unlike Bush II and Ronald Reagan, Obama not only enthusiastically supports world government, but is delighted to borrow more money from China to support the United Nations and Greek financial bailouts.

So until the Obama administration succeeds in passing the UN Resolution on World Voting in American Elections, he stands a much better chance of winning the top governmental spot in France or Germany than he does in America.

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John Kerry's Strange Associates

Over the years, Sen. John Kerry has gotten his ideas of how the world works from people ranging from the Viet Cong to Alinsky radicals to Yale professors. Having pretty much successfully worked with his fellow Democrats on making the United States a social democratic government-dependent nation, over the past few years he has turned his attentions to foreign affairs.

Kerry is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Currently he is basking in the warmth of the Arab Spring. Like his counterparts in the executive branch, Barack Obama, Kerry seeks advice from those who can be trusted to tell the truth. Like Obama and his White House free-speech meeting with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Kerry has chosen to get his information on political developments in Egypt from the Freedom and Justice Party. The FJP is an arm of the Muslim brotherhood, which now (along with the even-more fundamentalist Salafists) controls about 70% of Egypt's legislative seats as of the most recent round of elections.

Let's face it. It would have been almost impossible for a man like Kerry to resist getting his advice from men who represent a party that has both "freedom" and "justice" in its name. So Kerry invited three honchos from the FJP to come to his Senate office. It's not as posh as the White House, but not bad. The three are Essam El-Erian, vice chairman of the FJP, Mohamed Saad Katani, Secretary-General of the FJP, and the big falafel, Mohamed Morsi, chairman of the FJP.

These men represent the best of Egyptian secular democracy (irony intended). Day-dreaming a western-style democracy in Egypt (and the Middle East) is a Democratic habit. Despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, back in February the Obama administration announced without even twitching that the Muslim Brotherhood is "largely secular." And Kerry has the quotes to prove it.

As for secularism, Katani agrees with the Salafists (really militant Islamists) that "Nobody dares oppose the application of Sharia law." El-Katani and El-Erian previously issued a joint statement saying: "If you want to know what principles guide our party, let me tell you: the principles of the Islamic Sharia law."

But there's still the "freedom and justice part," right? Says peaceful chairman Morsi: "Israel is a Zionist usurper that has been created by international terrorism and injustice. Israel must be destroyed and any nation that supports it is perpetrating genocide against the Palestinians." Kerry seemed entirely unruffled by that remark, unlike his reaction to Newt Gingrich referring to the Palestinians (correctly) as an "invented people."

Kerry's friendliness toward the Brotherhood was bolstered by an earlier statement from US Special Coordinator for Transitions in the Middle East William Taylor who had said that the US would be satisfied with a Brotherhood victory. Kerry's domestic partner at the meeting was Anne Patterson, US ambassador to Egypt.

Prior to the latest Egyptian elections, the Muslim Brotherhood had at least feigned a moderate stance toward secularism, democracy, and Israel. Since those elections the facade has begun to crumble. Even the liberal and Islamo-friendly The New Republic sensed there was something rotten in the state of Egypt. Correspondent Eric Trager conducted a series of interviews with FJP and Muslim Brotherhood leaders. He concluded: "Far from being moderate, these future leaders share a commitment to theocratic rule, complete with a limited view of civil liberties and an unmistakable antipathy for the West."

Kerry mustn't read TNR these days, or watch TV news stories about new outbreaks of anti-Christian violence and the storming of the Israeli embassy in Cairo. The Islamist masses have been considerably emboldened since their electoral victories. The FJP plans to follow strict Sharia law including, but not limited to, banning interest-bearing banking, banning alcohol, requiring women to wear clothing that covers everything but their faces (covering them will come later), and banning any speech which is critical of Islam or promotes in any way another religion. It's not clear whether they intend to make apostasy a capital offense, but leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood have made it clear they would like to.

Given all this, you might think that the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee might be a little cagey about whom he invites to his office and how far he would go to encourage them. Silly you. After the meetings, Kerry announced that he had learned just how good the intentions of the FJP are. In fact, they're so good, he first praised the "transparency and integrity" of the elections, then pledged his support for Egypt's new government. He also promised that he would do everything he could to get the International Monetary Fund to support the fledgling Islamist government (paid for largely out of the pockets of the US taxpayer).
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The Arabs Spring

I was fed up to the neck with the drooling announcements of the "Arab Spring" about thirty seconds after I first heard the expression. Fools in the American government and on the left actually believe the overturning of repressive regimes in the Middle East somehow was the foretaste of western-style democracy. That is nothing short of criminal naivete.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss (only worse). As the Arab Spring develops in Egypt with all the happy peace-loving Egyptians skipping down the streets of Cairo, holding hands, and singing kumbaya, something seems slightly amiss. Former strongman president Hosni Mubarak is going on trial for acting like a typical Arab leader, but in one way he was atypical. He maintained peace with his neighbors, most particularly Israel.

The usual Egyptian mob showed up for the weekly freedom (choke) demonstration in Tahrir Square, but as mob mentality took over, the mob decided demonstrating against a government that had already fallen just wasn't enough fun anymore. So last Friday's fun-fest turned into a march on the Israeli embassy in the nearby Giza district. Things aren't working out so well in Egypt. Tourism is down dramatically. The "free elections" have been kicked down the road. Money is becoming hard to come by for the average Egyptian. All good Arab Muslims know why things are so bad. It's the damned Jews.

The average Egyptian has probably never heard the line "the fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars, but in ourselves." Knowing that Islam is never in error, and that Egyptians are the very salt of the earth, someone has to be behind the troubles that have made Egypt's situation worse rather than better after the fall of Mubarak. We all know what the default position for failure is in Arab nations--Israel did it. Hatred of the West, the United States, democracy, freedom and civilized values in general are thoughts shared among the denizens of Jihadistan. But hatred of Israel is almost genetic and extremely visceral.

So the mob broke through barriers and entered the Israeli embassy. Shades of Saigon and Tehran. The violence in Eqypt was not as widespread, but the pattern was the same. Throw a thousand years of diplomatic rules and sovereign territory out the window and loot. The Egyptian military at first stood idly by as the mob vandalized everything in sight inside the embassy, destroying a peace that had existed between Egypt and Israel since 1979. After the embassy was gutted, and the Israeli diplomats had escaped, the military finally took charge, killing two members of the mob and injuring many others.

The Egyptian provisional government had already proved itself adept at shooting itself in the foot. One of its first acts was to show those Jews what's what by ending its exports of natural-gas to Israel. That instantly took almost $355 million out of the nation's already-staggering economy (incidentally and entirely coincidentally almost the exact same amount taken out of the American economy by Obama's gift to bankrupt Solyndra). Even after trying Mubarak friends in kangaroo courts, 12,000 of them to be exact, the thirst for the blood of those to blame for Egypt's woes was not slaked. Israel must pay.

The Arab Spring in Egypt is beginning to look a lot more like the long, hot summer. The Egyptian Israel-haters have been encouraged by Barack Obama's ongoing public disrespect for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Obama's support for an independent Palestinian state which includes parts of Jerusalem haven't helped much either. But at least some of Obama's diplomatic functionaries recognized that they have been a little too cozy with the new Egyptian bosses, and forced Obama to render assistance to the trapped Israeli diplomats at the embassy.

Unlike the arrogant and self-centered Obama, Netanyahu behaved like a statesman and a gentlemen (both expressions entirely foreign to the amateur President). Netanyahu praised Obama, saying that the American President "used every considerable means and influence of the United States to help us--we owe him a special debt of gratitude." Watch your back, Mr. Netanyahu.
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The Arabs Spring

To listen to the mainstream media, the Democrats, the left and the general all-around saps, it's springtime in the Rockies. It's a refreshing Irish Spring shower. It's the Prague Spring where genuine democracy overcame oppressive communism. It's the flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la. Etc., etc., ad nauseam. Tell that to the people the Arabs having been springing on.

Perhaps a better title would have been "the long, hot Arab summer." For something that sounds so sweet, innocent and uplifting, the Arab Spring is more the Winter of Their Discontent. It's time to trade bad Muslim dictators in for all-new and improved really bad Muslim dictatorships. At least Iran, which is not Arab, does not have to join in the dance around the maypole. It already has its theocratic dictatorship.

To celebrate the Rites of Spring, Arab Springers in Egypt mobbed the Virgin Mary Church in Cairo, set fire to the church, burned down the homes of two Coptic Christian families, stormed a nearby residential complex, killed thirteen people and wounded at least another two hundred. While springing on autocrat Hasni Mubarak, several Arabs also sprang on CBS correspondent Lara Logan, shouting Allahu Akbar as they raped her. The Egyptians further celebrated their spring by electing an overwhelmingly Islamofascist parliament. The springy Muslim Brotherhood now has a hammerlock on the legislative branch of government, and their leader has announced he will run for president against a very weak Amr Mousa. Meet the new boss, worse than the old boss.

The rumor that the church had attempted to convert an Egyptian Muslim girl to Christianity spurred the spring in the step of the Egyptian Arabs. But in the springtime, a young Arab's thoughts lightly turn to thoughts of murder, and the word got out to Iraqis about the alleged conversion attempt. The same thing had happened at a Syriac Christian Church in Baghdad. As for the alleged Iraqi convert, she completely denied that she had ever considered converting and didn't even know any Christians. No matter. They beat her, and killed fifty-one people at the church. Ah, spring is in the air.

As the MSM springs the news about le sacre du printemps, it somehow becomes "radical Salafists" who are raping, looting, pillaging and murdering Christians and Jews throughout the Middle East and North Africa. I hate to spring this on them, but the Muslim Brotherhood and the "Salafists" are one and the same. And they are well into the realm of control of Egypt with tentacles spreading throughout the Arab world. If you think spring is bad, wait until we get to the Arab Nuclear Winter.
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Nobody Does It Better (Than China)

Anyone who would be foolish enough to draw parallels between the "pro-democracy" rebellions in Egypt and China is making the mistake of thinking that the repressive regimes running those two benighted countries are equally vulnerable to a successful revolution. Most repressive regimes, Egypt among them, are generally old-school and unprepared for modern dissent.

Hosni Mubarak seems to have been caught flat-footed, unaware of the growing anti-government movement in his country. Like dictators of old, he didn't know whom he could trust, he didn't prepare for the onslaught, and his intelligence agencies dropped the ball by missing the great organizational tool of this "spontaneous" revolt--the Internet. There was a great deal of reaction but very little planning by the Egyptian government in advance of the big demonstrations.

The Chinese government is much more media savvy, and watches the Internet like a hawk. Where it has not succeeded in suppressing anti-government net traffic, it has been fully aware of it, and made plans months in advance for any possible attempt at revolution. What the people attempting to dislodge the dictators knew, the government knew. And when it was time for the protesters to act, the troops were ready to quell. The dictators didn't want a repeat of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Bad for the public image, bad for business as usual. So the dictators made sure they knew everything they needed to know about the plans of the protesters before the protesters could assemble in large numbers in very public places.

Naifs were touting the "Jasmine Revolution" that would take down the Chinese Government and bring true democracy to the Great Oppressor. Fat chance. American Internet users assumed that the Chinese mandarins were as unaware of the web chatter as Mubarak's regime was in Egypt. Fatal error. Encouraged by the seeming success of the Middle East Internet-fueled revolts, Chinese dissidents began a huge web campaign to stage massive protests in Beijing and other major Chinese cities. The protests were supposed to burst on the scene this past weekend.

Chinese dictators learn from their mistakes. Having read every Internet transmission, deciphered every plan, singled-out all the potential leaders, and knowing the proposed locations of the protests, the Red Guard sprang into action. Why wait for an embarrassing slaughter of civilians in large numbers and in highly public places when you can knock off the opposition early and in much less visible ways? There would be no repeat of Tiananmen Square. Why bother?

Suddenly, there were mass arrests of dozens of anti-government human rights activists. Those few activists who did manage to gather enough numbers to stage any kind of protest were quickly rounded up amidst the occasional beatings. The problem is that in the Internet Age, spontaneous demonstrations actually have to be spontaneous, as well as successfully clandestine. Organizing via the Internet may have worked in Egypt, but it ain't gonna work in China.

It didn't help that the calls for protests largely originated on Chinese language sites in America. The government knew in advance the thirteen cities which would be targeted, where the protesters would gather and even the slogans that would be used by the anti-government crowds. Police and army troops showed up at the sites before any meaningful protests could even begin. The Jasmine Revolution quickly became the Jasmine Fiasco.

Still, even the attempt shows that there is a large and growing population fed up with government repression and corruption. Despite its public face of new wealth and strides forward, the simple fact is that China is rushing into the 21st Century on the backs of its masses. Modernization is everywhere, and if a few hundred thousand Chinese who got in the way of progress have to die, well, that's life. China has millions of truly homeless people, many displaced by those immense government building projects. At the same time, the government has built "show cities" of the future in which nobody lives and probably never will. Potemkin villages on steroids.

And even though the Chinese dictators skillfully monitored the Internet to shut down the potential revolution, that won't be the end of it. It is extremely difficult to entirely shut down news from the West, pro-democracy Internet posts and the transmission of the message of freedom in the ether and the cloud. As fast as China shuts down a dissident voice, two more spring up in its place. So the tech-savvy dictators may be able to fend off an organized protest poorly-disguised on the Internet, but it cannot entirely shut down the information that could lead to a truly spontaneous revolt throughout the evil empire.

As I've quoted before, "no army is as powerful as an idea whose time has come." That idea is freedom, and though the government may continue to have the ability to shut down Internet-organized protests, it can't entirely shut down the ideas transmitted on the Internet that fuel protests. And if those protests take place on a large scale in very visible places, the government may lose control of its ability to fend off a revolution by using Internet plans against themselves.

Still, for the time being, let's be cautious about the true motivation behind the revolts in the Middle East and wary of optimism about the same thing happening in China any time soon.

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As Always, George Soros Has The Answer

Here is a snap quiz for our savvy readers. Who or what is behind the rioting in Egypt? Is it Hosni Mubarak for denying freedom to his poverty-stricken people? Is it the Egyptian police for violently putting down dissent? Could it be Egypt's long history of abiding military strongmen? How about the Muslim Brotherhood which either fomented the riots or is now exploiting them? Could it be a dearth of I-Pods? All of the above? None of the above?

Once again you have all over-analyzed and missed the obvious. Like unto Occam's razor, in a myriad of possible answers, the simplest one is usually correct. So how come all you geniuses missed it? It's easy. Ask Nazi collaborator and currency manipulator George Soros. It's the eternal Jew. It's Zionism. It's Israel. Yep. It's that nation that one British Peer awhile back called "that shitty little country." Last Thursday, Soros put it quite simply in the Washington Post so even we dummies can understand: "The main stumbling block is Israel."

Now don't you feel foolish for having missed that juicy tidbit of news? You see, Israel oppresses its Islamic masses, so of course it cheers on a largely Muslim nation that oppresses its own masses. Buddies by nature, don't you know. And Soros bases his opinion that Israel is behind the unrest on solid evidence--his own feelings. He says: "I am, as a general rule, wary of revolutions. But in the case of Egypt, I see a good chance of success."

He explains that good chance of success as follows: "As a committed advocate of democracy and open society, I cannot help but share in the enthusiasm that is sweeping across the Middle East." In other words, he believes it because he believes it. Well, he's not that far off. There hasn't been this much enthusiasm since Mohammed came out of his cave and mass-murdered the local Jews, Christians and "pagans." Or when Saladin faced Richard the Lionheart. I'm not quite sure how much the Nazis in Soros's homeland encouraged an open society, but enough that he helped them out. After all, all those Jews in his native Hungary were potential future citizens of Israel who in the future might disturb the peace in Palestine.

Soros is putting his money (or your money, as the case may be) on salvation by the Muslim Brotherhood. He knows that the Brotherhood is a peaceful, moderate Islamic group that doesn't really mean it when it says that if/when it gains power in Egypt, the evil Camp David accords will be abrogated and a bloody war declared on Israel. That's just rhetoric, and the Brotherhood is only trying to assure the Egyptian public that the sole warlike nation in the Middle East will not survive to continue stirring up unrest and destroying the Islamic peace.

Soros didn't just pull that conclusion out of the air either. He previously said the same thing about Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon, the ayatollahs in Iran, and Hamas in Palestine. He got that right, didn't he? Well, didn't he? He is not yet committed on the issue of the peaceful intentions of Al Qaeda, but he's leaning toward declaring it a peacemaker as well. After all, Al Qaeda was given its original life from the loins of the Muslim Brotherhood, so it can't be all bad. Never mind the Brotherhood's basic credo of revivifying the caliphate and making all of the Middle East a peaceful Islamic Garden of Eden.

Soros also bases his support of the Muslim Brotherhood on its intimate connection with former IAEA investigator Mohamed El Baradei. Though El Baradei has lived entirely outside Egypt for most of the past thirty years while collecting big bucks from the UN and the International Society of Peaceniks, Soros is sure that El Baradei has an intimate knowledge of exactly what is going on in the streets of Cairo, Alexandria and along the Suez Canal. But Soros is convinced that the Brotherhood couldn't possibly be using El Baradei as their Judas goat. He sees the El Baradei connection as "a hopeful sign that it [the Brotherhood] intends to play a constructive role in a democratic political system." Just like Ahmadinejad in Iran.

Simply put, if you are searching for the cause behind the bloody unrest in Egypt, look no farther than Israel. Without Israel, the entire Middle East would be a peaceful earthly Paradise with seventy-two virgins for every good Muslim man, water flowing like oil, and money trees in everyone's back yard. Apostate beheadings and Christian and Jewish slaves would be readily available, and the genius in the American White House could declare that the world is now largely Muslim.
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Riot Like An Egyptian

Egypt is dominating the news these days, for good reason. Egypt lies at a strategically key location, with much of the world’s trade still passing through the Suez Canal. It shares a border with Israel. It remains a key battlefront in the war between secularists and fundamentalist Islam. And whether we like it or not, we are deeply involved in what is going on in Egypt. Here’s your primer on Egypt.

1. A Brief History. The current problems with Egypt began when General Muhammad Naguib overthrew British puppet King Farouk and declared a Republic in 1953. At that point, many Egyptians were hoping for democratic rule, but the army had other plans. Naguib was forced to resign the following year by Gamal Abdel Nasser, who tossed out the British and allied Egypt with the Soviet Union, introducing socialism. His replacement, Anwar Sadat expelled the Soviets in 1972 and allied Egypt with the United States, but he also imposed a policy of violently repressing all opposition. Sadat was assassinated in 1981, after entering into a peace treaty with Israel. His vice president, General Hosni Mubarak, took over and remains in charge until now.

In the last few years, Mubarak began losing popular support. Although a rich country, Egypt’s wealth is held by a few well-connected allies of Mubarak, with most of the population being unemployed and living in abject poverty. Political opponents are routinely jailed, and Mubarak has held numerous fake elections, often running unopposed after declaring opposing political parties illegal. He is the classic Middle Eastern strongman, relying on the military and the secret police to maintain his rule.

On January 14th of this year, the people of Tunisia rose up and overthrew their own strongman, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. The surprising success of this revolution (caveat “success” in that no new government has yet been established), triggered the imaginations of the Arab world. When Egyptians heard of this, they took to the streets. Look for Jordan to be next.

2. Why Egypt Matters. Egypt matters to the United States for several reasons. First, the Suez Canal sits in Egypt. Much of the world’s trade travels through it. Secondly, Egypt borders on Israel, and has been an important player in trying to keep arms out of the hands of the Palestinians. Third, Egypt is the home of the Muslim Brotherhood, the group that basically spawned modern Islamic terrorism. This last point is particularly important. If Egypt becomes like Taliban-Afghanistan, war between Egypt and Israel will be inevitable, and we will be drawn in. Moreover, the 20% of the population who are Coptic Christians may find themselves in the middle of a genocide, just as the Christians in Sudan found themselves.

3. What Are The Alternatives. Right now, the alternatives are the problem.

1. Mubarak could stay, though I think that’s impossible, and would just put off the inevitable. He just appointed a successor after refusing to do so for years, in the hopes of staving off the protestors. The successor, Omar Suleiman, runs the intelligence service. Prior to this, Mubarak was believed to have been planning to appoint his son, who has now fled the country. But this has not satisfied the protestors and it’s unlikely anyone Mubarak chooses will be allowed to stay in power.

2. The West is hoping the government voluntarily hands over power to Mohammed Elbaradei, who they stupidly believe to be a Western-style democrat waiting to happen. You might remember Elbaradei as the head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, where he routinely claimed that Iran was not building nuclear weapons. He also lobbied against sanctions and demanded that if Iran could not have nuclear weapons, then Israel should be forced to give theirs up as well.

3. Elbaradei is backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, who seek to convert Egypt into an Islamic regime; although he’s not a member, Elbaradei and the Muslim Brotherhood have apparently cut some sort of deal. The Muslim Brotherhood, which is now active in 80 countries around the world, is the root of Islamic terrorism today. Their creed is: “God is our objective; the Koran is our law; the Prophet is our leader; jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.”

Unfortunately, they have been very good at lobbying and many Western patsies, including Bush Administration and Obama Administration people, have fallen for the line that the Muslim Brotherhood is a peaceful group. They have even claimed that somehow their “moderation” has made them the enemies of “extremists” like al Qaeda. The line pushed most often by their patsies is “they aren’t dangerous.” Expect to hear a lot of that until this issue is over.

4. A competing group is called the Kifaya movement, which is supposed to be a group of intellectuals who are demanding “liberal, democracy.” That sounds good, except this group is anti-Semitic and anti-American. They were formed as a protest movement against Israel’s handling of the Palestinians, and they have since protested both Israel and America’s involvement in the Middle East. In 2006, they campaigned to get a million Egyptians to sign a petition demanding that Egypt renounce its peace treaty with Israel.

Ultimately, however, I think none of these groups matter. The army will decide who runs the country. The problem with the Army is their increasingly horrible relations with the US. Because of the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, the United States has been providing billions of dollars in aid each year to Egypt and the Egyptian military. As a matter of official policy, the American and Egyptian militaries are very friendly and work together on most issues. However, as was revealed in diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks, the reality is quite different. Neither military trusts the other and the Egyptians have refused American entreaties to reform, clean up corruption, and refocus on fighting terrorism. Instead, the Egyptian military continues to consider Israel its primary enemy, and joint operations and contacts between the Egyptians and the Americans have all but stopped.

4. Why Think The Army Will Win?. Right now we are seeing all kinds of signs the Army is planning to replace Mubarak. First, when the protests began, the Army let the police be overwhelmed. They did not step in to stop the looting or killing initially. This, smartly, turned the public against both the protestors (who even looted museums) and the police, and shook Mubarak’s regime. When Mubarak called out the secret police, and they began shooting at protestors, the Army sent tanks to stand between the two groups, which again makes them public heroes. When the violence finally died down, the Army came out in force, but has refused to suppress the crowds or enforce a curfew. This puts the Army firmly in the position of being the only institution that appears to have remained neutral, pro-public and nonviolent. That gives the Army credibility, which carries with it the ability to play kingmaker, especially since the Army holds all the levers of power in the country.

If I’m reading this correctly, look for the Army to replace Mubarak sometime this week, probably with a national government of reconciliation, which is likely to be little more than a puppet government. I think the model being pursued here is that of the Turkish governments of the 1950s - 1980s. If I’m right, this may actually turn out to be a good thing, provided they (1) gain sufficient popular support to keep their legitimacy, (2) they manage to keep the Islamic fundamentalists from gaining influence, and (3) they work to reform the country to make it more stable and democratic.

5. American Involvement. Finally, here’s our involvement. When this first happened, there didn’t appear to be an American link, except that we’ve been pouring money into Egypt since the 1970s. However, the other day a handful of diplomatic cables were released by Wikileaks which show the US State Department discussing a plan with dissidents in 2008 to throw out the Mubarak government in 2011. There is no evidence yet that the US took any steps in that regard, except lobbying Mubarak to release dissidents from prison. But if more comes to light, this could put us very deeply into this.

And if this is true, it’s highly stupid to start a revolution without a plan to put something better in place, which we clearly don’t have.

Obama’s role in all of this is somewhat suspect. When the crisis hit, Obama tried to walk the line between supporting both sides. But as it became clearer the protestors are likely to win, Obama’s people started putting out word that Obama was instrumental in causing this -- something for which there is no evidence. Hillary Clinton has now all but called for the removal of Mubarak, long after it’s clear he will be leaving -- though the "all but" part has angered Elbaradei and the Muslim Brotherhood. Unfortunately, Obama's actions seems like front-running now and may be too little too late, no matter who ultimately prevails.

Also, politically, Obama stands to gain nothing but grief no matter how this turns out -- so don't expect him to show a lot of nerve. Americans care little for overseas events and care even less for this part of the world. Thus, even if Egypt turns out rainbows and unicorns, this is unlikely to impress American voters. But if things turn ugly, people will remember Obama’s newest claims of all-but causing this revolution.

Questions?

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