Who Cares About Egypt?

One of the worst aspects of the see-no-evil, liberal press is their non-treatment of the significance of the takeover of Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement dedicated to the destruction of Israel and America. Just as outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post ignore or spin the miss-steps and the illegalities of the Obama Administration, so do they misrepresent what is happening in Egypt because the fingerprints of Obama and Clinton are all over this deadly mess.

As Carolyn Glick points out below, it took some time before the enormity of the loss of China to be universally appreciated during the “Cold War”; I think within a year most informed Americans will understand what Egypt is up to. Unfortunately the election of November, 2012 will be behind us before Obama’s stupidity or duplicity in supporting the takeover by Morsi is understood.

Who Lost Egypt?

By Caroline Glick - August 19, 2012 RealClearPolitics (Excerpt)

“In 1949, the Communist takeover of China rattled the US foreign policy establishment to its core. China’s fall to Communism was correctly perceived as a massive strategic defeat for the US….

…Contrast the US’s acceptance of failure in China in 1949, and its willingness to learn the lessons of its loss of China, with the US’s denial of its failure and loss of Egypt today.

On Sunday, new president Mohamed Morsi completed Egypt’s transformation into an Islamist state. In the space of one week, Morsi sacked the commanders of the Egyptian military and replaced them with Muslim Brotherhood loyalists, and fired all the editors of the state-owned media and replaced them with Muslim Brotherhood loyalists.

He also implemented a policy of intimidation, censorship and closure of independently owned media organizations that dare to publish criticism of him.

Morsi revoked the military’s constitutional role in setting the foreign and military policies of Egypt. But he maintained the junta’s court-backed decision to disband the parliament. In so doing, Morsi gave himself full control over the writing of Egypt’s new constitution.

As former ambassador to Egypt Zvi Mazel wrote Tuesday in The Jerusalem Post, Morsi’s moves mean that he “now holds dictatorial powers surpassing by far those of erstwhile president Hosni Mubarak.”

In other words, Morsi’s actions have transformed Egypt from a military dictatorship into an Islamist dictatorship.

The impact on Egypt’s foreign policy of Morsi’s seizure of power is already becoming clear. On Monday, Al-Masri al-Youm quoted Mohamed Gadallah, Morsi’s legal adviser, saying that Morsi is considering revising the peace accord with Israel. Gadallah explained that Morsi intends to “ensure Egypt’s full sovereignty and control over every inch of Sinai.”

In other words, Morsi intends to remilitarize Sinai and so render the Egyptian military a clear and present threat to Israel’s security. Indeed, according to Haaretz, Egypt has already breached the peace accord and deployed forces and heavy weaponry to Sinai without Israeli permission.

The rapidity of Morsi’s moves has surprised most observers. But more surprising than his moves is the US response to his moves.

Obama administrations officials have behaved as though nothing has happened, or even as though Morsi’s moves are positive developments.

For instance, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, one administration official dismissed the significance of Morsi’s purge of the military brass, saying, “What I think this is, frankly, is Morsi looking for a generational change in military leadership.”

The Journal reported that Egypt’s new defense minister, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sissi, is known as a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer. But the Obama administration quickly dismissed the reports as mere rumors with no significance. Sissi, administration sources told the Journal, ate dinner with US President Barack Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser John Brennan during Brennan’s visit to Cairo last October. Aside from that, they say, people are always claiming that Morsi’s appointments have ties to Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.

A slightly less rose-colored assessment came from Steven Cook in Foreign Affairs. According to Cook, at worst, Morsi’s move was probably nothing more than a present-day reenactment of Gamal Abel Nasser’s decision to move Egypt away from the West and into the Soviet camp in 1954.

Most likely, Cook argued, Morsi was simply doing what Sadat did when in 1971 he fired other generals with whom he had been forced to share power when he first succeeded Nasser in 1969.

Certainly the Nasser and Sadat analogies are pertinent. But while properly citing them, Cook failed to explain what those analogies tell us about the significance of Morsi’s actions. He drew the dots but failed to see the shape they make.

Morsi’s Islamism, like Mao’s Communism, is inherently hostile to the US and its allies and interests in the Middle East. Consequently, Morsi’s strategic repositioning of Egypt as an Islamist country means that Egypt – which has served as the anchor of the US alliance system in the Arab world for 30 years – is setting aside its alliance with the US and looking toward reassuming the role of regional bully.

Egypt is on the fast track to reinstating its war against Israel and threatening international shipping in the Suez Canal. And as an Islamist state, Egypt will certainly seek to export its Islamic revolution to other countries. No doubt fear of this prospect is what prompted Saudi Arabia to begin showering Egypt with billions of dollars in aid.

It should be recalled that the Saudis so feared the rise of a Muslim Brotherhood-ruled Egypt that in February 2011, when US President Barack Obama was publicly ordering then-president Hosni Mubarak to abdicate power immediately, Saudi leaders were beseeching him to defy Obama. They promised Mubarak unlimited financial support for Egypt if he agreed to cling to power.

The US’s astounding sanguinity in the face of Morsi’s completion of the Islamization of Egypt is an illustration of everything that is wrong and dangerous about US Middle East policy today…. RealClearPolitics

There are reports today that Muslim Brotherhood thugs are assassinating by crucifixions Morsi opponents.