To be specific, this crisis in Egypt is an opportunity for the United States to rethink the underlying principles of the Pax Americana that Washington has sought to maintain in the Middle East for decades. That arrangement rested on three pillars: 1) unconditional support for Israel, 2) denying or discounting Palestinian rights, and 3) support for and collusion with various "pro-Western" leaders whose legitimacy was always questionable. Though this policy had occasional moments of success-such as the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel and the 1991 Gulf War -- it was always a long-term loser. Unconditional U.S. support removed any short-term incentive for Israel to cut a fair deal with the Palestinians, and collusion with leaders like Mubarak made the United States even less popular on the Arab street.Being on the right side of history apparently means throwing Israel under the bus. And again, the contrast between Walt's revisionism and Kissinger's traditionalism is striking. Indeed, Kissinger dismisses "university professors" (like Walt) at the clip. Real world forces impinge on the actions of states, what theorists refer to as constraints. But in Walt's world, Egypt's revolution provides the ultimate opportunity to downgrade both Israel's legitimacy and America's interests in the Jewish state.
In short, this as a moment when Barack Obama needs to be on the right side of history.
President Obama said Tuesday that a transition to democracy in Egypt "must begin now" and should lead to opposition participation in free and fair elections.Hey, for the overly cautious, standing on the sidelines of history is good foreign policy. But I think most folks have seen this White House shaking in its boots amid an epic "3:00am" moment.
Speaking after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's announcement Tuesday that he will not seek reelection in September, Obama said he had called Mubarak after the speech and discussed the situation in Egypt with him.
"He recognizes that the status quo is not sustainable and that change must take place," Obama said at the White House. He said he told Mubarak of "my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful, and it must begin now."
Earlier, Obama administration officials indicated that Mubarak's announcement was less than they had hoped for and was unlikely to satisfy protesters' demands for a new government.
Obama met with his top national security officials following Mubarak's televised speech as the White House contemplated its next step.
Mubarak spoke after receiving a direct message from Obama carried by retired U.S. diplomat Frank G. Wisner. Although officials declined to discuss the details of Wisner's meeting with Mubarak Tuesday, they said that the administration's "prevailing view" since last weekend has been that an agreement by Mubarak not to run again was insufficient.
In public statements since Sunday, the administration has called for an "orderly transition" in Egypt, defined by officials as the immediate establishment of a representative, interim government that would enact reforms and prepare for an open election.
Although officials have said the administration was not opposed to Mubarak's remaining in office through a transition period if that were acceptable to the Egyptian people, several indicated in recent days that they did not see how that would satisfy the vast throngs who have taken to the streets to demand his ouster.
Obama's message to Mubarak urging him not to run again contrasted sharply with the White House's characterization of its position in a news briefing Monday.
AP video c/o The Other McCain.
CAIRO — President Hosni Mubarak announced that he would not run for another term in elections scheduled for the fall, appearing on state television to promise an orderly transition but saying he would serve out his term. In comments translated by CNN, he swore that he would never leave Egypt but would “die on its soil.”RTWT.
Television cameras showed the vast crowds gathered in Tahrir Square in central Cairo roaring, but not necessarily in approval. The protesters have made the president’s immediate and unconditional resignation a bedrock demand of their movement, and it did not appear that the concession mollified them. Reports said that thousands of protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square chanted "Leave! Leave!" after the speech.
Mr. Mubarak’s announcement came after President Obama urged him not to run, effectively withdrawing America’s support for its closest Arab ally, according to American diplomats in Cairo and Washington.
As the radical Muslim Brotherhood schemes to oust a pro-American despot in Egypt, U.S. pundits have cheered the move as a boon for freedom. This is dangerous pablum.Still more at the link.
The Muslim Brotherhood is in talks with opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei to form a unity government to replace the regime of embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a U.S. ally.
Pundits on both the left and the right have naively portrayed the Brotherhood — a worldwide jihadist movement based in Cairo — as a pro-democracy force that has "courageously campaigned against the government and for the poor," as a CNN anchor put it. Obama adviser Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer, argues that the U.S. "should not be afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood." He claims it "renounced violence years ago."
Former Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino chimed in that at least the Brotherhood would pick up the trash and provide basic services for Egyptians. "Don't be afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt," she said on Fox News. "This has nothing to do with religion." In fact, it has everything to do with it. The exiled Brotherhood hates Mubarak because he secularized Egyptian society. The Brotherhood wants to Talibanize it.
In 2007, the Brotherhood drafted a party platform under the banner "Islam is the solution." It called for establishing an undemocratically selected board of religious scholars with the power to veto any legislation passed by the Egyptian Parliament and approved by the president that's not compatible with Islamic law. The platform also called for banning women and Christians from high office.
The spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, has argued that secularism "is atheism and a rejection of Islam," and therefore "downright apostasy." He vows the Brotherhood will "conquer America" and has been barred from entering the U.S. due to fatwahs calling for the killing of American troops.
Other facts Americans should know: Mubarak outlawed the Brotherhood because it assassinated his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, and plotted to kill him, too; the Brotherhood gave birth to Hamas and al-Qaida and still finances the terror groups; and Brotherhood alumni include Osama bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ayman al-Zawahiri (who was jailed for the Sadat murder) and blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman (who issued a fatwah blessing it).
The headline at top borrows from the Jerusalem Post's editorial, "An orderly transition of power in Egypt":
Relations with Egypt since the signing of the Camp David Peace Treaty in March, 1979 have been cold, yet even a tepid peace with Egypt is of utmost importance.There's more at the link above, but the main point is that a transitional regime under Suleiman will more likely promote the best approximations of freedom in Eygpt. But it's Caroline Glick's piece that's most shaking me out of my euphoric daze. She offers a brilliant, nuanced piece of analysis, and is critical of both the neoconservative vision represented by the Bush administration and the post-colonial progressivism represented by the Obama administration. And she concludes that's there's really no third way beyond these. First principles of statecraft caution against dramatic change in Egypt, and as much as we hope upon hope, I'm now convinced this is the correct analysis. See, "Clueless in Washington":
The quiet along our mutual border has allowed the IDF to redirect military resources to other potentially inflammatory locations – south Lebanon, the Gaza Strip – while reducing the strain on reserve soldiers.
Since the Hamas takeover of Gaza, the IDF and Egypt have quietly coordinated efforts against Iranian-supplied arms smuggling.
Egypt under Muslim Brotherhood rule would not only put an end to all this, but a sometimes reluctant ally, with the largest and (Israel-excepted) strongest armed forces in the Mideast, based on the most advanced American-made technologies, would be transformed into a bellicose foe.
To cover all the borders as potential military fronts for the first time since the years following the Yom Kippur War, the IDF would need to undergo major structural changes, spreading its already limited resources even thinner.
ANYONE WHO cherishes liberty inevitably sympathizes with the aspirations of Egypt’s men and women, young and old, secular and religious, educated and not, who have taken to the streets in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and other sites across the country, demanding an end to Mubarak’s oppressive government. Those rare blog entries in praise of freedom that managed to skirt Mubarak’s Internet blackout were truly moving. Justice is on the side of the legions of young Egyptians blocked from getting ahead by a corrupt and mismanaged economy and a system in which who you know is more important than what you have to offer.
It would be comforting to believe that there is a third way – that when the dust has settled, Egyptians could find themselves led neither by a radical Islamist regime headed by the Muslim Brotherhood, nor by more Mubarak-style repression under Suleiman or someone else. One would like to believe that Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad ElBaradei, leader of the reformist movement, is right when he argues that it is only Mubarak’s propaganda that has convinced the West that Egyptians must choose between just two options – the status quo authoritarian regime, or “the likes of bin Laden’s al-Qaida.”
Yet the sad fact is that an overwhelming proportion of Egypt’s populace supports Islamic fundamentalists.
What has most confounded Israeli officials and commentators alike has not been the strength of the anti-regime protests, but the American response to them. Outside the far Left, commentators from all major newspapers, radio and television stations have variously characterized the US response to events in Egypt as irrational, irresponsible, catastrophic, stupid, blind, treacherous, and terrifying.There's more at the link above.
They have pointed out that the Obama administration’s behavior – as well as that of many of its prominent conservative critics – is liable to have disastrous consequences for the US’s other authoritarian Arab allies, for Israel and for the US itself.
The question most Israelis are asking is why are the Americans behaving so destructively? Why are President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton charting a course that will necessarily lead to the transformation of Egypt into the first Salafist Islamic theocracy? And why are conservative commentators and Republican politicians urging them to be even more outspoken in their support for the rioters in the streets?
Does the US not understand what will happen in the region as a result of its actions? Does the US really fail to understand what will happen to its strategic interests in the Middle East if the Muslim Brotherhood either forms the next regime or is the power behind the throne of the next regime in Cairo?
Distressingly, the answer is that indeed, the US has no idea what it is doing. The reason the world’s only (quickly declining) superpower is riding blind is because its leaders are trapped between two irrational, narcissistic policy paradigms and they can’t see their way past them.
The first paradigm is former president George W. Bush’s democracy agenda and its concomitant support for open elections.
Bush supporters and former administration officials have spent the last month since the riots began in Tunisia crowing that events prove Bush’s push for democratization in the Arab world is the correct approach.
The problem is that while Bush’s diagnosis of the dangers of the democracy deficit in the Arab world was correct, his antidote for solving this problem was completely wrong.
Bush was right that tyranny breeds radicalism and instability and is therefore dangerous for the US.
But his belief that free elections would solve the problem of Arab radicalism and instability was completely wrong. At base, Bush’s belief was based on a narcissistic view of Western values as universal.
When, due to US pressure, the Palestinians were given the opportunity to vote in open and free elections in 2006, they voted for Hamas and its totalitarian agenda. When due to US pressure, the Egyptians were given limited freedom to choose their legislators in 2005, where they could they elected the totalitarian Muslim Brotherhood to lead them.
The failure of his elections policy convinced Bush to end his support for elections in his last two years in office.
Frustratingly, Bush’s push for elections was rarely criticized on its merits. Under the spell of the other policy paradigm captivating American foreign policy elites – anti-colonialism – Bush’s leftist opponents never argued that the problem with his policy is that it falsely assumes that Western values are universal values. Blinded by their anti-Western dogma, they claimed that his bid for freedom was nothing more than a modern-day version of Christian missionary imperialism.
It is this anti-colonialist paradigm, with its foundational assumption that that the US has no right to criticize non-Westerners that has informed the Obama administration’s foreign policy. It was the anti-colonialist paradigm that caused Obama not to support the pro-Western protesters seeking the overthrow of the Iranian regime in the wake of the stolen 2009 presidential elections.
As Obama put it at the time, “It’s not productive, given the history of US-Iranian relations, to be seen as meddling, the US president meddling in the Iranian elections.”
And it is this anti-colonialist paradigm that has guided Obama’s courtship of the Syrian, Turkish and Iranian regimes and his unwillingness to lift a hand to help the March 14 movement in Lebanon.
MOREOVER, SINCE the paradigm claims that the non-Western world’s grievances towards the West are legitimate, Obama’s Middle East policy is based on the view that the best way to impact the Arab world is by joining its campaign against Israel. This was the central theme of Obama’s speech before an audience dominated by Muslim Brotherhood members in Cairo in June 2009.
As I stand in Tahrir Square on Monday trying to interview protesters, dozens of people surging around me and pleading for the United States to back their call for democracy, the yearning and hopefulness of these Egyptians taking huge risks is intoxicating.Read the whole thing.
When I lived in Cairo many years ago studying Arabic, Tahrir Square, also called Liberation Square, always frankly carried a hint of menace. It was cacophonous and dirty, full of crazed motorists in dilapidated cars. That was way back at a time when the then-new Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, talked a good game about introducing democracy.
Now the manic drivers are gone, replaced by cheering throngs waving banners clamoring for the democracy they never got — and by volunteers who scrupulously pick up litter, establish order and hand out drinks and food.
“I’m going home right now to get food and drinks for the demonstrators,” one middle-age man, Waheed Hussein, told me as he hopped into his car near Tahrir Square shortly after curfew fell. While talking to me, he allowed a hitchhiker to jump in, and then the hitchhiker decided to bring back supplies as well. With great pride, the two new friends explained to me that this would be their contribution to the birth of an authentic Egyptian democracy.
In short, Tahrir Square has lost its menace and suddenly become the most exhilarating place in the world.
Yet one thing nags at me. These pro-democracy protesters say overwhelmingly that America is on the side of President Mubarak and not with them. They feel that way partly because American policy statements seem so nervous, so carefully calculated — and partly because these protesters were attacked with tear gas shells marked “made in U.S.A.”
The upshot is that this pro-democracy movement, full of courage and idealism and speaking the language of 1776, wasn’t inspired by us. No, the Egyptians said they feel inspired by Tunisia — and a bit stymied by America.
Everywhere I go, Egyptians insist to me that Americans shouldn’t perceive their movement as a threat. And I find it sad that Egyptians are lecturing Americans on the virtues of democracy.
"Full-fledged support of Israel. Let Egypt go to shit. Threaten them. Tell them, any border crossings by the Egyptian military into southern Israel will be met with the full might and force of the US Military."Also, at the comments from Eric's blog, Libertarian Republican:
Donald, protect Israel, and make it abundantly clear, whatever happens the United States will not tolerate a Radical Islamist regime like Muslim Brotherhood taken over.I also heard from my former student Barbara Efraim. She's concerned. She wrote that "a government led by the MB can be BAD." No doubt. And Barbara's especially worried about Israel: "Netanyahu said that they need to support Mubarak, but when he leaves, the incoming government coalition will most probably be opposed to Bibi and to the U.S." Again, that's for sure. News reports indicated today that Mohamed Ghanem, a Muslim Brotherhood stooge in Egypt, has announced plans for a military campaign against Israel. So to be clear, I'm not minimizing the threat. I think the New York Times' piece last night covered the challenges extremely well. Israel Matzav links to that piece, with added discussion: "The New Middle East." And John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, has been on Fox News all week warning against the Muslim Brotherhood. It's a dangerous situation. That said, no one knows for sure what will happen. The New York Times reported earlier that Egypt's military renounced the use of force against the protesters. See, "Mubarak’s Grip on Power Is Shaken." And a million protesters are expected to take to the streets on Tuesday.
Pressure Mubarak to step aside and let someone pro-America/pro-free enterprise take his place.
But alas, with Islamist-sympathizer Obama in the White House, the situation is just about hopeless.
Time and a full array of political alternatives are critical in the upcoming presidential election and the parliamentary elections that undoubtedly will follow. If given an array of choices, I believe that the Egyptian people will choose a democratic future of freedom and not an Islamist future of imposed extremism. While the Muslim Brotherhood, if legalized, would certainly win seats in a new parliament, there is every likelihood that the next Egyptian government will not be a Muslim Brotherhood government but a non-Islamist one committed to building a free and democratic Egypt.And see also William Kristol's latest analysis, "Obama's Opportunity: This is the 3 a.m. phone call. Will President Obama rise to the occasion?":
Such a government would still pose real challenges to U.S. policy in many areas. But with all eyes in the region on Egypt, it would be a good outcome nonetheless. With a large population and rich cultural heritage, Egypt has always been a leader in the Middle East. Now it has the opportunity to become what it always should have been—the leader of a movement toward freedom and democracy in the Arab world.
It’s up to President Obama to seize the moment. It’s not too late for him to do so. But the stakes are high, and the situation is urgent. Egypt’s path may be determined in the next 48 hours. President Obama can overcome all the counsels of timidity and passivity. He can take charge of his administration. He can help usher Mubarak out—his presence is now a source of instability, and the longer the showdown continues, the greater the odds of a bad outcome. He can get the U.S. engaged—to some degree publicly, but on all cylinders privately. Our ability to shape events is limited, we keep on being told. That’s true—but we don’t know how much we can do until we try. And what’s the downside? We can’t bring back the status quo ante.I too think that the Egyptian people will ultimately choose freedom, and the biggest threat to stability in the region is the Obama administration's amateurism. Support the Egyptian democracy. Change will be messy, and even dangerous, but it will be honest and we'll deal with the consequences. I won't tell the Egyptian people to "go eat sh*t."
She's Saudi, apparently, but a precocious little thing like this is the face of modernity for the Middle East.
Some say that a freedom agenda only opens the door to Islamists; the truth is that our support for secular dictators does more for Islamists than democracy promotion ever did. We have an opportunity to right our ways and stand with the people of the Middle East - not forgetting Iran - in their quest for basic freedom. But it's going to take more than bland statements and White House hand-wringing. The president himself needs to stand up and unequivocally make clear America's position: in favor of the people over their oppressors. Suspend aid to the Egyptian government. Initiate an immediate review of all programs in the Middle East. Get the word out to our diplomats. Now.See also, Michael Rubin, "The U.S. Should Not Fear Egypt Regime Change":
Today, the U.S. is paying the price for its refusal to cultivate liberal opposition. Next to Iraq and Afghanistan, Egypt hosts the largest American embassy in the world. That no American diplomat saw this uprising coming, however, should raise serious questions about how our embassies operate. That the Muslim Brotherhood presents a real challenge to American policy is undeniable. In neither Tunisia nor Egypt, however, have Islamists led the popular protests, although there is a risk that the Brotherhood may co-opt the protests. The mistake the White House has made in the past - both under Bush and Obama - is that it has accepted the rhetoric of democracy and liberalism without setting tough standards. Militias should never be accepted as political parties, nor should any group that legitimizes terrorism ever have America's imprimatur. The sooner the White House and State Department engage non-violent opposition groups in the Middle East, the more influence the U.S. will enjoy when the going gets rough and the dictators get going.That's one way to tackle the Muslim Brotherhood question, and while sweet-sounding and wonkish, it's not satisfying in the short term. Jihad Watch reports that the Muslim Brotherhood has pledged war with Israel in the advent of power: "Muslim Brotherhood Leader: Prepare for War with Israel."
But folks need to get a grip. Nostalgia for Mubarak is exceedingly misplaced. Yeah, he's our guy and all that. But he's been a disaster for Egypt's development, and in an age of increasingly rapid global communications, the regime's failures are exponentially multiplied by the day. Victor Davis Hanson points out that the roots of radicalism in Egypt have more to do with Mubarak's rule than anything found in Israel or the United States, "What’s the Matter with Egypt?"
What’s next? “Finger-in-the-wind” diplomacy may work for a while, but it requires deftness that follows conditions on the street in a nanosecond to avoid appearing purely cynical (a skill beyond Hillary, Biden, and Obama). I think in this bad/worse choice scenario we might as well support supposedly democratic reformers, with the expectation that they could either fail in removing Mubarak or be nudged out by those far worse than Mubarak. Contrary to popular opinion, I think Bush was right to support elections in Gaza “one time” (only of course). The Gazans got what they wanted, we are done with them, and they have to live with the results, happy in their thuggish misery, with a prosperous Israel and better-off West Bank to remind them of their stupidity. All bad, but an honest bad and preferable to the lie that there were thousands of Jeffersonians in Gaza thwarted by the U.S.And as I indicated earlier, the dawdling Obama administration is only empowering the Green-Red alliance working to bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power. Even mainstream progressives are pooh-poohing the Brotherhood's ties to Hamas and global jihad. So we need to move quickly in transitioning to an interim government committed to free-and-fair elections in the near-term. William Kristol offers the appropriate response, "Beyond Mubarak: ‘Twere Well It Were Done Quickly":
So step back and watch it play out with encouragement for those who oppose both Mubarak and the Muslim Brotherhood— hoping for the best, expecting the worst.
In a crisis like this, moving quickly is often more important than moving in an “orderly” way. After all, an “orderly” transition is far less important than a desirable and orderly outcome. Trying to ensure now that everything is “well thought-out” to the satisfaction of diplomats can easily become an excuse for a drawn-out transition. And that means trouble. The more drawn-out this transition is, the more likely it is to end badly. The best case—the least radicalizing one for the population, the least advantageous for the Muslim Brotherhood—would be a quick transition now to an interim government, with the prospect of elections not too far off, so people can rally to the prospect of a new liberal regime. Uncertainty and dithering is what helps the Lenins and Khomeinis in revolutionary situations. Acting boldly to prevent more disarray and more chaos offers the best chance for an orderly outcome.I'd recommend folks visit Jennifer Rubin for updates throughout the day as well. She hammered the administration's dalliances earlier, "On Egypt, Obama offers 'too little, too late'." And in another entry she points to the pragmatic manifesto of Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee:
"For far too long the democratic hopes of the Egyptian people have been suppressed. Their cries for freedom can no longer be silenced.That's the right balance and the right approach. It's time to move forward. The neo-communists will seize the initiative and attempt to install the Islamists in power. Their useful idiots on the progressive left --- in the media and Democrat Party apparatus --- will help propel that outcome. For the true friends of freedom, the best bet is to quit whining about how bad the Muslim Brotherhood is and start working to help the Egyptians on the street take back their country. Those folks are at the top video above. They help us capture a vision of what an emerging secularist democracy could look like.
"I am deeply concerned about the Egyptian government's heavy-handed response seeking to silence the Egyptian people. It is imperative that all parties involved avoid violence.
"I am further concerned that certain extremist elements inside Egypt will manipulate the current situation for nefarious ends.
"The U.S. and other responsible nations must work together to support the pursuit of freedom, democracy, and human rights in Egypt and throughout the world."
It's a long rambling post, so no need to single out anything in particular. This stuff is old news to anyone even remotely familiar with current agenda of the neo-communist left.
BONUS: Don't miss David Horowitz, "The American Left and the Crisis in Egypt."
As the world ponders the fate of Egypt after Hosni Mubarak, Americans should ponder this: It’s quite possible that if Mubarak had not ruled Egypt as a dictator for the last 30 years, the World Trade Center would still be standing.
This is true even though Mubarak’s regime has been a steadfast U.S. ally, a partner in our counterterrorism efforts and a foe of Islamic radicalism. Or, more aptly, it’s true because his regime has been all of these things.
In “The Looming Tower,” his history of Al Qaeda, Lawrence Wright raises the possibility that “America’s tragedy on September 11 was born in the prisons of Egypt.” By visiting imprisonment, torture and exile upon Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Mubarak foreclosed any possibility of an Islamic revolution in his own country. But he also helped radicalize and internationalize his country’s Islamists, pushing men like Ayman Al-Zawahiri — Osama bin Laden’s chief lieutenant, and arguably the real brains behind Al Qaeda — out of Egyptian politics and into the global jihad.
At the same time, Mubarak’s relationship with Washington has offered constant vindication for the jihadi worldview. Under his rule, Egypt received more American dollars than any country besides Israel. For many young Egyptians, restless amid political and economic stagnation, it’s been a short leap from hating their dictator to hating his patrons in the United States. One of the men who made this leap was an architecture student named Mohamed Atta, who was at the cockpit when American Airlines Flight 11 hit the World Trade Center.
These sound like good reasons to welcome Mubarak’s potential overthrow, and the end to America’s decades-long entanglement with his drab, repressive regime. Unfortunately, Middle Eastern politics is never quite that easy. The United States supported Mubarak for so long because of two interrelated fears: the fear of another Khomeini and the fear of another Nasser. Both anxieties remain entirely legitimate today.
In order for the United States to stand with the Egyptian people it must approach Egypt through a framework of shared values and hopes, not the prism of geostrategy. On Friday you rightly said that “suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away.” For that reason we urge your administration to seize this chance, turn away from the policies that brought us here, and embark on a new course toward peace, democracy and prosperity for the people of the Middle East. And we call on you to undertake a comprehensive review of US foreign policy on the major grievances voiced by the democratic opposition in Egypt and all other societies of the region.
ElBaradei makes three main points: (1) Mubarak has to go; (2) there must be a transition from dictatorship to democracy, with the subordination of the military to civilian rule; and (3) the Muslim Brotherhood is not an extremist conservative religious organization. He also tells CNN's Fareed Zakaria that he'll serve as interim president if that's what the public wants. But clearly, his views on the Muslim Brotherhood are extremely controversial and deeply problematic. There's certainly been some discussion of this around the sphere. Andrew McCarthy is emphatic in pointing out that, frankly, the Muslim Brotherhood is Hamas, despite media spin and progressive propaganda to the contrary: "Hamas Is the Muslim Brotherhood." And Frank Gaffney points out the larger security threat: "The Muslim Brotherhood is the Enemy."
The choice in Egypt is not between good and bad, it is between bad and worse. The Muslim world lacks the understanding of what is hindering them and lacks the moral and legal foundation for forming a stable democratic political system. They will continue to rise and fall, stumble from one revolution to another and living from one tyrant to another looking for the ideal Islamic state that never was. The 1400 year old Islamic history of tyranny will continue unless Sharia Law is rejected as the basis of the legal and political systems in Muslim countries.BONUS: At The Other McCain, "Egyptian Uprising: Latest Updates," and the commentary at Memeorandum.
Reporting from Washington — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday called for Egypt to move toward "real democracy" but also made clear that the United States was not demanding that embattled President Hosni Mubarak step down in the face of continuing demonstrations.And at Politico, "Hillary Clinton calls for 'real democracy' in Egypt":
In a series of television interviews, Clinton also eased slightly off the administration's threats on Friday to yank Egypt's billions in aid, saying such a step was not now under discussion.
Clinton spoke warmly of the Egyptian military as a "respected institution" and advised it to help move the country from its current unrest to an "orderly transition."
"We are urging the Mubarak government, which is still in power; we are urging the military, which is a very respected institution, to do what is necessary to facilitate that kind of orderly transition."
She spoke to NBC's "Meet the Press," "Fox News Sunday," ABC's "This Week," CBS' "Face the Nation," and CNN's "State of the Union."
U.S. officials are looking for what they are calling "managed change" -- a gradual transition to elections that lead the way to a greater sharing of power and economic reforms. With the Iranian revolution of 1979 in mind, they fear an abrupt transition that would lead to turmoil and a possible seizure of power by what they feel is the wrong kind of leadership.
Egypt has a powerful military that has kept the ruling party in place for more than 30 years. Its largest and best-organized opposition group is the banned Muslim Brotherhood. In this environment, other opposition groups have not been able to develop, and that absence could make a democratic transition difficult.
“Real stability only comes from the kind of democratic participation that allows people to feel that they are being heard,” Clinton said in an interview with ABC’s “This Week with Christiane Amanpour,” calling for “real democracy.”
She warned that the U.S. would not accept two alternatives as potential ends to the current crisis: “democracy of six months or a year and then evolving essentially into a military dictatorship” or – a scarier specter for American policymakers –what she described on NBC’s “Meet The Press” as “faux democacy like the elections we saw in Iran…where you have one election 30 years ago and the people stay in power and become less and less responsive to their people.”
The grimness on the faces of American Establishment figures reflects the greatest threat to authority, the crumbling of an existing order. Support for Israel has defined order in this region for decades and steered our support for dictators ... All this is changing in Egypt. An Arab liberation story is forcing itself into world consciousness ... There is bound to be great suffering in Egypt, we pray for a smooth transition, but if the Egyptians are only left to handle their own affairs, who doubts that the polity that will emerge from this chaos will be more responsive to human rights, and will strike a blow against the fetters of anti-Arab racism that have chained the American mind.Pamela has more on the Salon communists, "Scrubbing and Smearing: Islamic vs. Secular Governance in Egypt - Leftist Islamic Machine in High Gear." Also, related at Blazing Catfur, "Egypt 'Support' Rally Hijacked By the Usual Islamist Suspects & Their Enablers."
How is the atmosphere? Do you feel secure?Looks like the Muslim Brotherhood folks weren't on the scene.
"The attitude towards us as Israelis and tourist is very friendly. Actually, they're overly nice compared to my previous visits in Egypt. The Egyptians want to explain themselves, to tell everyone about their struggle. They speak Arabic over here so it's easy to communicate with them. On Friday we went right past the demonstrations on our way back from the pyramids, and people helped us get though the crowd."
As always, drop your link in the comments to be added to the roundups.
More at the link.As the pundits were busy celebrating the contribution of Twitter and Facebook to protests in Tunisia and Egypt, most of them ignored the terrifying news from Iran, where on Monday two activists were hanged for distributing video footage on the Internet from the country's 2009 “Twitter Revolution.”
The contrast between Tunisia and Iran couldn't be starker: The former has just installed a dissident blogger as a government minister while the latter is still persecuting those who dared to challenge the regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 18 months after the elections. Fortunately for Tunisian dissident bloggers, their army refused to shoot the protesters, the country's much-hated ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia and the new government has shown no intention of going after the protesters, many of whom are now celebrated as heroes. However, had the events in Tunisia turned otherwise – with Mr. Ben Ali staying in office after a bloody crackdown – it is likely that his secret police would now be acting very much like Iran's, turning to social-networking sites to identify his opponents.
As protests spread in the Arab world, much has been said about the democratizing power of the Internet, however, it is important to note that in the hands of an authoritarian regime it can become a tool of repression. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter have been used to publicize protests and share videos of police brutality, but they can also be used to track down dissidents after protests subside.
Egypt is one case where it is still hard to predict which side – President Hosni Mubarak's brutal police force or the predominantly peaceful protesters – will prevail in the long term. A 26-page leaflet with protest tips that has been distributed in Cairo explicitly warns its recipients to distribute it with the help of photocopiers and e-mail rather than social media, as the security police could be watching the latter. These concerns became less of an issue on Thursday, as the Mubarak regime pulled the plug on most of the country's communication systems, including the Internet and mobile networks.
That Iranians, Tunisians and Egyptians would be using the Internet to communicate is of little surprise; there is a symbiotic relationship between revolutionary movements and the latest communications technologies. Lenin lauded the power of the telegraph and the postal service while the Iranian Revolution of 1979 owes a great debt to the tape recorder, which allowed Ayatollah Khomeini to record his sermons in Paris and have them smuggled back to the Shah's Iran.
So it is only natural that the new protest movements in the Middle East turn to Facebook and Twitter: These platforms are cheap and provide almost instantaneous visibility to their causes. And those causes do not need to be widely admired in the West. As both Lenin and Khomeini discovered, one doesn't have to be a proponent of liberal democracy to make effective use of new communication tools. Were a revolution to break out in modern Russia, for example, it is likely to be led by anti-Western nationalists, who have made a far more effective use of new media than the Kremlin's liberal opponents.
The lesson for tyrants here is simple: The only way to minimize their exposure to digitally enabled protests is to establish full control over all telecommunications infrastructure in the country.
I can’t get worked up over which commentators opinionator pulls from, but there is something disturbing about juxtaposing Donald’s and allapundit’s thoughts with those of Marc Lynch. They could have found a right-wing expert on Middle East politics, rather than people far outside of their specialty who’s only interest is to find the latest angle to criticize Obama. But, no, we get a leading scholar on Middle East media and democratization and, well, the “other side.”Fine, but c'mon: I don't really like being lumped in with Allahpundit!
"Cairo, 7.30AM on Sunday 30th of Jan, curfew is about to end and two people are on Qasr al-Aini."
And some additional photos from Danny Ramadan. The ruling party headquarters on the 28th:
