On Saturday night, according to a report by the BBC’s Jim Muir,
Egyptian protesters were “…sleeping under the tracks of tanks
to ensure that they could not advance.”
To sleep in front of a tank’s treads means a brave
protester had an uncomfortable night. To sleep under a tank’s
treads means the protester won’t wake up again and the undertaker
needs to use a paint scraper and a vacuum cleaner to perform his
duties. All of which means that in Egypt’s current crisis the
ever-liberal BBC editors are just as incompetent as Obama’s
diplomatic team.
I suppose it is metaphysically possible for American
policy to be more confused, but how it could be is not readily
discernible. The truth is that America lacks any level of influence
over Egypt’s future. We have slowly and willfully degraded our
power to influence events there — and across the Middle East —
for decades.
And while the Egyptian crisis drags on, it infects the
region. Massive protests have already caused Yemeni President Saleh
to say he won’t stay in power beyond his present term and will not
attempt to pass power on to his son. Jordanian King Abdullah — the
most westernized and influential Muslim ally we have in the region
— has fired his cabinet. And purportedly pro-American President
Ali of Tunisia (a.k.a. Carthage) has fled the country when bloody
riots reached the point at which he could no longer
resist.
But don’t we have a president who — in his 2009 Cairo
speech, by his charming personality — restored American popularity
and influence in the Muslim world?
I often write that Obama is not naïve or incompetent
because his efforts to reduce us from superpower to also-ran are
pursued with malice aforethought. In the Egyptian crisis, however,
Obama’s perverse intentions are trumped by his and his team’s
confusion and incompetence.
Last Tuesday night, President Obama said that the he
sympathized with the Tahrir Square protesters and that a transition
from Mubarak’s regime “must begin now.” Which, of course, the world
and the Egyptian protesters took as a call for Mubarak to resign.
On Friday, Obama said Mubarak should “listen” to the protesters and
craft a way forward that is “meaningful and serious.”
Oh, that word. When a liberal says “meaningful” he is
speaking psychobabble, asking for something that makes people such
as him feel good regardless of its merit. And when it’s our chief
diplomat Mizz Clinton, the psychobabble creates confusion even
worse than what comes from the White House.
At a Munich conference last week, Hillary called upon new
Egyptian Veep Omar Suleiman to lead the country peacefully into a
democratic future. (So Mubarak is still out?) Which statement was
concurrent with Islamic terrorists blowing up an Egypt to Israel
gas pipeline in the Sinai. Her statement — and Obama’s from
Tuesday — were contradicted quickly by Frank Wisner, a U.S.
special envoy to Egypt, who said that Mubarak “must stay in office”
during the transition of power. (So Mubarak is still
in?)
Clinton and the White House denied that Wisner was
speaking for them. (So Mubarak is still out?)
Clinton also said, “The transition to democracy will only
happen if it is deliberate, inclusive and transparent,” and that
“the status quo is simply not sustainable.”
Oh, that other word. “Inclusive”? Of whom, precisely?
Apparently, she means the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood.
The Washington Post reported that a council of
Egyptian political leaders had refused to meet with Suleiman, as
did leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and their pawn, former IAEA
chief Mohamed ElBaradei. Hillary “…urged opposition leaders not to
reject talks out of hand and warned that the alternative could be a
takeover by radicals.” Apparently the Brotherhood — by cloaking
itself in ElBaradei’s unearned UN credibility — has successfully
achieved legitimate status in the State Department’s eyes. For
Islamic terrorist sponsors, the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood
has been accepted by the international community is sufficient for
them to turn Egypt into another Syria or Lebanon.
On Sunday, the Financial Times reported
that Rashad Bayoumi, deputy head of the Muslim
Brotherhood, met with Omar Suleiman. According to that report,
Bayoumi “…told the Financial Times on Sunday that the
group had decided to meet Mr Suleiman ‘because we were given to
understand that they are prepared to respond to all the demands of
the uprising carried out by the youth.’” Suleiman could not have
told that to Bayoumi without the military’s
acquiescence.
The only questions that remain are whether the Egyptian
military will join in forcing Mubarak out and accept a radical
regime in Mubarak’s place. That they are willing to recognize the
Muslim Brotherhood as one of the parties to the transition bodes
ill for their willingness to prevent Egypt from sliding into the
radical Islamic sphere.
Egypt is on the path that Turkey has followed since the
advent of the Erdogan government. We should expect that a
transitional government will be more Islamist and will — like
Erdogan’s — gradually become an Islamist government. But Egypt
will be worse, and far more radical. It will — unless the military
prevents it — become a sponsor of terrorism.
Egypt’s military, even after three decades of U.S.
military aid and training, is not Americanized. The Egyptian Arab
culture is strong within it, and the military’s primary goal will
be to remain powerful. That will require it to accommodate the
increasing radicalism of the government, just as Turkey’s military
did. The Egyptian military, like the rest in that culture, is
susceptible of bribery. Money and power are the key.
The Muslim Brotherhood, and its international sponsors,
are savvy enough to understand that. They are well aware of how
successfully the once-westernized nation of Turkey has been turned
into an Islamic state, though it is not — at least yet — an
identifiable sponsor of terrorism. The Turkish flotilla incident,
in which a ship tried to penetrate the Israeli blockade of Gaza and
Israeli forces were attacked with loss of life when they stopped
the ship, was a lesson learned in Turkey. Islamic terrorism doesn’t
always, as in Tehran in 1979, take over a nation suddenly. It can,
as it has in Turkey, take root and grow slowly.
In a Meet the Press interview yesterday, Mohamed
ElBaradei said he wanted Mubarak to suspend parliament and make way
for a transitional regime to take over until an election is held.
He quite apparently wants to run that transitional regime and
remain in power after an election.
If ElBaradei has his wish, Egypt will be on Turkey’s path.
And there’s nothing we can do to stop it.
