On Wednesday night the White House issued President Obama’s statement on events in Egypt including the removal of President Morsi from power. The statement is posted here. Please check it out.
As we have been noting, President Obama early on staked his claim to support of the Muslim Brotherhood as the wave of the future in Egypt. He is therefore disappointed in Morsi’s removal and vaguely threatening about the consequences. Here is the operative passage:
[W]e are deeply concerned by the decision of the Egyptian Armed Forces to remove President Morsy and suspend the Egyptian constitution. I now call on the Egyptian military to move quickly and responsibly to return full authority back to a democratically elected civilian government as soon as possible through an inclusive and transparent process, and to avoid any arbitrary arrests of President Morsy and his supporters. Given today’s developments, I have also directed the relevant departments and agencies to review the implications under U.S. law for our assistance to the Government of Egypt.
As for the rest, Obama comes across as something of a prim schoolmarm of the kind you loved to hate in grade school. He is long on advice but utterly clueless. It is no accident, as they say, that Obama has made the United States an object of contempt and derision on all sides. Among those who agree on nothing else, this is common ground.
Jonathan Tobin gives Obama’s statement a fair reading. Richard Fernandez usefully adds to it. Caroline Glick previews the road ahead.
In his weekly column, Mark Steyn takes the long view, going back, as is Mark’s wont, to the CIA’s Project Fat F***er. Quotable quote: “Morsi is a good example of what happens when full-blown Islamic rule is put into effect in a country without the benefit of oil. He’s your go-to guy when it comes to ramping up the clitoridectomy rate, but he’s not so effective when it comes to jump-starting the economy.”
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