Egypt

Have Morsi

Featured image Meeting Ayaan Hirsi Ali at the fourth annual Presidential Conference in Jerusalem this past June may have been my personal highlight of the year. I posted videos of my interview with her here and here. She is a true friend of Israel. In her comments Ayaan expressed high hopes for developments in Egypt. Paul Mirengoff discussed Ayaan’s comments in “The short term and the long term in post-Mubarak Egypt.” If »

Morsi explains

Featured image In the annals of context offered allegedly to explain controversial or offensive remarks, this may take the cake: A congressional delegation led by McCain met with Mohammed Morsi a day after the White House strongly denounced his remarks as “deeply offensive.” Morsi made the comments in a 2010 speech, as a leader in the Muslim Brotherhood before he became president, but they resurfaced recently when aired on an Egyptian TV »

Clearing my spindle: I’m Not OK edition

Featured image I think the following items will be of interest to Power Line readers. I’d like to bring them to your attention without much comment. While our attention was turned elsewhere this past October, the space shuttle Endeavour made its final journey: it traveled 12-miles from Los Angeles International Airport, through Inglewood, to the California Science Center in Exposition Park. Reader Zack Russ writes that he came across this wonderful time-lapse »

Vox populi, vox Allah?

Featured image David Kirkpatrick is the New York Times’s man in Cairo. In the second paragraph of his long news analysis on the “crisis” precipitated by the pending Constitution, Kirkpatrick goes deep with an unnamed source to reveal the underpinning of President Morsi’s support: The Brotherhood “is who he can depend on,” said one person close to Mr. Morsi, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. This may be »

The reviews are in — appeal immediately

Featured image The AP plays this straight down the line, but the dateline should be Absurdistan: An Egyptian court convicted in absentia Wednesday seven Egyptian Coptic Christians and a Florida-based American pastor, sentencing them to death on charges linked to an anti-Islam film that had sparked riots in parts of the Muslim world. The case was seen as largely symbolic because the defendants, most of whom live in the United States, are »

Egyptian protesters are on their own

Featured image Egyptians flocked to Tahrir square today in protest against the decree that grants exceptional power to President Morsi, and against the Muslim Brotherhood in general. Some protesters threw stones and the police fired tear gas. Size matters when it comes to such protests, but it also difficult reliably to measure. The Washington Post estimated the Tahrir square crowd at about 20,000. In Alexandria, an anti-Morsi protest contingent was estimated at »

Has Morsi softened his dictatorial decree?

Featured image There are conflicting reports as to whether Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi has softened the decree in which he exempted all of his decisions from judicial review. A television network allied with his party said Morsi has agreed that most of his actions will be subject to review by the courts after all. But Reuters later reported that a Morsi spokesman said the initial decree has not been amended in any »

State Department wonders why Egyptians can’t get along

Featured image The U.S. State Department responded to Mohamed Morsi’s grab of near dictatorial powers, and to the protests of the Egyptian people thereto, with this statement: The decisions and declarations announced on November 22 raise concerns for many Egyptians and for the international community. One of the aspirations of the revolution was to ensure that power would not be overly concentrated in the hands of any one person or institution. The »

It’s A Good Thing We’ve Got Smart Diplomacy!

Featured image As Paul noted earlier today, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi followed up his supposed diplomatic triumph in Gaza by claiming new, more or less dictatorial powers. Morsi’s announcement was greeted with outrage by many Egyptians, some of whom took to the streets: [A]nti-Morsi demonstrators set fire to Muslim Brotherhood offices in cities across Egypt on Friday. As enraged demonstrators torched Muslim Brotherhood offices in several Egyptian cities, a defiant Egyptian President »

Riding high on his U.S. manufactured diplomatic triumph, Morsi grabs authoritarian powers at home

Featured image Yesterday, in commenting on President Obama’s apparent conclusion that the Muslim Brotherhood represents the wave of the future in the Middle East, I noted the unimpressive nature of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s electoral victory. But it is not popularity that makes Morsi and the Brotherhood look like the wave of the future. Rather, it is their will to power — the same sort of will that made Hitler and Stalin »

Obama helped hand victory to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood

Featured image I haven’t seen a better analysis of the cease-fire agreement that ended, for now, the conflict between Israel and Hamas than this one by David Goldman in FrontPage Magazine. Here are excerpts: Hamas fires 275 rockets at Israel and is rewarded with de facto acceptance as a legitimate negotiating partner in the Middle East peace process, as well as with a relaxation of the Israeli blockade of the Gaza coast. »

Decision time for Israel

Featured image Israel apparently has succeeded in significantly degrading Hamas’ rocket capacity. Hamas continues to launch rockets into southern Israel, but for the first time in several days it launched none of the longer range missiles that can reach Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. Israel’s priority has been to take out these missiles and it seems to be succeeding. Unfortunately, Hamas is thought to retain thousands of missiles capable of reaching southern Israel. »

Is It April Yet?

Featured image The “Arab Spring” continues apace. Last night Sonia Dridi, a reporter on French television, was broadcasting live from Cairo, in or near Tahrir Square, when the surrounding crowd decided to assault her, just for fun. In the end, she wasn’t harmed as badly as Lara Logan, but the incident was broadly similar. You can see it in the video below, which is puzzling in some respects. I can’t explain why »

Obama’s “Arab Spring” dodge

Featured image In his interview on Sixty Minutes, President Obama was asked whether recent events in the Middle East have given him any pause about his support for the governments that came to power following the Arab Spring. Obama began his response by saying that the question “presumes that somehow we could have stopped this wave of change.” Actually, the question presumes no such thing. Even if the U.S. cannot prevent the »

Mohamed Morsi demonstrates why the U.S. should not aid Egypt

Featured image The other night, Sean Hannity suggested to Sen. Jim DeMint that the U.S. should cut off funding to Egypt. DeMint politely brushed the suggestion aside. If not even Jim DeMint is prepared to support cutting Egypt off, then clearly a cut-off isn’t going to happen. But should it? Before answering, read the New York Times’ account of its interview with Egyptian President Morsi. Morsi told the Times that it is »

Annals of Islamist chutzpah

Featured image Today’s New York Times features an astounding interview with Egypt’s Islamist President Mohamed Morsi. Morsi is the man from the Muslim Brotherhood. Don’t tell President Obama, but these people are dedicated enemies of the United States. Morsi gave the interview to the Times in anticipation of his appearance in New York at the United Nations this week. You really have to read the interview to believe it. It could hardly »

The Marine Corps involvement in Egypt and Libya

Featured image The Marine Corps has issued a statement regarding its involvement in the recent actions in Egypt and Libya. In Egypt, the Corps says that, contrary to the report I wrote about earlier today, the U.S. Ambassador did not impose restrictions on weapons or weapons status on the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group detachment. The Marines in Cairo were allowed to have live ammunition in their weapons. The specific Rules of »