Muslim Brotherhood

In Egypt, a no-brainer that Obama can’t figure out

Featured image The biggest news story that broke during my stay in Europe was the Egyptian military’s move against the Muslim Brotherhood, and the ensuing bloodshed. The story received extensive coverage on French and British television and virtually non-stop coverage on CNN International. The latter outlet treated viewers to endless moralizing by Secretary of State Kerry and President Obama directed primarily at the Egyptian government. Given the extent of the bloodshed, I »

It’s Official: Obama Has Surpassed Jimmy Carter

Featured image Jimmy Carter infamously declared that America suffered from an “inordinate fear of Communism,” but at least, as far as I can recall, he didn’t actively promote or side with Communist movements. Today Communism has collapsed, and America’s number one enemy is the Muslim Brotherhood, progenitor of al Qaeda, Hamas and other terrorist groups. Barack Obama not only tolerates the Brotherhood–“Allah is our objective; the Quran is our law, the Prophet »

El Baradei is Egypt’s new prime minister, unless he isn’t

Featured image Earlier today, Egyptian state media announced that Mohamed ElBaradei, a former chief of the U.N. nuclear agency, had been appointed Egypt’s interim prime minister. But later, according to the Washington Post, the announcement was “rolled back” after Islamists who joined in the coalition against ousted president Morsi threatened to withdraw their support if ElBaradei is installed. El Baradei, who may yet be selected, is seen as a secularist and is »

Reading Obama

Featured image 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. »

The end of Obama’s Egypt amateur hour

Featured image David Goldman shows, among other things, that the Egyptian coup signals that Saudi Arabia, not the U.S., will have the leading foreign role in Egypt’s affairs going forward. At the risk of sounding unpatriotic, that’s probably a good thing for Egypt under the present circumstances. I have suggested, and Goldman goes a long way towards demonstrating, that the Egyptian turmoil is more about economics than politics. The Saudis might just »

In Egypt, a huge setback for the alleged wave of the future

Featured image It turns out that President Obama isn’t any better at picking winning regimes abroad than he is at picking winning businesses at home. Today, the government of President Morsi, which Obama had supported almost unreservedly for a year, was toppled by the military in response to mass protests. Some will say that Obama didn’t pick the Egyptian regime, the people of Egypt did, in an election. But an American president »

Let’s not romanticize the Egyptian protests

Featured image The Egyptian protests that threaten the power of Mohammed Morsi, the nation’s Islamist president, are a very welcome development. But lest anyone conclude that all opposition to Morsi is benign, check out the photo accompanying yesterday’s New York Times article about the demonstrations, in which Morsi’s face appears inside the Star of David on the Israeli flag. Given Egypt’s parlous economic situation and inherent instability, is it far-fetched to hypothesize »

Wave of the Eighth Century, cont’d

Featured image The Obama administration is supporting Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in the current crisis of the regime. That is my reading of Elise Labott’s CNN story and Matthew Lee’s AP story on the administration’s position. The Obama administration has supported the Muslim Brotherhood right along. See, for example, the Daily Beast article by Josh Rogin and Eli Lake documenting the administration’s “revisionist history” of Obama’s approach to »

It’s Starting to Feel Like 1979

Featured image While Obama is off doing who knows what in Africa right now, the Middle East seems poised on a knife edge.  Between civil war in Syria, a prospective coup in Egypt that could lead to civil war, and serious unrest in Turkey (that could lead to civil war), we could wake up in three or six months to find the region in complete chaos or worse–maybe American hostages will complete »

Wave of the Eighth Century

Featured image President Obama fancies himself a progressive in the Progressive tradition. He wants not only to ride the wave of the future but to sense where it is going and give it a nudge. As with all good progressives, it is history by which Obama takes his bearings, not the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence. Yesterday Obama came out in favor of preserving the democratic “process” in Egypt. The »

The plot thickens in Egypt

Featured image I’ve been expecting the Egyptian military to demand that President Morsi reach some sort of accommodation with the anti-government protest movement. I wasn’t confident, though, this would happen right away. But today comes word that the military has issued an ultimatum to the government and, as I read its statement, to the opposition: resolve the current crisis that has generated massive protests or the military will announce its own solution. »

White House Hosts Sheikh Who Called for Killing American Troops in Iraq

Featured image Andy McCarthy reports that President Obama’s top national security advisers have just hosted Sheikh Abdulla bin Bayyah at the White House. In 2004, according to McCarthy, bin Bayyah endorsed a fatwa calling for the killing of American troops and other personnel serving in Iraq. He did so as vice president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS). What is the IUMS? McCarthy informs us: Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi [is] the »

The Brotherhood has a few questions

Featured image Andrew McCarthy reminds us that the grand strategy of President Obama involves an inability to sort out our friends from our enemies: The president is mulishly determined to cultivate Islamic-supremacist governments and movements like the Muslim Brotherhood. The stubborn problem is that al Qaeda — the only Muslim outfit the administration seems willing to hang the “terrorist” label on — is also Islamic-supremacist. That is, al Qaeda is adherent to »

Contain this

Featured image I would like to think that the internal contradictions of Islamism will bring down regimes such as that of Egypt’s Mohammed Morsi. Today the New York Times reports on Egypt’s shortages of food and fuel, a story that David Goldman has cornered for quite a while. If only we were to impose appropriate conditions in return for the financial aid that we provide — and if only we sought to »

No sequester for Egypt

Featured image The editors of Investors Business Daily pose a good question: What are we to make of the U.S. suddenly finding $250 million to spare for Egypt during a supposedly devastating sequester? Has this administration miraculously parted a sea of red ink? The editorial concludes: The U.S. is giving $250 million to an Egyptian president who calls Jews “blood-suckers” who are “descendants of apes and pigs”; Morsi unequivocally supports the Iranian-backed »

Report: Hamas militiamen helped prop up Morsi

Featured image According to Khaled Abu Toameh at the Gatestone Institute website, there are reports that Hamas dispatched as many as 7,000 militiamen from Gaza to protect the regime of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi who faces a popular uprising. The reports quoted unidentified Egyptian security officials as saying that the Hamas militiamen had been spotted in the Egyptian border town of Rafah before they headed toward Cairo to shore up the Muslim »

Giving them the rope

Featured image Lenin supposedly said that “The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them,” though William Safire was dubious about the authenticity of the quote. (Lenin might have said that the capitalists will “close their eyes to the above-mentioned reality and will thus transform themselves into men who are deaf, dumb and blind.”) Barack Obama isn’t much of a capitalist, and he has nothing so crass in mind »