Triumph

On January 31, 2011, one week after the Arab Spring dawned in Egypt, I wrote the following words in this blog:

As we watch the repressive regime of Hosni Mubarak crumble in Egypt, those of us who are old enough to remember the Iranian Revolution have an eerie feeling of déjà vu. As the Shah’s regime in Iran crumbled in the late 1970s, another progressive, idealistic president, Jimmy Carter, welcomed the change as a way to give Iran’s people freedom and a voice in their future. After all, the Shah, demonized by the western media, was a repressive dictator. His secret police killed many. But that’s only half the story. He was indisputably secular, had modernized Iran, and was unabashedly a friend of the West. But no matter, Carter welcomed a “man of peace,” the Ayatolah Komeini, and the rest, as they say, is history. Instead of freedom, Iran got a repressive, theocratic dictatorship that persists to this day, an economy that has been crippled for over 30 years, and a state that actively supports Islamist terror worldwide. Nice job, Jimmy. Your legacy persists.

Now, another progressive president. Barack Obama, is faced with an analogous situation in Egypt. So far, Obama and his advisors have been circumspect, but their tone has an indisputable similarity to the tone evidenced as the Shah’s regime toppled. The Egyptian people must assert their rights in a democratic manner, they state. Who can argue?

And when asked about the very real threat of an Islamist takeover, directed by the Muslim Brotherhood, they pooh-pooh the threat (in much the same way that Carter’s advisors and media friends refused to acknowledge the Islamist leanings of Komeini). The Brotherhood has “renounced violence,” state the Obama administration’s spokesman and its defenders in the media. Nothing to worry about there.

Really?

During that time it seemed that the MSM, along with a naive President and his supporters were more enamored with idealistic Egyptian college kids who were using Facebook and Twitter to organize, than they were with the underlying political reality in Egypt. In blog posts that followed, I worried that the Muslim Brotherhood would turn Egypt into an Islamic state and that the Middle East would be none the better. I was not alone, but the President and left-leaning pundits pooh-poohed such notions as over-reactions.

Today Caroline Glick reports on events in Egypt:

On Sunday, new president Mohamed Morsy completed Egypt’s transformation into an Islamist state. In the space of one week, Morsy sacked the commanders of the Egyptian military and replaced them with Muslim Brotherhood loyalists, and fired all the editors of the state-owned media and replaced them with Muslim Brotherhood loyalists.

He also implemented a policy of intimidation, censorship and closure of independently owned media organizations that dare to publish criticism of him.

Morsy revoked the military’s constitutional role in setting the foreign and military policies of Egypt. But he maintained the junta’s court-backed decision to disband the parliament. In so doing, Morsy gave himself full control over the writing of Egypt’s new constitution.

As former ambassador to Egypt Zvi Mazel wrote Tuesday in The Jerusalem Post, Morsy’s moves mean that he “now holds dictatorial powers surpassing by far those of erstwhile president Hosni Mubarak.”

In other words, Morsy’s actions have transformed Egypt from a military dictatorship into an Islamist dictatorship.

By the way, that's the same Mohammed Morsy who the media characterized as a "moderate" and who many members of the Obama administration praised as "someone we can work with."

Our presidential election is about jobs, spending, the deficit, and (as of Paul Ryan's entry into the race, entitlements). That is wholly appropriate. The President has a dismal record in each of those areas and it's up to the American people to determine whether he should be relieved of his position for incompetence.

But his record in foreign policy might actually be worse. His fecklessness in addressing the sea change that occurred in the Middle East over the past two years meant that events have spun out of control, and the region comes ever closer to broader conflict. Worse, former allies have become adversaries.

Leading from behind has consequences, but Obama's media protectors behave as if everything is going according to plan and dare not question this President on the consequences.

Caroline Glick continues:

Morsy’s Islamism, like Mao’s Communism, is inherently hostile to the US and its allies and interests in the Middle East. Consequently, Morsy’s strategic repositioning of Egypt as an Islamist country means that Egypt – which has served as the anchor of the US alliance system in the Arab world for 30 years – is setting aside its alliance with the US and looking toward reassuming the role of regional bully.

Egypt is on the fast track to reinstating its war against Israel and threatening international shipping in the Suez Canal. And as an Islamist state, Egypt will certainly seek to export its Islamic revolution to other countries. No doubt fear of this prospect is what prompted Saudi Arabia to begin showering Egypt with billions of dollars in aid.

It should be recalled that the Saudis so feared the rise of a Muslim Brotherhood-ruled Egypt that in February 2011, when US President Barack Obama was publicly ordering then-president Hosni Mubarak to abdicate power immediately, Saudi leaders were beseeching him to defy Obama. They promised Mubarak unlimited financial support for Egypt if he agreed to cling to power.

The US’s astounding sanguinity in the face of Morsy’s completion of the Islamization of Egypt is an illustration of everything that is wrong and dangerous about US Middle East policy today.

And for those who believe that Obama is a friend to our only true ally in the Middle East, Israel, consider that the new, Islamist Egypt is moving toward the abrogation of its 40 year old peace treaty with Israel and that war between the countries is a distinct possibility. Another triumph for Barack Obama's mid-East policies.