Egypt Eruption
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I asked General (ret.) Barry McCaffrey for his thoughts on the evolving situation in Egypt:
Egypt is a few steps short of a disaster. The corrupt, incompetent regime will not survive.
Most likely outcome--- the Generals take charge, announce a reform government, start the process of responding to the injustice and despair of the common citizen. Then the situation staggers along for some period.
Worst outcome the Generals stand with the same gang that has looted the nation--- probably minus Mubarak. Then there is a possible civil war with the soldiers in many cases siding with the people not their officers. The only organized opposition is the Muslim Brotherhood which could then possibly gain power.
Our central US foreign policy concern is the stability of the Peace Treaty with Israel. At the end of the day if required--- we would go to war to prevent the annihilation of the Israelis. This would be a terrible outcome for the entire region.
And--- oh by the way---there is the matter of the Suez Canal and the flow of oil to a Europe with an increasingly ant-Israeli political stance.
We have few good options. The President and Secretary Clinton are carefully walking the line. Oddly enough--- only the last Administration with President Bush and Secretary Condi Rice has ever taken a strong reform position with Mubarak.
This one is important. Egypt is central to peace in the region. Their people have been ill-used by the Mubarak Regime. Watch the enlisted soldiers of the Egyptian Army. If they go with the people--- there will be incredible bloodshed.
Barry McCaffrey
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Comments
Times have been tough but we are going into times that will try all men. I am glad you are on our side, Michael... and thanks for all that you do.
J
I believe the General is spot on. At this time, we can't be for certain which way this will pan out. Will the next leader give the people pure freedom, or will he march his military into Israel? Or will he give safe haven to Al Qeada or the Taliban? The next few days are going to be days of finger nail biting here.
Thanks for coming through for us Michael!
Sick of it.
Should the army side w/ the uprising (as it appears to be doing), I see HM slinking off to Dubai and a Baradai-MB "Unity" govt trying to put the wheels back on. To achieve the Caliphate, Islamofascists plan is "One man (literally), One Vote...Once".
As I said in the title, who's he kidding? No way in hell would Hussein Obama come to the aid of the Israelis. If anything, he's about half a step shy of actively operating against them.
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. Surely so
revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
— WB Yeats's "Second Coming"as first printed in 1920
It's said that a credible peace will never be achieved in that region until existence of a viable Palestinian state is achieved and that that cannot happen without US involvement in the negotiations. But for that to happen the US is going to have to be perceived as an impartial honest broker, something it is not, and never has been, since it overtly or tacitly gives Israel carte blanche to do pretty much what it wants to do. Once in a while the US might half-heartedly protest some Israeli action, usually concerning the continuing encroachment of Israel settlements, but the Israelis know they can--and routinely do--blow the US off with impunity.
The best way to avoid American military involvement in a nightmarish, no-win situation in the Middle East is to resolutely tell Israel to clean up its act and start seriously considering supporting American policy initiatives instead of not-too-subtly sticking their finger in the US eye. The clear alternative being that they'll be on their own and should not expect Americans to save them from the consequences of their own behavior.
Israelis act the way they do for reasons they perceive to be in their own best interests and they push those interests as far as they can. Every nation does. The US should start doing so also and realize that it is imprudent, foolish and dangerous in the extreme that American interests as vital as war and peace are determined in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem instead of in Washington, D.C.
Such a stance isn't pro-Israeli, to be sure, but that should be only co-incidental to the importance of it being pro-American. And on that point I disagree with General McCaffrey when he states that " . . .there is the matter of the Suez Canal and the flow of oil to a Europe with an increasingly anti-Israeli political stance." It could equally as well be said that Europe's political stance isn't so much anti-Israeli as dispassionately neutral with out the pro-Israeli bias the US has historically shown. And if one wishes to be downright Machiavellian, it could be pointed out that the Suez Canal is within an Arab country, not Israel. Likewise, the flow of oil to Europe comes from various Arab states, not Israel.
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