That Failed Grand Strategy in the Middle East. By Walter Russell Mead.

That Failed Grand Strategy in the Middle East. By Walter Russell Mead. Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2013. Also here.

WRM in WSJ: Obama’s Failed Grand Strategy. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, August 24, 2013.

America’s march of folly in the Middle East continues. By Abraham Ben-Zvi. Israel Hayom, August 23, 2013.


Mead:

In the beginning, the Hebrew Bible tells us, the universe was all “tohu wabohu,” chaos and tumult. This month the Middle East seems to be reverting to that primeval state: Iraq continues to unravel, the Syrian War grinds on with violence spreading to Lebanon and allegations of chemical attacks this week, and Egypt stands on the brink of civil war with the generals crushing the Muslim Brotherhood and street mobs torching churches. Turkey’s prime minister, once widely hailed as President Obama's best friend in the region, blames Egypt's violence on the Jews; pretty much everyone else blames it on the U.S.

 

The Obama administration had a grand strategy in the Middle East. It was well intentioned, carefully crafted and consistently pursued.

 

Unfortunately, it failed.

 

The plan was simple but elegant: The U.S. would work with moderate Islamist groups like Turkey’s AK Party and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood to make the Middle East more democratic. This would kill three birds with one stone. First, by aligning itself with these parties, the Obama administration would narrow the gap between the “moderate middle” of the Muslim world and the U.S. Second, by showing Muslims that peaceful, moderate parties could achieve beneficial results, it would isolate the terrorists and radicals, further marginalizing them in the Islamic world. Finally, these groups with American support could bring democracy to more Middle Eastern countries, leading to improved economic and social conditions, gradually eradicating the ills and grievances that drove some people to fanatical and terroristic groups.

 

President Obama (whom I voted for in 2008) and his team hoped that the success of the new grand strategy would demonstrate once and for all that liberal Democrats were capable stewards of American foreign policy. The bad memories of the Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter presidencies would at last be laid to rest; with the public still unhappy with George W. Bush’s foreign policy troubles, Democrats would enjoy a long-term advantage as the party most trusted by voters to steer the country through stormy times.

 

It is much too early to anticipate history’s verdict on the Obama administration’s foreign policy; the president has 41 months left in his term, and that is more than enough for the picture in the Middle East to change drastically once again. Nevertheless, to get a better outcome, the president will have to change his approach.

 

With the advantages of hindsight, it appears that the White House made five big miscalculations about the Middle East. It misread the political maturity and capability of the Islamist groups it supported; it misread the political situation in Egypt; it misread the impact of its strategy on relations with America’s two most important regional allies (Israel and Saudi Arabia); it failed to grasp the new dynamics of terrorist movements in the region; and it underestimated the costs of inaction in Syria.

 

America’s Middle East policy in the past few years depended on the belief that relatively moderate Islamist political movements in the region had the political maturity and administrative capability to run governments wisely and well. That proved to be half-true in the case of Turkey’s AK Party: Until fairly recently Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whatever mistakes he might make, seemed to be governing Turkey in a reasonably effective and reasonably democratic way. But over time, the bloom is off that rose. Mr. Erdogan’s government has arrested journalists, supported dubious prosecutions against political enemies, threatened hostile media outlets and cracked down crudely on protesters. Prominent members of the party leadership look increasingly unhinged, blaming Jews, telekinesis and other mysterious forces for the growing troubles it faces.

 

Things have reached such a pass that the man President Obama once listed as one of his five best friends among world leaders and praised as “an outstanding partner and an outstanding friend on a wide range of issues” is now being condemned by the U.S. government for “offensive” anti-Semitic charges that Israel was behind the overthrow of Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi.

 

Compared with Mr. Morsi, however, Mr. Erdogan is a Bismarck of effective governance and smart policy. Mr. Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood were quite simply not ready for prime time; they failed to understand the limits of their mandate, fumbled incompetently with a crumbling economy and governed so ineptly and erratically that tens of millions of Egyptians cheered on the bloody coup that threw them out.

 

Tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorists and incompetent bumblers make a poor foundation for American grand strategy. We would have done business with the leaders of Turkey and Egypt under almost any circumstances, but to align ourselves with these movements hasn’t turned out to be wise.

 

The White House, along with much of the rest of the American foreign policy world, made another key error in the Middle East: It fundamentally misread the nature of the political upheaval in Egypt. Just as Thomas Jefferson mistook the French Revolution for a liberal democratic movement like the American Revolution, so Washington thought that what was happening in Egypt was a “transition to democracy.” That was never in the cards.

 

What happened in Egypt was that the military came to believe that an aging President Hosni Mubarak was attempting to engineer the succession of his son, turning Egypt from a military republic to a dynastic state. The generals fought back; when unrest surged, the military stood back and let Mr. Mubarak fall. The military, incomparably more powerful than either the twittering liberals or the bumbling Brotherhood, has now acted to restore the form of government Egypt has had since the 1950s. Now most of the liberals seem to understand that only the military can protect them from the Islamists, and the Islamists are learning that the military is still in charge. During these events, the Americans and Europeans kept themselves endlessly busy and entertained trying to promote a nonexistent democratic transition.

 

The next problem is that the Obama administration misread the impact that its chosen strategies would have on relations with Israel and Saudi Arabia—and underestimated just how miserable those two countries can make America’s life in the Middle East if they are sufficiently annoyed.

 

The break with Israel came early. In those unforgettable early days when President Obama was being hailed by the press as a new Lincoln and Roosevelt, the White House believed that it could force Israel to declare a total settlement freeze to restart negotiations with the Palestinians. The resulting flop was President Obama’s first big public failure in foreign policy. It would not be the last. (For the past couple of years, the administration has been working to repair relations with the Israelis; as one result, the peace talks that could have started in 2009 with better U.S. management are now under way.)

 

The breach with Saudis came later and this one also seems to have caught the White House by surprise. By aligning itself with Turkey and Mr. Morsi’s Egypt, the White House was undercutting Saudi policy in the region and siding with Qatar’s attempt to seize the diplomatic initiative from its larger neighbor.

 

Many Americans don’t understand just how much the Saudis dislike the Brotherhood and the Islamists in Turkey. Not all Islamists are in accord; the Saudis have long considered the Muslim Brotherhood a dangerous rival in the world of Sunni Islam. Prime Minister Erdogan’s obvious hunger to revive Turkey’s glorious Ottoman days when the center of Sunni Islam was in Istanbul is a direct threat to Saudi primacy. That Qatar and its Al Jazeera press poodle enthusiastically backed the Turks and the Egyptians with money, diplomacy and publicity only angered the Saudis more. With America backing this axis—while also failing to heed Saudi warnings about Iran and Syria—Riyadh wanted to undercut rather than support American diplomacy. An alliance with the Egyptian military against Mr. Morsi’s weakening government provided an irresistible opportunity to knock Qatar, the Brotherhood, the Turks and the Americans back on their heels.

 

The fourth problem is that the administration seems to have underestimated the vitality and adaptability of the loose group of terrorist movements and cells. The death of Osama bin Laden was a significant victory, but the effective suppression of the central al Qaeda organization in Afghanistan and Pakistan was anything but a knockout blow. Today a resurgent terrorist movement can point to significant achievements in the Libya-Mali theater, in northern Nigeria, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere. The closure of 20 American diplomatic facilities this month was a major moral victory for the terrorists, demonstrating that they retain the capacity to affect American behavior in a major way. Recruiting is easier, morale is higher, and funding is easier to get for our enemies than President Obama once hoped.

 

Finally, the administration, rightfully concerned about the costs of intervention in Syria, failed to grasp early enough just how much it would cost to stay out of this ugly situation. As the war has dragged on, the humanitarian toll has grown to obscene proportions (far worse than anything that would have happened in Libya without intervention), communal and sectarian hatreds have become poisonous almost ensuring more bloodletting and ethnic and religious cleansing, and instability has spread from Syria into Iraq, Lebanon and even Turkey. All of these problems grow worse the longer the war goes on—but it is becoming harder and costlier almost day by day to intervene.

 

But beyond these problems, the failure to intervene early in Syria (when “leading from behind” might well have worked) has handed important victories to both the terrorists and the Russia-Iran axis, and has seriously eroded the Obama administration’s standing with important allies. Russia and Iran backed Bashar al-Assad; the president called for his overthrow—and failed to achieve it. To hardened realists in Middle Eastern capitals, this is conclusive proof that the American president is irredeemably weak. His failure to seize the opportunity for what the Russians and Iranians fear would have been an easy win in Syria cannot be explained by them in any other way.

 

This is dangerous. Just as Nikita Khrushchev concluded that President Kennedy was weak and incompetent after the Bay of Pigs failure and the botched Vienna summit, and then proceeded to test the American president from Cuba to Berlin, so President Vladimir Putin and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei now believe they are dealing with a dithering and indecisive American leader, and are calibrating their policies accordingly. Khrushchev was wrong about Kennedy, and President Obama’s enemies are also underestimating him, but those underestimates can create dangerous crises before they are corrected.

If American policy in Syria has been a boon to the Russians and Iranians, it has been a godsend to the terrorists. The prolongation of the war has allowed terrorist and radical groups to establish themselves as leaders in the Sunni fight against the Shiite enemy. A reputation badly tarnished by both their atrocities and their defeat in Iraq has been polished and enhanced by what is seen as their courage and idealism in Syria. The financial links between wealthy sources in the Gulf and jihadi fighter groups, largely sundered in the last 10 years, have been rebuilt and strengthened. Thousands of radicals are being trained and indoctrinated, to return later to their home countries with new skills, new ideas and new contacts. This development in Syria looks much more dangerous than the development of the original mujahedeen in Afghanistan; Afghanistan is a remote and (most Middle Easterners believe) a barbarous place. Syria is in the heart of the region and the jihadi spillover threatens to be catastrophic.

 

One of the interesting elements of the current situation is that while American foreign policy has encountered one setback after another in the region, America’s three most important historical partners—Egypt’s military, Saudi Arabia and Israel—have all done pretty well and each has bested the U.S. when policies diverged.

 

Alliances play a large role in America’s foreign policy success; tending the Middle Eastern alliances now in disarray may be the Obama administration’s best hope now to regain its footing.

 

As the Obama administration struggles to regain its footing in this volatile region, it needs to absorb the lessons of the past 4½ years. First, allies matter. Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Egyptian military have been America's most important regional allies both because they share strategic interests and because they are effective actors in a way that groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and smaller states aren’t. If these three forces are working with you, then things often go reasonably well. If one or more of them is trying to undercut you, pain comes. The Obama administration undertook the hard work necessary to rebuild its relationship with Israel; it needs to devote more attention to the concerns of the Egyptian generals and the House of Saud. Such relationships don’t mean abandoning core American values; rather they recognize the limits on American power and seek to add allies where our own unaided efforts cannot succeed.

 

Second, the struggle against terror is going to be harder than we hoped. Our enemies have scattered and multiplied, and the violent jihadi current has renewed its appeal. In the Arab world, in parts of Africa, in Europe and in the U.S., a constellation of revitalized and inventive movements now seeks to wreak havoc. It is delusional to believe that we can eliminate this problem by eliminating poverty, underdevelopment, dictatorship or any other “root causes” of the problem; we cannot eliminate them in a policy-relevant time frame. An ugly fight lies ahead. Instead of minimizing the terror threat in hopes of calming the public, the president must prepare public opinion for a long-term struggle.

 

Third, the focus must now return to Iran. Concern with Iran’s growing power is the thread that unites Israel and Saudi Arabia. Developing and moving on an Iran strategy that both Saudis and Israelis can support will help President Obama rebuild America’s position in the shifting sands. That is likely to mean a much tougher policy on Syria. Drawing red lines in the sand and stepping back when they are crossed won't rebuild confidence.

 

President Obama now faces a moment similar to the one President Carter faced when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. The assumptions that shaped key elements of his foreign policy have not held up; times have changed radically and policy must shift. The president is a talented leader; the world will be watching what he does.


Ben-Zvi:

Despite the fact that these history lessons are in plain view for another liberal president to see – a “poor man’s Kennedy” who goes by the name Obama – the American march of folly continued onward, this time to Cairo.

 

Upon assuming the presidency in January 2009, Obama was determined to open a new, more conciliatory chapter with the Muslim world. He sought to offer an array of confidence-building gestures that would eventually lead the world to a utopia of moderation and pragmatic deal-making. Yet even before it was possible to gauge the practicality of this dramatic initiative (which was introduced to the world in the form of the Cairo speech delivered by the president on June 4, 2009), the Arab Spring burst onto the scene with a violent bang and completely reshuffled the deck.

 

Since the emergence of the Arab Spring, one would be hard-pressed to pinpoint one realistic, sober-minded move by the Obama administration in the region, particularly over Egypt. In light of the endless stream of mistakes and mishaps, one can only be sorry that famed historian Barbra Tuchman, who penned such classics as the unforgettable The March of Folly, is no longer with us. Otherwise, she would have been able to add an entire chapter about one of many follies that have been committed in Washington's dealings with Cairo.

 

The explosion of the Arab Spring in the town squares of the Egyptian capital in the winter of 2011 and the slogans of democracy that were bandied about at the time fell on attentive ears in Washington. Like Kennedy, Obama quickly became convinced that a window of opportunity had presented itself, one which would allow him to advance the process of Western-style democratization in Egypt. He believed this despite the fact that Egyptian society and its institutions had not undergone the requisite moral metamorphosis necessary for a democracy to take root.

 

The administration was completely blinded by its own lofty rhetoric, which supporters of the revolution used in their struggle to bring down Hosni Mubarak's regime. That was when the U.S. decided to abandon its longtime, reliable ally. As it did with Iran during the waning days of the Shah's government, the U.S. repeated its stance 30 years later in the Egyptian context. There is no doubt that Mubarak acted with aggression against his political rivals, and that his regime bore none of the hallmarks of democratic governance.

 

From a geostrategic standpoint, on the other hand, the tremendous, years-long contribution that Mubarak, as a pivotal member of the moderate Sunni camp, made to Western security cannot be disputed. Nonetheless, despite his status as a valued asset, the Egyptian president was left to his own devices.

 

This American tragedy continued after the Egyptian elections, when Obama gave his stamp of approval to the man who ascended to the top office, Mohammed Morsi.

 

The fact that the new president did not even bother to internalize the essence and the spirit of democratic governance and instead worked tirelessly to tighten his grip on power while at the same time cutting the opposition down to size did not prompt the White House to reassess its support of the Muslim Brotherhood-led government.

 

Since Morsi’s government was removed from power six weeks ago by the military (which espouses an avowedly pro-Western orientation), it appears the White House has yet to recover from the shock of what is perceived as Egypt's regression to the pre-democratic era. The administration’s attitude to the new strongman in Cairo, General Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, is chilly, even bordering on hostile.

 

Not a day goes by without Washington complaining to the new regime about its behavior. The most recent dustup came as a result of the decision to arrest Muslim Brotherhood chief Mohammed Badie.

America, “A Nation of Sullen Paranoids.” By Peggy Noonan.

“A Nation of Sullen Paranoids.” By Peggy Noonan. Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2013.

Too much security can produce a kind of madness.

Egypt’s False Dichotomies. By Rania Al Malky.

Egypt’s False Dichotomies. By Rania Al Malky. The Egypt Monocle, August 21, 2013.

Egypt’s Dirty War? By Jon Lee Anderson. The New Yorker, August 21, 2013.

Egypt’s Coup Breaths New Life Into Al-Qaeda. By Bruce Reidel.

Egypt’s Coup Breaths New Life Into Al-Qaeda. By Bruce Reidel. Al-Monitor, August 20, 2013.

Egypt: Cry, Beloved Country. By Uri Avnery.

Cry, Beloved Country. By Uri Avnery. Gush Shalom, August 24, 2013.

Avnery:

I didn’t want to write this article, but I had to.

 

I love Egypt. I love the Egyptian people. I have spent some of the happiest days of my life there.

 

My heart bleeds when I think of Egypt. And these days I think about Egypt all the time.

 

I cannot remain silent when I see what is happening there, an hour’s flight from my home.

 

Let’s put on the table right from the beginning what’s happening there now.

 

Egypt has fallen into the hands of a brutal, merciless military dictatorship, pure and simple.

 

Not on the way to democracy. Not a temporary transition regime. Not anything like it.

 

Like the locusts of old, the military officers have fallen upon the land. They are not likely ever to give it up voluntarily.

 

Even before, the Egyptian military had enormous assets and privileges. They control vast corporations, are free of any oversight and live off the fat of a skinny land.

 

Now they control everything. Why should they give it up?

 

Those who believe that they will do so, of their own free will, should have their head examined.

 

It is enough to look at the pictures. What do they remind us of?

 

This row of over-decorated, beribboned, well-fed generals who have never fought a war, with their gold-braided, ostentatious peaked hats – where have we seen them before?

 

In the Greece of the colonels? The Chile of Pinochet? The Argentina of the torturers? Any of a dozen other South-American states? The Congo of Mobutu?

 

All these generals look the same. The frozen faces. The self-confidence. The total belief that they are the only guardians of the nation. The total belief that all their opponents are traitors who must be caught, imprisoned, tortured, killed.

 

Poor Egypt.

 

How did this come about? How did a glorious revolution turn into this disgusting spectacle?

 

How did the millions of happy people, who had liberated themselves from a brutal dictatorship, who had breathed the first heady whiffs of liberty, who had turned Liberation Square (that’s what Tahrir means) into a beacon of hope for all mankind, slide into this dismal situation?

 

In the beginning, it seemed that they did all the right things. It was easy to embrace the Arab Spring. They reached out to each other, secular and religious stood together and dared the forces of the aging dictator. The army seemed to support and protect them.

 

But the fatal faults were already obvious, as we pointed out at the time. Faults that were not particularly Egyptian. They were common to all the recent popular movements for democracy, liberty and social justice throughout the world, including Israel.

 

These are the faults of a generation brought up on the “social media”, the immediacy of the internet, the effortlessness of instant mass communication. These fostered a sense of empowerment without effort, of the ability to change things without the arduous process of mass-organization, political power-building, of ideology, of leadership, of parties. A happy and anarchistic attitude that, alas, cannot stand up against real power.

 

When democracy came for a glorious moment and fair elections were in the offing, this whole amorphous mass of young people were faced with a force that had all they themselves lacked: organization, discipline, ideology, leadership, experience, cohesion.

 

The Muslim Brotherhood.

 

The Brotherhood and its Islamist allies easily won the free, fair and democratic elections against the motley anarchic field of secular and liberal groups and personalities. This has happened before in other Arab countries, such as Algeria and Palestine.

 

The Islamic Arab masses are not fanatical, but basically religious (as are the Jews who came to Israel from Arab countries.) Voting for the first time in free elections, they tend to vote for religious parties, though they are by no means fundamentalist.

 

The wise thing for the brotherhood to do was to reach out to other parties, including secular and liberal ones, and lay the foundation for a robust, inclusive democratic regime. This would have been to their own advantage in the long run.

 

At the beginning it seemed that Mohamed Morsi, the freely elected president, would do so. But he soon changed course, using his democratic powers to change the constitution, exclude everybody else and start to establish the sole domination of his movement.

 

That was unwise, but understandable. After many decades of suffering from state persecution, including imprisonment, systematic torture and even executions, the movement was thirsty for power. Once it got hold of it, it could not restrain itself. It tried to gobble up everything.

That was especially unwise, because the brotherhood regime was sitting next to a crocodile, which only seemed to be asleep, as crocodiles often do.

 

At the beginning of his reign, Morsi drove out the old generals, who had served under Hosni Mubarak. He was applauded. But this just replaced the old, tired crocodile with a young and very hungry one.

 

It is difficult to guess what was going on in the military mind at the time. The generals sacrificed Mubarak, who was one of them, in order to protect themselves. They became the darling of the people, especially the young, secular, liberal people. “The army and the people are one!” – How nice. How naïve. How utterly inane.

 

It is quite clear now that during the Morsi months, the generals were waiting for their opportunity. When Morsi made his fatal mistakes and announced that he was going to change the constitution – they pounced.

 

All military juntas like to pose, in the beginning, as the saviors of democracy.

 

Abd-al-Fatah al-Sisi does not have an exciting ideology, as did Gamal Abd-al-Nasser (pan-Arabism) when he carried out his bloodless coup in 1952. He has no vision like Anwar al-Sadat (peace), the dictator who inherited power. He was not the anointed heir of his predecessor, sworn to continue his vision, as was Hosni Mubarak. He is a military dictator, pure and simple (or rather, not so pure and not so simple).

 

Are we Israelis to blame? The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, says so. It’s all the making of Israel. We engineered the Egyptian coup.

 

Very flattering, But, I’m afraid, slightly exaggerated.

 

True, the Israeli establishment is afraid of an Islamic Arab world. It detests the Muslim Brotherhood, the mother of Hamas and other Islamic movements which are committed to fighting Israel. It enjoys a cosy relationship with the Egyptian military.

 

If the Egyptian generals had asked their Israeli colleagues and friends for advice on the coup, the Israelis would have promised them their enthusiastic support. But there is nothing much they could have done about it.

 

Except one thing. It is Israel that has assured the Egyptian military for decades its annual big US aid package. Using its control of the US Congress, Israel has prevented the termination of this grant through all these years. At this moment, the huge Israeli power-machine in the US is busy ensuring the continuation of the 1.3 billion or so of US aid to the generals. But this is not crucial, since the Arab Gulf oligarchies are ready to finance the generals to the hilt.

 

What is crucial for the generals is American political and military support. There cannot be the slightest doubt that before acting, the generals asked for American permission, and that this support was readily given.

 

The US president does not really direct American policy. He can make beautiful speeches, elevating democracy to divine status, but he cannot do much about it. Policy is made by a political-economic-military complex, for which he is just the figurehead.

 

This complex does not care a damn for “American Values”. It serves American (and its own) interests. A military dictatorship in Egypt serves these interests – as it does the perceived interests of Israel.

 

Does it really serve them? Perhaps in the short run. But an enduring civil war - on the ground or underground – will ruin Egypt’s shaky economy and drive away crucial investors and tourists. Military dictatorships are notably incompetent administrations. In a few months or years this dictatorship will crumble – as have all other military dictatorships in the world.

 

Until that day, I shall weep for Egypt.

America the Trivial. By Victor Davis Hanson.

America the Trivial. By Victor Davis Hanson. National Review Online, August 22, 2013.

The Choice in Egypt. By Charles Krauthammer.

The Choice in Egypt. By Charles Krauthammer. National Review Online, August 22, 2013. Also at the Washington Post.

Egyptians Still Love the Military. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, August 23, 2013.


Krauthammer:

Egypt today is a zero-sum game. We’d have preferred there to be a democratic alternative; unfortunately, there is none. The choice is binary: The country will be ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood or by the military.

 

Perhaps the military should have waited three years for the intensely unpopular Mohamed Morsi to be voted out of office. But General Abdel Fatah al-Sissi seems to have calculated that by then there would be no elections — as in Gaza, where the Palestinian wing of the Brotherhood, Hamas, elected in 2006, established a one-man-one-vote-one-time dictatorship.

 

What’s the U.S. to do? Any response demands two considerations: (a) moral, i.e., which outcome offers the better future for Egypt, and (b) strategic, i.e., which outcome offers the better future for U.S. interests and those of the free world.

 

As for Egypt’s future, the Brotherhood offered nothing but incompetent, intolerant, increasingly dictatorial rule. In one year, Morsi managed to squander 85 years of Brotherhood prestige garnered in opposition — a place from which one can promise the Moon — by persecuting journalists and activists, granting himself the unchallenged power to rule by decree, enshrining a sectarian Islamist constitution, and systematically trying to seize the instruments of state power. As if that weren’t enough, after its overthrow the Brotherhood showed itself to be the party that, when angry, burns churches.

 

The military, brutal and bloody, is not a very appealing alternative. But it does matter what the Egyptian people think. The anti-Morsi demonstrations were the largest in recorded Egyptian history. Revolted by Morsi’s betrayal of a revolution intended as a new opening for individual dignity and democracy, the protesters explicitly demanded his overthrow. And the vast majority seem to welcome the military repression aimed at abolishing the Islamist threat. It’s their only hope, however problematic, for an eventual democratic transition.

 

And which alternative better helps secure U.S. strategic interests? The list of considerations is long: (1) a secure Suez Canal, (2) friendly relations with the U.S., (3) continued alliance with the pro-American Gulf Arabs and Jordanians, (4) retention of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty, and (5) cooperation with the U.S. on terrorism, which in part involves (6) isolating Brotherhood-run Gaza.

 

Every one of which is jeopardized by Brotherhood rule.

 

What, then, should be our policy? The Obama administration is right to deplore excessive violence and urge reconciliation. But let’s not fool ourselves into believing this is possible in any near future. Sissi crossed his Rubicon with the coup. It will either succeed or not. To advocate a middle way is to invite endless civil strife.

 

The best outcome would be a victorious military magnanimously offering, at some later date, to reintegrate the more moderate elements of what’s left of the Brotherhood.

 

But for now, we should not be cutting off aid, civilian or military, as many in Congress are demanding. It will have no effect, buy no influence, and win no friends on either side of the Egyptian divide. We should instead be urging the quick establishment of a new cabinet of technocrats, rapidly increasing its authority as the soldiers gradually return to their barracks.

 

Generals are very bad at governance. Give the reins to people who actually know something, and charge them with reviving the economy and preparing the foundations for a democratic transition — most important, drafting a secular constitution that protects the rights of women and minorities. The final step on that long democratic path should be elections.

 

After all, we’ve been here before. Through a half-century of Cold War, we repeatedly faced precisely the same dilemma: choosing the lesser evil between totalitarian (in that case, Communist) and authoritarian (usually military) rule.

 

We generally supported the various militaries in suppressing the Communists. That was routinely pilloried as a hypocritical and immoral betrayal of our alleged allegiance to liberty. But in the end, it proved the prudent, if troubled, path to liberty.

 

The authoritarian regimes we supported — in South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Chile, Brazil, even Spain and Portugal (ruled by fascists until the mid 1970s!) — in time yielded democratic outcomes. General Augusto Pinochet, after 16 years of iron rule, bowed to U.S. pressure and allowed a free election — which he lost, ushering in Chile’s current era of democratic flourishing. How many times have Communists or Islamists allowed that to happen?

 

Regarding Egypt, rather than emoting, we should be thinking about what’s best for Egypt, for us, and for the possibility of some eventual democratic future.

 

Under the Brotherhood, such a possibility is zero. Under the generals, it’s slim.

 

Slim trumps zero.

Tom Ewing’s Dirty War. By Nicole Etcheson.

Tom Ewing’s Dirty War. By Nicole Etcheson. New York Times, August 23, 2013.

The End of the World Is Starting in Damascus. By Ari Shavit.

The end of the world is starting in Damascus. By Ari Shavit. Haaretz, August 22, 2013.

A Tipping Point in Syria? By Will Marshall. Real Clear Politics, August 23, 2013.

The one video from Syria’s alleged chemical weapons attack that everyone should watch. By Max Fisher. Washington Post, August 21, 2013.

Young girl affected by chemical weapons attack on Damascus, 8/21/2013. Video. ANAChannelEng, August 21, 2013. YouTube.

Syrian activists: Dozens killed in Damascus chemical attack. Video. turan utkan, August 21, 2013. YouTube


Shavit:

Can this really be happening? In the 21st century? Only a few hundred kilometers from where I’m sitting writing this piece? Can it be that only hours ago a tyrant used chemical weapons against his own people who were rebelling in the capital’s suburbs against his tyranny? Can it be that during this gorgeous summer, Arab women and children are being gassed to death by an Arab dictator?

 

The eye refuses to believe the pictures the iPad is transmitting. The mind cannot grasp the reports the iPhone is delivering. After the taboos of using artillery, helicopters and missiles on civilians have been broken, the taboo of using unconventional weapons has apparently been shattered as well. According to news reports, not far from us, in the same Damascus with which we sought to make peace, Arabs are murdering Arabs with chemical weapons.

 

True, more than 100,000 people have already been slaughtered in Syria. For two years our northern neighbor has been bleeding in a way that the Israelis and Palestinians haven’t bled in a hundred years of conflict. And there has already been a chemical weapons incident that the world didn’t really want to acknowledge.

 

But now it’s highly probable that a horrifying and unprecedented attack took place east of Damascus. If this is the case, Syrian President Bashar Assad and the Arab Spring have crossed the black line. The glorious Arab uprising that the West enthusiastically supported has become an apocalyptic event.

 

No decent person can ignore what’s happening. What is supposed to be an enlightened world cannot remain silent. Each day, the Syrian civil war is taking on the chilling connotations of the Spanish Civil War. It heralds the end of an era and delineates the coming era.

 

It’s not only innocent victims being buried in Damascus, but the concept of enlightened Arab nationalism and the hope that the West has a conscience. Women and children who were apparently gassed to death are being buried in Damascus, along with the ideal of an international community and the illusion of international law.

 

If civilians can be gassed to death in 2013, we face the end of the world. It’s the end of the world that purports to be moral and enlightened. It’s the end of the world that sought to establish a reasonable international order of which the Middle East would be part.

 

Many in the West and Israel despise Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But what’s happening in Syria proves the validity of Netanyahu’s warning that the greatest danger to world peace in the 21st century is the combination of unconventional weapons and unconventional regimes. Lunatics really are insane. Barbarians are really barbaric. Huns will be Huns.

 

Those who act mercifully toward Huns bear direct responsibility for the fact that nuclear weapons are being built in Iran, chemical weapons are being used in Syria and doomsday weapons threaten the future of the Middle East. Those who underestimate the inherent danger of the Huns bear direct responsibility for the deaths of today’s victims, the Syrians, and tomorrow’s victims, the Israelis, Europeans and Americans.

 

It’s time to break free of the moral relativism, multicultural hypocrisy and political correctness that prevent us from seeing our evil neighborhood as it really is. A terrible warning siren is being sounded in Damascus. Do we hear it? Does the world hear it?

Harrowing Tales of Christian Persecution in Egypt. By Walter Russell Mead.

Harrowing Tales of Christian Persecution in Egypt. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, August 22, 2013.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on the Dangers of Multiculturalism. By Ben Cohen.

Rabbi Sacks on Multiculturalism’s Dangers. By Ben Cohen. Commentary, August 21, 2013.

Lord Sacks: “Multiculturalism has had its day. It’s time to move on.” By Daniel Finkelstein. ChiefRabbi.org, August 19, 2013. Originally published in The Times of London.

Reversing the Decay of London Undone. By Jonathan Sacks. NJBR, January 2, 2013.

The Handwriting on the Wall. By George Weigel. NJBR, January 2, 2013.

America’s Success was Just a Blip, Says Professor. By Rush Limbaugh.

America’s Success was Just a Blip, Says Professor, and It's Good That We’re Sliding Back into Normal Suckiness. By Rush Limbaugh. RushLimbaugh.com, August 22, 2013.

Leftist Policies are Failing, Not America. By Rush Limbaugh. RushLimbaugh.com, August 22, 2013.

Was America’s Prosperity an Accident of History? By Benjamin Wallace-Wells. NJBR, July 22, 2013.

Camille Paglia on Hillary Clinton. By Tracy Clark-Flory.

Camille Paglia: “It remains baffling how anyone would think that Hillary Clinton is our party’s best chance.” By Tracy Clark-Flory. Salon, August 21, 2013.

Camille Paglia: “Hillary Disqualified Herself for Presidency in Fist-Pounding Moment at Congressional Hearing.” By Noel Sheppard. NewsBusters, August 21, 2013.

Another Brutal Embarrassment for the USA. By Bill O’Reilly.

Another brutal embarrassment for the USA. By Bill O’Reilly. Video. Talking Points Memo. The O’Reilly Factor. Fox News, August 21, 2013. YouTube. Real Clear Politics.

O’REILLY: A violent subculture is now in place fueled by derelict parents, a barbaric media and apathy on the part of many politicians. The incredible violence taking place in some Chicago neighborhoods as well as mindless murderers all over the country prove this point. And until we acknowledge – acknowledge the source of the chaos, we will not be able to solve the problem.

Kirsten Powers Challenges Bill O’Reilly Over Chris Lane: “If Those Kids Didn’t Have a Gun . . .” By Matt Wilstein. Mediaite, August 21, 2013. YouTube.

Are Gun Laws to Blame for the Death of Christopher Lane?

Are Oklahoma gun laws to blame for college baseball player’s death? Video. Monica Crowley with Michelle Malkin and Richard Fowler. Hannity. Fox News, August 21, 2013. YouTube. YouTube. Real Clear Politics.

Transcript excerpt:

MICHELLE MALKIN: The dishonesty of the gun grabbers is naked here. It’s as naked as a newborn baby. He’s talking about gun control and gun confiscation laws, national registries and background checks that would do absolutely nothing to control evil thugs who will do whatever they need to do to kill and wreak havoc on people. These boys were intent on killing.

 

MONICA CROWLEY: If you’re intent on killing somebody, if you’re part of a gang, whatever your intent may be, it doesn’t matter what the weapon is. They would have found a way to acquire any kind of weapon.

 

MALKIN: Illegal alien gangs are using machetes. Black and Latino gangs are wilding and mobbing people and using their bare fists. It’s not about the weapons, it’s about the morality.


Michelle Malkin Mows Down Liberal Over Chris Lane Shooting: We Need “Gang Control,” Not “Gun Control.” By Matt Wilstein. Mediaite, August 21, 2013.

Oklahoma “thrill” killing and today’s youth. Video. Greta Van Susteren with Pat Buchanan. On the Record with Greta Van Susteren. Fox News, August 21, 2013. YouTube.

Without Politics, the Mob Rules. By Rami G. Khouri.

Without politics, the mob rules. By Rami G. Khouri. The Daily Star (Lebanon), August 21, 2013.

Knowledge about Arabs is improving. By Rami G. Khouri. The Daily Star (Lebanon), August 14, 2013.

Four Leading Arab Cities in Flames. By Rami G. Khouri. NJBR, August 17, 2013.

Close to the Edge in Egypt. By Thomas L. Friedman.

Close to the Edge. By Thomas L. Friedman. New York Times, August 20, 2013.

Another Devil We Know. By Shmuel Rosner. New York Times, August 20, 2013.

How Strong a Horse Is General Sisi? By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, August 21, 2013.

Attacking the “Enemies of Islam.” By Andrew C. McCarthy.

Attacking the “Enemies of Islam.” By Andrew C. McCarthy. National Review Online, August 21, 2013.

In Egypt, the Brotherhood is savaging Christians because . . . it works.

Increased Attacks on Christians in Egypt. NJBR, August 20, 2013.


McCarthy:

There is a reason why it is often said that there are no good choices for the United States in Egypt.

 

In my weekend column, I argued that there are only two realistic alternatives at the moment. The first is the self-defeating option popular with the Obama administration and the GOP’s erratic McCain wing: Call for a new round of popular elections. Ironically, proponents call this a “return to democracy,” although it would assure the return to power of anti-democratic Islamic supremacists who regard America, Israel, and Western Europe as enemies they are pledged to “conquer” — to borrow the word unabashedly used by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s chief sharia jurist.

 

On this score, it is crucial to grasp that, in Egypt, Islamic supremacists are not limited to the Brotherhood, not by a long shot. Let’s imagine the Brotherhood were banned, or Egyptians so soured on the Brothers that, if given the chance, they would decline to reelect Mohamed Morsi or some other Ikhwan majordomo. There would still be several other Islamic-supremacist factions in Egypt. The ones referred to as “Salafists” are even more zealous than the Brothers to impose totalitarian sharia.

 

Notwithstanding that it is a very powerful organization with widespread, entrenched Egyptian roots, the Brotherhood enjoys reliable support from no more (and probably less) than a third of the country. Islamic supremacists do not win election landslides in Egypt because of the Brotherhood; the Brothers win elections because they are the best-organized Islamic supremacists in a substantially Islamic-supremacist country. Egypt is what it is not because of the Brotherhood but because of its sharia culture, ingrained after more than a millennium’s dominance by Islamic scholars and imams.

 

In free elections, Islamic supremacists would still win control of parliament. After all, they won by an almost four-to-one landslide only two years ago. In a presidential election, moreover, an Islamic supremacist would be elected. Recall that just last year, the transitional military government resorted to disqualifying presidential candidates on bogus grounds to try to prevent that from happening . . . but they still ended up with Morsi. The Brotherhood is now unpopular enough that Morsi would not be reelected . . . probably. But some Islamic supremacist, whether from the Brotherhood or another Islamist faction, almost certainly would. The Brothers, furthermore, would do reasonably well in parliamentary elections, even if they failed to reach the 50 percent haul of the vote that they garnered just two years ago.

 

So the ill-conceived “democracy” option would be a catastrophe, setting in motion a reprise of what got Egypt to the brink of failed-state status. That leaves support of the military as the only plausible alternative. Military control is the only chance for a long-term positive outcome — defeat of the Muslim Brotherhood; a technocratic government that brings a measure of stability and confronts Egypt’s profound economic crisis; the drafting of a consensus constitution that guarantees minority rights and equality of opportunity; time for democratic institutions and secular parties to take root; and an eventual return to popular elections guided by that framework. As I contended in the weekend column, though, we should not be overconfident about this scenario. Just because it is the only sensible option does not mean it has a good chance of success. This is Egypt we’re talking about.

 

As I’ve argued several times, for instance here and in Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy, the Egyptian military is not dependable. It is our best friend out of a bad lot. Amid the dystopia, it is a comparatively stabilizing influence. But let’s not kid ourselves.

 

With tens of billions of dollars in aid over the past 30 years, the United States has purchased friendship at the highest echelons of Egypt’s armed forces. But that is just the highest echelons. Broadly speaking, Egypt’s military, in which a term of service by all able-bodied men is compulsory, is a reflection of Egyptian society. As we saw in polls taken while Mubarak was still in power, and as we’ve now seen in election after election after election, Egyptian society is substantially Islamic supremacist. The armed forces are thus rife with Brotherhood and Salafist operatives and sympathizers. Indeed, it is worth remembering that General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was chosen by Morsi to lead the armed forces because he is known to be a sharia-adherent Muslim who seemed in sync with much of the Brotherhood’s ideology — if not, as it turned out, with the Brothers themselves.

 

On the Corner, Nina Shea has written movingly about the ongoing pogrom against Egypt’s Christians. And in a powerful post, David French argues that America’s lavish aid for Egypt’s military ought to be contingent not only on defeat of the Muslim Brotherhood but also on the military’s protection of besieged religious minorities, particularly the Copts. I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I would make all American policy in the Middle East contingent on the protection of minorities and the repeal of sharia’s other oppressive provisions — that would be more meaningful democracy promotion than the charade we’ve been pushing for the past decade.

 

But is it realistic in Egypt? To answer that question, I’d suggest remembering two things.

 

The first is that we should not idealize what life was like for Christians in Egypt before the Muslim Brotherhood came to power. Mubarak was, on balance, an American ally, but he made his own accommodations with Islamic supremacists — abiding their prominence in academe, their promotion of anti-Semitism in the media, and their more than occasional harassment of the Copts. The stubborn fact is that attacks on Egypt’s Christians long predate the Brotherhood’s now-aborted rise to political power. In fact, as Ray Ibrahim has recounted and I describe in Spring Fever, Egyptian troops participated in the massacre of Christian demonstrators in Maspero in 2011 — many months before Morsi’s mid-2012 election.

 

The second is to be mindful of how the Brotherhood won all the elections after Mubarak’s fall — from the first, a referendum on constitutional amendments, through the elections for parliament and the presidency, up to and including the last, a referendum on the sharia constitution. In each instance, in venues from thousands of mosques to Sheikh Qaradawi’s popular Al Jazeera television show, Islamic leaders portrayed every contest as a struggle between Islam and the perceived “enemies of Islam” — Christians and secularist Muslims who are supposedly the cat’s paw of the hated Americans and Zionists. Egyptians — millions of them poor, illiterate, resentful, and more than content to see elections in those terms — voted for Islamic supremacists every time, usually by landslide margins.

 

Why do you think the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies are torching Christian churches throughout the country? To be sure, doing so is consistent with their supremacist ideology. But the main reason is tactical. In the Egyptian mind, attacking Christians converts the controversy over Morsi’s removal from a matter of the Brotherhood’s governmental incompetence and malevolence to another pitched battle between Islam and the “enemies of Islam.”

 

Obviously, millions of Egyptians do not see things this way. But if those Egyptians were a majority, Islamic supremacists would never have won control of the government in the first place. In Egypt, the Brotherhood is savaging Christians because . . . it works. General Sisi is not doing enough to protect besieged Christian communities because, even if he is privately inclined to do so, he knows that many of his rank-and-file soldiers are not.

Israel’s Army Is Too Powerful. By Zvi Bar’el.

Like in Egypt, Israel’s army takes on powers it shouldn’t have. By Zvi Bar’el. Haaretz, August 21, 2013.

Bar’el:

All of these pale, however, by comparison to the tender inviting bids for providing classes on the subject of Israeli-Jewish identity. The deadline for submission of bids, by the way, is September 9. It's doubtful, however, that there is an institution that can put together a detailed plan and submit it within three weeks about such an identity, but who am I to even suggest that the bidding process might have been rigged?

 

So Israeli-Jewish identity is a commodity available for purchase from the lowest bidder. What 12 years of school didn’t do will be accomplished in a course. Imparting Israeli-Jewish identity is not a new IDF perk. It has existed for years, but it repeatedly raises the issue of why the army is involved in shaping Israeli society. Just as the issue of who “bears the burden” in Israeli society is viewed only in military terms — meaning who serves in the army — and just as some rights and social welfare benefits accorded to citizens are conditioned on military service, so the army is accorded the authority to grant recognition to citizens’ Israeliness and even obscure the identity of non-Jewish soldiers.

 

The cultural and societal power that the army possesses prompts an immediate comparison with what is happening now in Egypt. The Egyptian army has revered status and by law it cannot be found at fault. Its budget is not a matter of public knowledge and is not subject to oversight. It manages its own independent financial system the size of which no one knows. And all of a sudden, and not for the first time, the Egyptian army has taken control, and in the name of “the people and democracy” is fighting a religious movement that was democratically elected. Egyptian liberals are kneeling before Egypt military leader Abdul Fattah el-Sisi, viewing him as the guardian of liberty and liberal values even when he kills hundreds of civilians.

 

But what the Egyptian army is doing, in brutal fashion, is not just a show of force to demonstrators meant to restore stability. It decides what the correct values are and what is out-of-bounds. It defines the boundaries of tolerable democracy and dictates when that democracy needs to protect itself and against whom. It is also overseeing the process of drafting a new constitution that will shape Egypt’s future values and reinvent the “will of the people.” There can be no better definition of dictatorship than the forceful takeover of public awareness.

 

One cannot help but wonder if there is a substantive difference between a military takeover of awareness the shaping of identity on one hand, and voluntary devotion to an army and a willingness to give it authority over these fundamental issues. In both cases, that in Egypt and that in Israel, an organization that is not democratic is taking or receiving powers unto itself that it is not supposed to have. In contrast with the Egyptian army, the Israeli army does not fire at its civilian population. It simply molds them into “shaped citizens.”

What China Fears. By Max Boot.

What China Fears. By Max Boot. Commentary, August 20, 2013.

Leaked “Document #9” Spotlights Xi’s Anti-Democratic Drive. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, August 21, 2013.

China Takes Aim at Western Ideas. By Chris Buckley. New York Times, August 19, 2013.