We need
to get over our narcissism and recognize what’s going on in Egypt isn’t about
us. It is about the people in Egypt and other peoples throughout the Middle East
struggling against the fundamentalist extremists who are our enemies too; people
struggling to build modern, decent, tolerant societies. And so far the Obama
administration’s helped the wrong people by and large. . . .
The
bottom line is: we cannot determine Egypt’s future. The Egyptian people have to
determine that. We can only play on the margins and we should try to play constructively,
and not automatically assume “ooh military bad, peaceful protesters who happen
to be thugs good.” I’m appalled by hearing so many Western commentators condemning
the military and seemingly siding with the Brotherhood, when the Muslim
Brotherhood would put these people in jail or far worse.
The
Egyptian people want a little bit of freedom. The Muslim Brotherhood came to
power and tried to take that little bit of hard won freedom away, and now you’re
seeing the reaction. Again, I don’t like military coups but the real coup was
what Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood did to that fledgling Egyptian democracy.
We need
to get our priorities straight. And our priorities should be on the side of
modernity, tolerance, progress, economic growth, decency. Not on the side of
bigoted, medieval, primitive, hate-filled religion directed against peaceful
Muslims above all. Because we should remember that the victims of radical
fanatical Islam have overwhelmingly been decent everyday Muslims.