Memorable quotes: a nostalgic medley.
• Marc Lynch (Muslim Brotherhood putting forward a presidential candidate “will reveal itself to be a strategic blunder”) http://on.fb.me/MOlklz
• Tom Friedman (“The popular trend is not with the Muslim Brotherhood”) http://on.fb.me/MOkBRk
• Juan Cole (“that almost certainly hurt the chances of the Muslim Brotherhood in the upcoming elections“) http://on.fb.me/LJKrDi
Political Scientists Are Lousy Forecasters by Jacqueline Stevens | NYT
“Chimps randomly throwing darts at the possible outcomes would have done almost as well as the experts.”
FP: Hardly surprising. They tend to project from Western culture to the ME and there is not one chance in hell this can prove accurate. Scott Johnson (now in Israel) agrees that Caroline Glick’s column I commented yesterday on is the one to read on Egypt’s MB win:
Today comes word that the man from the Muslim Brotherhood has been declared the winner of Egypt’s presidential election. For Americans trying to understand the meaning of this development, I don’t know of better commentary than Caroline Glick’s column “The Muslim Brotherhood’s useful idiots,” which anticipated it last week.
UPDATE: Providing a little more background and putting an exclamation point on Glick’s column, Breitbart TV has posted the video below, via RabbiLive and MEMRI TV. Breitbart TV identifies the speaker as Egyptian cleric Safwat Higazi, introducing Morsi’s campaign on May 1. Ed Morrissey comments here.
Ed Morrissey: Muslim Brotherhood candidate wins Egyptian presidential election
Well, this should make the Middle East a calmer, more rational place … right?
But I disagree with most of Morrissey’s interpretation of the situation:
I’m a little more sanguine about this, but not because I think Morsi is a closet moderate who will pull a Nixon-goes-to-China move and work with Israel. The Egyptian military is not likely to take orders from Morsi that risks its funding or its status in the nation. If the Muslim Brotherhood tries to march on Jerusalem in anything but the figurative, spiritual sense, the military won’t hesitate to depose Morsi and impose its own rule on Egypt — putting the country right back to the Mubarak status quo. They have already defanged the Egyptian parliament in anticipation of this outcome. They don’t want a war with Israel, and certainly not with the US, which is what an attack on Israel will bring. I’d expect Morsi to either play along and be a good little puppet to mollify the Muslim Brotherhood, or suddenly disappear if he doesn’t.
As I commented on Kramer’s Facebook page, I agree with Glick that what we will be witnessing now is a competition between the MB and army on who is more anti-Israel, that can easily get out of control.
And when that happens, who exactly will stand with Israel? I don’t think Obama is competent enough to assess the strategic implications of his US realignment with the Islamists, but I have no doubt that he saw this as a way to scare Israel into concessions. The combination of a collapsed West and an Islamist but failed ME is an invitation for disaster.
Paul Mirengoff hopes that it is still possible to Avoid the full Jimmy Carter in Egypt, but I very much doubt.
Bill Katz: A FIGHT WE LIKE
Frankly, I wouldn't mind a good scrap between the Islamists of Turkey and the butchers of Syria.
And we may get one. There's been a major incident in the region – Syria has apparently shot down a Turkish jet fighter. The Turks are taking it seriously. You know they're taking it seriously because they haven't blamed the Israelis. From Reuters:
ANKARA - Turkish President Abdullah Gul said on Saturday it was not possible to ignore the fact that Syria had shot down a Turkish fighter jet and said everything that needed to be done following the incident would be done, Turkish media reported.
"It is not possible to cover over a thing like this, whatever is necessary will no doubt be done," Gul told reporters from the central Anatolian city of Kayseri.
The Turkish military said it had lost contact with one of its F-4 fighter jets off the southern Turkish coast near Syria on Friday morning and Damascus later acknowledged it had shot the plane down.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who had been returning from a summit in Brazil when the news broke, called an emergency security meeting on his arrival in Ankara and in a statement his office said Ankara would act "decisively" once all the details had emerged.
Syria has said the Turkish aircraft was flying low and well inside Syrian territorial waters when it was shot down. Gul said it was normal for jets to briefly cross into foreign airspace and said a probe into the incident would look at whether in fact it was downed while in Turkish airspace.
ANKARA - Turkish President Abdullah Gul said on Saturday it was not possible to ignore the fact that Syria had shot down a Turkish fighter jet and said everything that needed to be done following the incident would be done, Turkish media reported.
"It is not possible to cover over a thing like this, whatever is necessary will no doubt be done," Gul told reporters from the central Anatolian city of Kayseri.
The Turkish military said it had lost contact with one of its F-4 fighter jets off the southern Turkish coast near Syria on Friday morning and Damascus later acknowledged it had shot the plane down.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who had been returning from a summit in Brazil when the news broke, called an emergency security meeting on his arrival in Ankara and in a statement his office said Ankara would act "decisively" once all the details had emerged.
Syria has said the Turkish aircraft was flying low and well inside Syrian territorial waters when it was shot down. Gul said it was normal for jets to briefly cross into foreign airspace and said a probe into the incident would look at whether in fact it was downed while in Turkish airspace.
Oh guys, fight it out and leave us alone. And may both of you lose.
FP: I’ve always said that if the West had any strategic thinking and cunning it should not discourage (if not instigate) conflicts among its enemies, without putting its personnel in between them. Unfortunately, it’s the innocent that suffer most, but better there than here.
My guess is, however, that nothing much will happen if Israel is not involved.
UPDATE: Israeli TV has confirmed that Erdogan “accepted Syria’s apology”. Boy, am I good!
And:
A group of wrongly named "progressives" met in Washington this week under the banner of the "Take Back the American Dream" conference. When a visitor took an informal poll of whom the "progressives" wanted for president to succeed the sainted Barack Obama, the answer that came back was...Elizabeth Warren. I am not kidding. They're already boosting her for president. She's already sewn up the vote of the millions of Americans who claim to be Cherokee, and aren't. What this result shows, once again, is how immature these "progressives" really are. They aren't progressive. They're regressive, dreaming of a return to the sixties.
FP: I’m afraid this is not specific to “progressives”, but to the American electorate in general. There is a serious scarcity of knowledge and reasoning ability due to the collapse of the educational system.
William A. Jacobson: Chicago violence in two tweets
From friend of the blog, Anne Leary of Backyard Conservative.
With gang violence continuing to spiral, and now taking place in the fancy and liberal Lincoln Park section of town, Anne notes:
Will Chicago bleeding heart limo libs be mugged by reality?: Gang violence erupts in Lincoln Park shar.es/sZFni via @sharethis
— Anne Leary (@backyardconserv) June 24, 2012
Maybe if some bald eagles get shot liberals will get upset: Bald eagles making comeback in Chicago area chicagotribune.com/news/local/bre…
— Anne Leary (@backyardconserv) June 24, 2012
FP: Looks like my warning that in crisis of decline societies break down is proving correct.
RECOMMENDED READS
Daniel Pipes: Kenneth N. Waltz – The Stupidest Strategist?
Adam Chandler: A Waltz to Forget
Jennifer Rubin: Member of Egyptian terrorist group gets meeting with White House Senior Officials
Barry Rubin: Fast and Furious, Middle East Style: Why Should Obama Help Bring America’s Second-Worst Enemies to Power?
Matt Taibbi: Notes on Wall Street's Bid-Rigging Scandal
Daniel Greenfield: A Lawless Society
No comments:
Post a Comment