Smart power?

Egypt’s economy is in bad place, with an unemployment rate of around 13 percent and an even worse youth unemployment rate, and Morsi’s government has been negotiating with the International Monetary Fund about a $4.8 billion loan package to try to help stabilize the economy and get their budget in order. The IMF, however, would [...]

Read this post »

Hmmmm.

Daniel Freedman thinks so, and even credits the Arab Spring — in a kind of backhand manner.  In yesterday’s New York Daily News, Freedman notes that incoming Secretary of State John Kerry has pledged to make Israeli-Palestinian peace talks a high priority, a traditional pledge that goes back for decades at Foggy Bottom.  Kerry has [...]

Read this post »

Plus ça change ...

Hey, remember when the man who ran Egypt ruled as a dictator with the excuse of continuing “emergency decrees” and had the Army as his hatchet men?  Meet the new boss, same as the old boss: Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi declared a state [...]

Read this post »

"He is an old sheikh and sick and blind. We need to respect that."

Now that Egypt’s Mohamed Morsi has settled the constitutional issues facing his country, he can turn his attention to the truly pressing problems of the Arab Spring state.  Would that be religious tolerance, economic growth, and the pursuit of peace in the region?  Er … not exactly.  In an exclusive interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer [...]

Read this post »

The ultimate question for dictators.

We knew it would come down to this eventually.  In the wake of continuing, and perhaps strengthening, demonstrations and protests against his dictatorial decrees, Mohamed Morsi has authorized the Egyptian military to secure Cairo: Egypt’s President Mohamed Mursi, facing street protests over his attempts to push through a new constitution, will soon authorise the armed [...]

Read this post »

"The people want to topple the regime!"

Perhaps Mohamed Morsi thought that a show of strength and resolve in a nationally-televised speech to his Egyptian subjects would impress them enough to stop protesting his “temporary” seizure of dictatorial power.  If so, the President-turned-Pharaoh miscalculated — perhaps badly.  After a defiant speech in which Morsi accused protesters of being Mubarakites, the streets again [...]

View the video »

Meanwhile, at the White House ....

The protests in Egypt have turned violent, but so far the Egyptian army has remained mainly on the sidelines.  The Republican Guard deployed armored vehicles and elite troops to the presidential palace yesterday, but stood by while opponents to Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood attacked each other in the street.  Today, the army has [...]

Read this post »

Inevitable.

What happens when you take a disillusioned electorate that has discovered it elected a would-be dictator, and the group that wanted a dictator all along?  Inevitably, you get what happened overnight in Cairo.  Clashes between growing legions of protesters and Muslim Brotherhood counterprotesters killed five people and wounded hundreds more, while Mohamed Morsi called in [...]

View the video »

"This is the last warning before we lay siege on the presidential palace."

It looks as though those pro-Morsi counterprotests by the recently-ascendant Muslim Brotherhood didn’t work out as planned.  Instead of convincing Egyptians to give Morsi a chance to use his pharaoh-esque powers to deliver democracy as promised, opponents are once again filling the streets of Cairo — and today plan to march on Morsi’s palace to [...]

Read this post »

"President Obama is supporting a terrorist."

The streets of Cairo have remained flooded with protestors ever since Mohamed Morsi issued decrees that “temporarily” maki him a dictator — or as some say, a pharaoh. Morsi pledged to end his decrees as soon as Egypt votes on the constitution drafted by his Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist allies, but that has not slowed [...]

View the video »

Pharaoh Morsi?

As expected, Egypt’s ad-hoc constitutional panel approved a draft that enraged all but the Islamists on the committee to the extent that they withdrew in protest earlier. The passage of the proposal hasn’t helped Mohamed Morsi this morning, as even clerics denounced him in Friday prayers as a new pharaoh. CNN expects even bigger protests [...]

View the video »

Democracy.

The political crisis in Egypt escalated over the last 24 hours, with moves on both sides showing a widening gulf between the promise of a democratic revolution and the reality of an Islamist power grab.  Mohamed Morsi’s constitutional assembly, controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist allies, voted this morning to boot 11 dissenting members [...]

Read this post »

Deja vu.

Say, this has a familiar ring to it.  Protesters fill Tahrir Square to demonstrate against the head of state who uses an “emergency” to claim dictatorial powers, police deploy teargas, and rocks get thrown at the US Embassy.  The last time this happened, Barack Obama demanded the resignation of the Egyptian head of state. What [...]

Read this post »

Morsi to meet with judges today.

The anger over Mohamed Morsi’s “temporary” decrees that turn him into a “Pharaoh,” as Mohammed ElBaradei put it last week, continues to roll through Cairo — and now beyond. CNN reports this morning that protests and clashes with police have now expanded outside of the capital of Egypt: A measure of Morsi’s concern can be [...]

View the video »

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Say, how has Barack Obama’s Arab Spring policy worked out for us so far?  Well, we bombed one dictator out of power in Libya, which set that nation free … to have terrorist networks openly operate and control the eastern part of the country, which resulted in the sacking of our consulate in Benghazi, and [...]

Read this post »

"It just seems a little weird."

No kidding.  While Egypt seems as unclear as Barack Obama on the status of our relationship, the President wasn’t in New York working out those issues with Mohamed Morsi or other world leaders.  Instead, he was hashing out his own problems with the hosts of The View on ABC, which CNN found “just a little [...]

Read this post »

Definitions.

Barack Obama blew the Egypt question in an interview with Telemundo. Would Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi blow it with CBS News? Charlie Rose interviewed Morsi while the new head of state attended the UN General Assembly and asked him to clarify. Morsi, like Obama, seemed reluctant to claim the status of ally with the US [...]

Read this post »

What could go wrong?

I’m going to inch out onto the limb and predict that the Foreign Policy President will not, repeat not, be handing over this cretin before election day. The U.S. State Department is currently in negotiations with the Egyptian government for the transfer of custody of Omar Abdel-Rahman, also known as “the Blind Sheikh,” for humanitarian [...]

Read this post »

"'Ally' is a legal term of art."

I’m not sure what this has to do with Romney’s gaffes, but I thought I’d toss it out there while we’re waiting on more gaffe news. Alternate headline: “‘Foreign-Policy President’ terrible at foreign policy.” “I don’t think that we would consider them an ally, but we don’t consider them an enemy,” Obama said. “They’re a [...]

Read this post »

Values.

I wonder if he knows that there’s no legal action available to him (yet) and is simply grandstanding for the locals’ sake or if he actually thinks he can sue to shut this thing down. Silly Morsi: There won’t be a blasphemy exception added to the First Amendment for critiques of Islam for another, oh, [...]

Read this post »

Counter-coup.

Such is the power of Ryanmania that only now are we getting around to this story. Remember how the military junta was going to keep Egypt’s new Islamist president on a tight leash? Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s president, has dismissed the head of the armed forces and defence minister, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, according to [...]

Read this post »

Hmmmm.

This story has been bugging me all week. A letter to Israel from Egypt’s new president hoping for regional peace kicked up a stir Tuesday when the Egyptian leader’s Islamist movement denied he sent it. Israel insisted the letter was genuine… In it, Morsi appeared to write in English, “I am looking forward to exerting [...]

Read this post »

Power play.

Looks like this is coming to a head tomorrow so let’s start paying attention now. What’s a newly elected president to do after he’s been stripped of meaningful power by a ruling military junta? Simple: Challenge them in the name of democracy and hope that the public rallies behind him. Surely, Egyptians will support a [...]

Read this post »

Springtime.

A vignette from Morsi’s semi-official swearing-in this afternoon in Tahrir Square. Here’s what populism looks like in the “new” Middle East: Omar Abdel-Rahman, “the blind sheikh,” is serving a life sentence in a federal prison for his role in the 1993 bombing that killed six people in lower Manhattan. The attack on the World Trade [...]

Read this post »

Double talk.

Odds of this happening under President Obama: Zero. Odds of it happening under President Romney: Not much higher, I’d bet, although I’d be keen to hear Mitt’s reaction. If by “foreign aid” West means military aid to the junta, then cutting it might inadvertently do more to empower the Brotherhood than keeping the aid going [...]

Read this post »