Sects.

As the old saying goes: Guns don’t kill people, “violence” kills people. Amb. Patterson and the entire staff of the Embassy convey our deepest condolences to the friends and families of the Egyptians – both Christian and Muslim – who were killed or injured in the recent violence in Al Khosous and Abassiyya. We condemn [...]

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War powers.

Excellent, and not just the Libya stuff. Stick with it for Paul’s questions about how smart it is to be arming the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt when Morsi is already wheezing about Jews controlling the media in official diplomatic sessions with the U.S. If you’re wondering why it fell to Paul to ask this question [...]

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"Coons stressed that the rest of the meeting was constructive."

The only silver lining in having the Muslim Brotherhood run Egypt is the grim amusement we’ll get from watching American diplomats forced to continuously polish this guy’s rhetorical turds. This latest one was dropped at the same meeting where McCain et al. supposedly gave him a talking-to about his anti-semitic comments in 2010 before they [...]

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Allies.

Something new from MEMRI TV that you shouldn’t much care about because U.S. diplomats have given him a stern talking-to and anyway peace is all about getting along with people who want you eliminated or something. The fun thing about this clip coming so soon after the other video of Morsi ranting about Jews surfaced [...]

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Yup.

To repeat a point made previously, U.S./Egyptian codependency is such that this guy could start wearing an S.S. uniform around Cairo and American diplomats would find a way to downplay it. “He’s just pandering,” “he’ll moderate in time,” “we’ll talk to him” — anything we can say to preserve this relationship and what little leverage [...]

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Trust.

Via the Washington Free Beacon. Question: Why is the White House only now, on January 15, responding to Morsi’s 2010 comments about confronting the “bloodsuckers” and “warmongers” in Israel? The video of those comments appeared fully 12 days ago and made a stir online. How come it took nearly two weeks for Carney to formulate [...]

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Moderate.

Via MEMRI TV, a chat with the future pharaoh recorded less than six months before Mubarak was toppled. I was shocked by it, not because it’s surprising — the rhetoric is Muslim Brotherhood 101 — but because it’s such a vicious, efficient rebuke to western media drivel about Morsi and the MB being more moderate [...]

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Meet the new boss.

Remember when the Egyptian army was supposed to be a check on the Brotherhood’s power, not an arm of it? As his proposed compromise faded and tensions mounted on Sunday, Mr. Morsi followed through on plans announced the day before to authorize the military to protect national institutions and polling places. His order, printed in [...]

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Terrific.

On the one hand, he’s nuts. On the other hand, using a tortured pop-culture metaphor for geopolitics suggests he’d make a fine blogger. Is “The Walking Dead” actually an elaborate metaphor for America’s looming fiscal collapse? Your answer to that question will tell you if you’re prepared for the logic bomb that’s about to be [...]

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Patience.

Hillary called Egypt’s foreign minister today to “underscore U.S. hopes that Egypt’s political crisis can be resolved in a democratic manner,” but Morsi’s spokesman said this afternoon no changes have been made to the temporary decree he used to seize power. Or have they? President Mohamed Morsi agreed on Monday to limit the scope of [...]

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Allies.

The office of Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi has said that the decree giving him sweeping new powers is temporary and not intended to concentrate power in his hands… “The presidency reiterates the temporary nature of those measures, which are not intended to concentrate power, but to avoid … attempts to undermine democratically elected bodies and [...]

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Pharaoh.

The full statement from the State Department’s Victoria Nuland is below: The decisions and declarations announced on November 22 raise concerns for many Egyptians and for the international community. One of the aspirations of the revolution was to ensure that power would not be overly concentrated in the hands of any one person or institution. [...]

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Status quo.

It’s in effect as of 2 p.m. ET. Whether it’ll still be in effect when this post publishes at a little after 3, who knows. Alternate headline: “Fat envelopes from Uncle Sam to Muslim Brotherhood to proceed as scheduled.” Under the ceasefire terms, Israel is to stop all aggression against the Gaza Strip from land, [...]

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Escalation.

They’ve been holding off, partly to give Egypt time to try to broker a truce and partly because they know escalation will make the true believers in Cairo scream even more loudly about tearing up the treaty. But no truce is in the offing right now and they’re not going to sit by while Tel [...]

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