If you want to follow what is likely to be Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood’s last day in power, a few live update sources:
Posts Tagged ‘Egypt’
Live Updates From Egypt
Wednesday, July 3rd, 2013Egyptian Military Confirms That Morsi Regime Is In Its “Last Hours”
Tuesday, July 2nd, 2013In other news, the Egyptian military has a Facebook page…
Egypt Update for July 1, 2013
Monday, July 1st, 2013The big Egypt news today, just in case you hadn’t seen it:
Some links:
In conversations with opposition politicians over the past six months, I have been struck by two things: their vehement hatred of the Brotherhood, and their inability to articulate solutions to the country’s problems. People speak in vague terms about social justice and democratic values. I have yet to meet a politician with a substantive plan to overhaul a system of food and fuel subsidies that eats up almost one third of the budget, or to reform the education sector, or to stimulate foreign investment….
After two years of watching politicians on both sides of the fence squabble and prevaricate and fail to improve their lives, Egyptians appear to be rejecting representative democracy, without having had much of a chance to participate in it. In a country with an increasingly repressive regime and no democratic culture to draw on, protest has become an end in itself—more satisfying than the hard work of governance, organizing, and negotiation. This is politics as emotional catharsis, a way to register rage and frustration without getting involved in the system.
Super Brief Post on Egypt
Sunday, June 30th, 2013I don’t know what’s really going on in Egypt beyond the largest protests in the history of the world.
Your basic protest in the middle east doesn’t mean jack compared to guys with guns. But protests this massive change the scale of things. Mohammed Morsi isn’t popular with the army, which he hasn’t yet succeeded in Islamicizing. Protests this big are essentially giving the army the green light to take Morsi out.
Protestors have set fire to Muslim brotherhood headquarters, albeit incompetently, if this video is any judge.
Aim for the windows with the Molotovs, people, not the facade!
In addition to be an Islamist scumbag, Morsi has been a manifestly incompetent, nakedly-power-grabbing authoritarian. A lot of protestors are probably opposing the Muslim Brotherhood’s incompetence at governing rather than islamism per se. Michael Totten has noted that liberals (in the classical, Democratic sense) are a distinct minority in Egypt.
Oh, and all that “smart diplomacy” and speech-making from Obama? Thanks to his backing Morsi (with our tax dollars), Egyptians now hate us more than ever.
With demonstrations this massive, there are only three possible endgames in Egypt:
- Morsi steps down
- The army removes Morsi
- Civil war
Possibility #1 is unlikely, and Possibility #3 would likely be a bloodbath to make the Syrian Civil War pale in comparison.
So let’s hope Possibility #2 prevails. But I have no idea how likely that is…
LinkSwarm for June 21, 2013
Friday, June 21st, 2013And now the traditional Friday LinkSwarm on Friday!
LinkSwarm for December 7, 2012
Friday, December 7th, 2012Enjoy a Friday LinkSwarm:
Considerations for an Israeli Ground Assault on Gaza
Thursday, November 15th, 2012Stratfor considers the implications of an Israeli ground assault on Gaza, concluding that it would look an awful lot like Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s 2008-2009 incursion into Gaza.
The biggest difference is that that back then, Egypt wasn’t run by Islamist assclowns.
This also gives me a chance to link to this totally off the hook article on Israel’s urban warfare tactics in Nablus in 2002. As far as I know, it’s the only useful application of French postmodern literary theory in the history of mankind…
Dispatches from the Land of Smart Diplomacy: Islamists Storm American Embassy in Cairo
Tuesday, September 11th, 2012I think those parallels between the Carter and Obama Administrations are getting a bit too close for comfort. It’s gone from homage to plagiarism.
Radical Islamists storm American embassy in unstable Middle East country. I’m sure that’s not a headline anyone in the Obama Administration wanted to see less than two months before election day.
Hey, didn’t Obama make a speech in Cairo a few years back? Remember how liberal commentators hailed it as “masterful” and “inspiring”?
Remember all that talk of smart diplomacy?
Now? Not so much.
Hey the Middle East is hard. It’s very, very easy to get things wrong. But it wasn’t any easier when Bush was President, and I don’t remember his liberal critics cutting him any slack.
I also don’t remember Islamsists storming an American embassy while he was President.