Egypt's Parliament: Israel Is Our Number One Enemy
Obama Administration: We're Going To Start Funding Egypt's Army Again

Unanimous.

Egypt’s Islamist-dominated parliament unanimously voted on Monday in support of expelling Israel’s ambassador in Cairo and halting gas exports to the Jewish state.

The motion is largely symbolic, because only the ruling military council can make such decisions, and it is not likely to impact Egypt’s relations with Israel. But it signals the seismic change in Egypt after the ouster of longtime leader and Israel ally Hosni Mubarak a year ago in a popular uprising that ended his 29 years in power.

The vote was taken by a show of hands on a report by the chamber’s Arab affairs committee that declared Egypt will “never” be a friend, partner or ally of Israel. The report described Israel as the nation’s “number one enemy” and endorsed what it called Palestinian resistance “in all its kinds and forms” against Israel’s “aggressive policies.”

So, of course:

The Obama administration intends to resume funding for Egypt’s military, despite congressional restrictions and objections from human rights and democracy advocates.

For months, the money for Egypt — more than $1.5 billion, with the bulk earmarked for the military — has been withheld amid that country’s crackdown on pro-democracy groups, including several U.S.-based organizations with close ties in Washington.

A law passed by Congress in December forbids funding unless the State Department certifies that Egypt is making progress in basic freedoms and human rights.

But Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is close to announcing plans to bypass those restrictions on national security grounds for fear of worsening already fraying ties with Egyptian leaders...

Wait, you're bypassing the law based on your own authority?

Yeah, I guess we're moving in Egypt's direction in more than one way.

Now if you click on Allah's link and read his analysis (first link), you'll see that maybe this funding is a way to push back against the Islamists: The Islamists in parliament are attempting to undermine the ruling military junta by declaring their cold peace with Israel essentially treason, by declaring Israel an enemy; hence, we're kind of throwing money at a non-democratic junta which nevertheless is more aligned with our interests than the psychopathic democratic arm of government.

But if that's the case -- uh, why did we force out Mubarak again? Our support of Mubarak was based on just this calculation: He's no democrat, but he'll keep the peace, and keep the maniacs from real power.

So we made a big show of deposing him, of standing up for "freedom" and "democracy," and did not accept sensible transitional measures like a one-year period to assemble democratic parties.

But now we're just throwing money at the anti-democratic (and yet not insane) military junta thwarting the democratic (yet insane) Islamists.

What have we gained?

The whole episode underscored Obama's chief personal/psychological flaws: a grandiose vision of self as a charismatic messiah combined with laziness and an aversion to deep and/or tough thinking.

It felt good. It was fun to preen on camera. It was a movie-like moment. So he strutted and vamped.

He likes doing the fun stuff. He is incapable of the hard stuff.

posted by Ace at 01:39 PM

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