Much of the editorial opinion and some of the reporting in the mainstream media has opposed the Egyptian military’s forcible removal of Mohammed Morsi as President of Egypt. Actually, surprisingly, there’s a debate about it on the opinion pages of the New York Times. It’s surprising because the reporting of the New York Times has been skeptical of the Tamarod, the protest movement that sought Morsi’s resignation. It’s doubly surprising because the New York Times isn’t usually known for offering a diversity of opinion.

On the one side there’s an unsigned editorial, and an op-ed by Shadi Hamid. But perhaps the clearest anti-protest expression came from Samer Shehata, In Egypt, Democrats vs. Liberals.

Egypt has a dilemma: its politics are dominated by democrats who are not liberals and liberals who are not democrats.

In this case, the favored democrats are defined narrowly as the group that has won an election, but ignoring how it behaved once it achieved power.

On the other side are Roger Cohen and David Brooks. But the clearest anti-Morsi sentiment came from Sara Khorshid, A Coup, but Backed by the People.

Make no mistake: there is no democracy under military rule. Yet I supported the June 30 protests knowing that military rule was imminent, because Mr. Morsi’s rule had not been democratic, either.

Throughout the year of his presidency, protesters who opposed him were violently crushed by the police and by Muslim Brotherhood members. He supported the Interior Ministry in its violent tactics against demonstrators and failed to investigate incidents in which protesters were killed. Journalists and activists were arrested, and the president issued an edict giving him immunity from judicial review. The presidential election, conducted without a clear legal framework, was not enough to make Mr. Morsi’s rule democratic.

Despite Mr. Morsi’s constant claims that someone was undermining his efforts, his actions always seemed aimed at extending the Muslim Brotherhood’s domination of state institutions. He was in constant conflict with the judiciary, most recently with a proposal to lower the retirement age to clear the way for the appointment of his allies.

The nature of the Muslim Brotherhood seems to have been grasped by David Brooks, but not Roger Cohen.

I’ll include Thomas Friedman as a special case. For the most part, he sided with the protesters and he even got a nice mention by Eric Trager.

Accurate depiction of anti-Morsi mood. MT @ghazalairshad: To understand mass opp to MB, focus on "theft." #Egypt http://t.co/4CCMkDHHoA"

— Eric Trager ????? (@EricTrager18) July 5, 2013

His column, Egypt’s Revolution Part II made a number of good points but the problem is how it how it meshed with some of his previous columns.

Always remember: Morsi narrowly won the Presidency by 51 percent of the vote because he managed to persuade many secular and pious but non-Islamist Egyptians that he would govern from the center, focus on the economy and be inclusive. The Muslim Brotherhood never could have won 51 percent with just its base alone. Many centrist Egyptian urban elites chose to vote for Morsi because they could not bring themselves to vote for his opponent, Ahmed Shafik, a holdover from the regime of Hosni Mubarak. So they talked themselves into believing what Morsi was telling them.

As it gradually became apparent that Morsi, whenever he had a choice of acting in an inclusive manner – and pulling in all sectors of Egyptian society – or grabbing more power, would grab more power, a huge chunk of Morsi voters, Islamists and non-Islamist, started to feel cheated by him. They felt that he and his party had stolen something very valuable – their long sought chance to really put Egypt on a democratic course, with more equal growth.

However, a year and a half ago, Friedman wrote in Watching Elephants Fly:

If you do, the first thing you’ll write is that the Islamist parties — the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist Al Nour Party — just crushed the secular liberals, who actually sparked the rebellion here, in the free Egyptian parliamentary elections, winning some 65 percent of the seats. To not be worried about the theocratic, antipluralistic, anti-women’s-rights, xenophobic strands in these Islamist parties is to be recklessly naïve. But to assume that the Islamists will not be impacted, or moderated, by the responsibilities of power, by the contending new power centers here and by the priority of the public for jobs and clean government is to miss the dynamism of Egyptian politics today.

Friedman’s old assumption was that the responsiblities of governing would moderate the Muslim Brotherhood. It wasn’t a hope, but an expectation (despite the qualification about not being worried.) So I don’t think it was “gradually apparent” that Morsi wouldn’t respect the rule of law; it was to be expected. (I have a similar reservation about Cohen’s column.)

Six months ago, in a remarkably prescient article, Think Again, Eric Trager laid out why the Muslim Brotherhood should have been expected to moderate, and noticed that the opposition was starting to coalesce.

Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post sees no good coming of the coup. He writes in Egypt’s Misguided Coup:

Applauders of military coups have in common two illusions: that the generals share their agenda and that their hated opponents, despite their electoral victories, can be politically nullified. Invariably, neither turns out to be true. Armed forces aren’t good at convening roundtables or implementing liberal platforms; they are good at using force. Even if they don’t torture and kill, they sweep up nonviolent political leaders, shut down media they regard as troublesome and try to impose political rules protecting their own political and economic interests.

That is what the Egyptian army did after removing Hosni Mubarak in 2011. On Wednesday it began shutting down television stations and rounding up Muslim Brotherhood leaders while Egypt’s self-described liberal democrats were still celebrating their supposed popular revolution.

Unlike Thomas Friedman, Diehl is serious. He compares Egypt’s recent coup with others in recent years. However, his failure here is a failure to acknowledge the nature of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Egyptian Organization of Human Rights wrote One year into Mohamed Morsi’s term Manifold abuses and the systematic undermining of the rule of law:

One year after Morsi became president, it is now clear that the priority of the presidency—and, of course, the Muslim Brotherhood —was to firmly establish the underpinnings for a new authoritarian regime in place of the Mubarak regime. It is no surprise, therefore, that the past year witnessed widespread human rights crimes, on a scale that rivaled than under the Mubarak regime. The brutal suppression of political and social protest movements did not cease; indeed, the security forces are no longer the only party to use of excessive force against demonstrators, as MB supporters have also been given free rein to use violence to punish and intimidate their opponents, including through torture and even killings, whether at the gates of the presidential palace, in front of the main MB headquarters in Muqattam, or in squares in other governorates. The situation has recently culminated in the incitement of violence against Shiites and against participants in the protests planned for June 30; the incitement took place at a recent press conference attended by the president, government officials, and leaders in the Muslim Brotherhood. Repercussions of this incitement have already become all too clear – days later, four Shiites were killed by a mob in the village of Abu Muslim in Giza.

To be sure a coup is a tricky thing and Egypt’s army mustn’t be confused with enlightened Western democrats. Still it’s likely that their self interest will lead to a more open government than would be possible with Muslim Brotherhood rule.

Let me allow Barry Rubin to get the last word in:

And, sorry, but if that means that popular totalitarian movements don’t get to enjoy the fruits of their election or military victories so that they can better wipe you out, then so be it. So that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth. And one day, others can enjoy those benefits when conditions are ripe.

2) Without the coup

A coup is, obviously, not an ideal way to change power. However, sometimes it needs to be asked, what would happen without the coup? Three recent stories raise this question.

While closing the tunnels affected traffic both ways, the arrest of the Hamas operatives suggest that the military authorities saw them as a threat to support the Muslim Brotherhood leadership (violently) against the protesters. Did Egypt’s military see Hamas as source of instability? An Egyptian court recently ruled that the Muslim Brotherhood conspired with Hamas and Hezbollah to orchestrate a massive jailbreak – freeing, among others, Mohammed Morsi – in 2011. (There might also be a larger question about how the Muslim Brotherhood is now being viewed in the Arab world.)

While the degree that Hamas threatens Egypt is speculative, Egypt continues to close its border with Gaza.

Perhaps the biggest protest in the Arab world took place yesterday in Cairo (and elsewhere in Egypt.) The group, Tamarod (“rebel” in Arabic), claimed to have gathered. 22 million signatures, calling for the resignation of President Morsi, on the anniversary of his election. The goal of Tamarod was to obtain more signatures than the 13 million who voted for Morsi last June 30.

In Pictures: Tahrir Square overflows with protesters http://t.co/tWmoG7zswZ an Album of photos i took for @DailyNewsEgypt Today #June30

— Halim ???? (@HaleemElsharani) June 30, 2013

David Kirkpatrick and two other reporters for the New York Times reported on yesterday’s events, By the Millions, Egyptians Seek Morsi’s Ouster

So they didn’t downplay the numbers.

our first edition: By the Millions, Egyptians Seek Morsi’s Ouster http://t.co/kllUcqCzPF with @kfahim@nytimes.com @nytben @mayy_el_sheikh

— David D. Kirkpatrick (@kirkpatricknyt) July 1, 2013

However there appear to be some troubling aspects to their coverage.

Clashes between Mr. Morsi’s opponents and supporters broke out in several cities around the country, killing at least seven people — one in the southern town of Beni Suef, four in the southern town of Assiut and two in Cairo — and injuring hundreds. Protesters ransacked Brotherhood offices around the country. In Cairo, a mob of hundreds set fire to the almost-empty Brotherhood headquarters, pelting it with stones, Molotov cocktails and fireworks for hours. A few members hiding inside the darkened building fired bursts of birdshot at the attackers, wounding several, but the police and security forces did nothing to stop the assault or the arson.

Is this sequence correct? Elsewhere it appeared that the protesters on the headquarters were fired (and some number were killed) upon and then they started shooting. Is Kirkpatrick correct? Is the matter unclear?

A reporter on the scene reported:

A small number of protesters are gathered in Nafoura square in Mokattam

— Halim ???? (@HaleemElsharani) June 30, 2013

Birdshots stopped but protesters are not able to break into the main HQ of the muslim brotherhood

— Halim ???? (@HaleemElsharani) June 30, 2013

I got hit by birdshot bullets fired by Muslim Brotherhood members

— Halim ???? (@HaleemElsharani) June 30, 2013

Muslim brotherhood members are throwing molotov and shooting bird shots at ptoresters iun front of the MB's main HQ in Mokattam

— Halim ???? (@HaleemElsharani) June 30, 2013

protesters are retaliating with molotovs and fire works in front of the general HQ of the Muslim Brotherhood

— Halim ???? (@HaleemElsharani) June 30, 2013

In other words, according to this eyewitness, the physical attack by the protesters on the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Cairo was defensive or retaliatory. It is the opposite of what Kirkpatrick reported.

Who did Kirkpatrick use as his expert?

Shadi Hamid, a researcher at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar who studies the Muslim Brotherhood closely, said: “The Brotherhood underestimated its opposition.” He added: “This is going to be a real moment of truth for the Brotherhood.”

Mr. Morsi and Brotherhood leaders have often ascribed much of the opposition in the streets to a conspiracy led by Mubarak-era political and financial elites determined to bring them down, and they have resisted concessions in the belief that the opposition’s only real motive is the Brotherhood’s defeat. But no conspiracy can brings millions to the streets, and by Sunday night some analysts said the protests would send a message to other Islamist groups around the region in the aftermath of the Arab Spring.

“It is a cautionary note: don’t be too eager for power, and try to think how you do it,” Mr. Hamid said, faulting the Egyptian Brotherhood for seeking to take most of the power for itself all at once. “I hear concern from Islamists around the region about how the Brotherhood is tainting Islamism.”

While, Kirkpatrick, at least, wrote “… no conspiracy can brings millions to the streets,” Hamid’s use as an expert is problematic. He doesn’t just study the Muslim Brotherhood, but is sympathetic to them. This twitter exchange between Hamid and Eric Trager from last November is instructive.

Shadi defending MB again, as usual. MT @shadihamid: I don't know how you can look at Morsi's 6 months and call them "disastrous."

— Eric Trager ????? (@EricTrager18) November 24, 2012

From his past writing, Kirkpatrick has shown that he, like Hamid, believes that the Muslim Brotherhood is a force for moderation. Perhaps, he didn’t think that there were any competing views.

The next paragraph is curious.

Mr. Morsi’s administration appeared caught by surprise. “There are protests; this is a reality,” Omar Amer, a spokesman for the president, said at a midnight news conference. “We don’t underestimate the scale of the protests, and we don’t underestimate the scale of the demands.” He said the administration was open to discussing any demands consistent with the Constitution, but he also seemed exasperated, sputtering questions back at the journalists. “Do you have a better idea? Do you have an initiative?” he asked. “Suggest a solution and we’re willing to consider it seriously.”

In this article Kirkpatrick and his colleagues acknowledged that yesterday’s protests were larger than those that called for Mubarak’s ouster. Yet, the New York Times didn’t bother to send a handful of columnists into Cairo to cheerlead the protests as they did in 2011. It wasn’t only the Morsi administration that was “caught by surprise.” Furthermore, if you check the last month’s archive of the New York Times, do you know what word you won’t find? “Tamarod.” It’s like writing about American politics during President Obama’s term in office and not using the name “Tea Party.”

Finally here’s how the New York Times portrayed Morsi’s term in office:

The extrication of the military from power was the biggest achievement of Mr. Morsi’s first year in office. Last August, months after his election, the generals finally went back to their barracks and allowed him to take full power as president, although the military retains considerable autonomy under Egypt’s new Constitution.

But Mr. Morsi continued to battle institutions within his own government left over from Mr. Mubarak, most notably the judiciary, and some of those fights contributed to the protests that peaked Sunday. The protests began in November, when he tried to declare himself above the courts until the passage of a new Constitution, a move that reinforced the fears of his opponents and perhaps the general public that he threatened to become a new autocrat.

According to this Morsi was beset by remnants of the old regime. But just because officials were appointed by Mubarak didn’t necessarily mean that they were tainted. And what does it mean “reinforced the fears?” It wasn’t just fears of his opponents, by any objective standard Morsi was an autocrat. He shut down newspapers he disapproved of, he intimidated critics, he attempted to impose his values on Egypt’s artistic community and he appointed a former terrorist as a regional governor.

We get to the end of the article.

The attackers used green pen lasers to search for figures at the windows of the Brotherhood offices, then hurled Molotov cocktails. They vowed to show no mercy on the members inside. “Their leaders have left them like sheeps for the slaughter,” one said. Two people were killed in the violence at the headquarters, medics there said.

Thousands of Mr. Morsi’s supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood had gathered at a rally near the presidential palace to prepare to defend it if the protesters tried to attack. Many brought batons, pipes, bats, hard hats or motorcycle helmets, even woks or scraps of metal to use as shields. They stood at attention with clubs raised and marched together. “We will sacrifice our lives for our religion,” some chanted. “Morsi’s men are everywhere.”

According to the reporter whose tweets were cited above the protesters attacked the headquarters a few hours a few hours after they were attacked, is it possible that Kirkpatrick or one of his colleagues got the scene only after the Muslim Brotherhood members had attacked the protesters? Furthermore, the dead, according to other reports, came from the ranks of the protesters, a point that that the New York Times leaves ambiguous.

But the view of the pro-Moris protesters matches what I’ve read elsewhere. They did not appear to be bent on peaceful demonstrations.

The New York Times had an opportunity to report on history in the making. Unfortunately, aside from the headline, much of the report was distorted favoring the preconceived notions of the paper, its reporters and editors.

Last week Zvi Mazel wrote in the Jerusalem Post (h/t Leslie Eastman)

In a remarkable and enduring show of unity, non-Islamic opposition parties under the banner of the National Salvation Front are boycotting the regime until their demands – canceling the Islamic constitution and setting up a consensus government until new elections are held – are met.
The Muslim Brotherhood who had won a sweeping victory in the first free parliamentary elections and got their candidate elected president have bitterly disappointed the people who had put their faith in them.
Nothing has been done to improve their lot. Upon taking office Morsi had promised – and failed – to take care of five burning issues within a hundred days: growing insecurity, monster traffic jams in the capital, lack of fuel and cooking gas, lack of subsidized bread, and the mounting piles of refuse in the streets.

In The Pharoh weeps, Judith Miller cataloged some of the economic problems facing Egypt:

While Cairo may still be safer than Chicago, or even New York, Egyptian women, for the first time in memory, fear shopping or taking cabs at night. Cairo’s police, blamed for the deaths of protestors and unhappy with their pay, working conditions, and lack of respect, sit in their precinct houses, refusing to provide security that Egyptians once took for granted. Tourists have vanished, depriving Egypt of a vital source of jobs and hard currency. Unemployment has risen from 9.8 percent in 2010 to 13 percent today. Inflation is officially 8.7 percent, though more like 9.5 percent, or even higher, for food and basic commodities, say economists. Even these figures are misleading, since an estimated 40 percent of Egypt’s economy is “black” or informal, unregulated by and unreported to the government, according to Hazem el-Beblawi, an economist who served as deputy prime minister under the army’s unpopular transition government in 2011. Beblawi, a strong advocate of free-market liberalism who resigned his post that year, accusing the army of taking Egypt in the “wrong direction,” says youth unemployment probably tops 19 percent. Egypt, he estimates, has less than its officially claimed $13.5 billion in hard-currency reserves (versus $36 billion before the revolution). “Egypt imports roughly $60 billion worth of goods and services,” he says. “It exports under $25 billion.”
By summer, Beblawi predicts, the government will be unable to import the wheat that sustains the poor—Egypt imports 10 million tons of wheat per year, the most of any nation—or the diesel that fuels bread ovens and transports 99 percent of everything that moves in this country of more than 85 million. Egypt’s dilemma is this: it cannot politically afford to stop providing the costly subsidies to the poor that distort its economy. Poor Egyptians spend 70 percent of their income on food, versus 55 percent for Egyptians as a whole; Americans spend roughly 14 percent. But unless it reduces these subsidies and adopts a pro-growth budget, Egypt cannot secure the $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund loan it needs to unlock what Angus Blair, a Cairo-based former investment banker and founder of Signet Institute, an economic think tank, estimates could be $14 billion in aid and investment. Egypt spends about 20 percent of its budget on fuel subsidies alone. In other words, the government would be committing political suicide to do what economists say must be done to sustain the country’s economic viability. Only a government that enjoys public confidence can risk taking such steps. “Egypt’s economic crisis has political roots,” Beblawi says. “And a political solution is needed.” So far, he adds, none is in sight.
With their legendary “sabr,” or patience, nearly exhausted, Egyptians blame the lack of growth, jobs, fuel, services, security, and stability on what many call the “incompetence” of President Mohammed Morsi and his ruling Muslim Brotherhood. And they blame the United States, too, for supporting Morsi, who eked out an election victory last year and took power last July thanks only to low voter turnout and a fractious, divided secular opposition. “People no longer trust Morsi,” Beblawi said, speaking for many among Cairo’s professional elite and middle classes.

Add to Morsi’s power grab and economic failures, the increasing violence against Copts. The New York Times reports Attack on Christians in Egypt Comes After a Pledge:

Clashes erupted immediately after the service between the emerging mourners and a crowd outside the cathedral. It was unclear who started the violence. But later dozens of riot police with armored vehicles and tear-gas canons appeared to enter the fray on the side of crowds of young Muslim men who were throwing rocks and fire bombs at the mourners.
In what seemed like a siege of the cathedral, tear-gas canisters fell inside the walls of its compound, sending gas into the sanctuary and two nuns running for shelter in a nearby loading dock.
…
“The police are not trying to protect us or do anything to stop the violence,” said Wael Eskandar, a Coptic Christian activist. “On the contrary, they are actively aiding the people in civilian clothes” attacking the Christians, he said.

Jonathan Tobin concludes in The U.S. and the Murders at the Cathedral:

It does no good to pretend, as some claim, that Morsi can’t stop the attacks on Christians or that the forces pushing the country to the brink of religious war are unrelated to the Brotherhood and its supporters. While attacks on Christians were hardly unknown during the long reign of deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak, it isn’t possible to separate the heightened tension from the expectations of Islamists that they have the Christian minority on the run. The brazen manner with which these mobs have attacked a symbol of Christianity like the Cathedral with the assistance of the police is a signal that things are heading in the wrong direction. The spectacle of security forces with armored personnel carriers and tear gas canons joining the violence on the side of thugs throwing rocks and firebombs at Christian mourners leaving the cathedral makes it hard to argue that this is the work of extremists unconnected with the ruling party.
That Muslims who are prepared to riot and murder at the merest hint of insult aimed at Islam taunted the Christians with what the Times called “lewd gestures involving the cross” in the presence of the police is itself appalling. But it is also indicative of a shift in the mood of the Middle East, in which it is clear that anything goes when it comes to religious conflict. Though the Brotherhood has promised gullible Westerners that it won’t impose its beliefs on non-Muslims or turn the country into a theocratic state, evidence is mounting that the Kulturkampf in Egypt is in full swing.
If President Obama is serious about standing up for human rights, it is necessary for him to speak out publicly against what is going on in Egypt and to start using some of the leverage over its government that he was quick to employ when showing Mubarak the door or threatening the military to allow the Brotherhood to take office. If he fails to do so, the Muslim and Arab world won’t be slow to draw the same conclusions that Egyptians in the street are drawing from the role of the police in the assault on the cathedral. They will think that Obama is indifferent to the fate of the Copts or, even worse, that he has no problems with the Brotherhood’s push for power.

Yet in The Arab Quarter Century, Thomas Friedman insists that he was right all along:

Still, two things surprise me. The first is how incompetent the Muslim Brotherhood has been. In Egypt, the Brotherhood has presided over an economic death spiral and a judiciary caught up in idiocies like investigating the comedian Bassem Youssef, Egypt’s Jon Stewart, for allegedly insulting President Mohamed Morsi. (See Stewart’s perfect takedown of Morsi.) Every time the Brotherhood had a choice of acting in an inclusive way or seizing more power, it seized more power, depriving it now of the broad base needed to make necessary but painful economic reforms.
The second surprise? How weak the democratic opposition has been. The tragedy of the Arab center-left is a complicated story, notes Marc Lynch, a Middle East expert at George Washington University and the author of “The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East.” Many of the more secular, more pro-Western Egyptian political elites who could lead new center-left parties, he said, had been “co-opted by the old regime” for its own semiofficial parties and therefore “were widely discredited in the eyes of the public.” That left youngsters who had never organized a party, or a grab bag of expatriates, former regime officials, Nasserites and liberal Islamists, whose only shared idea was that the old regime must go.

And how would the Muslim Brotherhood have proven its “competence?” Surely there’s been incompetence in the way Morsi and company have ruled, but to attribute their governing failure to “incompetence,” ignores the nature of the Muslim Brotherhood. What Friedman attributes to incompetence masks his own ignorance. He assumed that the Muslim Brotherhood was interested in governing, not in accruing power to itself. In his analyses of Egypt over the past two years Friedman ignored the totalitarian nature of Islamists. Sure, Friedman is correct now to argue that the United States needs to use its leverage to effect change in Egypt (or at least attempt to) but he’s been a cheerleader for the Muslim Brotherhood until recently. That is not due to his expertise, but to his ignorance, something he refuses to own up to.

MT “@shadihamid: New #Egypt poll: 37% of Egyptians would vote for Morsi again; Sabahi 3%; Baradei 1%; Amr Moussa 1% bit.ly/Z3qmBg“

— Ikhwanweb (@Ikhwanweb) April 8, 2013

Endowments Ministry bans political sermons, suspends popular sheikh Mazhar Shaheen – egyptindependent.com/news/endowment… #Egypt

— Bassem Sabry ???? (@Bassem_Sabry) April 10, 2013

Brave, astonishing ToI op-ed on why Arab Spring failed, by ex-Iranian foreign ministry employee toi.sr/17qi8GW via @timesofisrael

— David Horovitz (@davidhorovitz) April 10, 2013

2)The Syria Debacle

Once upon a time, President Obama’s top policy advisers recommended that he aid the Syria rebels. That time has long passed. While the Obama administration initially saw the Muslim Brotherhood as a bulwark against Al Qaeda, but that strategy hasn’t been working out very well.

In an audio statement released online yesterday, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), announced that his organization shall henceforth be known as the “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.” The new name reflects AQI’s unchecked growth, primarily into neighboring Syria, since the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.
Since late 2011, the Al Nusrah Front has greatly expanded its operations. The organization has become one of the most effective fighting forces in the war against Bashar al Assad’s crumbling regime.
Al Nusrah is better known in the West by its true name: al Qaeda.

Michael Rubin adds:

That should put Washington in a diplomatic quandary. Qatari and Turkish support for the Nusra Front is now effectively aiding an al-Qaeda affiliate sworn not only to kill Bashar al-Assad but also Americans. If Gulf analysts in Bahrain and Kuwait are to be believed, Qatar is mucking about with such groups not simply out of religious solidarity, but also because the emir of Qatar is high on the notion that tiny Qatar can afford to muck about and be a player on the international stage. Turkey would rather pump money to an al-Qaeda affiliate than recognize the rights of Syrian Kurds who will not pay fealty to Turkey’s leader, like the Democratic Union Party (PYD) which now controls most Kurdish areas in Syria.
A no-fly zone, such as that Max Boot advocates, would have once helped ordinary Syrians protect themselves against the excesses of Bashar al-Assad’s rule. And it still may not be such a bad idea, so long as it simply does not do the Nusra Front’s work for it. Nor is simply funding the Syrian opposition wise since neither the State Department nor Central Intelligence Agency is skilled at separating the wheat from the chaff among Syrian opposition groups. Liberals will not rise to the top in any safe-haven when faced with a group bent on their repression at any cost. Whether we like it or not, any strategy for Syria must now prioritize crushing the Nusra Front. Defeating Assad and hoping for the best is not a strategy that will bolster U.S. interests.

And Barry Rubin reminds what weapons these rebels may well get access to. (To be clear, Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood affiliated rebels have these weapons; Al Qaeda affiliated groups don’t appear to have them, yet.)

Briefly, the story is this: The weapons are generically known as MANPAD for Man Portable Air Defense Missile. The equipment captured in Libya and from the Syrian army in Syria or obtained by other means consists of four types.

The SA16 is a short-range version which has been captured by the rebels, specifically when they took the giant Syrian army base in Aleppo.
The only weapon from Libya is the older SA7, since the Libyans didn’t have more advanced versions. It has been reported –though all such figures are not necessarily reliable — that about 5000 SA7 missiles were destroyed by the U.S. and other forces but that about 15,000 remained missing. The missiles are not usable forever, and some of those in the Libyan arsenal were very old, but apparently many of them would still work. Here’s an example of a reasonably reliable report saying that a large number of SA7s were delivered to Syrian rebels through Turkey last September.
Then there’s the Chinese FN-6 , standard for the Chinese air force, which was used to shoot down a Syrian transport helicopter at Menagh Air Base near Aleppo. How did that one get there, through the U.S.-Turkish-Saudi-Qatari arms supply program or another way? It is claimed that Syrian rebels shot down two military helicopters with this weapon.
And this brings us to the best of all, the SA24. While some have been misidentified, they were obtained from the 46th Syrian regiment base west of Aleppo.

For all the hope the Arab Spring originally engendered, it is increasingly looking like a disaster for American interests.

But it’s Libya we’re bombing: Syria is firing on its people. Syria is clamping down on rebellion. Syria is the state most closely aligned with Iran, and the state that would do the most damage to Iran’s hegemony if it fell, and yet we’re bombing—Libya. Smart power!

Happy Passover Jews! Time to burn down your synagogue! The Greek anti-Semites are at it again. (They’re particularly vicious and nasty; this is nothing new for the so-called cradle of civilization.)

Israeli “intellectuals” prove that an education doesn’t make you smart: Several dozen Israeli “intellectuals” are calling for a Palestinian state on the 1949 Armistice lines. I presume that means giving the Temple Mount back to the Arabs. Because that worked so well before. It’s not like the Jordanians would take the headstones out of Jewish cemeteries and pave latrines with them. Oh. Wait. They did. I have two words for them: Joseph’s Tomb.

Egyptian Muslims: Dhimmis can’t rule us. The Muslim Brotherhood is protesting the appointment of a Christian Copt as governor in an Egyptian city. Why? Because they want a Muslim. A Copt, they say, won’t enforce sharia law. So, where do you figure Egypt’s 8 million Christians will wind up?

Another casus belli for Iran: I think Israel should tell Iran that the next time Iranian-made or Iranian-bought missiles hit their territory, Israeli missiles will hit Tehran. That might stop them from manufacturing missiles specifically for the purpose of being smuggled through the Gaza tunnels.

That’s funny, I thought the new, “moderate” Egypt wasn’t going to be a problem for Israel: Say, remember those people who said Mubarak’s downfall wouldn’t affect the peace treaty with Egypt? Shyeah. Right.

But it is not only the gas deals that worry the ostensibly moderate Facebook generation in Egypt. They do not want to see the Israeli embassy reopened. Nor do they want to see Israeli diplomats returning to Cairo.

Instead, the Egyptians want their government to lift the blockade on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The Facebook and Twitter demonstrators would rather see a Hamas ambassador sitting in the Israeli embassy in Cairo.

Moderates. Remember, they’re moderates. So they must be better, right? (Feel free to insert eye roll here.)

Ah, the Reuters optimism about all things Israel: The Reuters analysis of Iron Dome, complete with a warning of impending doom in the end. Cheerful reading.

Egyptian women’s rights protest marred by hecklers

Right. “Heckled” is the headline, though the body of the story contains the facts.

Also in Egypt, Muslims torched a Coptic Christian church. Why? Because a Muslim and a Christian were dating, and the father of the Muslim refused to murder his child for dating a Christian. The Muslims murdered the father, and then attacked the Christians. Christians fought back. There are now pitched battles in Egypt between Christians and Muslims.

In Libya, Madman Gaddaffy is flattening towns where the people are rebelling against him, and also bombing oil production terminals.

In Israel, the government has postponed by several months the decision to deport children of foreign workers who are not legal citizens of Israel.

In Ramallah, the PA censored a TV show making fun of Madman Gaddaffy.

Israel is ranged number 2 globally for having women in upper management positions in corporations.

Oh, and Israeli Jews don’t murder their women for intermarrying.

But by all means, let’s vilify Israel during the annual Israeli Apartheid festivals at universities worldwide. Because that’s where the problems are in the Middle East.

“All the forces that we see building in Egypt are the forces that should be naturally aligned with the US, [and] should be aligned with Israel,” he told attendees of the Florida fundraising event.

“I’m actually confident that 10 years from now we’re going to be able to look back and say that this was the dawning of an entirely new and better era,” he added. The US president expressed his hope that the new era would be one in which “people are striving not to be against something but to be for something.”

I can probably go with “some,” but not “all”. Really? “All?” Mr. President? “All?“such as the forces that decided it would be fun to attack Lara Logan in Tahrir Square while shouting “Jew! Jew!”? Such as the forces that decided to invite Sheik Qaradawi to spew hatred of Jews to the throngs there while preventing the advocate for democracy Wael Ghonim from speaking? Such as the ones that murdered a woman’s father because he did not kill her in an honor killing for having a relationship with a Christian, then burned down the Coptic Church terrorizing the town’s Christians, and followed that by triumphantly holding prayer services on the site of the burned down church? How about the forces that are demanding an end to the peace treaty with Israel? Those forces?

If you see those forces as naturally allied with America and Israel, Mr. President, I don’t think you have an understanding of the values of America and Israel or those of the forces about whom you speak. Simply opposing one form of tyranny, nationalist dictatorship, while backing another that is potentially far worse, theocracy, hardly qualifies as being naturally allied with America and Israel, even if there is a democratic election that brings it about. Advocacy for free elections does not mean at all that there is a desire that those elections produce a government that would be allied with America and Israel.

Mr. President, some of those forces building in Egypt would burn down your own church if they had a chance. They would certainly torch my synagogue. And if a mosque were to publicly condemn their actions, it would probably get torched too. They murdered a man for not murdering his daughter. I don’t think they would have qualms about flicking a Bic.

Is there reason for hope in the region? Yes. Is everything a reason for hope? Are “all the forces building in Egypt” those that give us reason to hope? If the answer for you is “Yes?” I must ask what kind of shrooms were served at that dinner? We might need to call the Narc Squad in.

Mr. President, you ran on a platform of hope. I too hope. I wish to see the good out there. I too hope to see good triumph. But I am not blinded by hope. Nor am I responsible for the future of the world as to a extent you are as President of the United States and that is what scares me. Mr. President, I hope that you are right about Egypt. Unfortunately, I’m worried that your vision is but a hope and a false hope at that.

Why do I fear that you are wrong? Mr. President, you might as well have said that you have spoken with the enemy and they have promised “peace in our time.” Meanwhile, minorities go into hiding, women are attacked, churches burn and freedom remains at a distance, perhaps even having retreated.

Because it is abundantly clear that some of the forces building in Egypt are anything but ones naturally allied with America and Israel, I know that your understanding that “all” should be allied with us cannot be correct. I just hope that you are not so incorrect as to result in disaster.

The last time a leader talked about “peace in our time”, things did not work out very well.

There’s a really cute story in the Washington Post: Egypt women stand for equality in the square

Though the reporter was reporting from the demonstration on Friday, there was no mention of Sheikh Qaradawi’s views on gender equality. There was some really good stuff in this article, but towards the end it was priceless.

Abdel Ibrahim Hassan, a man who came to Tahrir Square on Friday to celebrate the revolution with untold thousands of his fellow citizens, argued that women have an enviable standing already and that Western prejudices should not assume they need change.

“Islam respected the role of women before any other culture,” said Hassan, a math teacher. “Before Islam women were bought and sold. But men and women are not equal, a woman is a weak creature. She cannot bear arms.”

His wife, Samah, bearing an Egyptian flag and wearing a black niqab covering her face with only small slits for her eyes, spoke up – strongly. “I’m hoping our young people will be able to develop a democracy,” she said, as she photographed the square with a sleek cellphone. “Men and women will play an important part in the elections.”

Their 15-year-old daughter, Sarah, her face and hands the only parts of her body visible from her enveloping black garments, interrupted.

“We demand seats in parliament for young people,” she said, “men and women. Women will play an important role in society after participating in the revolution of January 25th.”

Does the reporter, Kathy Lally, realize how absurd this sounds? First to have a husband claim women are respected then to describe how completely his wife and daughter are covered?

Though Qaradawi’s views on gender equality are not discussed there, I did find a fatwa that is very revealing. (No pun intended.)

Concerning the point on hijab, a woman can put on a hat or anything else to cover her hair. Even when necessary, she may take off her hijab in order to carry out the operation, for she is going to die in the cause of Allah and not to show off her beauty or uncover her hair. I don’t see any problem in her taking off hijab in this case.

Women are allowed to reveal their hair when they are about to murder infidels. How enlightened!

No doubt Sarah will be able to serve in Parliament, as long as she remembers her place.

Libya massacres Muslims, Muslim world not much up in arms: The death toll is over 200, and where did the latest shootings occur? A big protest march? At a government building? Nope. At a funeral procession for the ones killed the day before. The dictators of the Middle East have seen what happened to Mubarak, and especially the ones who hate the U.S. are doubling down on the oppression to keep power.

Egypt’s Khomeini is ba—aaack: And he’s preaching against Jews and homosexuals. Awesome. The moderating Muslim Brotherhood is going to be just find and dandy. Ask Tom Friedman, who couldn’t find an anti-Semitic Egyptian to save his life while he was there (not that an anti-Semitic Egyptian would save his life; we all know how much they want to kill Jews).

That is why this revolt is primarily about a people fed up with being left behind in a world where they can so clearly see how far others have vaulted ahead. The good news is that many Egyptians know where they are, and they donâ€t want to waste another day.

Yep. Totally. Because two million people chanted “To Jerusalem we are heading, Martyrs in the millions.” The revolt isn’t about Islam. It’s all about catching up to modernity.