Saturday, November 22, 2014

Netanyahu required a Mubarak-like tyrant in Egypt

"Second, there is the baldly cynical design and intent of American policy. This is what makes the Egyptian case so revealing. With the Sinai campaign, we see the architecture of the American strategy in full. Obama bumbled when he should have shouted praise as the Arab Spring began to blossom. One suspected from the first that we were in for a demonstration of just how opposed to democracy in the non-Western world Washington remains. Following Morsi’s election, it was gradually clear that Prime Minister Netanyahu required a Mubarak-like tyrant in Egypt to protect Israel’s flank from active militias in Sinai, and then painfully clear Washington was set on giving him one. In my view, this is the single most important reason al-Sisi sits in office, behaves as badly or worse than any leader in the region, and still receives $5 billion in American military aid a year." (thanks Amir)