The American debacle in Egypt

EDDIE

His allies in the Near East may now feel that they must throw in their hands with iran rather than rely on the word of a flip flop who lives in a fantasy world dominated by his incredible Ego. This may be the decline of the West Just as Rome also lost belief in themselves and their cause.

Bob from Virginia

You appear surprised.

steve

I guess the list of incompetents also includes conservatives like George Will, Robert Kagan, Marc Thiessen, Michael Gerson, Henry Kissinger, David Brooks and Ross Douthat. All of them have either defended the Obama administration's handling of the situation or spoken out in favour of the protests.

Gordon Square

The possibility of Arab Sunni fundamentalists lining up with Persian Shia fundamentalists is somewhat unlikely.

Saudi Arabia is offering to bankroll mubarak and is hardly likely to fund the military if it is under the control of whatever comes out of the popular dissent.

But you are spot on about American 'intelligence' and foriegn policy being a sick joke - has been for years.

Objectivist George

...and meanwhile the Iranian Islamic theocracy marches eagerly, defiantly, mindlessly, impunibly and inexorably towards nuclear status and quite possibly world annihilation.

Please watch this film while it is still free: http://www.iraniumthemovie.com/

Oflife

Whoops Apocalypse?

Wolf T.

I sit in New Jersey, USA, and laugh and cry hysterically at the buffoon posing as president of the USA and the damage he has, and continues to do the country I love. The great hope of the euroweenies and american leftists, Barak Hussein Obama, believes himself to be the best thing since sliced bread. Instead, he shows himself to be the least qualified individual in any situatiion he finds himself in. He was going to make America loved in the world!Obama is the culmination of the hippi-generation; all talk, love and peace, incompetence and marxist in one.

Americans were happy to vote for him. They will have a couple of generations to repent in ruefullness and reflection on their stupidity.

Finzi Holst

To Steve February 10th, 2011 10:52pm):

You're having a laugh, right?

Your list of "cpnservatives" is a joke. No real conservative considers anyone on that list to be a conservative. Nice try. They were all outed a long time ago. You must have missed the memo, or simply ignored its inconvenient truth.

Liberals think Republicans are conservatives because it makes it easy for them to compartmentalize, just like they do other groups.

wearenotblind

Yes, he stabs allies in the back on a regular basis. It is simple really. He will go to Cairo and kiss Mubarak's ass to prove he is not anti-Muslim. To kiss Mubarak's ass he will vilify America and praise the Islam and their cool music. When he thinks Mubarak is sinking, he drops him like the guy is contagious. He just jumps on any bandwagon that he can make believe he was leading from the beginning. So throwing a dependable yet despicable ally under the bus is Obama in action. Talk up the protests in Tehran? Not a chance, it might bring him criticism for interfering. At least not until somebody sends a telegram to the brain of the smartest man to ever be president that explains to him that his silence indicates either approval of repression or just plain stupidity. He has hopelessly bad instincts. When you combine that with a basic anti-western stance on international issues (Falklands, Israel, UN human rights groups, immigration) that involve the competing interests of western democracies versus anyone else you get a man who is in a job that is way beyond his depth. The pity is not that he is so bad at his job. It is that he is so clueless as to why he is that bad at it. And for that there is no cure. He is a laughing stock to both enemies and allies. He just doesn't realize they are laughing at him and not with him.

Mladen Andrijasevic

This has become a new “Dewey Defeats Truman” moment. Just look at the printed global edition of the IHT with a banner headline "Army moves to sideline Mubarak" . The article by Anthony Shadid and David D. Kirkpatrick starts with: "President Hosni lost his grip on power"

In contrast, the Israelis got it right: Israeli lawmaker Benjamin Ben-Eliezer — who spoke with the Egyptian president by phone on Thursday before his speech — described Mubarak as "different from what I heard on the news."

"He sounded very strong and defiant," Ben-Eliezer said. "He analyzed the situation properly and tried to predict the future of the Middle East."
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2011/02/egypt-israeli-defense-minister-says-egypt-must-find-its-way.html

Keith D

The Manchurian Candidate in action.

Herzen

President Obama is simply trying to follow the textbook US response when the people oppressed by one of its clients revolt - re-establish control under another client or behind a facade of democracy. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it is carried out smoothly and sometimes it goes pear-shaped. But what do you propose he do? Send in the marines? Ship more equipment to Mubarak's torture chambers?

Reuven

Melanie, how can I add anything - you say it all. What I find is that your message is so erudite, but the world continues on its hell-bent suicide mission.

tiki

"The Obama legacy".....A Middle East in turmoil and Islamist hegemony....'if we're lucky, if not....WW3! If there is ONE president who should be removed from power for his absolute
imcompetence, it's Obama. If it wouldn't be so dangerous, it's funny to see how this president bogs up every opportunity he gets.

Alex Bensky

In 2008 I broke a lifetime's habit and voted Republican for president. I remember leaving the voting booth hoping that in four years I'd cheerfully acknowledge that I'd made a mistake. Not likely, alas.

The main reason I voted for McCain was that I figured the US could recover from what was then clear as Obama's economic ideas, but that his foreign policy could well prove to be disastrous. And so it has. I am already yearning for the comparatively realistic and hard-headed foreign policy of Jimmy Carter.

Modest men generally do not become president; Warren G. Harding is the only possible exception I can think of. But Obama's self-regard borders on hubris in the Greek tragedy sense. He reminds me of Kin Hubbard's character, Abe Martin, who once observed, "It ain't what folks don't know that hurts 'em, it's what they know that ain't so."

Simon

"a terrible weakening of America, whose powerlessness is now apparent for all to see"

apart from the most powerful media group in this country - the BBC. A lot of people watch it and don't know any different

Victoria Williams

We should not be surprised by Melanie's dismissal of American 'intelligence', surely its inadequacy and inaccuracy was comprehensively demonstrated in the arguments supporting the Iraq war - the only difference then being that what they had was then hyped by the neo-cons.
I would be interested to hear the Russian and Chinese views, so far as I am aware little has been heard from them?

Harvey

I never quite recovered from his initial offer to Iran to " Unclench the fist and feel the love " . That hippy dippy moment was met with utter derision and rejection by the Mullahs who must surely have been shaking their heads in astonishment at their good fortune . No wonder they are full steam ahead on their WMD programme . The US has become an ineffectual naive in the cut and thrust of Middle and Near East realpolitics.

One can only pray that the Americans realise the enormity of their mistake and ensure that he is a one term liabilty .

Unfortunately ,even that may be one term too many for all that we hold dear in the West .

America,in their pell mell scramble to reverse the Bush Years have been sold a pup ,the Emperors Clothes so to speak . Unfortunately for us all this President, like the Emperor, is butt naked.

Dame Hilda Bracket

Oh dear, oh dear.

Breaking news.

Mubarak has just gone.

BOOHOO!!!!!!!

Tilly

Mubarak has resigned. Fantastic news - wish I was in Cairo right now!!

Rick B

Well if the CIA didn't asassinate the democratically elected president in Iran Mosadek in 1956 and set up a dictator like we did with Murbarek to the tune of 1.5 billion a year we would not have an Islamic Republic now in Iran. What free world are you talking about. You mean Pax Americana where we impose our will on the rest of the world and set up up dictators to enforce our will via the IMF and World Bank. Long live the Bolivarian and now the Facebook revolution.

Nick

My best wishes and congratulations to the people of Egypt.

Note to George W Bush - This is how the Middle East gets re-made. No invasions necessary.

Gordon Square

It is irrelevant who is US president. The Egyptian populace would have ignored a republican one the same as a democrat.

Baron

Note to Nick @ 5.56:

If Bush didn’t make it possible for a Muslim state next-door to set up democracy yesterday, would the Egyptian unwashed have revolted today? Hmm.

Only He knows what’s installed for the country on the Nile, I doubt, however, the Brothers will have the upper hand, their cousins didn’t make it in Iraq, they won’t make it in Egypt.

Tilly

An Egyptian demonstrator on hearing of Mubarak resignation: "Pharaoh has let his people go!"

terence patrick hewett

I am afraid Obama as Pres. is a bit of a dog.

david elder

Rick B 5:43 please explain - how did the US involvement in Mossadeq's demise usher in the Iranian theocracy when according to Amir Taheri the mullahs couldn't stand Mossadeq?

Such people do not study history. They dig into it for missiles to throw at everybody else.

Mrs Gillian Duffy

I get that this annoys you Mel, but what was the alternative?

Having bulldozed through Iraq to oust one totalitarian dictator the US Pres can hardly send in the Marines to shore up another one who is past his sell-by date. You've been fulsome in your praise for the operation in Iraq in the past, why so reticent when democracy threatens to break out without a massive military spend in Egypt?

That's the thing about democracy Mel, you might not like it when Hamas, Hezbollah or even the Sandinistas or Hugo Chavez get the popular vote but you can't throw all of the toys out of the pram and send in the helicopters... can you? Or is democracy only good for non-Muslim countries? Oh no, Iraq, sorry, forgot... oh and Afghanistan...

when the MB get their thumbscrews on the levers of power it probably won't be a good thing but, like Canute, you can't hold back the tide.

Let's hope the Egyptian populace do value liberty over theocracy. Only time will tell.

Hewbroid

Mubarak has gone. Jolly good.

We have very little to be fearful about if we abstain from interfering in other people's afairs and just stick to straight dealing. If the people of Egypt vote for the Muslim Brotherhood that is their business. If they threaten us militarily they would not last long. What kind kind of threat would a Saudi/MB axis be? They both rely on US hardware,spare parts, and, in Egypt's case money. The Saudis need to sell oil. How are they going to fight the Americans? They rely on outside expertise to extract their oil. They are tied into stability for internal reasons. They run a welfare state

The fear for the West is about whether we might be denied oil. Too much of the world's oil lies below Islamic feet.Now is the time to embark on a project of greater energy independence. You can make oil out of coal for $30 dollars a barrel.There is lots of coal in the US and elsewhere. A sea of natural gas was found under Poland recently and the moment of Peak Oil may be edging into the future. Electrostatic Confinement fusion may be just round the corner. There are reasons to be cheerful!

Pakistan and Iran must be deprived of nuclear weapons, and the ability to make them. That is a war worth fighting!

Israel should get behind the 1967 boarders, accept a whole lot of other conditions they will complain bitterly about, be offered and accept NATO membership, with a nice American air base and garrison in the Negev (a thought I adore). More of western mainstream opinion would swing wholeheartedly behind Israel if it didn't behave so egregiously. That would be the basis of Israel's security: we support it through force of arms if necessary.

And, we all live happily ever after. There, why so gloomy.

Rip Van Winkle

Riff-raff! Continuing "what ifs?" burrs awakens this old repenting soldier of the British Empire. Prelim freedom battles have commenced.

James Coleman

2 US/Western puppet dictators down... half a dozen more to go. Let's hope it's that traitor Abdulla of Jordan next. I think the IDF should call up the conscripts.

Derek BLADES

Is anybody around here suggesting that if Presdident Obama had supported Mubarak, the demonstrations would have died down and the dictator would still be in power? Surely not even a Wolf T or a Bob from Virginia would make such a preposterous suggestion.

The US administrtation correctly realised that Mubarak was a lost cause well before it dawned on his critics on this site.

President Obama has moved quickly and wisely to make it clear that military rule is not acceptable and that a credible timetable should be established for a fair election. If those elections result in a majority for the Brotherhood, Obama has also made it clear that continued American military aid will depend on the behaviour of the new government.

In domestic policy, Obama has shown himself to be one of the most successful presidents since FDR. He is now positioning himself to bring about peace in the Middle East. That is what happens when an intelligent person is elected to the White House instead of a dumb-dumb like Bush.

ferdi

Since you are the expert, I wonder if you could speculate how much Mubarek's acquiescing in the Israeli mistreatment of the Palestinians contributed to his downfall?

ferdi

So the United States of America has the omnipotent power to create and destroy the government of Egypt. Is this your position? What about the 80,000,000 Egyptians? Do they have any say so in their government? Or is it only the President of the United States that determines the Egyptian government? I believe the late J. William Fulbright wrote a book entitled "The Arrogance of Power." Perhaps you should read it. In the words of a great Jew: 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.'

Derek Pasquill

Western nations are too scared to pursue a foreign policy which would safeguard their peoples.

The dice have rolled, the cookie has crumbled and the wind is blowing ...

Comprehensiveboy

The young men in the square looked absolutely deliriously happy - and they were mostly young men apart from a few women with covered hair. They seem to be discovering, or rediscovering, who they are and a sense of destiny. Jolly good. As long as we know who we are and control our own destiny and territory too. Notice I said 'We' not 'The British' eh Melanie?

In the Wilderness in America

To steve who said this: "I guess the list of incompetents also includes conservatives like George Will, Robert Kagan, Marc Thiessen, Michael Gerson, Henry Kissinger, David Brooks and Ross Douthat. All of them have either defended the Obama administration's handling of the situation or spoken out in favour of the protests."

Yep, stupid knows no religion, politics, ethnic, gender, or race.

Carl

How refreshing that the Egyptian Army, unlike that of a so-called democracy next door, refrains from shooting unarmed civilians.

TomTom

Why do we never hear about Moscow ? Surely Putin is offering help to Saudi Arabia ? As the world's No1 oil producer Europe will become increasingly dependent on Russia

Frank P

Surely this was an internal military struggle that took advantage of a series street demos organized by (but not necessarily entirely populated by)an unholy alliance of commies various and the MB. On this occasion the useful idiots were the unholy alliance because they facilitated a putsch, Mubarak was too old, too greedy and dynastic in intent; he was embarrassing the military and endangering their source of funds (ergo their privileged status) the American buck. So he had to go. The ‘street’ gave the Generals the opportunity they had been seeking for some time, now there has been a change of “capo di tutti capi “.

Amazingly, a comparatively bloodless conspiracy, it seems. Luckily, those who succeeded in the putsch detest the MB, so now it’s biz as usual. Cause for some short term celebration, perhaps, but no long view jubilation. Once the unholy alliance realizes that it has been had, there will be a resurgence; and of course there are other games to play in adjoining dictatorships. Obviously both the CIA and Mossad had a hand in this; pro tem it has turned out fine. America almost screwed it up by idiot statements from people like Obama and Clapper, who spluttered over their scripts and were made to look idiots. But if anyone thinks that the jihad has been seriously set-back, dream on! Apart from anything else, the underlying demographic strategy is inexorable. While they are breeding like rabbits we are tossing our future progeny in the sluice buckets of abortion clinics (to quote Nicholas of this parish).

Augustus

Carl - I think it was weight of numbers that kept the army on the peoples' side. Anarchy would certainly have been a step nearer to fundamentalism or other kinds of despotism, but Egypt is a democracy without democratic institutions and the army is inevitably going to play a powerful role for quite some time. As for President Obama, he certainly gave the impression of being completely rudderless in a crisis. He reminds me of a man juggling with burning candles next to a barrel of dynamite the way he handles policy in the ME.

logdon

Clapper maintains that the Muslim Brotherhood is largely secular?

Not too long ago and incredibly, this kind of left wing hogwash was swallowed hook line and sinker by the persuadable masses on both sides of the Atlantic.

Call it the phoney altruism of a pampered society wallowing in post racial/post colonial guilt or plain dumbassery, this comfort zone of attributing blame to the relatively blameless West whilst turning a blind eye to the reality of Islam was the default position.

Constructive criticism or the genuine desire of an inquiring mind to find out the truth was the mark of a racist.

Any attempt at delving beneath the fact hiding, swaddling layers of political correctness was met by the howls of the useful idiots. How dare you judge our judgements, they cried. Meanwhile, judging our judgements became the pastime du jour of these totalitarian so called liberals.

And as if that were not enough, judging leftist judgements became, via hate crime law a criminal offence. However, as we've seen, there are certain strains amongst mankind who will not be silenced by the diktats of the lemming lunatics. Wilders and Sabaditsch Wolfe are the high profile, visible actors on this stage but they lead a rapidly growing vanguard which has twigged on to the Islamocentric nature of the progressive left.

Mark Steyn's America Alone painted an apocalyptic vision of a dhimmified Europe with the US as the last man standing in a sea of the garish green of islam. Obama changed all of that, bowing and scraping his way around his favoured Muslim provinces and in the process making it perfectly clear where his allegiances lay.

We are now witnessing the fruits of his endeavours as the ME goes up in the flames of islamo-anarchy.

That progressive leftism is a massive failure becomes abundantly clear as each and every day passes.

These imbeciles watched as that ultimate symbol of Marxist thought and the doyen of university professors wherever they gathered their grey nodding heads, Communist Russia, collapsed and thought not of the obvious historical warning of its failure but instead went for, 'let's try that'!

That's the mark of these ideological lunatics. If it works, fix it until it's broke. If it's succesful, burrow into the causes of success until they no longer exist.

And thus we witness the Director of American National Security securing his place in the pantheon of left wing cretins by a declaration that the Muslim Brotherhood is not religiously motivated by Islam.

Let me remind him of it's founding slogan. "Islam is the solution."

Hmmm? I wonder what that could mean? He obviously doesn't.

Adam B.

Carl, you should know that the Egyptian army has, in recent months, had no compunction about shooting Darfuri refugees trying to get into Israel and freedom.

Derek BLADES

Ferdi asks (presumably) me "So the United States of America has the omnipotent power to create and destroy the government of Egypt. Is this your position?"

Absolutely not, Ferdi. I have obviously not made myself clear. I intended to make the point that the United States could not have had any influence whatsoever in what has happened in Egypt. I was expressing my astonishment that anyone could possibly believe that Obama could have "done something" to keep Mubarak in power.

I agree entirely with your sentiment that who rules Egypt is a matter for the 78 million Egyptians.

The reason I made my comment is that several contributors cricised Obama for not trying to prop up the Mubarak regime. Wisely, Obama did not try to do this but, had he tried, his efforts would have been futile.

Linda Smith

And will the new "democratic" Egypt pay reparations to all those Egyptian Jews robbed of their property and ethnically cleansed since the creation of the democratic state of Israel.

Robert Bruce Lewis

Can you POSSIBLY admit you were completely wrong, Ms. Phillips?

The democracy movement that came out of Tahrir Square is like a tiger that has been living in a tiny cage for 30 years. Having watched it get loose, there are two things I would say about this tiger. One is that anyone who tries to put it back in that little cage will get his head bitten off. And, two, any politician who tries to ride the tiger for his own narrow interests, not for the benefit Egypt, will get eaten by it as well. Iran, the other day, issued a declaration urging the Tahrir youth to make an “Islamic revolution,” and none other than Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood told Tehran to get lost because the democracy movement here is pan-Egyptian and includes Christians and Muslims.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/opinion/13friedman.html?hp

Drakken

Does anyone else think that this is not going to end up well? The MB will take over and then we will another anti-western imam run dark age run system that will be hostile to anything of the west and take them further back to the dark ages where they cralwed out of. War is enevitable, hezbo and hamas will go all out and then your going to see the fireworks start. It will come to Europe and then what are you leftist progressives going to do then huh?

Adam Wallace

For so long you have trumpeted the superiority of Israel as being "the sole democracy in the Middle East", yet now, when the Arabs rise to demand their own democratic rights you claim it to be an abandonment to support their aspirations.

I'm sorry Melanie, but what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Either Israel accepts that Arab states have the same democratic rights as anyone else, even if the result is Hamas-style governments being elected, or Israel stops lecturing others on its democratic credentials.

If the democracy of Israel is founded upon the repression of others, then frankly it is a worthless democracy.

C777

Liked Ron Paul's take on Egypt.
Seventy billions dollars of taxpayers money wasted ,and all it achieved was more disdain for the US in the middle east.
He has a point.

barak from a white house

For the dreamers, a news flash:"Egypt military dissolves parliament, suspends constitution"
Certainly impressive start on the way to democracy. Don't hold your breath - you have seen nothing yet.

Sarah AB

What Adam Wallace said, even though I think it's perfectly rational to be worried (on behalf of those in Egypt, Israel and elsewhere) because who knows what's going to happen.

Augustus

Adam Wallace - Be careful how you qualify Mubarak. Yes, he was a despot, but the extent of his despotism might yet have to be determined. The tyrant has been got rid of, the Egyptians
celebrate. But there are in this world all manner of despots. Journalists could send live reports these last few weeks from Cairo. That wouldn't have been possible from Tehran,
or Beijing, or even possibly Moscow. Western media have taken to calling Mubarak 'Pharaoh', but it was
Khomeini who first used the term about President Sadat. A
Pharoah had to be destroyed by a
Muslim force, and that actually happened; Sadat was assassinated
by a military Muslim. Yes, it's true that there was, and still is, corruption in Egypt, and not just by Mubarak alone. President Carter asked the Shah
of Persia to leave. He offered him sanctuary in the US and that he would be welcome there,
but, despite the fact that he was gravely ill, that was not to be, because, under pressure from the Iranian revolutionaries
he had to leave and become an outcast. President Sadat offered
him asylum, and he died and was buried in Cairo. No! Mubarak was
not a Pharaoh. There were no Muslim or Jewish slaves in his
domain. The Muslim Brothers, and their extreme left-wing followers, are the ones who want to exercise the machinery of revolution. There has been mass baying for blood, and Mubarak has been the chosen victim. Mubarak has become the Louis XVI of Egypt, unless the Egyptian army can prevent it.

JOSEPH MCNULTY

We are in a "traison des clercs" situation -- our elites, such as Mr. Clapper -- have betrayed us. Not only are we misled about what we should do or not do in response; reality itself is skewed so that we cannot even react to the REAL situation. We need to give Egyptians (eighty-five percent of whom in the Pew Poll favor the death penalty for apostacy -- so much for Egyptian "democracy" and the separation of church and state -- time to "discover democracy," even if that means that they will be hostile towards us for 100 years. This is terrible for America, but I fear it is FATAL for Isreal. This should really concentrate their minds -- survival is at stake. I predict that a Turkish model will be followed, a slow Islamisizing that appears almost invisibley so as to not startle the West out of its slumber. Eventually, the Egyptian army will move into Gaza to "protect" the "undefended" Palestinians. Will Isreal be willing to fire on the Egyptian army, especially one armed by the United States. Will the next urgent aerial resupply be not for Isreal in 1973, but for Egypt to prevent their defeat at the hands of Isreal?

Stuart Seacole Smith

Adam Wallace, Sarah AB: of course democracy is a good thing in and of itself.

However, you come across as remarkably sanguine (Sarah AB a little less so maybe) at the prospect of possible bloodshed on a catastrophic scale. Perhaps because you judge that it will for the most part be others' blood?

Anyway, so far islam and democracy seem not to make for easy bedfellows. Time will tell.

Deaky?

You called it wrong.

benjamin

To those who state that Moslems are incapable of democracy. If one had looked a the political landscape in Latin America 30-40 years ago, you would have said that the people of the region are only capable of Military Putches and Dictatorships - and therefore they needed the guiding hand of the benevolent West to prop up the Dictators. Now all of Latin America has more or less functioning democracies. Maybe the same thing can happen in the ME?

Ronnie

Any other police states around the world you want to support Ms Phillips? Freedom is only for the British and the citizens of Israel I suppose.

George Jackson

Lol. You are feking mental!!

Linda Smith

Ronnie, I'd rather live in a police state than one in which the Muslim Brotherhood can be "freely" elected to power. "Freedom" is relative.

Hitler and his Nazi party were "freely" elected to power. I'm sure the Jews, gypsies, and other "undesirables" would much have preferred to have lived in a police state than to have perished in a gas chamber.

Charles

So now that Mubarak has stood down, how would you like to see the situation evolve?

those marty feldman eyes

20110213

young frankenstein was playing in the background meshes nicely with obamas speech but then i like counterpoint

Egypt will never be the same//mr president what have you done to me

By stepping down president mubarak responded to the egyptian peoples hunger for change//these scientists are all the same they want to take over the world

Obama really looks like frankenstein for a moment and I'm wondering whos dubbed in the backchat as its brilliant but i forgot the freeview box sound comes through the pc as well if i dont switch it off.

Ronnie

Gosh Linda, your definition of freedom is very narrow and outcomes must be clearly defined before the great leap away from dictatorship can be made. However, I do share your distrust of the Muslim Brotherhood but I don't think the Egyption people are ready to replace one dictatorship with another (you never know).

Regarding the Jews, Gypsies etc living under Nazism. I may be wrong but that was a police state, was it not? Then it evolved into a system of industrialised murder.

Thus are we to assume that you favour police states, on a sliding scale of systems of government, for those less fortunate than yourself?

Si, N

Linda Smith says, 'I'd rather live in a police state than one in which the Muslim Brotherhood can be "freely" elected to power. "Freedom" is relative'.

What a stupid woman. It's not about what YOU want it's about the people of Egypt and elsewhere - clearly they've grown tired of living under a regime that has carte blanche to cart 'em of and dish out the torture [Omar Sulieman - Come On Down].

Get over it - because frankly, YOU have no say in the matter

wonderer

Linda and Ronnie, situations aren't always clear-cut. The Nazis came to power by a constitutional process, the final stage of which was when a Catholic political party sided with them in a parliamentary resolution that gave absolute power to Hitler. The quid pro quo was a favourable deal for Catholic schools, I remember reading.

From then on the country was indeed a police state.

Ronnie

Well anyway, how are we to square the circle created by people who at once demand support for Iranians trying to overthrow their grotesque dictatorship but deny support to Egyptians who have achieved exactly that; or so it seems for the moment?

Linda Smith

Well, acksherly, fellas, like most people I'm rather selfish. Everybody else's "freedom" is relative to my own freedom from being under the Nazi or Islamic cosh. I don't care too much for marxism either.

Linda, please see Godwin's law. Sadly, you lose the debate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

Linda Smith

No, Anonymous, I do not lose the debate:

"Godwin's law applies especially to inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic comparisons of other situations (or one's opponent) with Hitler or Nazis or their actions. The law and its corollaries would not apply to discussions covering genocide, propaganda, eugenics (racial superiority) or other mainstays of Nazi Germany, nor, more debatably, to discussion of other totalitarian regimes, since a Nazi comparison in those circumstances may be appropriate. Whether it applies to humorous use or references to oneself is open to interpretation, since this would not be a fallacious attack against a debate opponent."

(wiki)

Ian Hills

Bit like the Bush-Blair double act over Iraq. Cameron adopts anti-Israel line, Obama supports islamicist Egypt. This time, though, the ayatollahs are happy.