Via Andrew McCarthy at National Review:
Don’t take my word for it (although I covered the topic in some detail in The Grand Jihad). Don’t even take the word of the Justice Department, which amply demonstrated during the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing prosecution that the Muslim Brotherhood’s top project in the U.S. has been to drum up support for Hamas. Look, instead, at some relevant sections of Hamas’s 1988 charter (“The Charter of Allah: The Platform of the Islamic Resistance Movement”), announcing the terrorist organization’s existence:
For everyone who naively believes that this revolution is an attempt to bring a true democracy to Egypt is living in a river in a famous Egyptian river.
As Sister Todjah puts it:
The prospects for replacing the current authoritarian regime with liberal democracy is, in my opinion, minimal in a land that has never known democracy in it 6,000-year history and where the current regime has done little, if anything, to allow democratic opposition to grow — and in the process left the people only with radical Islam as an outlet for protest.
Once this thing settles and things are done, look for the Muslim Brotherhood (who is currently running around breaking radical Islamists out of prisons and jails) alongside of Hamas to be left in power.
Michael Leeden astutely asks, Revolution? By Whom? For What?:
And what about us? We are supposed to be the revolutionaries, and we must support democratic revolution against tyranny. But we must not support phony democrats, and for the president to say “Egypt’s destiny will be determined by the Egyptian people,” or “everyone wants to be free” is silly and dangerous. Egypt’s destiny will be determined by a fight among Egyptian people, some of whom wish to be free and others who wish to install a tyranny worse than Mubarak’s. That’s the opposite of freedom. Think about the free elections in Gaza that brought the Hamas killers to power. For that matter, think about Khomeini, viewed at the time as a progressive democrat by many of the leading intellectual and political lights of the West, from Foucault to Andrew Young.
We should have been pressuring the friendly tyrants in the Middle East to liberalize their polities lo these many years. We should have done it in the shah’s Iran, and in Mubarak’s Egypt, and in Ben Ali’s Tunisia. It is possible to move peacefully from dictatorship to democracy (think Taiwan. Think Chile. Think South Africa). But we didn’t, in part because of the racist stereotype that goes under the label “the Arab street,” according to which the Arab masses are motivated above all by an unrelenting rage at Israel for its oppression of the beloved Palestinians. That myth went along with another: the belief that the culture of the Arab world (sometimes expanded to “the culture of the Muslim world”) was totally resistant to democracy. The tumult has nothing to do with Palestine/Israel and even a blind bat can see hundreds of thousands of Arabs fighting for democracy, as have their fellow Muslims in Iran.
We shoulda, coulda done better all along. But here we are. It’s quite clear that Obama is totally bamboozled.
Related Posts
Email This Post
⋅
Print This Post
One wonders if leftists would disavow the riots in Egypt if said riots were the actions of the “Egyptian Tea Party”.
Obama was bamboozled? Hosni has been in power for 30 years. Obama has been on the job for 2. It does not follow.
And government overthrows and separations are like a box of chocolates you never want you’re gonna get. Hell, after we told our British cousins to leave, it took us several years before we drafted our Constitution.
You can’t blame anyone US president, Bush or Obama, for the fate of a foreign nation.
Surely, you jest. Did not Obama assure us that he was ready for that 3:00 a.m. phone call? Are you telling me he is a slow learner and that 2 years is just not enough “on the job” training? If that is the case, we are in worst shit than you can possibly imagine.
Mubarak may be a dictator, but he’s our dictator, and he has guananteed peace with Israel and has fought against the Muslim Brotherhood as hard as he could. El Baradai is nothing more than a puppet whose strings are being pulled by Tehran. He is already letting the world know that he will cooperate with the MB in whatever he does. El Baradai will pull Egypt into another radical Islamic nation that is ruled by Shi’ria law. Egypt will become Iran On The Nile.
Obama needed to get on top of this immediately when that 3:00 a.m. call came. Instead, he threw Mubarak under the bus siding with the protestors (who are being fueled by the Muslim Brotherhood and unlike the protestors in Iran who he basically ignored) in his attempt to straddle the fence. But cheer up in your support of Obama; until today the Egyptians were protesting their own government. Today they are burning our flag.
His actions, or lack of them, will have long lasting effects on the U.S. and will bring us the same problems Carter gave us when he refused to back the Shah.
Again, what a foreign nation does cannot be stopped by a US president. The Palestinians held elections under Bush’s watch and elected Hamas. I would not pin that on Bush anymore I would Mubarak
‘s downfall on Obama. Mubarak had 30 years to try give something to his people-economic opportunity- but did not.
Backing the Shah was not a good idea by any means. The current regime only was able to consolidate power in Iran after Iraq invaded, otherwise those mullahs would have been done with.
Actually it was, when Jimmah pulled his shenanigans on the Shah, the Soviet led protests intensified.
Jimmy Carter’s Illegal Demands on Shah.
The Black Marxist Cult Of Iran.
As far as Khomeini’s consolidation of power, it began 4 Nov 79, when the U.S. Embassy was taken and the hostage crisis began and was completed by 82-83 before the war with Iraq was over in 88, by finally crushing all internal dissenters.
As for what is going on in the ME, B. Hussein is a chump. He halted U.S. aid to Egyptian dissident groups not long after his bizarre Egyptian Speech in 2009, at about the same time he halted U.S. aid to Iranian dissident groups.
The global cabal of socialist are all excited by what is going on, which I’m certain must please B. Hussein, as he is one of their fellow travelers.
No, it was not. The period between the Shah the leaving and Saddam’s invasion, the situation in Iran was rather fluid. The invasion consolidated that power. In fact, the mullahs were reluctant in using the Army during the war, which they feared could turn on them. For this reason, the Revoluntionary Guard was created.
Again, the Shah was not great character.
Where there communique in Iran, well, shit it was next door to the Soviet Union, and were there fundamentalists in Iran? Again, it was next to Saudi Arabia.
But backing the Shah was a mistake. We unfortunately aided the British in 53. Don’t tell me oil nationalization was a commie scheme. Even Mossadegh did not trust the Tudeh Party and remarked he would rather chop of his arm then to aid them.
Hell, our our North American neighbors and Churchill’s country nationalized much their industries. Was it right? No, but it was par for course, and Shah had no qualifications to be a leader (you think Obama is unqualified).
Yes, it was.
His power consolidation began with the popular embassy hostage crisis.
It was concluded when he finally eliminated his internal problems. The Iraq war didn’t impact what he was doing, it only impacted their weakened economy. His military wasn’t as strong as it could have been, after having 100′s of military officers executed and the inability to get spare parts for its mostly American equipment.
The Tudeh party was Mossadeq’s ally, he was the one who nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil company in 1951. It was his communist leanings that got his ass kicked out. The Tudeh only wanted the southern region nationalized, as they viewed the northern region oil fields as belonging to their friends the Soviet communists.
The standard of living for the average Iranian was the highest in that part of the world. Education was highly promoted and women had more freedoms than ever before, one of the main irritations for the muslim clergy.
The Shah wasn’t perfect, but he was an ally that should have been supported. Unfortunately, we had the feckless peanut farmer in the White House.
I have a friend who was an Iranian Air Force pilot, one of the few Iranian pilots that survived imprisonment, was accidentally released and was able to get out and come to America.
During the time of the Shah things were so peaceful in that region, that several times a month he would fly from Iran to Tel Aviv, alone and unarmed in an F-4 or F-5. Flying over Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan without any problems at all. He loved going to Tel Aviv and thought it was the most beautiful and clean city he has ever visited.
All that changed when the Shah was deposed and the modern era of terrorism was ushered in with the ignorant and perverted Khomeini regime. The Revolutionary Guard wasn’t only created because he didn’t trust the military, it was formed to protect the islamic revolution, its principles and to spread it beyond its borders. Which it has and continues to do, creating, training and arming Hezbollah, now Hamas, and we know they are also in Venezuela.
Interesting you bring up Tel Aviv, and the northern oil fields as belonging to the USSR.
The Shah regime’s during WWII was sympathetic to the Nazi cause and in fact hosted several thousand German military advisers. There was a reason the USSR and UK carved out spheres of influence in Iran during WWII. They did not want Iranian oil fueling the Nazi cause (not that fueling the Soviets is any better).
Sure hindsight, Islamic Revolution was bullshit, but to everyday people who were fearful of the Shah’s secret police torturing and exectuing folks can you not blame them for being pissed off?
The Shah did not help himself. If you thought Obama was bad when it came to arrogance, the Shah was a guy who wore also sorts of military medals yet never ever fought in a war.
Being of Iranian heritage, I known plenty of Iranians. And sure enough I know some monarchists.
But the point remains no US president cannot stop what a foreign nation does. It was the Shah’s fault, not the US, was he fell. Blaming a US president, is not different than then their assholes blaming America for all its problems.
Yeah, an unarmed and alone Iranian fighter jet flying across that region to Israel is interesting, from a historical perspective. It illustrated how free of conflict that region was when the Shah was in charge.
That the Tudeh wanted the northern oil fields for their friends the soviets shows where their loyalties were and it wasn’t with Iran. Everyone knows about the Aryan connection with Iran and Germany, but keeping Iran out of Germany’s clutches was a good thing. As for the oil fields, Britain developed them, why should the soviets have any claim on them?
In many respects the Shah wasn’t as engaged as he should have been. He gave too much authority to the SAVAK. Of course he will be blamed for what they did, but the question still remains. Was the mistreatment of some Iranians by the SAVAK the cause of the trouble or a reaction to it? Between the commies and the islamists, there were many enemies of Iran as a powerful and modern nation.
There are actions and non-actions that a U.S. president can take that can effect other nations. In Carter’s case, when he couldn’t get what he wanted he withheld political and material support that would have helped the Shah stay in power.
With Øbummer, the same applies.
Carter was duped like so many others thinking that Khomeini was a man of God and a man of his word.
Øbummer doesn’t even know who will fill the vacuum if Mubarak falls, but is encouraging him to leave anyway. You know the wrong thing to do is for Mubarak to leave when Carter thinks he should.
The riots in Egypt organized by Obama, Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood
Mohamed Mustafa ElBaradei the Iranian traitor , the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran want to rule Egypt.
They want Repression of women, prohibition of education, high unemployment, radical Islam as Iran, Somalia and Afghanistan under Taliban rule…
As James Earl Carter supported Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979, so does today Barack Hussein Obama II… SINCE 1979 USA HELP IRAN TO TAKE CONTROL IN Middle East !
What is the condition in Iran 1979 before the islamic Revolution and today in:
Human rights ?
oppression of women ?
freedom of expression ?
Today if woman Wearing Jeans or Without a head covering in Iran she will be Punished…!
All the Opposition parties in Egypt Agreed to the government’s changes and for new elections this year Except the Muslim Brotherhood !
After some months the Islamic extremists will take the POWER and people will be in worst situation then before…
Do the people in Iran, Somalia, Afghanistan want the Extremists to rule ?