Consensus in Egypt

By  Mark Steyn

Further to Andy’s and David’s observations on Egypt this weekend, I would add only that everywhere except Washington people are thinking strategically: General Sisi has made a calculation that he has a small window of opportunity to inflict damage on the Muslim Brotherhood that will set them back decades and that it is in Egypt’s vital interest to do so. Grasping that, the Brothers are pushing back hard.

For the same reason, the Gulf monarchies, having weathered the immediate storms of the Arab spring and understanding the longer-term threat the Brotherhood represents, have supplanted Washington as Cairo’s principal paymasters: The $1.5 billion subvention to Egypt was always a drop in the great sucking maw of the US Treasury; compared to what the Saudis and the Emirs are ponying up, it’s looking less and less consequential from the Nile end, too.

Read more at: The Corner

A Crisis in Competence

by Richard Fernandez

The overthrow of Morsi in Egypt is bad news for the Muslim Brotherhood. But is it good news for anyone? Austin Bay notes that the Egyptian military is now obviously on top. But he is unsure whether it will revert to its old Nasserite ways or become more inclusive. David Goldman (Spengler) endorses Austin’s view that the army is back in the cards and adds that some Islamists will come up on top  to displace the Muslim Brotherhood, whom the Saudis despised.

The reason the Saudi-backed boys will get a seat at the table is simple. Only the kingdom has the money to save Egypt from imminent starvation. The Egyptian military can hardly turn to Obama. Spengler notes, “Obama is all talk and no money … the administration cannot squeeze meaningful sums out of Congress for Egyptian aid. The only prospective rescuer with deep enough pockets to keep Egypt from disintegrating is Saudi Arabia.”

He’s all turban and no camels. Spengler writes of the military:

There is only one reason the military might do a better job than the Muslim Brotherhood or the liberal opposition, and that is because Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states (besides tiny Qatar) might decide to provide funding for a military regime that suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Saudi regime rightly fears as a competitor to its medieval form of monarchy. That is why Saudi aid to Egypt has been insignificant, while tiny Qatar has committed $5 billion–nearly a fifth of its total foreign exchange reserves–to keep Egypt afloat during the past year. 

Egypt needs about $20 billion a year in external subsidies; a smaller amount would forestall the worst effects of the economic crisis. With $630 billion in foreign exchange reserves, Saudi Arabia is the only Arab country with the resources to give Egypt help on the scale it requires. But the Saudis will not subsidize their own prospective executioners. The Muslim Brotherhood is a modern totalitarian political party; next to the Saudi royal family, it looks like a meritocracy. For ambitious Saudis not born into the ruling family, it offers an attractive alternative. 

Read more at: PJ Media

More pics from Egypt

 

 

For more pictures, go to: Predictable History, Unpredictable Past

One dictator to another...

Herman Van Rompuy @euHvR
You may rest assured that on this pad of enshrining demcracy the EU will stand by your side as a friend,a neighbour & a partner #Morsi 14:10 zo 13 jan.

15 Photos From the Tahrir Square Protests You'll Never See In Legacy Media. #Egypt #Morsi #Obama

 

Curiously, a massive wave of anti-Obama sentiment in Egypt has been utterly ignored by vintage media, even though the protests may be the largest in all of human history.

 

 

 

 

See more pictures at:   Doug Ross @ Journal

 

Update: Look at those crowds!  

 

 

 

RAW: Egypt Military releases New Protest Video