Friday, February 4, 2011

Egypt...Egypt...Egypt...the weather

I refuse to post any more on Egypt until something happens. It is already pretty damn dull watching the same cameras focus on the same square with the same people, give or take a few thousand, while listening to the reporters say the same thing until they are forced to make predictions laced with caveats rather than saying, simply, “I don’t have the faintest idea what is going to happen next because the variables are legion”.


Furthermore, the constant moaning about the Brothers taking instant control over a state and turning it into an Iranian fundamentalist outpost with the support of the Egyptian people in general, is just so much, well, crap. If they were to take control they would been in the less than enviable position of dealing with the same economic, social and political problems that the Mubarak government ignored or repressed. Somehow, I don’t think they are not aware of this unpleasant fact – that if they get control and have no plan and do not succeed in making lives better in a very short time – which is impossible -the probability of facing a similar revolution is hardly out of the question. This, by the way, has not been lost on the clerics in Tehran.

Finally, the US neo-cons are beating the caliphate drum. They won’t stop because 1) it suits their political agenda and 2) that agenda depends on the stupidity of the general population in the US. Let’s try and keep something in mind – there is no monolithic Muslim movement. There are geo-political agendas which trump religion. Syria wants Lebanon for itself, not for an Iranian allied Hezbollah. Saudi Arabia would love to see Iran disintegrate – or at least their brand of clerical rule vanish. Turkey plays the peacemaker and “no problem foreign policy” (badly, so far) while not particularly interested in seeing Iran take over Iraq. The Palestinians don’t give a damn about what is happening in Egypt because they are not in any position to do anything similar – yet. Egypt is not a pawn of anyone. The Brothers are Egyptian first.

So, until there is a change in Cairo, I think I talk about the weather.

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