MYOPIC US MIDEAST POLICY IS TURNING EGYPT INTO A BLOODBATH
54 people who no longer care about energy geopolitics
The Slog: “Yer see, that Joe – he’s a winner,” I heard an American corporate say once in a Chicago lift, “I ain’t so sure about Pete”.
“But Pete’s popular, the staff like him,” countered his companion, “he’s a nice honest guy”.
“Nice honest guys come last,” said the first man.“Looks like it’s Joe then,” said the second bloke.
Contrary to popular European belief, this is not how most real Americans think. I realise we could argue up hill and down dale about how many ‘real’ Americans there actually are, but I’ve met plenty of them. And they do have better manners than us, by the way. Lest we forget, 48.5% of Americans, on average, vote Democrat. But as my chum Butch asks, “What do you call a Democrat with four million dollars?” to which the answer is, “A Republican”.
But the ‘looks like it’s Joe then’ bollocks is pretty much a universal belief among multinational corporatist America. Without question – and in a predictably American way – the US State Department plumped for the Muslim Brotherhood in late 2011 as the most likely winners in the Middle East – and the least of all evils.
This was always likely to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, in that US power put behind any movement is likely to make it the de facto winner anyway. The huge mistake State made (and like our FCO, it is almost always wrong on every important dimension) was to see the Muslim Brotherhood as ‘the acceptable face of Islamism’. Unless we in the West have completely lost the plot on this one, there is no such thing: the Brotherhood has done a smart PR job on itself of late, but peel away the thin veneer of civilisation, and the beheading habit is very obvious….as at least one Catholic priest found out the hard way ten days ago.
Once having decided to back TMB, The Americans put a huge censorship-based spin campaign into operation. Since then, we have seen a non-stop stream of bollocks about Assad’s WMDs, ‘Government atrocities’ – and not a peep about what the Brotherhood’s been at. We have been shown utter crap about Assad shelling Turkey (the Turkish electorate sees Syria as an ally, so that had to be changed) and the denazification of Recep Erdogan by everyone from David Cameron downwards. The entire shebang has been an exercise in altered Orwellian reality. Con Coughlin in the Daily Telegraph soaks it all up like the MI5 blotter he is, and of course William ‘Welsh abuse report sitter’ Hague has to stay behind the US, because, well, its where his member is. I will say no more.
What the West continues to have difficulty grasping is that, in several important Middle Eastern States, TMB is the mainstream of Islamic opinion. To Washington’s myopic delight, they proved this by legally sweeping to power in Egypt. This was terrific, because if they could help chuck the Alahwite Bashar Assad out of Syria, TMB would stretch right to the border with the predominantly Shia Iran. As the US and Iran share a mutually Satanic perception of the other, this bodes badly for Iran and – supposedly – well for America. Haha-phuuurrt.
What State has dine is bestow respectability upon the Muslim Brotherhood without in any way changing its truly ghastly attitudes and barbaric behaviour. Now Egypt represents the ultimate cleft stick: an unelected, more secular army group has taken over from some democratically elected thugs. The only place left for the US governmental head now is up its arse. And that’s exactly where it is.
Even though U.S. law requires Washington to cut off aid to any nation whose military ousts a democratically elected leader, White House spokesman Jay Carney on Monday said it “would not be in the best interests of the United States” to cut off aid immediately. “We are reviewing our obligations under the law, and we will be consulting with Congress about the way forward, with regards to specifically the assistance package that we provide,” Carney added.
Yup, we’re looking around up here and it’s dark and smelly, but we’ll get back to you. Some time soon. We think.
The Americans always follow a Mickey Mouse foreign policy – in the sense of Mickey in the role of Sorcerer’s Apprentice in the classic Disney cartoon Fantasia. They have never grasped Arabist thinking, and they never well: it is, as always, about the geopolitical power bestowed by energy and money – and short term expediency.
Fifty-four people died in violent Egyptian clashes overnight. Short-termism has come home to roost in Washington. The chicken brood thus produced is headless, and it shows.
Source
'US' dirty hands all over Egypt crisis'
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