Month: February 2011

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for February 2nd, 2011:

The New York Times: Yossi Klein Halevi, a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute and a contributing editor at The New Republic, writes, “Israelis fear that Egypt will go the way of Iran or Turkey, with Islamists gaining control through violence or gradual co-optation.” Hezbollah’s increasingly strong role in Lebanon, Hamas’s control of the Gaza Strip, and the downturn in Israel-Turkey relations leads Halevi to comment, “[A]n Islamist Egypt could produce the ultimate Israeli nightmare: living in a country surrounded by Iran’s allies or proxies.” While the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood has forsworn violence, “it is small comfort to Israelis, who fear that the Brotherhood’s nonviolence has been a tactical maneuver and know that its worldview is rooted in crude anti-Semitism.”

National Review Online: The American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin opines on the developing situation in Egypt and suggests that the Muslim Brotherhood and “anti-Western forces will look to blame Egypt’s problems on the U.S.” “What worries me is this: Today marks the 32nd anniversary of Khomeini’s return to Iran. Most people making dark allusions to Iran forget that more than nine months passed between Khomeini’s return and the seizure of the U.S. Embassy,” says Rubin. “The question then becomes, what grievances can the Muslim Brotherhood or other anti-Western forces manufacture in those nine months to try to appeal beyond their natural constituency of perhaps 25 percent?” Rubin concludes that Obama should avoid making George W. Bush’s mistake of supporting elections in Gaza and “enabl[ing] political groups which maintain militias to claim the mantle of electoral legitimacy.”

Los Angeles Times: Jonah Goldberg, also based at The American Enterprise Institute, warns that the democracy movement in Egypt could turn into “a replay of the Iranian revolution, in which justified popular discontent with an authoritarian ruler was exploited by Islamists who ultimately imposed an even crueler brand of tyranny.” Goldberg goes on to compare political participation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to a “contagion.”

The Jerusalem Post reports:

“Two Swedish reporters were held for hours on Wednesday by Egyptian soldiers accusing them of being Mossad spies, the reporters’ employer, daily newspaper Aftonbladet, reported. The soldiers reportedly attacked the reporters, spitting in their faces and threatening to kill them. Four Israeli journalists were arrested by Egyptian military police in Cairo on Wednesday. Three of those arrested work for Channel 2 and the fourth is from Nazareth.”

The article is headlined: “Pro-Mubarak demonstrators are targeting the press,” and conflates the roughing up of CNN’s Anderson Cooper with the arrest of the Israeli “journalists” — but it is the up-until-now-neutral military, not Mubarak’s thugs, who have detained the accused Mossad agents. For more on the history of Mossad operations in Egypt, go here (and here). Suffice to say that this isn’t the first time Israel’s intelligence agency has intervened with provocateurs to justify a crackdown.

So let’s step back and look at the progression of events: a peaceful anti-Mubarak demonstration is attacked by pro-Mubarak thugs, and suddenly accused Mossad agents are arrested. And the Israelis are now coming out in public, brazenly calling on their Western allies to tamp down their criticism of Mubarak.

Update: According to the Committee to Protect Journalists:

“Police arrested four Israeli journalists for allegedly violating the curfew in Cairo and for entering the country on tourist visas, according to news reports. Three of the journalists reportedly work for Israel’s Channel 2, while the fourth reports for an unnamed Israel-based Arabic news website, according to news reports. But Channel 2 told CPJ that the station does not employ the three journalists. The names and correct affiliation of the arrested reporters remain unclear.”

“[Thanks for the tip to commenter “Watson.”]

Update 2: Jerusalem Post reports the four Israeli reporters have been released, and now an Israeli “engineer” has been arrested in Egypt. [Note: Broken link fixed.]

Update 3: NPR reports:

“Israel Radio said one of the journalists worked for an Arabic-language portal based in the Israeli Arab town of Nazareth. Israel’s Channel 2 TV denied reports that three of its reporters were among those detained.

“Israel’s Foreign Ministry released a statement calling on Israeli reporters in Egypt to “remain alert, act responsibly and follow the rules.””

Yeah, and the rules are : don’t get caught.

In Egypt we see the true nature of the State — all States, everywhere – revealed as the mask is dropped and Mubarak’s hired thugs (paid for with your tax dollars, my friends) wreak mayhem on peaceful demonstrators. Mubarak supporters  must have been listening to their American supporters —  Mike Huckabee, John Bolton and Rep. Thad McCotter — on Fox News, and taken heart.

So you thought it was only the wackos on the neocon right who support Mubarak? Wrong! I’m listening right now to Rachel Maddow, MSNBC’s resident ultra-liberal, attack Rand Paul for being “offshore” because he calls for ending the $1.5 billion in “aid” to the Egyptian military. 

 “Offshore”?

Well, uh, yes, because you see “politics stops at the water’s edge,” everyone in both parties supports the President’s non-policy regarding the Egyptian events, and only “offshore” (read: off-the-wall) types, like the “isolationist” (Rachel’s word) Rand Paul think otherwise.  Stupidly, she lumps in Paul with John “Invade the World” Bolton — who supports Mubarak (just like the Obama administration, which continues to fund Mubarak’s secret police thugs). She also noted that Paul wants to end aid to Israel — “Of course,” as she put it. 

“Of course”? Really? Rand Paul’s bravery in sticking his neck out on this sensitive issue is to be commended — but not if you’re Rachel Maddow, who has never — ever — critcized Israel on her oh-so-“liberal” show.

Back when she was just another Air America airhead, Maddow invited me to be on her program: I declined, just because I wasn’t in the mood for liberal bromides that day. I thought she was a hack then, and now that she’s famous she’s even more of a partisan hack than before.

What I’d like to know is this, though: why does Maddow think funding the Egyptian torture machine, and the Israeli occupation of Palestine, is good for America? How does it serve our legitimate interests? Is it “stimulus” money? Does she just support any and all government spending as a matter of high principle? Or does she really think it’s a good idea for us to be subsidizing a regime so brutal that even the US State Department characterizes it as “repressive”?

Rachel, Rachel, Rachel — you can’t be serious. The Egyptian people want us to stop supporting Mubarak: it’s that simple. If that’s “offshore,” then so be it.

UPDATE:

“The Ed Show’ follows the Maddow tirade on MSNBC, and there’s good old Ed — a protectionist China-basher with a slightly thuggish look — demanding to know why the US sends $1.5 billion a year to Mubarak. Maybe he should ask Rachel that question. Oh, and he’s pushing a poll — you text in your vote — asking people whether they think the US should cut the aid. I guess Rachel will be voting “yes.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for February 1st, 2011:

The Wall Street Journal: Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Max Boot writes, “[I]t does scant justice to the complexity of the situation to claim that Mr. Mubarak was a superb ally, or to imagine that we can manage an easy transition to a post-Mubarak regime.” Boot uses a series of quotes catalogued by the controversial Middle East Media Research Institute showing “rabid anti-Semitism and anti-Westernism that polluted Egypt’s state-controlled news media.” Boot doesn’t find Mohammed ElBaredei to be an attractive alternative to Mubarak because “[h]e called the Gaza Strip ‘the world’s largest prison’ and declared that it was imperative to ‘open the borders, end the blockade.’ Boot adds, “Mr. ElBaradei also spoke glowingly of Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has assailed Israel in harsh terms and voted against United Nations sanctions on Iran.”

The Wall Street Journal: Ronen Bergman, an intelligence analyst for Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli daily, draws lessons from the fall of the Shah in Iran that apply to the current situation in Egypt, and recommends that the U.S. stand by Mubarak or risk repeating the mistakes that led to “the establishment of an Islamic regime in Tehran that has been no friend to the U.S.” Bergman concludes, “Past experience suggests that if Mr. Mubarak’s regime is toppled, not only will American interests suffer, but the cause of freedom in Egypt could be set back dramatically. And the U.S. will have contributed to a Middle East that is less stable and more dangerous than it is today.”

AOL News: The American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin opines that the Obama administration must be careful to avoid an “Iran-like tragedy in Egypt” but Mubarak might not be the lynchpin to maintaining U.S. interests in Egypt. “The true value of Egypt was its peace treaty with Israel, an event that predated Mubarak’s rise,” writes Rubin. “Many analysts see the shadow of Iran’s Islamic revolution in the Egyptian chaos. One parallel is certain: Should Mubarak flee, it will be the end of the beginning rather than the beginning of the end,” he warns. Rubin concludes, “If the White House is to avoid an Iran-like tragedy, it must stay one step ahead of the Brotherhood, refuse to be a populist foil and guarantee the September elections, and bestow legitimacy only upon those groups that eschew violence and abide by the Egyptian constitution.”