Posted on 01/28/2011 9:50:28 AM PST by La Lydia
“An earthquake has shaken the region" - The above headline from an Israeli newspaper describes with unfailing accuracy the pivotal events now taking place in the Middle East. In Egypt, the Arab world’s largest and most populous country of more than 80 million, massive demonstrations involving tens of thousands of people began on Tuesday in what was billed as a “Day of Anger” and are continuing despite a ban by a very rattled government. Smaller protests are likewise occurring in Jordan, Libya, Morocco and Algeria. The domino effect so feared by Middle Eastern strongmen after Tunisian protesters chased their president from power earlier this month after a 24-year rule may soon become reality in Egypt....
The disappearance of Arab strongmen like Tunisia’s ruler, and now possibly Mubarak, opens up the ominous and dangerous potential for a Khomeini-style 1979 Islamist victory befalling Egypt — which would be a catastrophic development not only for American and Israeli security interests, but for the Egyptian people themselves. One need only recall Khomeini’s killing fields and his Islamic Republic’s vicious history, continued to this day, to understand the horrifying consequences of Islamists succeeding in exploiting the current strife in Egypt to their benefit.
However corrupt Egypt’s regime may have been or continues to be, Mubarak succeeded in keeping the Islamists and the religious radicals in check. The Muslim Brotherhood, a major fundamentalist Egyptian opposition group that Mubarak had banned, will definitely try to take advantage of any further economic frustration or breakdown to set up the longed-for Islamic state, probably by promising those who have nothing that they will create a Muslim utopia of social justice, patterned after the Prophet Mohammad’s rule. That is the bait to hijack the revolution, like the Bolsheviks promised “peace, land and bread” to the uneducated, downtrodden Russian masses to get their support, only to bring in the Red Terror in return.
As history warns, the Islamists, if successful in seizing power, will internally perpetrate a Khmer Rouge/Khomeini-type bloodbath the likes of which Egypt has never seen before. The first victims will most likely be the country’s religious minorities. Externally, they will involve Egypt in a jihad/war against Israel, Europe or the Shiites and, like Iran, strive to build nuclear weapons.
The Sixth Fleet is a shadow of its former self. During the Cold War it had two carriers and a Marine amphibious group assigned. Now it has neither. It may exercise operational control over ships transiting to the Fifth Fleet in the Indian Ocean but other than the Mount Whitney I'm not sure it has any ships assigned.
Muslim states are simply not ready for parliamentary democracy or democracy of any kind. We’ve seen this play over and over again from Pakistan to Iraq to Afghanistan. They can’t even for a government without major Islamic representation. This is a filthy culture and a cursed religion. Only secular one-man iron rule aka the “Ataturk” type in Turkey is fit for these swine where law and order can be maintained and the Islamic clerics placed under an iron boot.
The Muslim Brotherhood *is* AQ, and AQ and Iran are tightly entwined.
For years, Zawahri has been skipping in and out of Iran, staying there for periods and going back into the world when that suits him, The surviving bin Ladens are living permanently in Iran, including the one designated to take over as the AQ leader, a position that Zawahri is filling so far.
Obama going All In and flying the crescent on the WH flagpole.
But there'll still be plenty of leftwing islamic flacks telling you it isn't there :).
I have to add this comment to the thread. My previous comments were colored by then recent news that the Muslim brotherhood had joined into the protests.
I have since done some more reading, and see that the main thrust of the protest was from pro democracy advocates. If true, I support them. I support fully the effort the change the government in Egypt to one with a weakened president and a stronger parliament represented by the people.
In the Islamic world you cannot have democracy and not have the islamists as a party... I hope their influence would be sidelined, and I do understand that they would support democracy because that would improve their power position over the status quo. If Egypt should fall to secular democrats, it would be a good thing I think. Whether it could hold itself together obviously remains to be seen, and as in the case of Turkey we can see that the influence of religion on governance is very hard to keep a lid on in that part of the world. History tells us that it takes a “strong man” type of leadership to keep things in order, and keep religion out of state, in that part of the world. Too bad, but we can hope for positive change and that if Egypt falls to democrats that Europe will actively defend it from becoming Islamist, the way Hamas used democracy to take over Gaza and Hezbullah is using it now in Lebanon.
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