“The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”

Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas


Friday, February 11, 2011

OK now what, Egypt?


So Hasni Mubarak stepped down and handed power over to the military. Egypt's constitution has no such allowance for a head of state to transfer power to the military or for the military to assume power through a line of succession. So technically, this was a bloodless, military coup.

Question 1: does this throw the whole Egyptian constitution into question or worse, irrelevance?

Question 2: What now, protesters? What's the plan?

How about getting back to work and securing the Suez canal for oil transportation? Hopefully the military will guarantee free and fair elections so the people can elect whatever leader they want. Alternatively, is it possible that, like Isildur in Lord of the Rings, the military realizes the power it holds and claims it for its own? That's almost always the case in these loosely governed countries. If there's a power vacuum, there's always somebody to claim power for himself.

UPDATE: The feckless, lapdog media are already trying mightily to spin this as a foreign policy triumph for Obama rather than utter failure and blind, dumb luck that had nothing to do with Obama. Still, what's the military going to do? What role with the Muslim Brotherhood play in any new governance? Obama's teleprompter doesn't have a clue so he'll be modest about Egypt because he can rely on the media to shower him with rose pedals and crown him a master foreign-policy tactician. The media fawning will reach an apex on the Sunday talk shows. Gag me with a spoon!

4 comments:

Bill said...

What has impressed me most about this whole thing is that folks whose opinions I have great respect for come out with completely different takes. These range from extreme pessimism to extreme optimism. The end result, as always, will likely fall in between - hopefully more toward the good side.

One of your readers will only be satisfied with an immediate all out assault on the Zionists.

Ed said...

If the domino theory comes to pass, Iran which is the most stridently fundamentalist state, may start some crap with Israel. Dinnerjacket might just be crazy enough to do it if he thinks he has all the other Muslim states allied with him.

Anonymous said...

What are rose pedals?

Ed said...

Sorry anon, rose petals.