U.S. Foreign Policy

A Ukraine Link & A Reminder About The Times

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Via Mick Hartley, Edward Luttwak on Putin’s gamble in Ukraine (somewhere between a dictator, a mafia boss, and the chief oligarch).

A reminder of past dark and similar times.

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I amend my NY Times prediction to become like the Guardian (a few deep pockets, lots of smaller ones, nearly all activism all the time). Rather, maybe the Ochs/Sulzberger family will become the deep pockets, as the readers increasingly select to become activist donors (nearly all activism all the time). It’s a hybrid model.

My guess: It might end up reflecting the kinds of Left vs. Left-liberal tensions found in many universities. They might cave like the old liberal guard in most of our univerisities, or there might emerge a newer liberal consensus of sorts.

But if you’re merely skeptical of activists (the new religionists in the postmodern soup), or you’re conservative, or traditional, or religious, I’d say expect to be ‘the enemy’ and never really get a fair shake.

I recommend supporting Coleman Hughes and Ashley Rindsberg for independent thought.

As posted, the NY Times is the private journalism model par excellence (the place journalists want to be). Here are some of the pressures to which NPR is subject (much less so, but dependent on some taxpayer money and the imprimatur of the government):

1. Market pressures-It’s easy to go for the lowest common denominator in the marketplace (sex sells). Resisting such tactics requires sticking to principles.  NPR does a pretty good job at this, though my problem is with the judgment and principles they’re using; subject to the capture of liberatory radicalism (free your ‘Self’ politically, morally and sexually, replacing beliefs with overwhelmingly Democrat political allegiance, New-Age/Political idealism and State-funded Sex Education).  There’s a combination of stiff moralism and weird license at NPR.

Robin Aitken, a longtime BBC reporter and odd-man-out social conservative, discusses how the BBC now promotes hit shows like Naked Attraction.

2. Technological pressures-I have many bookish and well-read friends who are terrified of technology.  They have some good reasons and some ridiculously bad ones for this.  NPR is not exactly cutting-edge though they are pretty mainstream.  Success requires manipulating the latest technology.

3. The Problems Of Ideological Capture-What you think tends to become who you become regarding habit and character.  Where your thoughts go, so go your moral sentiments, beliefs and actions.  Liberal idealists argue for some pretty scalable post-Enlightenment ideals (universal humanism, open markets, free speech).

Problems tend to start, however, regarding a deeper base of Selves living in relative isolation; flirting with nihilism, existentialism, anarchy, and Communism/Socialism.   Liberal idealists can easily become caught between a tradition or law they personally uphold, while simultaneously supporting the activist who may have no regard whatsoever for any particulary existing tradition or law.

Clive James revisits many quite original, quite accomplished works of Joseph Conrad.

This quote has stuck with me over the last few months:

‘They are, in fact, idealists: and idealism is a cast of mind that Conrad questions even more than he questions radicalism. The logical end of radicalism, in his view, is terrorism; but idealism is the mental aberration that allows terrorism to be brought about. Conrad’s originality was to see that a new tyranny could be generated by people who thought that their rebellion against the old tyranny was rational. Thus his writings seem prescient about what was to happen in the Soviet Union. He didn’t predict the Nazi tyranny because he had underestimated the power of the irrational to organise itself into a state. But then, nobody predicted that except its perpetrators; and anyway, mere prediction was not his business. His business was the psychological analysis made possible by an acute historical awareness. Under Western Eyes is valuable not because it came true but because it rang true even at the time, only now we can better hear the deep, sad note.’

Personally, I am persuaded such pressures orginate in insufficiently deep maps of human nature, Nature, and how hard it can be to maintain legitimate authority.

(S)cience, Social (S)cience and Free Speech & Assembly: As we can see with true radicals and revolutionaries, the ideological capture within our institutions comes from a presumed moral authority; a moral authority drafting off of the truth and knowledge claims made by the Sciences, the Social Sciences, and ‘The Expert.’

Listening to the Beatles, watching episodes of Nature with David Attenborough, and supporting the latest moral cause may placate radicals for a while, but only for a while.  Often such habits make liberals easier targets.

This is, I believe, how we’ve arrived at many conservatives, libertarians, some broader disaffected moderates and a Newer Left (the Weinsteins, much of the ‘Dark Web’) suddenly having to defend the truth and knowledge claims of the Sciences, the Social Sciences, free assembly and free speech.

From The Nieman Lab:-An Oral History Of The Epic Collision Between Journalism & Digital Technology, From 1980 To The Present.

A Few Thoughts On NPR And Current Liberal Establishment Thinking Under Obama…Hate Is A Strong Word-Some Links On The BBC, The CBC, & NPR

To See Them Driven Before You-A Few Links

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Via Mick Hartley, via Jack Watling at the Jewish Chronicle:

‘The promise of de-communisation was rather more personal for Putin. While he admired the power of the Soviet empire, he and many other intelligence officers who had lived in the West harboured little respect for communist ideology. Indeed, for Putin, Lenin’s revolution was not a triumph, but the infiltration of Russia by a German-sponsored agent who had destroyed the Russian Empire. Now facing the threat of contagion from a revolutionary democratic government in Kyiv, the threat of de-communisation speaks to a pervasive fear of subversion through “colour revolution”.

Maybe there are elements of Peter the Great, the Russian Revolution, and the Cold War experience all at play. As for Putin’s intentions, I’ll go by his actions in Georgia, Belarus, and now, Ukraine.

Notice it’s the older, Eastern empires which went and imported Marxist code, possibly because Marxism leads to a kind of tyranny of the autocrat (more endemic to the human condition and Eastern empires).

Other Western exports could have conceivably saved tens of millions of lives.

Ah, well.

In the meantime, many radicals in the West harbor similar dreams (the Revolutionary’s righteous action is much preferable to, say, George Washington after victory).

Everything must go!

The below is probably worth reposting, as to why elements beneath Western liberalism bear much more resemblance to Marxist doctrine (identity politics and collectivism) than J.S. Mill.

Many mainstream publications (NPR, The Atlantic, The New Yorker) are in constant negotiations with activists and radicals (driving the change they’d like to see, leading to a kind of utopian ideal). They tend to be most comfortable with visible enemies who are oppressing them, as I suspect the light of liberation and resentment of ‘the oppressor’ is a primary motivation (not necessarily real freedom and the responsibility that come with freedom). This, of course, leads to deeply undemocratic outcomes and the kinds of law and order breakdown we’ve seen in cities like Seattle, Portland, NYC and San Francisco.

Many folks have explained why Communist revolutions begin in violence and end in such misery, and why so many followers cling to these doctrines (in our universities) with a sort of religious fervor, selectively blind hope, and continued loyalty.

Or at least some folks held their ground and documented the mess:

–Robert Conquest At The Hoover Institution: ‘When Goodness Won’

–A Few Thoughts On Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts Of Liberty”…Appeasement Won’t Do-Via A Reader, ‘Michael Ignatieff Interview With Isaiah Berlin’

Michael Moynihan takes a look at how some in the Western media and in positions of influence have handled the death of what is essentially, a brutal dictator:

‘Still Stuck On Castro:‘

‘The preceding days have demonstrated that information peddled by Castro’s legion of academic and celebrity apologists has deeply penetrated the mainstream media consciousness, with credulous reporting sundry revolutionary “successes” of the regime: not so good on free speech, but oh-so-enviable on health care and education.’

and:

‘And how does Reuters describe Castro? After 50 years of brutal one-party rule, to apply the appellation “dictator” seems a rather contentious issue: “Vilified by opponents as a totalitarian dictator, Castro is admired in many Third World nations for standing up to the United States and providing free education and health care.” And again, we return to education and health care.’

Democratic socialism, and social democracy, are often just the distance some folks have migrated from their previous ideological commitments (tolerating market reforms and ‘neo-liberal’ economic policy out of necessity, not necessarily a change of heart nor mind).

For others it may be the distance they’ve unconsciously drifted towards such ideas more recently.

For other brave souls, it may be the distance required to stick one’s fingers into the political breezes which blow over the floor of the EU, in order to ‘stay engaged’:

Remember, this is the non-elected President of the EU Commission. 

With the death of #FidelCastro, the world has lost a man who was a hero for many. https://t.co/u0ULZoG8Fl

— Jean-Claude Juncker (@JunckerEU) November 26, 2016

Michael Totten relays an anecdote here:

‘He told me about what happened at his sister’s elementary school a few years after Castro took over.

“Do you want ice cream and dulces (sweets),” his sister’s teacher, a staunch Fidelista, asked the class.

“Yes!” the kids said.

“Okay, then,” she said. “Put your hands together, bow your heads, and pray to God that he brings you ice cream and dulces.”

Nothing happened, of course. God did not did not provide the children with ice cream or dulces.

 “Now,” the teacher said. “Put your hands together and pray to Fidel that the Revolution gives you ice cream and sweets.”

The kids closed their eyes and bowed their heads. They prayed to Fidel Castro. And when the kids raised their heads and opened their eyes, ice cream and dulces had miraculously appeared on the teacher’s desk.’

As previously posted:

Michael Moynihan reviewed Michael Moore’s ‘Sicko’ which praised the Cuban Health Care System.

Christopher Hitchens took a helicopter ride with Sean Penn, and that tracksuit-wearing strongman of the people, Hugo Chavez-Hugo Boss:

It’s a long way out of socialist and revolutionary solidarity, which continually occupies the South American mind. One more revolution: Adam Kirsch takes a look at Mario Vargas Llosa. The Dream Of The Peruvian.

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The End Of History? –Update And Repost- From YouTube: Leo Strauss On The Meno-More On The Fact/Value Distinction?’

Related On This Site:  What Will De Blasio’s New York Look Like?-Some Links…Sandinistas At The NY Times: ‘A Mayoral Hopeful Now, de Blasio Was Once a Young Leftist’…Two Links On Diane Ravitch & School Reform

Fukuyama, W.R. Mead and Niall Ferguson Discuss Ukraine

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At the Bari Weiss substack: Frank Fukuyama, Walter Russell Mead, and Niall Ferguson have a discussion about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

As for the John Mearsheimer talk previously linked (I myself have reservations about some elements of such a view), Mearsheimer seems to have gotten a good many things right. Other people have gotten things right, too. The strong anti-Mearsheimer reaction (overreaction?) leads me to suspect that this could be as much about domestic strategic politics, some of his other views, and acceptable opinion in the U.S.

What do you potentially want the West to defend? Would you stand up to defend it (or more likely, your children)? If, culturally and politically, you have less trust in your institutions as an individual, isn’t this same weakness reflected within intellectual debates?

What’s probably true: The sooner we think about some of these questions, and with whom we enter into a potentially fighting alliance (an Anglosphere, trade and the old Westphalian model? the ‘global liberal’ vision?), the less dumb war there will probably be. There will very likely be war(s), however.

My current take on domestic politics is roughly what I’ve written (some of it bound to be wrong):

Conservative, traditional and religious Americans have likely moved from a majority to a plurality/minority in most cultural/political spaces (more requiring of minority protections, also more conspiratorial). These are the people more likely to defend home and hearth and more likely to join and support the military during the Cold War (along with higher Southern representation). 

I understand Neo-Conservatism as the drive to extend American military and global interests by advancing humanistic ideas and secular humanism (liberals/secular humanists mugged by ‘reality’). Such folks are more likely to have been in influential policy/intellectual positions, not necessarily doing the warfighting. 

Cold War patriotic liberals, just as were many old school liberals, have been increasingly challenged from the activist Left, and that activist Left now has a lot of cultural/political influence. Old school Democrats were generally about unions and a certain amount of patriotism (Cuban Missile Crisis). Many New Democrats are about pronouns in the postmodern soup and the Green New Deal. This presses upwards upon the liberal international and global worldview. This dynamic seems to occupy the folks in charge at the moment (dovetailing with elements of the Eurozone), pivoting from the Health/Safety COVID worldview to defending human and Western interests. 

It’s been…strange to see Susan Glasser at the New Yorker become rabidly pro-Ukraine and a war hawk, but…here we are. 

Related On This Site: Can you maintain the virtues of religion without the church…?: From The City Journal: Roger Scruton On “Forgiveness And Irony”…Are we going soft and “European”… do we need to protect our religious idealism enshrined in the Constitution….with the social sciences?…Charles Murray Lecture At AEI: The Happiness Of People

Is there a causal connection between a move away from religion and the moral structure it provides….and a bigger state?From Wikipedia’s Page On Leo Strauss: A Few Quotes: From YouTube: Leo Strauss On The Meno-More On The Fact/Value Distinction?

Some Anti-modernism: From The American Interest Online: Francis Fukuyama On Samuel Huntington

A 2015 Mearsheimer Lecture On Ukraine And A Few Thoughts

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Via a reader: John Mearsheimer applies his offensive realist view to Ukraine back in 2015 (there are no friends, only alliances….regional powers will aim for hegemony in a lawless, fundamentally anarchic world).

He offers a step-by-step look at Ukraine.

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On that note, how do I see the American landscape? Well, I don’t know, exactly. Conservative, traditional and religious Americans have likely moved from a majority to a plurality/minority in most cultural/political spaces (more requiring of minority protections, also more conspiratorial). These are the people more likely to defend home and hearth and more likely to join and support the military during the Cold War (along with higher Southern representation).

I understand Neo-Conservatism as the drive to extend American military and global interests by advancing humanistic ideas and secular humanism (liberals/secular humanists mugged by ‘reality’). Such folks are more likely to have been in influential policy/intellectual positions, not necessarily doing the warfighting.

Cold War patriotic liberals, just as were many old school liberals, have been increasingly challenged from the activist Left, and that activist Left now has a lot of cultural/political influence. Old school Democrats were generally about unions and a certain amount of patriotism (Cuban Missile Crisis). Many New Democrats are about pronouns in the postmodern soup and the Green New Deal. This presses upwards upon the liberal international and global worldview. This dynamic seems to occupy the folks in charge at the moment (dovetailing with elements of the Eurocracy), pivoting from the Health/Safety COVID worldview to defending human and Western interests.

It’s been…strange to see Susan Glasser at the New Yorker become rabidly pro-Ukraine and a war hawk, but…here we are.

Additionally, I see an increasingly aged and brittle American political system, with increasing disorder and much lower public trust (for many good reasons). From Elder Bush–Clinton–Clinton–Younger Bush–Younger Bush–Almost a Clinton/Obama–Obama–Trump—Biden (Obama’s VP), I’d argue a calcification has clearly occurred. This is why I see a fair amount of regular folks and intellectual folks checking out, or seeking alternatives.

What might I have gotten right? Wrong?

Afghanistan, Environmentalism & Vaccines-Some Midweek Links

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-A take on Afghanistan. Was Bin Laden primarily a charismatic modernist rather than a Muslim?

-According to one view of the modern world, the ‘environment’ is worth the lives of those on the margins. Theodore Dalrymple on the potential effects: Will Britain Shiver?

-Via Edward Feser: Geach’s argument against modernism.

-Via Walter Russell Mead at the WSJ (behind a paywall): Global Free Trade Is In Crisis

-On that note, a reader links to Paul Kingsnorth (former environmentalist looking for deeper meaning) regarding the vaccines and the current state of many institutions (related to the search for deeper meaning)

Worse Incentives & Bad Knowledge In Bad Faith-What Worries Me Most

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Dear Reader, I think I’m a reasonably normal person. My primary loyalties are to those I love most (and how politics might affect us). Should the terrorist threat become dangerous enough, no sitting President, nor anyone responsible for the security of American citizens at home, will allow organized terrorist organizations a staging area in Afpak. The lower probability, but higher consequences, of a terror attack here, will likely dictate some sort of action there (SpecOps, intel, cyber warfare, drones etc.). This can affect my family/loved ones directly (the attack and the laws and policy coming out of the threat, and the incentives for all of us dealing with the threat).

People on the right, and myself more often, place higher value on defeating external threats. We’re more likely to route decision-making through a few nodes against these external threats (or tens of thousands of nodes in the current, bloated, semi-woke monstrosity of a Pentagon and contractor complex). I hope it’s in as good faith as possible.

The common defense is the primary reason we have a government in the first place.

People on the Left, as I see things, generally will see the primary threat within the West (the oppressor), and/or rally their troops against the threats to health/education and the institutions in which they gather (COVID safetyism and authoritarian impulses through the health/education industrial complex, for example).

My next ring of loyalty is to those few I know who’ve served in Afpak who are friends and fellow citizens. They volunteered and heard the call. They saw, and sometimes did, some shit…to keep us safer here. This is a thankless task. I live in a country of laws and borders. It’s a place. This place is my home. It comes with freedoms and responsibilities.

My next ring of loyalty (concentric rings) are to those standing up for policy and who claim to speak in my name as politicians and lawmakers, and maybe those who stand up for Afghanistan (Afghanis) with the help of our troops. This loyalty is much more negotiable for me personally, and lately, much more negotiable than ever in my lifetime. I simply don’t really trust our politics to handle immigration reasonably at the moment.

This saddens me, because some honorable, decent people are getting chopped up as a result.

The fact which worries me most: Our political leadership is especially sclerotic, failing in many important ways, for many important reasons. The Afghanistan withdrawal disaster was a conscious decision, and a clusterfuck.

Politics, to some extent, corrupts military leadership. The longer ex-generals hang around the political sphere, the less honor and respect they tend to wield. The longer politicians hang around Washington (especially past their sell-by date), the less honor and respect they hopefully wield (there’s probably a point of ideal ripeness/rottenness). At this point, the rank and file has more reasons than ever to question our political and military leadership. And we’re not even at the bottom of woke yet, with many illiberal and righteous actors leveraging bad knowledge in bad faith (as I see things).

The more conflicts that pile up from the bottom of a military hierarchy, and the more reasons anyone on the bottom has to question, bypass, endure or challenge the hierarchy itself, the more brittle the hierarchy.

Dear Reader, this worries me most.

A Few More Links On The Afghanistan Withdrawal Mess

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When truth and reality fade, from the views within institutions; when the virtue required to maintain a Republic wanes, the rot merely becomes more visible. Legitimate authority becomes much, much harder to maintain.

Oh, there always have been horse-tradin’ types, somewhere between used car-salesman and admirable men sacrificing their liberty for the rest of us. There were always assholes and charlatans, glad-handing lifers, as well as principled men sticking their fingers into the political winds for their turn at the wheel.

Gathering some views on the Afghanistan ‘withdrawal’, and the current clusterfuckery.

About that Haqqani network.

I’d like to think if you’ve been paying any kind of attention, you’d have realized we’ve got a lot of serious problems. Internal problems. Some system-wide problems.

What say you?

Repost-Some Links On Robert Kagan’s New Book: ‘The Jungle Grows Back: America And Our Imperiled World’

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Our author reviews Robert Kagan’s new book ‘The Jungle Grows Back: America And Our Imperiled World.’

The piece contains liberal pushback (the search for a center?) against what’s argued to be Kagan’s proselytizing neo-conservatism.

I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t advocate for too many young people to join a military run by the current institutional leadership without serious thought. You may have your reasons, but think twice:

‘That is precisely what today’s moment cries out for: Kennan’s humility rather than a new crusade against a new Evil Empire. It cries out for a skeptical liberalism that sees the world as it is rather than going looking for new monsters to destroy.’

Our ideological troubles spring, I have argued before, from liberalism’s lack of perceived legitimacy. Authoritarianism emerges as a symptom either where the liberal approach to organizing society has failed to take root, or where an established liberalism is seen to be overreaching unopposed. We ought to be on the lookout for these failures of liberalism—for “the appeals to core elements of human nature that liberalism does not always satisfy,”

There’s lots of stuff in the piece for regular readers of this blog (Mention of Edmund Burke, Isaiah Berlin etc.).

The author finishes with the area of most shared agreement [between himself] and Kagan (a view of ‘teleological’ progressivism as dangerously narrow and very authoritarian itself; delegitimizing and destabilizing Western liberalism from within).

It’s going to be harder to deal with the rest of the world when these core elements of debate rage within Western hearts, minds and institutions:

‘The Jungle Grows Back is an important book insofar as it contains all the debates outlined above within it. And Kagan opens the space for these ideas to breathe a little by rightly dismissing teleological progressivism in his book’s opening pages—a great service that makes reading the book a richer experience than it otherwise might have been. But a more moderate, and therefore much wiser, conclusion is passed over by an author whose commitment to his priors prevents him from seeing what a gem he might have had on his hands. It’s too bad.’

Kagan discusses the book here with what I’d describe as an evolutionary psychologist/soft-ish Marxist:

Also On This Site: Taking on the telos of progress and questioning  modern liberal assumptions with a largely nihilistic approach (progress is learned but doesn’t stay learned in human affairs; the lesson of various 20th centry writers and one of the main purposes of a humanities education): Repost-John Gray At The Literary Review Takes A Look At A New Book On Michael Oakeshott: ‘Last Of The Idealists’…Repost-John Gray Reviews Francis Fukuyama At The Literary Review: ‘Destination Denmark’…Repost-Classical Liberalism Via Friesian.Com-‘Exchange with Tomaz Castello Branco on John Gray’

People on the Left and a more moderate middle, and from libertarian conservative backgrounds are increasingly challenging core ideological assumptions of far Left doctrines having crept into so many institutions.  They must defend their own disciplines and be of exemplary character: Repost-Moving Towards Truth And Liberty, But What To Conserve?-Some Thoughts On The Bret & Eric Weinstein Interview…Jonathan Haidt At Heterodox Academy: ‘The Blasphemy Case Against Bret Weinstein, And Its Four Lessons For Professors’…Charles Murray From ‘The Happiness Of People’…The Hoover Institution Via Youtube: Charles Murray On ‘Coming Apart’

Repost-Looking For Liberals In The Postmodern Wilderness-Jordan Peterson & Stephen Hicks

A restatement of Anglican, British conservatism with deep Kantian, Hegelian roots: Repost-Roger Scruton At The WSJ: ‘Memo To Hawking: There’s Still Room For God’…Link To Roger Scruton’s First Of Three Charles Test Lectures Hosted By Princeton University

The Religious Conservative American right advocating a step back from a common Constitutional project?: Two Links To Rod Dreher On How To Live And What To Do... Another view of the 60’s radicalism on campus: Repost-A Few Thoughts On Robert Bork’s “Slouching Towards Gomorrah”

Out of the Valley of modernism, post-modernism, and relativism…one path from Nietzsche’s nihilism is through Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom: Update And Repost: ‘A Few Thoughts On Allan Bloom–The Nietzsche / Strauss Connection’…Some Tuesday Quotations From Leo Strauss…From Peter Berkowitz At Harvard: ‘The Reason Of Revelation: The Jewish Thought Of Leo Strauss’

Kant chopped the head off from German deism and the German State has been reeling every since…is value pluralism a response?: A Few Thoughts On Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts Of Liberty”

Adam Garfinkle At The American Interest on Egypt: ‘Still More of the Same—and Something New’

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Full post here.

From a Reuters article as Egypt holds elections:

‘Both contenders may herald further turbulence. An Islamist president will face a mistrustful army, while a victory by a Mubarak-era general will rile the revolutionaries on the street.’

and from Garfinkle’s piece:

No one knows where this will all lead. The satyrs of history are on the loose again. Many say that, after Tahrir Square, Egypt will never be the same. And that is true: Egyptians have dared to dream that things could be different, better, and that their own hands and hearts could make a difference. But most likely, in two or three years’ time Egypt will look for all practical purposes very much the same as it did before the so called revolution’

And a previous quote from Walter Russell Mead:

‘What we are seeing in the streets of Cairo is less a revolution seeking to take shape than a haggling process.  The leaders of the Egyptian political parties want to be able to choose all the parliamentary candidates through naming them to parliamentary lists.  That would make party leaders the chief power brokers in a parliamentary regime.  The military wants more MPs to be elected as individuals, weakening the parties and making it easier for the real powers in the country to manipulate the parliamentary process.’

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Update:  The Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Mursi claims victory with 52% of the vote…we’ll see how this goes from here as the military is unlikely to transfer power to the office of the Presidency.  Where has there been a deep transformation in Egyptian society…deep enough to embark on a bold new path of representative government?:

The Shafiq campaign rejected Morsi’s claim of victory and accused him to trying to “usurp” the presidency or lay the groundwork to challenge the official result if it shows Shafiq winning

Another Update:  Mubarak suffers a stroke.

Related On This Site:From Abu Muqawama: ‘Mubarak And Me’…From Michael Totten: ‘The New Egyptian Underground’…Michael Totten At The American Interest: “A Leaner, Meaner Brotherhood”

Francis Fukuyama At The American Interest Online: ‘Political Order in Egypt’

Walter Russell Mead At The American Interest: ‘Mubaraks, Mamelukes, Modernizers and Muslims’……James Kirchik At The American Interest: ‘Egyptian Liberals Against the Revolution’

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From Foreign Policy: ‘No Brothers In Arms In Egypt’

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Full piece here.

A more tense relationship has developed between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Supreme Council Of The Armed Forces, which is essentially running the country.

As Murad Mohamed Aly, a Morsi campaign official, told me, “The Egyptians did not revolt to get rid of Mubarak … to get another Mubarak — Shafiq or someone.” And this same logic could apply to Amr Moussa, Mubarak’s former foreign minister who currently leads most national polls. “We have strong doubts that Egyptians will elect someone who is connected to the previous regime,” said Aly. “If [Moussa is elected] through interference, we will protest.”

A previous quote from Walter Russell Mead:

‘What we are seeing in the streets of Cairo is less a revolution seeking to take shape than a haggling process.  The leaders of the Egyptian political parties want to be able to choose all the parliamentary candidates through naming them to parliamentary lists.  That would make party leaders the chief power brokers in a parliamentary regime.  The military wants more MPs to be elected as individuals, weakening the parties and making it easier for the real powers in the country to manipulate the parliamentary process.’

Related On This Site: Walter Russell Mead At The American Interest: ‘Mubaraks, Mamelukes, Modernizers and Muslims’……James Kirchik At The American Interest: ‘Egyptian Liberals Against the Revolution’

From Abu Muqawama: ‘Mubarak And Me’…From Michael Totten: ‘The New Egyptian Underground’…Michael Totten At The American Interest: “A Leaner, Meaner Brotherhood”

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