Here’s the truth of it: You don’t need an $80-billion-plus budget and a morass of 17 intelligence agencies to look at the world and draw a few intelligent conclusions. Nor do you need $80 billion-plus and that same set of agencies to be caught off-guard by developments on our sometimes amazing planet. Last Thursday, Leon …
Continue reading “Weapons of Mass Disruption”
The last thing the U.S. policy elite wants is real democracy in Egypt. That country has been a linchpin of American foreign policy for more than 30 years precisely because its government has been able to defy the will of the Egyptian people. If that should change now, America’s rulers and their Israeli partners will …
Continue reading “The US Versus the Egyptian People”
As a native Egyptian who left seeking opportunities for a better, more humane life unavailable under Mubarak’s rule, I see the events currently unfolding in Egypt as both surreal and inevitable. It all began in 1975, when Anwar El Sadat chose an inconspicuous military hero to be his vice president. The choice was surprising because …
Continue reading “Mubarak’s Last Act”
With new anti-government demonstrations expected in Cairo and other Egyptian cities Tuesday, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama appears to have concluded that the 29-year reign of President Hosni Mubarak is coming to an end. But it hopes to avoid calling publicly for Mubarak’s departure, even as U.S. officials are scrambling to engage the …
Continue reading “Obama Looking Beyond Mubarak”
A long-oppressed people finally rises up and braves tanks, secret police thugs, and the inertia of routine humiliation to say: “Enough”! Who could fail to sympathize? Well, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Michigan), for one: “The Egyptian demonstrations are not the equivalent of Iran’s 2009 Green Revolution. The Egyptian demonstrations are the reprise of Iran’s 1979 radical …
Continue reading “The Hosni Mubarak Fan Club”
The Egyptian government’s crackdown on political opponents continues unabated in advance of parliamentary elections Nov. 28, even as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week hailed the “partnership” between the two countries as “a cornerstone of stability and security in the Middle East and beyond.” In the latest example of a widespread campaign of media …
Continue reading “Mubarak’s Critics See Hypocrisy in US Support”
Charles Peña on Obama in Cairo
President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo to the Muslim world marked a welcome departure from the Bush administration’s confrontational approach. Yet many Arabs and Muslims have expressed frustration that he failed to use this opportunity to call on the autocratic Saudi and Egyptian leaders with whom he had visited on his Middle Eastern trip to …
Continue reading “How Not to Support Democracy in the Middle East” 
