Obama trying to rewrite history on Egypt

From “that’s not going to cut it” to mush from the wimp

Posted: 03 Jul 2013 08:27 AM PDT

(Paul Mirengoff)

The New York Times claims that, for the Obama administration, the current crisis in Egypt is “a replay” of the crisis of early 2011 when protesters demanded the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. According to the Times:

Then, as now, Mr. Obama has moved gingerly, placing a call to President Mohamed Morsi late Monday evening with a message not unlike the one he delivered to his predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, two and a half years earlier: Exercise restraint and allow the protesters to express their views peacefully.

The Times thus engages in revisionist history. Obama did not proceed “gingerly” with Mubarak, America’s long-time ally. Instead, he called on Mubarak to step down immediately. When the embattled Egyptian president gave a speech in which he promised not to run for office again, but said he would not step down, Obama’s response, according to the Times, was “that’s not going to cut it.”

Has Obama had a “not going to cut it” moment with Morsi? It does not seem so.

Certainly, there was no sign of one during the last 12 months, when Morsi attempted to undermine Egyptian civil society and silence opposition, moves that helped precipitate the current turmoil. During this period, from all that appears, Obama responded not by telling Morsi that his authoritarianism wouldn’t cut it, but rather by supplying his regime with arms and money, and by attempting to make Morsi look like a statesman during the recent crisis in Gaza.

Obama and Hillary Clinton also warned off the military, which was alarmed by Morsi’s sectarianism. And, as the crisis mounted, Obama’s woman in Cairo, ambassador Anne Patterson, remained vocally supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood man.

Now that Obama’s policy appears to have broken down, he’s hedging his bets, telling Morsi that the U.S. “does not support any particular group” and that he “should listen to the Egyptian people.”

This is mush from the wimp. It is not, as the New York Times would have it, a case of Obama acting as he did towards Mubarak.

 Ros-Lehtinen to Newsmax: Obama 'Bet on Wrong Folks' in Egypt

Wednesday, 03 Jul 2013 09:01 PM

By Todd Beamon and John Bachman
The military coup in Egypt shows that “the Obama administration has thoroughly failed when it comes to handling the post-Arab Spring revolution,” Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen tells Newsmax TV.

“They've bet on the wrong folks time and time again,” the Florida Republican tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview. “Many of us in Congress were saying: ‘Guys, look at the Muslim Brotherhood. This is a group that's going to take over — and it's not going to be what you think.’”


On Wednesday, Egyptian Army chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi announced that President Mohammed Morsi had been removed and was replaced with the chief justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court. He also suspended the Islamist-backed constitution and called for early presidential elections.

Morsi’s ouster as the nation’s first elected leader comes two years after the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in another popular uprising.

The Arab world's most populous nation has been in turmoil since the fall of Mubarak as Arab Spring uprisings took hold in early 2011, arousing concern among allies in the West and in Israel, with which Egypt has a 1979 peace treaty.

First elected to the House in 1989, Ros-Lehtinen is the senior woman Republican in the lower chamber. She was chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and currently is chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Middle East and South Asia.

“The Obama administration is adrift when it comes to policy in the Middle East or North Africa,” she tells Newsmax. “Morsi came in with the Muslim Brotherhood. What does that mean?

“They were anti-Christian, anti-minority, anti-women — and one year after Morsi won in ‘his election’ and all of the millions of dollars that the Obama administration badly wasted in this government, the people have risen up and said: ‘No, you have failed us. We want you out. We want to try again.’”

The United States sends $1.5 billion annually in military and economic assistance to Egypt.