“while it’s cheap and easy to take swipes at the President over U.S. foreign policy, precisely what anyone would do differently or better is not abundantly clear.”

How about not throwing Mubarack under the bus?  The man who’d maintained the peace primarily w/ Israel, but also the Middle East.  Wars don’t break out there w/o at least Egypt’s tacit support.

Can’t blame Oblunder?  With the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists waiting in the wings?  Even I foresaw the coming disaster – war, sharia, and pestilence.  And I’m no Middle East wonk.

The Egyptian Military has been selling us out for decades. Mubarak’s son the one who was heir apparent was in the process of trying to give  the civilian side of the government independence of and ascendance over the military. Absent “Arab spring” when Mubarak died there a high probability that there would have been a coup behind the scenes perhaps but a coup none the less. My biggest fear for Egypt is that in the inevitable chaos their pre-seventh century heritage will be lost or destroyed.

Adjoran, Egypt has a lot of problems, but assignment of arbitrary borders is not one of them.  Egypt (at least 95% of its population) remains the Nile Valley, from Aswan to the Delta.  The remainder are a few oasis communities in Western Egypt and Sinai.  With the exception of Northern Sudan, the current map of Egypt is pretty darn close to its historic borders. 

Nor is Egypt a barbaric culture.  It is actually a fairly complex and refined culture (that the place has not completely fallen apart is in large part do to that culture).  But it is a corrupt and hobbled culture (and if we can blame anyone for that it is the Ottomans).  And its economy is stimed and people with talent either have to join the baksheesh economy or leave. 

The current Islamic movement is just a swing from socialism under Nassar, and American subsidized cronyism under Sadat-Mumbarak-Egyptian Army.  Well that and a population explosion of about 30 million people with no jobs for them to do.   What Egypt needs is a transformation like what happened in Taiwan and South Korea so all those young Egyptians can make money. 

And hirsute Hatshepsut.  She was a female pharaoh with a beard! 

I find myself in agreement with MaDrr, if we’re speaking in a practical fashion.

Joe has a good point about the cultural slant, but the downturn started with Mohammadism, which even for the 7th Century — when life was cheap, and barbarism was the rule — strove to find the spectrum-endpoint on man’s ability to rival Satan’s cruelty, dishonesty, and evil.

If we were going to go a-building, ala Japan, we needed to do it after we defeated the Nazis instead of allowing a power vacuum to form. The winner in a power vacuum is the group most willing to discard the rules and slit throats… something wholly enshrined as holy – along with lying and treaty-breaking in the various moslem scriptures. Tailor-made as a political power philosophy.

Seeing who was running our country during this period, and seeing how wonderfully islam meshes with Progressivism, AND knowing it was Mr. Peanut who kicked-off the current state of affairs — I can’t help but wonder how much was happenstance (don’t let good seeds go to waste) and how much was generally designed.

While you couldn’t predict the patterns closely, you’d be able to palm a card during the deal every hand, keep the atavistic pot bubbling, and turn the simmering pot of muslem inferiority complex up to a boil and have it bubble over when it could do the most good.

As for the long-range thinking necessary, we’re talking about people who took Gramsci’s advice and have over the same timeframe turned our schools into Progie brainwashing centers. Considering the makeup of the State dept during this period it wouldn’t have been difficult to do.

All Part Of The Plan

The outcome of Egypt’s devolution into an Islamic state is not in doubt. What is in doubt is whether it will be a satellite of Turkey, of Iran, or of Wahabist Saudi Arabia.

Egypt will follow whomever can put it to work, put bread and meat on the table, and forgive the coming paroxisms of rage as Islamist promises prove empty.

Our POTUS could not have resolved Egypt’s basic problem – an untenable economy. He can’t even balance his own checkbook, let alone the US of A’s.

AW speaks rightly.  The cause of the current conditions of the Islamic controlled portion of the Middle East goes back a long ways. 

I’m not sure that there ever was a practical way of fixing the problems, not when crazy is burned into the culture, nearly at the genetic level.

” If we were going to go a-building, ala Japan”
So we should nuke’m first (twice). I like it.

If the Mohammedins take power, they will eventually destroy the ancient Egyptian palaces, temples, and tombs — the Koran demands this.  Ancient Buddhist statues anyone?

Please don’t take offense at this, but: sod off you wanker!

It was Britain that brought Western Civilization and order to the savages of the world.   Without the Pax Britannia there would have been no Pax Americana.

My second will be contacting your second.

It doesn’t matter, DavoO: the Muslim Brotherhood, which cares not for national boundaries will be in control.  A Mohammedin is a Mohammedin is a Mohammedin.

No, R2P doesn’t operate on American exceptionalism, Mr. Smitty. R2P expressly operates on a humanitarian basis to help prevent crimes against humanity.

This was President Obama’s MO to begin with. It was very clear.