A story popular in Lebanon at the time of its bank crisis last fall tells of a scorpion on the bank of the Nile who asked a frog to ferry him to the other side.
"Oh no," the frog said. You would sting me."
"That's ridiculous," the scorpion replied, "because then I would drown."
Convinced, the frog took the scorpion on his back and began to swim the river. In midstream, the scorpion's lethal urge became too strong and he plunged his stinger into the frog's neck.
The sinking frog groaned, "Why, why?"
The scorpion gave his final shrug and replied, "This is the Middle East."
Reader's Digest 1967 as retold in Snopes
The Obama administration said for the first time that it supports a role for groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Islamist organization, in a reformed Egyptian government.(No word yet if Obama is going to ask the Muslim Brotherhood to change their logo)
The organization must reject violence and recognize democratic goals if the U.S. is to be comfortable with it taking part in the government, the White House said. But by even setting conditions for the involvement of such nonsecular groups, the administration took a surprise step in the midst of the crisis that has enveloped Egypt for the last week.
What could go wrong?
Does anyone remember Iran?
Here is a reminder of the high hopes for reform in Iran after the US deserted the Shah:
I would like to remind people that after the 1979 revolution in Iran, the secularists and the various religious groups united to form a coalition government. Within a year, the Islamic Republic party (two of the members of which were Rafsanjani and Khamenei) completely took control and turned Iran into a totalitarian state in the guise of a so-called “Islamic” republic that took away many of the hard-earned rights that Iranians had gained in the last century. This regime is still in power in Iran today, executing opposition members and Iranian citizens who dare oppose them.History does not appear to be one of the strengths of the Obama administration. Let's put aside the message that the US cannot be trusted to stand by its allies when the going gets tough. The fact remains that the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist group with a history of murder and assassinations--and that would include the assassination of Anwar Sadat.
I would like to remind people that when Khomeini came to Iran he promised freedom, democracy and human rights. As we are seeing today — with people telling us not to worry about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt — in Iran in the early days of the revolution people said the same about Khomeini and his minions. Western media and even western leaders, including former U.S. President, Jimmy Carter, tried to deal with the government of Khomeini, only to see radical so-called “students” who called themselves “Followers of the Imam’s Line” occupy the U.S. embassy in Tehran and take its employees hostage for 444 days, only to release them on the day that Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President, humiliating Carter and releasing a new meme–the idea that Islamic revolution could spread throughout the world. Radical Islam has been with us since.
Obviously, Obama wants to avoid being pegged as the president who lost Egypt, but that is not a reason to jump at false hopes. Tom Malinowski, Washington director for Human Rights Watch, was one of the experts who told the White House National Security Council that Mubarak needs to leave. According to Malinowski:
The fear that some of us have is that when men like [new Egyptian Vice President Omar] Suleiman hear words like 'orderly transition' and 'reform,' they may not define them in the same way that President Obama defines them.The question Obama needs to ask is whether he seriously believes that the Muslim Brotherhood does.
Technorati Tag: Egypt and Mubarak and Muslim Brotherhood and Obama.
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