Obama's Crumbling Foreign/Domestic Policies!

Obama seems to choke every time he is called upon to make a meaningful vote so is his deferral of the pipeline decision simply the equivalent of another act of slowly choking the nation? You decide. (See 1 below.)
---
Let's all come together in an act of national unison and in the spirit of Thanksgiving hate the rich! (See 2 below.)

While we are at it we can also express our contempt for those on the 'super committee' who, I wrote earlier, actually did us a favor by failing to accomplish their goal. (See 2a below.)

Then if you have any misplaced anger left you might take a look at the turkey in The White House whose 'brilliant' leadership has been absent throughout.
---
Some time ago, I suggested Iran should be attacked and the focus should be on taking out their pitiful air force, their utility grid and bases housing the Revolutionary Guard troops - thereby, turning off the nation's lights. In keeping with their blind leadership such an attack, I maintained then and still do, in conjunction with an increased financial stranglehold which Obama seems opposed to, would bring the Ayatollahs to their knees. Now I seem to have company. (See 3 below.)
---
So much for Obama and Clinton's restarting the clock strategy.

Has their Timex just been destroyed? Does Russia's Medvedev see a feckless American president? Are we going back to the period when Kruschev tested Kennedy? Is it all posturing? (See 4 below.)

Meanwhile, The prospect of an Egyptian democracy and remnants of Israel's diplomatic relationship with Egypt seems to lie on the floor of the desert sands! (See 4a and
4b below.)


Obama's foreign policy accomplishments are in shambles just as are his domestic ones and yet there is a good chance this incompetent, arrogant and divisive president could be re-elected. How tragic a thought.
---
The easiest way to lose a discussion or debate is when you allow your opponent to reverse the discussion. Every time I ask a Liberal to defend Obama's accomplishments they tell me how bad the Republican alternative is.

Instead of talking about cancer they want to discuss headaches.

So it has become with Romney. Imminently qualified in many ways, somewhat of a flip flopper but no more than the 'messiah' and yet Republicans hold their nose at the prospect. This is self defeating. (See 5 below.)
---
Dick
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1U.S. energy policy: A slow national suicide
With Keystone XL delay, America continues its slow economic strangulation
By Charles Campbell

In 1969, three unrelated events occurred that have since been combined with political bungling to slowly strangle the U.S. economy. Moammar Gadhafi overthrew King Idris of Libya. He nationalized Western oil company reserves with no retribution from the U.S. Sensing our weakness, all of the other OPEC nations abrogated their concession agreements with U.S. companies. The Arab producers cut back production and embargoed the U.S. because of our support for Israel. Middle East despots have been in the driver's seat ever since, and as the Arab Spring seems increasingly likely to empower Islamists, things are unlikely to get better.

Also that year, an oil spill from a drilling platform off Santa Barbara was the catalyst for the current environmentalist efforts to prevent all exploration on the continental shelves on the East and West coasts and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. U.S. crude production went into irreversible decline.

Finally, in 1969 synthetic crude oil from the Athabasca tar sand of Alberta, Canada, began to be produced. It has been transported without incident to U.S. refiners by pipeline for 40 years. There is now an environmental movement to prevent the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline to deliver additional tar sands crude from Alberta to the U.S. to make up for declining U.S. production. Opponents of Keystone XL won a victory this month when President Barack Obama refused to sign off on the pipeline's proposed route, forcing at least a year's delay as the project is reconfigured.
These are the same environmentalists, of course, who block exploration on the continental shelves and ANWR, which adds to the U.S. and global oil shortage, driving up prices that make the Athabasca tar sands projects viable. In any event, if Keystone XL is blocked, a pipeline will be built to Canada's West Coast for Chinese deliveries. This will reduce China's need for Middle East crude and increase our requirements for supplies from people who want to destroy the U.S.

The administration continues to push for wind and sun projects (see the Solyndra debacle). Multiple studies show that wind power does not reduce carbon dioxide because of the inefficient cycling operations in fossil fuel plants to provide instant power into the grid when the wind stops blowing.

As for solar, to provide a measurable amount of power it would be necessary to cover a major portion of the Mojave Desert with mirrors to collect heat at the peak of the day and again would require cycling of fossil fuel plants to make up for when the sun doesn't shine.

The same radical opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline has expanded to the production of natural gas from the Marcellus shale formation, which stretches from New York through Pennsylvania and Maryland into West Virginia, with unsubstantiated claims of impending disaster for the water tables. Hydro-fracturing has been used in secondary/tertiary oil and gas recovery for 60 years in the West with no detrimental effect on the environment or water supplies, and coupled with horizontal drilling is responsible for raising crude production in the Dakotas to slow U.S. declines. Maryland has a moratorium on shale gas production.

Much-maligned Big Oil still has the only technology capable of developing additional energy supplies, shorn of government impediments. Meanwhile, anti-nuclear activists have stopped all consideration of nuclear power in the U.S. in the wake of Fukushima — which, despite being the worst nuclear meltdown in history, caused no nuclear-related deaths.

CFP of France was thrown out of the Middle East, along with the U.S. companies, in 1974. The country immediately launched a focused strategy to reduce reliance on Mideast oil. Today France has the world's most sophisticated high-speed electric rail system, produces 80 percent of its power by nuclear plants and reprocesses its spent nuclear fuel. The Nissan Renault Leaf pure electric car is now in mass production. By 2030, France will be essentially carbon dioxide free except for jet fuel and diesel fuel for heavy truck transportation.

Sun and wind will never become a significant portion of our energy mix. High-priced oil since the 1970s has created 40 years of extensive conservation; there is little more to be gained. We can either emulate the French and in parallel aggressively expand our fossil fuel resources or face a slow, brutal economic decline against rising Asian power, coupled to increasing risks from an increasingly volatile region that controls the world's oil supplies.

The garrote is an unpleasant execution by slow strangulation. It is extremely difficult to commit national suicide by turning the handle ourselves, but we are trying.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)Should the Rich Be Condemned?
Walter E. Williams

Thomas Edison invented the incandescent bulb, the phonograph, the DC motor and other items in everyday use and became wealthy by doing so. Thomas Watson founded IBM and became rich through his company's contribution to the computation revolution. Lloyd Conover, while in the employ of Pfizer, created the antibiotic tetracycline. Though Edison, Watson, Conover and Pfizer became wealthy, whatever wealth they received pales in comparison with the extraordinary benefits received by ordinary people. Billions of people benefited from safe and efficient lighting. Billions more were the ultimate beneficiaries of the computer, and untold billions benefited from healthier lives gained from access to tetracycline.

President Barack Obama, in stoking up class warfare, said, "I do think at a certain point you've made enough money." This is lunacy. Andrew Carnegie's steel empire produced the raw materials that built the physical infrastructure of the United States. Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft and produced software products that aided the computer revolution. But Carnegie had amassed quite a fortune long before he built Carnegie Steel Co., and Gates had quite a fortune by 1990. Had they the mind of our president, we would have lost much of their contributions, because they had already "made enough money."

Class warfare thrives on ignorance about the sources of income. Listening to some of the talk about income differences, one would think that there's a pile of money meant to be shared equally among Americans. Rich people got to the pile first and greedily took an unfair share. Justice requires that they "give back." Or, some people talk about unequal income distribution as if there were a dealer of dollars. The reason some people have millions or billions of dollars while others have very few is the dollar dealer is a racist, sexist, a multinationalist or just plain mean. Economic justice requires a re-dealing of the dollars, income redistribution or spreading the wealth, where the ill-gotten gains of the few are returned to their rightful owners.

In a free society, for the most part, people with high incomes have demonstrated extraordinary ability to produce valuable services for -- and therefore please -- their fellow man. People voluntarily took money out of their pockets to purchase the products of Gates, Pfizer or IBM. High incomes reflect the democracy of the marketplace. The reason Gates is very wealthy is millions upon millions of people voluntarily reached into their pockets and handed over $300 or $400 for a Microsoft product. Those who think he has too much money are really registering disagreement with decisions made by millions of their fellow men.

In a free society, in a significant way income inequality reflects differences in productive capacity, namely one's ability to please his fellow man. For example, I can play basketball and so can LeBron James, but would the Miami Heat pay me anything close to the $43 million they pay him? If not, why not? I think it has to do with the discriminating tastes of basketball fans who pay $100 or more to watch the game. If the Miami Heat hired me, they would have to pay fans to watch.

Stubborn ignorance sees capitalism as benefiting only the rich, but the evidence refutes that. The rich have always been able to afford entertainment; it was the development and marketing of radio and television that made entertainment accessible to the common man. The rich have never had the drudgery of washing and ironing clothing, beating out carpets or waxing floors. The mass production of washing machines, wash-and-wear clothing, vacuum cleaners and no-wax floors spared the common man this drudgery. At one time, only the rich could afford automobiles, telephones and computers. Now all but a small percentage of Americans enjoy these goods.

The prospects are dim for a society that makes mascots out of the unproductive and condemns the productive.

Walter E. Williams
Dr. Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and is the author of 'Race and Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination?' and 'Up from the Projects: An Autobiography.'

2a3)Failure or Success?
Thomas Sowell

Many people are lamenting the failure of the Congressional "Super Committee" to come up with an agreement on ways to reduce the runaway federal deficits. But you cannot judge success or failure without knowing what the goal was.

If you think the goal was to solve the country's fiscal crisis, then obviously the Super Committee was a complete failure. But, if you think the goal was to improve the chances of the Obama administration being re-elected in 2012, it was a complete success.

Imagine that there had been no Super Committee in the first place. Who would be blamed for the country's fiscal crisis? The overwhelmingly Democratic Congress that voted to spend the money which increased the deficits more during the Obama administration than in the eight years of George W. Bush.

When the Obama administration's massive spending spree was going on, Republicans were so hopelessly outnumbered in both houses of Congress that nothing that the Congressional Republicans could say or do would have the slightest effect.

Even the cleverest political spin-master would have a hard time trying to keep blame from falling on the Obama administration, without the later shift of attention to the debt crisis.

Two things got the blame shifted. The first was the national debt ceiling, which had to be raised, if politicians were not going to be forced to either cut existing programs or shut down the government -- neither of which was politically attractive.

By the time a vote on raising the national debt ceiling was required, Republicans had gotten control of the House of Representatives. This meant that the national debt issue was now a bipartisan issue, whereas the spending that drove the national debt up to that national debt ceiling had been a problem strictly for the Democrats.

Splitting the blame with the Republicans for what Democrats alone had done was a political victory, in terms of making the Obama administration less vulnerable at the polls in 2012.

With the help of the media, the big issue was no longer the big spending that drove the national debt up to the legal ceiling, but the failure of the Republicans to help solve the debt ceiling crisis.

Many people lamented the failure of President Obama to become engaged in the process of working out a solution to the fiscal crisis, and regarded that as a failing. But, again, success or failure depends on what goal you are trying to achieve.

If the goal was to reach a bipartisan solution to the country's fiscal crisis, then the president's involvement might have increased the chances of doing that. But, if the goal was to outsource the blame, then the president's fading away into the background was the perfect political ploy.

Appointing a bipartisan Super Committee with dramatic powers, and apparently dramatic consequences if they failed to reach agreement, created another long distraction in the media that took the president further out of the picture. When it came to media coverage of the country's financial crisis, it was almost a question of "Barack Who?"

The draconian spending cuts that were supposed to hang over the heads of the members of the Super Committee, like a sword of Damocles, turned out to be a cardboard sword when the inevitable failure to reach an agreement occurred.

A new Congress meets before these draconian cuts are supposed to happen -- and no Congress can be forced to do anything by a previous Congress. So all this turned out to be a grand charade -- and politicians are great at charades.

This one was a complete political success, because we are now talking about who is to blame for not coming up with a way of solving the fiscal crisis, rather than who did the runaway spending that caused that crisis in the first place.

An even longer-running charade is the budget-cutting charade, where big spenders promise to make spending cuts to match tax increases -- or even to exceed tax increases. Of course the tax increases come first and the spending cuts are spread out into the future -- and usually end up not taking place at all.

This particular charade could be ended by making the spending cuts take place first. But that would spoil the political game.

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of The Housing Bust
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3)How to Topple the Ayatollahs
Western strikes should target Tehran's military and paramilitary forces, crippling the regime's machinery of domestic repression.
By JAMSHEED K. CHOKSY

Why, despite the growing danger posed by Iran's nuclear program, have the United States and other nations restricted themselves to negotiations, economic sanctions and electronic intrusions? None of those tactics has been particularly effective or produced enduring changes.

The main argument against military action is that it would set Iran's nuclear program back only a few years, and that Tehran would retaliate directly and via surrogates, drawing the U.S. into another unwinnable war. Many fear also that Iranians will rally behind their regime with nationalist fervor, dashing hope of regime change for decades and turning Iran's largely pro-Western population against the West once again, to the mullahs' great benefit.

These concerns are based on worst-case scenarios that assume Iran has the resources to rebuild quickly, to retaliate without being thwarted, and to get the average Iranian to rally behind a regime hated for its violent oppression of dissent, stifling social codes, economic failures and isolationist policies. Yet Iran's government is already weakened by very public infighting between its much disliked ruling factions.

We should not conclude that a nuclear Iran is inevitable. Instead we should think about another way of confronting the threat. The real goal of air strikes should be not only to target Iran's nuclear facilities but to cripple the ayatollahs' ability to protect themselves from popular overthrow.

The mass uprisings in 2009—known as the Green Revolution—have dissipated because few protesters saw any hope of mustering the force necessary to defeat the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Basij paramilitary forces who brutally enforce Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's authority. Yet dissatisfaction and resentment still run deep across all social groups and economic ranks, even among civil-service bureaucrats, rank-and-file military men, and elected officials.

This means Western air strikes should hit other military production facilities and the bases of the IRGC and Basij. A foreign takedown of those enforcers would give Iran's population the opportunity to rise again. As a popular Tehrani female rapper notes: "No regime can hang on through intimidation and violence. We are ready and waiting. The regime thinks it has put out the fire. We are the burning coals under the ashes."

The IRGC's claims that it can retaliate significantly are largely bluster. The Iranian Navy's fast boats and midget submarines in the Persian Gulf could be eliminated through pinpoint strikes, as could army artillery batteries along the Strait of Hormuz—thereby removing any threat to the region's maritime trade, including crude oil shipments.

While the nuclear program may not be completely destroyed, sufficient damage will occur so even facilities deep underground would require several years of restoration. Most importantly, once the power of the Basij and the IRGC to enforce the regime's will upon the people has been seriously compromised, it would not be surprising to see large segments of Iran's population casting off the theocratic yoke.

The Libyan rebellion's successful ouster of a 42-year dictatorial elite is but one example of successful regime change. Another is the ongoing attempt by Syrians to end a nearly half-century dictatorship. A few months ago, few would have believed those revolutions would occur. Moreover, an Iranian uprising will be directed against Islamists, not by them. Were Iran's theocrats gravely weakened or swept away, Iran's sponsorship of terrorists and dictatorships would come to a halt—making groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and leaders like Bashar al-Assad, Kim Jong Il and Hugo Chávez more vulnerable.

A new Iranian nation would require economic aid and political guidance—from the U.S. and Europe—to develop representational governance. That would be a worthwhile investment. Crucially, even if a post-theocratic Iranian state gradually rebuilds its military and resumes its nuclear program, the weapons would not be in the hands of a regime so hostile to much of the world.

Regime change remains the best option for defusing the ayatollahs' nuclear threat, and it can best be achieved by the Iranian people themselves. Disabling the theocracy's machinery of repression would leave it vulnerable to popular revolt. Through such decisive actions, the U.S. and its allies could help Iranians bring the populist uprising of 2009 to a fitting culmination.

Mr. Choksy is professor of Iranian studies, senior fellow of the Center on American and Global Security, and former director of the Middle Eastern studies program at Indiana University.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4)Medvedev takes aim at US missile shield, targeting also Israel's missile defenses

After deploying three warships in Syrian waters, Moscow continues to beat war drums against the United States and Israel, followed closely by Tehran. Wednesday, Nov. 23, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced he had ordered "the armed forces to develop measures to ensure we can destroy the command and control systems" of the planned US missile-defense system in Europe. debkafile: Those systems also control Israel's missile defenses against Iranian, Syria and Hizballah missiles and the X-Band radar station in the Israeli Negev.



4a)Israel preparing for day when it has no relations with Egypt
By Sheera Frenkel

Jihadist Spring is inching forward

The surreptitious departure of Israel's ambassador from Egypt on Tuesday symbolized to many Israeli officials the new state of affairs between the neighboring countries.

Yitzhak Lebanon flew out of Cairo International Airport for the last time, ending his time in Cairo without a departure ceremony or even a nod of farewell from Egypt's foreign ministry. He had hardly been active in Cairo, having fled the Israeli Embassy there in September when rioters attacked and burned down part of the building. Since then, he has remained stationed in Israel, flying back occasionally for diplomatic meetings and to formally close his offices.

But Israeli officials saw his unheralded departure as a sign of Israeli-Egyptian relations to come.

"This is the state of relations now. There is no real diplomacy, just shuttling back and forth and talks at a bare minimum," said an official from Israel's foreign ministry, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak on the issue. "At least we still have relations."

Perhaps not for long. Officials said they are quietly preparing for what they called a "complete break" in diplomatic ties with Egypt. That would mark a dangerous downturn in Israel's relations with its neighbors unequalled in the past three decades.

"Our peace treaty with Egypt was the backbone of our diplomatic relations with the Arab world," said former ambassador Eli Shaked.

Even as events were unfolding Tuesday in Egypt, where the military government offered to step down in July, a concession thought unlikely to satisfy the tens of thousands of demonstrators who crowded into Tahrir Square, Israeli officials were considering it likely that whatever eventually happens there will bode ill for Israel.

Rumors have spread through Cairo that the tear gas and other weapons used by Egypt's military against the protesters were supplied by Israel — despite the English writing and U.S. serial labels found on empty tear gas canisters. Several forums on Facebook suggested that Israel was indirectly supporting the Egyptian military and pressing it to use harsh means against the protesters.

"Israeli evil is behind this," the deputy head of the Egyptian Al-Wasat Party, Osam Sultan, said Tuesday on Egyptian television.

Israeli news anchors showed the report alongside images of protesters in Tahrir Square burning Israeli flags as evidence that relations with Egypt were headed for a break.

"The chances that at the end of the democratic process we will have a secular, democratic, pro-Western Egypt, one that adheres to the peace agreement with Israel and views it as being in its national interest, are eroding," military correspondent Alex Fishman wrote in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronoth.

He added that the view among Israel's top diplomatic officials was that they "had lost Egypt" and that the widely supported Muslim Brotherhood Islamist group had asserted itself.

"Now there is concern — not just in Israel and in the U.S. but in all the pro-Western states around us — that the military junta will not be able to withstand the pressure and that the Muslim Brotherhood will also dictate how the elections are run and will attract many more votes than predicted in Egypt, more than Israel hoped or Washington prayed for," Fishman wrote.

Israeli officials were also said to be troubled by pledges from several Egyptian politicians that they would cut diplomatic ties with Israel after the elections.

"Although the relations between Egypt and Israel have been undermined after the collapse of Mubarak's regime, we are still unsatisfied with these conditions and serious efforts will be made after the elections to cut relations with the Zionist enemy completely," Majdi Hussein, the secretary-general of the Egyptian Amal Party, said at a press conference Tuesday in Cairo.


4b)Egypt the Middle East Fulcrum
By Yisrael Ne'eman

By now it is the increasingly unspoken Middle East nightmare, an Islamist Egypt. We are at the beginning of the end of secular Arab nationalism as the major force in the Muslim Arab Middle East – from now on "Arab" is increasingly the adjective while Muslim in the defining term or noun, hence Arab Muslim. In this latest round of violence in Cairo's Tahrir Square, this time directed against the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces transitional regime led by Gen. Tantawi, the Muslim Brotherhood on an official level may be "absent" from the demonstrations but behind the scenes they are in the lead. In case one forgets, the Muslim Brotherhood is the best organized most popular force in Egypt and yes, the Middle East today. The slogan "Islam is the Answer" will be increasingly heard throughout the region even if it is not being pushed at the moment. As the Facebook and Twitter liberal generation are ushered out one can expect a good few decades if not two generations of Islamic control in one form or another. The last several days of massive protests still finds liberals and secularists among the demonstrators but their presence and influence will dwindle. There are those like the Nobel Prize winning liberal and presidential candidate Mohammed ElBaradei who are calling for a national unity government to replace the military regime, but this can only be a temporary measure.

So why did everything explode just a week before the beginning of the election process? The military is accused of trying to force a legal framework whereby they would continue to hold power and reserve the right to intervene politically if they deem it necessary, something akin to the Ataturk legacy in Turkey until very recently. This is certainly an immediate cause but not necessarily the focus of all anger. Barely mentioned and much less discussed (especially if one watches the AlJazeera satellite station) is the army insistence on guaranteeing minority (Christian Copts) and individual rights (women and non-conformists). Now pit that against Muslim Brotherhood demands for Sharia law, even should it not be immediate. Let's be honest, if the military was advocating Sharia law while asserting its right to intervene in civilian matters liberals and secularists might take to the streets but there would not be tens of thousands of Islamists demanding "democracy" and an end to military intervention. Paradoxically some of the liberals are staying away, correctly understanding their future liberties are being defended more by the military than anyone else. Others are playing the democracy game, one which would work very well in Europe or America and are joining the demonstrators.

Although at the moment there is a façade of unity, the Brotherhood is the leading force behind the scenes, tactically attempting to calm the situation. Massive economic failure and lack of faith in the transitional military regime's promise to pass on full powers to a democratically elected civilian government has convinced many that Mubarak may no longer be around but his spiritual descendents continue to control the game. The Brotherhood wants next week's election process to begin (it is to go for several months) where they expect to make impressive gains and possibly attain a majority in parliament. Although they are being accused of cutting deals with their erstwhile enemies in the military which may cost them some support at the polls the liberal democratic free market secular option does not speak to most Egyptians whether they are the Delta peasantry or the urban destitute. Islam and the Brotherhood are the only serious game in town, all others are secondary.

Massive Western capital investment is out of the question – who in their right mind will invest in Egypt today? And even should they want to engage in foreign aid, what government in Europe or North America has the funds to do so? The average Egyptian demonstrating in Tahrir Square is frustrated, humiliated, impoverished and hungry – he feels betrayed by the once beloved military and is demanding an overall panacea. Egypt is on the way to bankruptcy having lost $15 billion in foreign currency reserves since Mubarak's ouster in February and the hemorrhaging continues. That leaves essentially two universal encompassing solutions once one counts out the Arab nationalist praetorian state and western style capitalism. Either take the Maoist route (with an Arab tinge) as done in China not long ago or turn to religion with an emphasis on trust in Allah and the afterlife should despair rule the day. In the face of rising anarchy, a turning inwards towards Islam appears the only answer. The Islamists are calling on the demonstrators to honor the people's will and move towards next week's elections. The idea is that in a step by step process the military will be sidelined and the Brotherhood can consolidate power.

What Western pro-democracy observers are forgetting is that democracy is not the tyranny of the majority but rather rule by the majority and equal rights for all including minority groups, women and specific groups and/or individuals with a different political, economic or social perspective. What we are seeing is popular anger against the military, yet to demand civilianization of the regime does not necessarily mean one supports democracy as an ideal. If holding elections is the way to gain power, so be it, but the results cannot be foretold as leading to democracy. The Muslim Brotherhood will not hold pro-democracy demonstrations, but rather demand elections to attain power. Should they not win power legally one can expect them to undermine the elected regime until they will succeed. As for elected regimes facing the wrath of the Muslim Brotherhood one should not forget the Hamas (Palestinian MB faction) armed overthrow of the unity government they had with the secular Fatah in Gaza (June 2007).

Although never elected, the legendary Arab nationalist Egyptian Pres. Gamal Abdul Nasser understood the tenacity of his adversary already in the 1950s when his regime suffered assassination attempts by the Islamists and he retaliated through massive repression. The previous regime of King Farouk suffered numerous murders of its top officials when Egypt was a semi-democracy. In 1949 its security forces retaliated and are said to have gunned down Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan el-Banna. Nasser for his part had the most renowned Muslim Brother ideologue Sayyed Qutb jailed several times and finally executed in 1966. Qutb's crimes were his ideals, in particular his demands for Jihad against all western influences and those who incorporated them into Muslim society. Qutb, who never killed anyone, is the commonly known ideological father of 9/11.

Egypt may very well go the way of the Iranian revolution (Feb. 1979) although by a different route, a more anarchical one. The Iranians unified around Khomeini, the Egyptians have no figure as such, not even the leading Brotherhood cleric Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi. In Egypt the demonstrators demand the ousting of the military but have no answer as to who will govern them in the aftermath. The street knows what it does not want - but knows not at all what it does want. In both cases secular dictators were overthrown despite support from the military. The Iranian transitional government led by hybrid anti-Shah factions including liberals and Islamic leftists was decimated within a year or so and the extreme Khomeinist Shiites took full control by the summer of 1981. In Egypt there are calls for compromise and a temporary national unity initiative very much echoing the first moderate administrations seen in Tehran. This may very well be the interim response, yet the more permanent answer will be with the Muslim Brotherhood. Their final objective is the achievement of an Islamist state.

To differentiate, the Egyptian military is the regime at the moment and was expected to shepard in a civilian administration. Today few see this as a transitional government and in light of the rising casualties many view Tantawi as Mubarak. In Iran the army declared neutrality when opposition forces gained power. The average enlisted man supported the Khomeini Revolution, not the Shah and his military. Some time in the near future Tantawi and the Supreme Council of the armed forces will find themselves in the same predicament and be forced to stand aside. A broad coalition will be formed and in systematic fashion the left, liberal democrats and moderate Islamists will be forced out. During continuing revolutionary crisis "the people" are known to seek the most radical of solutions. Anybody remember the first PM Mehdi Bazargan or President Abdulhassan Banisadr? Both advocated a liberal yet Islamic perspective including more civil rights and democratic frameworks. The former was gone after the American embassy hostage crisis in November and the latter when the revolution turned on itself liquidating its Islamic left wing in 1981. Moderation was short lived.

Too many are underestimating the power of Islam and the mosque. Imams and qadis have personal relationships with their followers as to be expected in a deep grass roots organization. Believers anticipate Friday noon sermons and take them as the word of Allah's emissaries on earth. This builds a far greater commitment than any hi-tech social network, especially when the destitute do not own cell phones or computers. Islam embodies solid permanent law, a way of life and creed given by the Divine. Social networking is impersonally technical and accompanied by much debate. Muslim Brotherhood style Islam demands personal loyalties and little questioning. Adherents trust and follow the leadership. The relationship is solid, not amorphous.

Egyptian elections are of no great importance and will only be seen as a technical detail in the long run. The Muslim Brotherhood, the most cohesive grass roots organization can be expected to take power in the not too distant future. One can expect a form of Islamized military at their side when a new Egyptian state solidifies. Egypt's better educated more secular classes will be marginalized or forced to conform. And of course the Middle East will be heavily influenced by what happens in Egypt, the fulcrum of the Arab world.

Many may ask what of the West, Israel or whomever? They are all non-players who may get in the way here and there or act as a catalyst such as with the attack on the Israeli embassy not long ago. What we are seeing is an internal Egyptian economic, social, religious and political drama being played out. There is very little the West can do to influence future events
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5)The Castor-Oil Candidate
By Victor Davis Hanson

Nominating Mitt Romney is sort of like taking grandma's castor oil. Republicans are dreading the thought of downing their unpleasant-tasting medicine but worry that sooner or later they will have to.

By any logical political calculus, the former Massachusetts governor is an ideal presidential candidate. Ramrod straight, fit and well-educated, he knows all sorts of facts and figures and comes across like a cinematic chief executive.

At any other time, an informed technocrat like Romney would seem a dream candidate. Yet in the run-up to this election, the people are completely turned off by Washington's so-called experts, such as Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Attorney General Eric Holder -- and increasingly Barack Obama himself.

As a former governor and presidential candidate, Romney has been fully vetted. In these racy times, Mormonism is viewed as more a guarantee of a candidate's past probity than a political liability. So there is little chance in late October 2012 that a blonde accuser will appear out of Romney's past, or that the New York Times will uncover a long-ago DUI charge.

The calculating Republican establishment believes Romney has enough crossover appeal to independents to beat a shaky Obama. It still has nightmares of Tea Party senatorial candidates Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell, whose 2010 primary victories led to inept campaigns and Republican losses in the general elections in Nevada and Delaware.

Although conservatives dub Romney a flip-flopper for changing positions on abortion, gun control and health care, the base knew all about those old reversals in 2008, when it nonetheless praised Romney as the only conservative alternative to maverick moderate John McCain. Apparently the party has moved to the right since then. Tea Partiers worry that, once in office, a moderate President Romney would prove a reach-out centrist -- spending borrowed money like George W. Bush did on No Child Left Behind or the Medicare prescription drug benefit, thereby ruining for good the now-suspect Republican brand of fiscal sobriety.

The result of those worries is that Romney has become the process-of-elimination candidate. The Hamlet-like governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, hemmed and hawed and bowed out, as most knew he would. The charismatic and controversial Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin decided they were making too much money to go through another nasty political race.

If finger-pointing magnate Donald Trump was going to bet a campaign on Obama's reluctance to disclose official documents, he would have done better to demand the release of the president's mysteriously secret college transcripts and medical records rather than his birth certificate. In the debates, the audiences liked what former Sen. Rick Santorum had to say, regretting only that it came out of the mouth of Rick Santorum.

Rep. Michele Bachmann once soared as the anti-Romney and then crashed when 90 percent of her statements seemed courageous and inspired -- but 10 percent sounded kind of weird.

Then came the most promising anti-Romney alternative, job-creating Texas Gov. Rick Perry. He looked as presidential as Romney but immediately proved even more wooden in the debates. His "brain-freeze" moments were made worse by occasional goofy explanations that seemed most un-Texan.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio were always crowd favorites, and they're certainly hard-charging conservatives. Yet at some point, both realized that their scant years in office were comparable, in theory, to the thin resume of Obama when he entered the presidency clueless.

Rep. Ron Paul's shrill talk on fiscal sobriety is as refreshing as his 1930s isolationist foreign policy is creepy. Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman is a sort of weak Romney doppelganger, raising the same paradox that money, looks, polish and moderation this year are cause for suspicion, not reassurance.

Many like businessman Herman Cain's straight-talking pragmatism. Yet more are worried that he might not know that China is a nuclear power, or that we recently joined the British and French in bombing Libya. By now, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich knows almost everything about everything. But lots of Newt's original -- and now abandoned -- positions were as liberal as Romney's. And not all that long ago, he seemed as brilliant and glib -- and recklessly self-destructive -- as his contemporary and antagonist, Bill Clinton.

To beat an ever-more-vulnerable Obama, Republicans keep coming back to someone who resembles a Romney, with strengths in just those areas where Obama is so demonstrably weak: prior executive experience as a governor, success in and intimacy with the private sector, a past fully vetted, and an unambiguous belief in the exceptional history and future of the United States.

In short, if Republicans are happy in theory that Mitt Romney could probably beat Obama, they seem just as unhappy in fact that first they have to nominate him.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------