Much Ado About Egypt: Islam is about Submission, not Freedom

How odd that in support of the brave secular protestors in the streets of Cairo, we are already talking about not demonizing the Muslim Brotherhood — the existential enemies of every idealist now trying to win a free society from Mubarak, the dictator/non-dictator who must go now!, very soon, after he transitions a new government in the summer, when a new president is elected in the fall, or, as future events dictate, not at all. _VDH_PJMedia

Western journalists and pundits -- to say nothing of politicians -- have missed one crucial core fact about recent unrest in Egypt: It is largely backed by Islamists, and Islam is about submission -- not freedom! This is no Tiananmen Square moment for Egypt. It is far closer to an Iranian Islamic Revolutionary moment, a la Jimmy Carter and other clueless leftists of the time.

Hillary was right about her 3AM slur, and Obama is acting as any 2-year Senate veteran might in such a crisis. There is no consistent support from the left for democracy movements overseas. Strongmen like Gaddafi, Ahmadinejad, and Assad are weirdly seen as either untouchable or genuine in a way a Mubarak or a Jordanian king is not. And the latter are vulnerable only when it looks like they may fail; if they seem stable, we hear not a peep from Obama about their human rights records.

In short, the left has not yet sorted out its adherence to multiculturalism and its supposed support for human rights, which are usually antithetical. It apparently believes that any pro-democratic criticism of Obama’s tepidness is not worth the damage that might accrue to his agenda of universal health care, more entitlements, and left-wing domestic appointments. Whereas on the right there are three fissures over Egypt — neocon support for the protestors, realist support for Mubarak to keep a lid on things and change slowly, isolationist desires to keep the hell out of another costly obligation — on the left these days it is basically trying to explain postfacto Obama’s herky-jerky policies as coherent, successful, and idealist.

Predictions? I think unfortunately we may go the 1940s “we can work with Mao”/1970s “no inordinate fear of communism”/2000s “jihad can mean a personal struggle” route, where liberals believe that totalitarian nationalists somehow admire the American Revolution and our lack of a colonial heritage, and, as closet moderates, wish to work with us. That translates into a backdoor courtship with the Muslim Brotherhood, in the fashion we did with Khomeini, and ends in a decade or so with a Sunni Ahmadinejad and the betrayal of the present protestors — again, in the manner we did the Iranian moderate reformers in 1979-80 and again in 2009. _PJMedia

There is not much the US can do to help the Egyptian people at this time. Egypt is a low-IQ society permeated by religious fanaticism and ethnic and political hatred against outsiders. Resentment is never far beneath the surface for huge numbers of Egyptians.

Part of the problem is proximity to Gaza and the many decades long influx of Palestinians bearing deep resentments and grudges. Part of the problem is decades of oppressive government and many centuries intermittently under fanatical Islamic clerics. And a big part of the problem is a killing poverty associated with a human capital that is irrevocably sinking into a permanent Idiocracy.

If you can think of something that will help the Egyptian people, by all means, let everyone know about it.