From Friday night’s Fox News All-Stars.
On President Obama’s statement on Egypt:
The United States is saying to the president of Egypt if you try to tough it out, we’ll stay with you if you bring in secular reformers in the government, if you begin a transition, and ultimately if you leave, but it would be not immediately — in the middle of the riots, [with your departure being] a rout and a surrender — but in transition in the months [ahead] to a democratic regime. …
That history [of the Iranian Revolution] is exactly what is guiding the policy of the administration today and that speech that the president just gave. On the one hand, the Mubarak era is going to end eventually, rather soon. He’s 82. [The regime is] not going to have a future. It has to be succeeded.
[On] the other hand we remember in the late ’70s, when the Shah began to weaken, the United States kicked away the stool under him and abandoned him. And at that point, it was over, and as we know, the Islamists took over … the Islamic revolution from which we suffer even today. That’s why the president was not ready to abandon Mubarak, but he is insisting that the transition start. And that’s going to start with the new government.
Our objective here is to make sure the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the Sunni equivalent of the mullahs in Iran, Islamist, anti-American and would make the region — put the region aflame, has to not achieve power. That’s our ultimate objective. And arranging for a transition to a secular moderate regime is our number one priority.
Among the opposition in the streets is a very widespread, strong, democratic secular opposition. Our job is to make sure it isn’t crushed by the more organized disciplined Islamists as happened in Tehran in that revolution.
if the final grand gesture of the regime is to execute the leaders of the MB would Obama weep or smile ?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf our political resources in Egypt are remotely similar to what we have in the rest of the middle east, that is, nonexistent; We have absolutely nothing to say much less to suggest in Egypt as to whom succeeds Mubarak.
Any other proclamations by our President is but the hot air of which he expels ad nauseum.
Egypt - as all nations, will act in it's own best interests. We would be better served to prepare and welcome this new government, regardless of what or who it is.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWould you weep or smile if thousands of people were round up and massacred for their political and religious beliefs? The text said countries will act in their self interest. We, in the USA, are the exception to that rule. Our corrupt politicians are more concerned about the interests of a foreign country. These young Arab revolutionaries don't hate America. They hate Israel. We Are Americans, not Israelis.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhy does NRO still put so much faith in Krauthammer? He still is sometimes right, but he has revealed himself to be a blinkered Washington insider lately, with his contempt for the Tea Party and Geert Wilders, his appeasement of Islam, and his support of crooks like Rangel.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseKrauthammer is correct of course, with one quibble. Mubarak is definitely going, but it is not at all obvious the military regime is. And the military, not the disorganized idealists in the streets, are the actual alternative to the Muslim Brotherhood. There is no love lost between them and the army can handle them. They can also work with a parliamentary regime - provided it doesn't attack the army outright, as an institution. The military does need to be ready to use force against any attempt at a direct Islamic takeover. And nothing we say in the matter should undermine such a necessary action, should it come to that, or the men who would have to carry it out.
As for those who think we have no influence in Egypt, um. The Islamic Brotherhood does not have 1000 M-1 tanks and 200 F-16s. Which is the only reason they don't already rule Egypt. Those items didn't exactly materialized out of thin air and an absence of policy. The US emphatically does have influence in the real aspects of power, in Egypt and across the region. Don't let mere journalist spin convince you otherwise.
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