Egypt's Palace Coup

If even Time magazine realizes that in Egypt, "The Military Shows Egypt Who's Boss," one figures that the memo has finally been read by the dullest of the dull. Here is the lead-in to Time's article by Tony Karon and Abigail Hauslohner:

When massive street protests propelled President Hosni Mubarak out of office 18 months ago, Egyptians proudly called the event a revolution. Now that revolution is looking more and more like a palace coup, with the Mubarak ouster cleverly camouflaged in the language of democracy by a military working to prevent the total collapse of the old order. By jettisoning a leader who had stayed past his sell-by date, the generals — suddenly sympathetic to the protesters — bought time to re-engineer their hold on power even as the military played its Islamist and secular challengers against each other.

Some of us, of course, have been saying precisely this for almost 1½ years, from even before Husni Mubarak's resignation. Mubarak had displeased the generals, especially his efforts to found a dynasty, and they took advantage of the Tahrir Square demonstrations to bounce him. Simple, no?

Comments: The starry-eyed quality of press reporting on the Middle East upheavals, symbolized by the silly term "Arab spring," meant that most Westerners have been clueless about developments in the region. (July 2, 2012)

Related Topics:  Egypt, Media receive the latest by email: subscribe to daniel pipes' free mailing list This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.