Obama and Morsi: Separated at Birth
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Mugs don't lie: Gaza vendor displaying popular souvenir mugs with Morsi (L), Abbas (C) and the beloved U.S. President.
Photo Credit: Wissam Nassar/Flash90
America in the 1950s briefly woke up to the fact that any measure had to be taken to keep the Reds away from power… or there would be no America left. Egyptians understood this about the Muslim Brotherhood all along and took many of those measures, until we forced Egypt to dismantle its defenses, as we dismantled our own. Obama and Morsi are the consequences of that unilateral disarmament.
Obama and Morsi are not individuals, they are the representatives of political movements that have spent the better part of a century clambering to power. Their brushes with the law have made them cunning and their rise to power after so long have fed their sense of historical destiny. To them these are more than momentary political triumphs, but the culmination of history. They do not see ballot boxes, but the inevitable march of progress and prophecy that must be fulfilled by any means necessary.
It is not surprising that Obama and Morsi, two men who hail from the same continent and a related cultural milieu, have gotten along so well with one another. Their interests do not precisely align, but they can appreciate a colleague working in the same field of revolution. But the mutual friendship may prove to be more harmful to Morsi than to Obama.
While conservatives and counter jihadists denounce Obama for his support for Morsi, until Morsi goes the way of Iran and begins seizing American hostages, most Americans will simply not care. Egyptians, on the other hand, like most of the region, have the usual Anti-American instincts and the same Gaza ceasefire that won Morsi a blank check from Obama to do as he wished domestically also convinced many Egyptians that Morsi was Obama’s poodle.
The same window that prevents Morsi from exerting total control over the country, also prevents him from making a complete break with America. Morsi needed Obama to bail out the Egyptian economy and now Obama is dragging Morsi down. Positive views of America fell to 19 percent in Egypt in 2012 making Anti-Americanism into a viable proposition. Not that it ever wasn’t.
Morsi however also has the same ace in the deck as Obama. Class warfare. Islamists reliably draw their support from the poor. The Muslim Brotherhood’s background was linked to feudal landholders, but it has successfully reinvented itself as the party of the rural fellaheen. The flow of the rural poor into Turkey’s major cities allowed the Islamist AKP to take over Turkey. And Morsi is not proposing a referendum because he expects to lose.
Americans weren’t ready for a reversal after four years. Will Egyptians be ready to cast down Morsi after a much shorter period?
Obama’s work has taken longer and gone slower because there is much more of it to do. America started out at a higher point than Egypt and it will take it a while to hit bottom. Morsi has less to dismantle and is working against lower expectations in a country where freedom is a slogan, not a tangible experience.
The 21st Century has been surprisingly good to Islamists and leftists. The fall of the Soviet Union opened a power vacuum that the Islamists filled and allowed the left to sell its agenda in a world where the gulag was no longer a relevant term. Of the two groups the leftists have a shorter future, at least in areas that fall under Islamist control, but their Islamist alliances have also given them a new lease on life.
The leftists have taught class warfare to the Islamists and the Islamists have revived the left’s critiques of foreign policy as imperialism by providing them with a global identity group that fills the hole left behind by the end of the Cold War. It is not surprising then to see Obama and Morsi working so well together… or following the same path.
Transnationalist movements are predatory. They strike at a weak period in a nation’s history with the aim of tearing apart the country. But a country so weak and dissolute as to remain under the dominion of transnationalist movements is also too corrupted to be very much use. The Communists could never make much of Russia or China. It took a transition to capitalism to do that. And the only thing that transnationalists will be able to make of America or Egypt is to harness both countries for the sheer manpower and the leftover weapons.
tell a friendAbout the Author: Daniel Greenfield is an Israeli born blogger and columnist, and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. His work covers American, European and Israeli politics as well as the War on Terror. His writing can be found at http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/. The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of The Jewish Press.
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Obama and Morsi–two murdering Nazi-Islamo fascists.
Now if Obama were white and had a less unusual name, I'm wondering if this hateful screed would have been written.
It doesn't matter if you are black, blue, or green, facts don't lie.
there's no difference between Obama, the gulf monkeys, the Turks, the brotherhood and all other terrorist organizations, they all belong to the same gang, have the same Ideology and work for the same goals and all without exception should be tried for crimes against humanity.
I am fearful for the future of the U.S.
Why are you fearful? Is it because you don't respect the results of an election? Or is it the name of the president? Or is it that the president is black? It can't be because of Israel, because this president has been no less supportive than any predecessor and he has stood by Israel during Operation Amud Ha'anan. So what is it, Chaiya?
So Jay, You seriously are one of "those " who believe that people who are against Obama , are against him because he's black? You're silly. I bet you talk about "birthers" too. You are expressing the same mentality.
No, Steve. You are the one being silly. You added 2+2 and got 5. Opposition to the policies of Pres. Obama is, of course, not racist. But when opposition gets personal, vitriolic, irrational and infused with outright lies, then there's a good reason to suspect racism. Unfortunately, I've had enough interactions in person and on FB to have my suspicions confirmed in many cases.
Mr. Greenfiled, you are a vile person. No wonder the peace everyone clamors for will never come. People like you just spew hatred and wickedness all the time. Thank God, you live in the great USA. If you were in Israel, and wrote this piece of crap about Israel’s Prime Minister, the army would have your head.
Moreover, when you want to write about US citizens wanting and getting freebies therefore they won’t be empowered economically, take a look at Israel and their freebies given to their people based on all the aid provided by the Citizens of this great country. Yes, Israel’s Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman stated quiet emphatically: Men need not work – wives and state allowances can pay the bills Deputy health minister says it's 'absurd for both parents to work,' praises Netanyahu policies. Additionally, he also wants childcare allowances, just like the US Citizens. To the suggestion that perhaps one task the new government will face is cutting NIS 15 billion from the 2013 budget. Among the possible cuts are child allowances, which are of particular interest in his Haredi community where many have large families, Litzman replied:
"That's one of the things they wanted to do a few months ago when Netanyahu said he didn't have a majority to pass the budget. And one of the reasons there was no majority was that I would not have a hand in it."
Yes, Mr. Greenfiled even the Citizens of Israel wants freebies. However, those freebies come on the backs of US citizens (mind you are struggling themselves) in the form of financial and military aid, Israel receives. What a hypocrite.
You are right jay all this people are rasist hateful too