Everyone knows what a “total loss” is: the general loss of a vehicle’s value as the result of an accident, when the vehicle becomes either impossible or impractical to repair and is sent for scrap metal.

It seems that Egypt’s situation today very much resembles a “total loss” situation following a series of accidents and misfortunes that it has experienced over the past two years, since Mubarak was sent to the defendant’s cage. As long as he was in power, the country was functional. And although it did not function well, there was a sort of dictatorial stability. But since he was overthrown nothing works in that dismal country, whose residents number today ninety million. Egypt is like a car with ninety million problems, and to describe it as a “total loss” is to understate the situation.

The problems began on November 11, 2011, with the resignation of President Mubarak after the demonstrations against him degenerated into a state of general chaos, prompting the minister of defense, General Tantawi, to demand that Mubarak step down in order to calm the raging street. Tantawi took the reins of power for half a year, to stabilize the governmental system and then transfer it to the civilian branch, the dictatorial stability of the Mubarak era turned into public chaos with increasingly anarchistic characteristics, despite the fact that the group in power had won the right to rule democratically. It seems that the governmental situation in Egypt will become a new concept in the field of political science: “democratic anarchy” or “anarchistic democracy”.

Despite Egypt’s having a president, an army, police and judicial system, it seems that these components of government do not all function as one system, but rather each one behaves according to it’s own private agenda, as if it exists as a separate country: the public elects a parliament and the court disperses it, the president issues edicts overriding the laws of parliament and the court cancels his edicts, the majority of the public elects a president but large sectors of the public want to get rid of him, an Islamist president is elected but he is forced to manage the state according to laws that contradict Shari’a, the Bedouins in Sinai are citizens of Egypt, but they behave as if Egypt is their enemy.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was when seven soldiers were kidnapped in Sinai. The Bedouins kidnapped them in order to pressure the government into freeing some imprisoned Bedouins, and Morsi found himself between a rock and a hard place: if had given in to the Bedouins, thus freeing the soldiers this would have been interpreted – and rightly so – as the state surrendering to a violent group of criminals, and this surrender would have encouraged them as well as other groups to take similar steps to achieve their ends.

In such a situation, when every law breaker can pressure the government to submit to his demands, there is no state. So what can be done? Attack the Bedouins with a large military force? This is problematic because the present government claims to have a religious basis, and how can such a regime kill Muslims?

On Wednesday of this week the seven soldiers were freed healthy and whole after representatives of the army met with heads of the Jabal Halal tribes and warned them that the army would destroy anything that moved in the area. What was promised to the heads of the tribes in exchange for freeing the soldiers was not divulged, but the fact that the government was forced to appease the heads of the tribes proves who is in charge in Sinai.

The government again had to play according to the rules of the desert, where anyone who has a request must close the deal with the tribal heads. The struggle between the state and the Bedouins will continue in the next round, which is just a matter of time. Because the state has not yet freed the Bedouin prisoners accused of terrorist activity, and their liberation was the original reason for kidnapping the seven soldiers.

And this was not the first time that the Bedouins have challenged Morsi’s government: last August they murdered 16 soldiers, and during the past year they attacked a police station and security patrols, and sabotaged the gas pipe that provides Egypt with its livelihood. The Bedouins collaborate with Hamas and there were rumors that the kidnapped soldiers were already in Gaza. The families of the kidnapped soldiers appeared in the media and put pressure on the government to submit to the kidnappers demands, and Morsi had already requested and received religious permission to fight the Bedouins from the Mufti of Egypt. The army wanted to seal the tunnels that connect Sinai with the Gaza Strip, and Morsi feared Hamas’ negative propaganda and Hamas’ big brother, the Emir of Qatar.

The Egyptian publication Al-Masry Al-Youm reports that the U.S. government has supplied five containers carrying 140,000 teargas canisters to Egypt’s Interior Ministry. It further reports that this shipment left Wilmington, Delaware, on Mar. 14 aboard the SS Jamestown and that it has just arrived the port of Suez. They cost the Egyptian government just under US$2.5 million. According to ministry spokesperson Hani Abdel Latif, the ministry imported the grenades in order to protect state facilities.

Although shocking, this should not come as a surprise: On Feb. 25, 2013, the State Department spokesman confirmed that “we have approved an export license for the shipment of U.S.-manufactured nonlethal riot control agents to the Egyptian Government.” He added that “No U.S. security assistance funds have been used for the purchase of these products” and “we condemn any misuse of these products, of teargas that can result in injury or unlawful death, and any such misuse would jeopardize future exports.”

Comments: (1) I have waited six days to see if either government would deny that 140,000 canisters were delivered but neither has, suggesting this is an accurate number. (2) The transfer of this arsenal of crowd-control weapons reveals the depth of the Obama administration’s collusion with the wretched Morsi regime. (3) This idiocy alone justifies the title of my lecture in Washington on Apr. 16, “Amateur Hour: The Obama Administration’s Middle East Policy.”

Originally published at DanielPipes.org and The National Review Online, The Corner, April 14, 2013.

The Associated Press has decided that the word “Islamist” may not be used to describe anything objectionable.  The Jewish Press’s Lori Lowenthal Marcus calls out the relevant passage from the news service’s newly revised stylebook:

[An Islamist is] an advocate of a political movement that favors reordering government and society in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam.  Do not use as a synonym for Islamic fighters, militants, extremists or radicals, who may or may not be Islamists.

Hmmm.  It’s an interesting question who will be called an Islamist by A.P. writers, given this definition.

Who is an Islamist?

Presumably, Mohammed Morsi could be called an Islamist by the A.P. – unless the second sentence above cancels out the first, making it impossible to call anyone an “Islamist.” And maybe that’s the case; if so, defining “Islamist” is an exercise in futility for the A.P.

But will Morsi be called an Islamist?  By the letter of the A.P. definition, being labeled an Islamist would put Morsi in company with Hamas, the Iranian clerical council, and the Taliban.  He belongs there, of course, but will that association be considered politically correct, given that the U.S. government is committed to Morsi’s success, and continues to deliver arms to him?

Hamas and the Taliban are terrorist organizations, but are or have been government authorities as well (the latter aspiring to be one again), reordering government and society precisely in accordance with laws they deem to be prescribed by Islam.  Iran’s leaders sponsor terrorism, as well as doing the reordering thing in the name of Islam.

In fact, Hizballah fits the bill as well, being a terrorist organization which currently governs Lebanon.  Among this terrorist-governing group, Hizballah may have made the least effort to reorder government and society in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam.  But then, Hizballah governs a tiny, fractious, all-but-ungovernable nation with mostly porous borders, and in that role has been more concerned since January 2011 with holding power than with remaking society.  Does that mean there is some meaningful sense in which Hezbollah is not “Islamist” – even though it proclaims sharia and holds its political goals in common with Hamas and Iran (and has considerable overlap with Morsi in Egypt)?

Perhaps the seemingly narrow A.P. definition of “Islamist” is meant to ensure that only those who advocate Islamism from the more consensual environment of Western liberal societies will meet it.  This proposition will run into its own set of troubles, however, partly because radicals like Britain’s Anjem Choudary, who have been, so to speak, the face of Islamism in the West, might be considered ineligible for the title due to their explosively radical demeanor.  If Choudary isn’t an Islamist, who is?

That remains a good question, considering that other, more mainstream Western organizations may have ties through their leadership, like CAIR’s, to the Muslim Brotherhood and even terrorist groups, but they do not overtly propose to reorder government and society in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam.  Does that mean they are not Islamist?  And if not, what does that mean?

At present, CAIR’s efforts are not focused directly on reordering government and society, but rather on undermining one of the essential pillars of Western civilization: unfettered pursuit of the truth – about radical Islam as about anything else.  Government agencies, with their top-down institutional pieties, are an easy target for outright censorship in this regard.

The A.P. Stylebook revision is something different, and perhaps more insidious.  Presumably, an A.P. writer would not refer to CAIR’s involvement in redefining “Islamist” as a method of Islamism, although it is one.  And, in fairness, there is a good case to be made that rewriting definitions for political reasons is something the Western left requires no prompting to do.  Need it be “Islamist” to define categories prejudicially?  It certainly doesn’t have to be “Islamist” to label anyone whose arguments you don’t like a “racist.”  The Western left thought that one up all on its own.

The lack of firm ground to stand on in this analysis is quintessential in the propositions of radicals.  Corruption and politicization of the language are common radical tactics.  Whom, exactly, can an A.P. writer call an Islamist, given all these factors?  The antiseptic definition of Islamism approved by CAIR might apply only to Islamic theoreticians who never actually engage in political advocacy – if there are any.

President Barack Obama and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Originally published at Rubin Reports.

A developing story out of Turkey perfectly parallels the article I wrote recently about how Pakistan continues to get massive U.S. aid despite failure to cooperate much of the time on anti-terrorist activity, the involvement of some government officials in concealing Osama bin Ladin, and its imprisoning a Pakistani who helped get bin Ladin.

In Tunisia and Libya, governments fail to help against those responsible for the murder of four U.S. officials in Benghazi. In Turkey, now the government—despite President Obama praising it lavishly, exempting it from economic sanctions on Iran, and saying its prime minister is his hero and role model—has refused to help catch a leading architect of the September 11 attacks. And it is not comforting that the U.S. government has begun training radical Islamists to fight more effectively and kill people better.

Sulaiman Abu Gaith was taken into custody, based on a CIA tip, in Ankara after arriving in Turkey from Iran. (Although the U.S. government is clearly aware that Iran is giving refuge to many al-Qaida leaders it has not pressed or publicized the point.)

Turkey merely deported him to Jordan on grounds that he had arrived travelling on a false passport. The rationale for not turning over Abu Gaith was that he had not committed any crime within Turkey. Jordan then extradited him to the United States where the capture was extolled as a victory but the refusal of Turkey to help was ignored in official terms.

Note that we are not talking about here merely Hamas or Hizballah but al-Qaida, a group that Egypt, Turkey, and Libya, have no interest in helping because they are Islamist clients. The only rationale for helping al-Qaida is either that these regimes want to hurt the United States or they are more afraid of al-Qaida than of the United States. Or, perhaps, they know that the Obama Administration will let them have their cake and eat it too, in other words there will be no cost for refusing to cooperate with Washington against its enemy.

Secretary of State John Kerry, on his visit to Turkey, did condemn Prime Minister Erdogan’s recent outburst of hatred comparing Israel and Zionism to Nazism.

Also on the positive side is that the Obama Administration has helped persuade the Egyptian regime to cut off the flow of weapons to the Gaza Strip. Many of the weapons sent across in previous months were advanced U.S. equipment given to the Libyan Islamist rebels.

But this act of Kerry’s is just a false front on U.S. policy. Erdogan and his government, party, and the media that it controls has been slandering and inciting to violence against Israelis and often Jews for years. Only because this specific statement was featured in the U.S. media did Kerry speak. No doubt, the issue will soon be forgotten as Erdogan goes on to make scores of other slightly less blatant statements along the same lines. Will U.S. policy toward Turkey change because of Erdogan’s anti-Semitic remarks plus his economic and diplomatic assistance of Iran, promotion of an Islamist regime in Syria, backing for Hamas and Hizballah, and other anti-American actions? Absolutely not.

If the United States cannot depend on its new “allies,” despite the supposed popularity of Obama and its policies in those places, then how can they be said to be allies at all? And why is the United States giving them so much money and diplomatic support?

What happens when Islamist terrorists who have been armed, trained, and/or diplomatically helped by the Obama Administration kill Americans? Oh, wait! That’s already the true secret of what happened in Benghazi.

Originally published at Rubin Reports, under the title, “With Friends Like Obama-Backed Islamists, Who Needs Enemies?”

Originally published at Rubin Reports.

Something both positive and revealing has happened and while it undermines one prediction of mine it reinforces another. I’m delighted to see it.

I predicted that since Egypt’s ruling Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is a radical, Islamist group that wants to wipe Israel off the map and the ruling Hamas group in the Gaza Strip is part of the Muslim Brotherhood as well as also being a radical Islamist group and wants to wipe Israel off the map that the Egyptian regime would cooperate with Hamas in fomenting terrorism against Israel by facilitating the flow of arms, money and terrorists to the Gaza Strip. for that purpose.

In fact, though, it has now become clear that the Brotherhood regime is stopping weapons and other things from entering the Gaza Strip. (As did its predecessor, the Mubarak regime.)

But why, given that my above-explained chain of reasoning is true, is this happening?

The answer lies in another point I’ve made: That many revolutionary Islamists are over-confident partly in the face of a weak United States; partly due to their ideology that puts the deity, literally, on their side, and partly because of the big gains they are making throughout the region and even the world.

These groups also bicker and even fight among themselves, most notably but not exclusively due to Sunni-Shia conflicts. So radical Islamist groups overreach and thus suffer self-inflicted defeats.

This is what’s happening with Hamas. The Muslim Brotherhood’s reasons are is not benign. It seeks to consolidate control over a highly populated country and fundamentally transform it into a Sharia state under the Brotherhood’s perpetual rule. Hamas, however, by its nature, cannot accept Islamism in one country (to paraphrase Stalin – see my note below). Hamas isn’t interested in building up a Sharia state in the Gaza Strip as its main goal because it seeks to conquer all of Israel.

The reason, then, why the Brotherhood is stopping more aid or encouragement to Hamas is that the Egyptian regime doesn’t want a war or even a high level of conflict now. A second reason is simply that Hamas has become entangled with smaller radical Islamist groups that are waging armed struggle against Egypt, seek to overthrow the Egyptian government, and stage (without Egyptian permission) attacks against Israel across the Egypt-Israel border.

Here’s the key statement from Issam al-Haddad, a senior Brotherhood official and a presidential advisor on foreign policy, that the flow of weapons to Hamas (and then back into the Sinai terrorists) will undermine stability in the Sinai Peninsula.

Another factor cited is the need to fulfill Egypt’s obligation under the ceasefire agreement it helped broker between Israel and Hamas. U.S. pressure to keep this pledge was an incentive. This is to the credit of the Obama Administration. Yet one wonders how cooperative the regime would be if Hamas had not antagonized it by doing more to stabilize Egypt than it did Israel. I’m not saying Hamas did this on purpose but merely that the small, even more radical groups it uses as fronts to strike against Israel also do other things. And one further wonders what would happen if Hamas clamped down on its junior partners and protected Egypt from Gaza-based destabilization.

Whatever the balance of reasons, this greatly reduces the threat to Israel from Hamas for the coming months or even years. At the same time, the Syrian civil war and the growing hatred by the rebels against Hizbollah, which supports the dictatorship, is also undermining Israel’s main enemy to the north. With Iran still not having nuclear weapons that means Israel’s security situation is in excellent shape.

Another factor cited is U.S. pressure. Presumably this is in connection with the ceasefire agreement in which Egypt promised to shut down the arms’ flow. This is to the credit of the Obama Administration. (Of course, the Brotherhood is compliant because that helps it gobble up Egypt faster and easier, not to mention with Westerns financial subsidies).

But one must also note that things could change in future, especially with the Brotherhood confident once it has Egypt, the Gaza Strip, and Syria. Remember that the nationalist regime went through a parallel cycle. Gamal Abdel Nasser’s movement seized control over Egypt in 1952 and took 15 years to get around to seeking confrontation with Israel, though within four years such a confrontation seemed possible.

The U.S. generally makes allowance for verbal excesses from foreign governments, but if expressions of hatred and incitement to violence are actually harbingers of behavior, destruction and murderousness cannot be far behind.

At the U.N. Alliance of Civilizations [sic], Turkey’s Prime Minister equated Zionism with crimes against humanity. The American response was swift; speaking for himself and the administration, Kerry called the remark “objectionable.” But after expressing dismay, he called for nicer play.

“That said,” he commented, “Turkey and Israel are both vital allies. We want to see them work together to go beyond rhetoric and take concrete steps to change their relationship.” A State Department official concurred, saying the comment was “particularly offensive” and “complicates our ability to do all the things we want to do together.”

But what if Ergodan doesn’t want what the U.S. wants him to want — that is to say, he doesn’t want a changed relationship with Israel? What if harsh rhetoric and open political and financial support for Hamas — a U.S. designated terrorist organization — are part of Turkey’s regional Sunni Islamic ambition, which does not include Israel? What if Turkey’s prior cooperation was a phase to allow it to acquire political and military benefits?

In a similar vein, a few weeks ago, a North Korean diplomat told the U.N. Conference on Disarmament, “As the saying goes, a new-born puppy knows no fear of a tiger. South Korea’s erratic behavior would only herald its final destruction.” He added, “If the U.S. takes a hostile approach toward North Korea to the last, rendering the situation complicated, [we] will be left with no option but to take the second and third stronger steps in succession.” A North Korean general warned of the “miserable destruction” of the United States.

The U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Conference on Disarmament called the comments “profoundly disturbing,” and the Spanish ambassador said he was “stupefied.” Why?

Beginning with President Carter, American administrations have treated North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear capability as defensive: designed to keep South Korea and the U.S. from overthrowing the cultish regime of the North. The U.S. tells itself that since it harbors no plans for any such invasion, it can reassure North Korea on that point and thus lessen its determination to have nuclear capability – hence the U.S. offers food, fuel and a light water reactor, thinking those “gifts” will reassure North Korea of America’s benign intentions.

But what if North Korea is not defensive, but rather Kim Jong Un, like his predecessors, believes that the unification of the peninsula should happen under governance of the North? How then should we understand the diplomat and the general? And how should we understand North Korea’s latest nuclear test?

The British ambassador said of the North Korean diplomat’s remarks, “It cannot be allowed that we have expressions which refer to the possible destruction of U.N. member states.” That is, of course, patently untrue. The U.N. tolerates and sometimes applauds Iranian representatives who have called not for the “possible” destruction of a U.N. member state, Israel, but for its outright annihilation.

“The Zionist regime and the Zionists are a cancerous tumor,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said. “The nations of the region will soon finish off the usurper Zionists in the Palestinian land… In the new Middle East there will be no trace of the Americans and Zionists… Cancer must be eliminated from a body (the region).” For Qods Day last year Ahmadinejad told the Iranians, “Any freedom lover and justice seeker in the world must do its best for the annihilation of the Zionist regime in order to pave the path for the establishment of justice and freedom in the world.”

The P5+1, the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany who are negotiating with Iran, still seem to presume that Iran is pursuing nuclear capability for some reason other than to use it, and that it can, therefore, be dissuaded from developing it. But what if “annihilation of the Zionist regime” really is topmost in the minds of the Mullahs? What if they believe Israel has to disappear and they can make it happen? What will happen, then, when they get nuclear weapons, if they still really believe that?

Originally published at Rubin Reports.

Western observers, including the U.S. government view the situation in Egypt as improving. Actually, it’s getting worse, partly due to U.S. policy. In April, that will become even more obvious. Egyptian parliamentary elections are scheduled for April 22. Supposedly, the Muslim Brotherhood faces a setback. But that either isn’t true or doesn’t matter. On one hand, the Islamists as a whole are likely to emerge even stronger and more radical. On the other hand, if the non-Islamist coalition boycotts the election, as it has announced, the Brotherhood and the current regime will be a lot stronger.

Originally, I intended to write that there will no doubt be an assumption in Western reportage that if the “opposition” does participate and does better and the Brotherhood does worse that means moderation is gaining.

But by the time this is being published the mainstream media’s claims that things are going great had already begun. For example, here’s how the New York Times explains it all to you:

With the elections scheduled to begin in April, the Islamists who dominated the 2011-12 parliamentary and presidential votes appear more vulnerable than at any time since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak two years ago. But what possible reasons are there to believe this? There is no evidence that the Brotherhood or Salafists collectively will get a lot fewer votes. The most serious Egyptian poll shows that the Brotherhood might get just under 50 percent of the vote! Obviously that’s very tentative two months before the elections. So what did they get last time? Answer: 37 percent of the vote and about half the seats. True, this time the Salafist vote will be split so the two together can be expected to get fewer than the 64 percent of the vote and almost 75 percent of the seats they won the first time. But a large majority of Egyptians can be expected to vote for an Islamist regime. And if the moderates boycott, the Islamists could receive 90 percent of the seats!

The Islamists’ real problem is that there are now four Islamist parties, varying from moderately radical to incredibly radical here’s the list:

The Strong Egypt Party headed by Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh. Fotouh is presented as a moderate Islamist and will no doubt be the favorite of the U.S. Columnist and Editorialist Party. Yet, one might ask, if Fotouh is so moderate why was he endorsed in the first round of the presidential election by radical Brotherhood guru Yusuf al-Qaradawi and the Salafist al-Nur Party?

To keep an open mind, Fotouh is more moderate than the others and he opposed the constitution drafted by the Brotherhood. It is possible he could form an alliance with the National Salvation Front. But there’s something misleading here, too. Fotouh got an impressive 17 percent in the presidential election. Yet wasn’t this vote due almost completely to non-moderate Salafists who just didn’t want to back the Brotherhood presidential candidate in the first round after their own candidate was disqualified? If so, Fotouh’s party will be a failure.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party. They received 37 percent of the votes and about half the seats in the original parliamentary election. If the National Salvation Front doesn’t boycott, the Brotherhood might lose seats but if the moderates don’t run in the election the Brotherhood will get even more seats.

The main Salafist party, al-Nur. This party won 27.8 percent in the original parliamentary election, but its candidate for president was disqualified. Al-Nur varies between critical support of the Brotherhood (“we’re all Islamists”) to just plain criticism (“the Brotherhood isn’t Islamist enough!”). Al-Nur would willingly become the Brotherhood’s coalition partner or at least support the regime from outside.

The People’s Party. The most radical forces in al-Nur have split from it, considering al-Nur to be too soft on the Brotherhood. They viewed the constitution–which provides for a transition to a Sharia state–too subtle.

So how will these parties split the Islamist vote? And will al-Nur and the People’s parties back Mursi for all practical purposes on the fundamental transformation of Egypt into a Sharia, Islamist state? Even if the two Salafist parties demand more, that doesn’t mean they will vote against the government to bring it down—they know they cannot win a majority on their own—and they aren’t going to ally with the hated “secularists.”

Much like Festivus, American diplomacy in the Middle East usually begins with an airing of grievances. These are not the American grievances over decades of terrorism and acts of violent hatred. These are the grievances that are supposedly infuriating the Arab Street. The list begins with Israel, continues on to the “Arab Dictators” supported by America and concludes with warnings to respect Mohammed by not making any cartoons or movies about him.

During his first term, Obama kept his distance from Israel, locked up a Christian who made a movie about Mohammed and withdrew his support from the Arab Dictators. The street should have been happy, but now it’s angrier than ever. And much of that anger is directed at America.

Mohamed El Baradei, once the administration’s choice to take over Egypt, has refused to meet with Secretary of State John Kerry. Joining him in this boycott is much of Egypt’s liberal opposition.

When Mubarak was in power, the “Arab Street” of Islamists and Egyptian leftists was angry at America for supporting him. Now the “Arab Street” of Egyptian leftists, Mubarak supporters and some Anti-Brotherhood Islamists is angry at America for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.

The American foreign policy error was to assume that the political grievances of the Arab Street could be appeased with democracy. They can’t be. The various factions are not truly interested in open elections. What they want is for America to elevate their faction and only their faction to power. When that doesn’t happen, they denounce the government as an American puppet and warn of the great and terrible anger of the Arab Street if America doesn’t make them its puppet instead.

Democracy is no solution, because none of the factions really wanted democracy for its own sake. They wanted it only as a tool to help them win. Now that the tool has failed most of them, they don’t care for it anymore. And the Islamists who benefited from democracy have no enduring commitment to it. Like all the other factions, they see it as a tool. A means, not an end.

While the West views democracy as an end, the East sees it as only a means. The West believes in a system of populist power rotation. The East however is caught between a variety of totalitarian ideologies, including Islamists and local flavors of the left, who have no interest in power rotation except as a temporary strategy for total victory.

There is no actual solution to the Arab Street that will please all sides and keep their hatred of America down to a dull roar. Whichever side the United States of America backs will leave the others full of fury. If the United States doesn’t back a side but maintains good relations with the government, it will still be accused of backing that government.

The only way to disprove that accusation is for the winning side to demonstrate its hostility to the United States. Accordingly even governments that are in theory friendly to the United States must demonstrate their unfriendliness as a defense against accusations that they are puppets of the infidels. And as a result, no matter whom the United States supports, all the factions, including those we support, will continue to engage in ritual displays of hostility against us.

Trying to appease the fictional construct of an Arab Street that has clear and simple demands is a hopeless scenario. It’s a Catch 22 mess where every move is ultimately a losing move, no matter how promising it initially appears to be.

There is no Arab Street. The real Arab Street is the overcrowded cities full of angry men with no jobs and lots of bigotry. Their hostility to the United States has nothing to do with the sordid politics that experts insist on bringing up to prove that the Muslim world hates us with good reason. Even if this history did not exist, the United States would be just as hated. The best evidence of that is that most of the accusations that enjoy popularity on the Arab Street are entirely imaginary.

Demagogues can lead the street from bread riots to toppling governments, but what they cannot do is fix the underlying problems, let alone change the bigotry of people who blame all their problems on the foreigners, rather than on themselves. Each faction promises that the anger will subside and stability will return when it comes to power, but the anger will never go away because it’s too convenient to blame America for everything. As long as America is around, no one in the Muslim world ever has to take responsibility for anything.