Having a clear moral sense of the Egyptian situation...

[cthulu2016]

requires over-looking one or another parts of the picture.

The reason the Obama administration cannot seem to handle the Egyptian situation clearly is that there is no clear way to handle it.

The situation is equivalent to the KKK or Tea Party getting elected and then, once in office, setting the Constitution aside and installing itself up as a dictatorship, and then being ousted by the military, which installs itself as a dictatorship.

Anyone who is "clear-minded" in this situation is shirking the burden of cognitive dissonance.

The deposed government posed as great a threat to whatever we liberal types stand for as the current coup government does.

I doubt the Egyptian left (I think most American liberal Democrats would be on the left in the Egyptian political spectrum) are fans of the coup, nor are the Egyptian left hankering for the reinstallation of Mursi as a right-wing dictator.

[quinnox]

1. Interesting take. My own take is its none of our business

I have had it up to here of our country meddling and getting involved in other nations and their internal conflicts. We don't need to control the whole world, or everything that happens in it.

[The Magistrate]

2. That, Sir, Is A Pretty Clear-Minded View

Short and sweet and covers all the bases.

[pennylane100]

3. That seems like a good take on the situation.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy? Gandhi

[blm]

5. Same with Syria. The window of time to deal with Syria was 2008-2011.

It was completely closed by the end of 2012. Now, there are so many different layers of bad characters that the good guys are scarce and difficult to identify.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

6. I disagree.

[blm]

10. In what way do you think the US can change the situation in Syria at this point?

.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

11. help rebels topple Assad and then clean up the rebels by weeding out terrorist groups

to ensure they don't create more violence and terrorism in Syria and surrounding countries.

[Aerows]

14. While you arm Al-Qaeda

None of that sounds like a good plan. Staying the hell out of it sounds sensible to me.

[Comrade Grumpy]

17. You're funny.

[blm]

21. That sounds like the road to war to me.

.

[Aerows]

12. It seems to me like

we'd be siding with either a hungry alligator or an angry crocodile. Getting in the middle of that is asking to get shredded.

[cali]

7. that may or may not be true of the situation overall. it is decidedly not true

of the massacres of hundreds of unarmed protesters in the sit ins yesterday.

And you are quite wrong about Egyptian liberals who overwhelmingly supported the coup. Read Cole, Murphy, Feldman and Engel for more information, context and analysis.

[cthulu2016]

9. I understated liberal coup support to avoid tangential contentiousness

[cali]

13. you misstated it- no offense.

and it's a very salient piece of the puzzle.

[Aerows]

8. Seems like damned if you do

damned if you don't all the way around.

[MADem]

15. The Egyptians need to sort this out on their own.

We can offer friendly advice, as can other regional actors, who should also be the ones to offer any sort of negotiating teams, if they ever come into the equation, but this is one we need to stay the hell away from, beyond making sympathetic noises that wish the "Egyptian people" the very best and a "swift resolution" to their domestic turmoil..

We don't have a leg to stand on here. Supporting "democracy" in this case means supporting a nutjob who is destroying the Egyptian economy and discriminating against women and minorities in a very brutal way. Supporting "coup" or "revolution" goes against our 'democratic' grain. Best bet? Leave them to sort it out--they're an ancient culture, not stupid by a long stretch, they can manage without us.

I hope Al-Sisi does establish a timeline for elections and that this "reset" works. If he does that soon enough, and they get back on a path towards something that is "sufficiently democratic," at least for that neck of the woods, we need to go with the flow.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

16. I think that's mostly accurate, apart from the dictatorship part.

Morsi was an appalling autocrat who clearly believed in the tyranny of the majority, but he hadn't set he constitution aside or made himself a dictator.

It's possibly also worth noting that while the situation is morally ambiguous, it's legally unambiguous - the Obama administration has a black-and-white legal obligation to stop all aid to Egypt immediately. Of course, doing that might well lead to it invading Israel, so arguably ignoring that law is the right call (I think it *probably* isn't, but I'm far from confident of that), but moral justification doesn't make doing so any less illegal.

[Skidmore]

18. This fight is not ours to decide.

Nor should we be picking teams. Look for the neocons to crawl out from under their logs for this one though. They and everyone like them who seem to think that democracy can be spread at gunpoint will continue to be wrong. You may get an election for a people but you ultimately must live with the outcomes whether you like them or not.

[X_Digger]

19. There are no 'good guys' in this story. n/t

[David__77]

20. Actually, significant parts of the Egyptian left supported and support the coup.

Others are silent because they do have mixed feelings, but they certainly won't speak out against it.

I generally agree with your characterization.