Islamists are taking over Egypt's democracy....
A short history of democracy in Egypt. In February 2011 the Mubarak regime fell. There was going to be a parliament elected in Egypt. The parliament was elected. Its election was invalidated. Today there is no parliament in Egypt.
The Muslim Brotherhood said it would want to run one-third of the candidates for seats. Then they ran one-half. Then they ran all. Then they said they would not run a president. Then they did and elected a president. And they and the Salafists elected 70 percent of the parliament. But now there is no parliament.
The Parliament was going to pick a constituent assembly but to write a Constitution. But now there is no Constitution. There are no restrictions on presidential powers.
And then there was a Supreme Council of the Armed Forces but that was supposed to restrain the Muslim Brotherhood president. And it was supposed to be restrained by the Egypt-Israel peace treaty and by the hope of getting U.S. military aid. But the president got rid of it and fired the two top people and put in his own generals. And there is no restraint.
BR adds that takeover of state media outlets, replacing secular judges with sharia & ditching the Camp David Accords are other items on the Islamist playlist.
Bottom Line. Most revolutions over the past 2-1/4 centuries have more resembled the French than the American model. Instead of liberal revolutions promoting moderate democracy--the goal of American policymakers--most have been French-style replacing one tyranny with another. And the successor tyrants not infrequently have proven even worse.
Call it the sad triumph of geopolitical empirical reality over idealist hopes.
Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Foreign Policy, National Security, Conservative Politics
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