Michael Goodwin:
Well, that was fast. Reflecting the growing prospect that events in Cairo will not have a happy ending, a top member of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood says, "The people should be prepared for war against Israel."
Muhammad Ghannem also tells an Iranian news outlet that the Suez Canal should be closed immediately and that Egypt should stop the flow of natural gas into Israel, according to the Jerusalem Post.
The comments rip away the smiley face the Western media has pasted on the push to topple Hosni Mubarak. It is time to temper the heart-tugging romanticism about "the people" in the streets with the ugly truth about what populism usually means in the Mideast.
Most important, talk of an Egyptian-Israeli war should send shudders through the White House, which seems ready to hand Egypt on a platter to Anybody But Mubarak.
President Jimmy Carter followed the same course in Iran, with disastrous results. First, he embraced the Shah, then switched to the democracy movement. The Shah fled, the so-called democrats seized American hostages, and, 30 years later, the world is living under the threat of the evil regime.
...
He points also what happened when Hamas won an election among Palestinians and took control of the Gaza strip. They are the Palestinian wing of the
Egyptian Brotherhood that is working with potato head
ElBaradei to replace Mubarak. Spare us that, please. We should not be myopic about the potential outcome in Egypt.
Image by Getty Images via @daylife
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