How About That Smell of Egyptian Spring?

That teeny, tiny whiff of rancid camel dung hanging in the air right about now, causing a slighty sour feeling in the pit of freedom loving stomachs…?

Egypt’s Islamist President-Elect Wants to Restore Ties to Iran, ‘Revise’ Peace Deal With Israel

Egypt’s Islamist Presidential-elect Mohamed Morsi says he wants to restore ties to Iran in order to “create a strategic balance” in the Middle East. He will also “reconsider” the country’s peace deal with Israel, according to an interview published by Iran’s Fars News Agency on Monday.

“We must restore normal relations with Iran based on shared interests, and expand areas of political coordination and economic cooperation because this will create a balance of pressure in the region,” Morsi said, according to the Christian Science Monitor reports.

Egypt and Iran severed diplomatic ties in 1980, roughly a year after Egypt signed a peace agreement with Israel. And now after roughly three decades of peace, Israel is in trouble of gaining yet another hostile Islamic enemy in the region.

“Part of my agenda is the development of ties between Iran and Egypt that will create a strategic balance in the region,” Morsi was quoted as saying.

[ths notes:Below from AFP, which has Egypt officially backpedaling furiously on this]

…“We will reconsider the Camp David Accord” that, in 1979, forged a peace between Egypt and Israel that has held for more than three decades, Morsi was quoted as telling a Fars reporter in Cairo on Sunday, just before his election triumph was announced.

Lucky thing for Israel they have no greater friend than the United States! And I’ll bet that’s just what they’re thinking long about now…

3 Responses to “How About That Smell of Egyptian Spring?”

1. aelfheld says:

   June 25, 2012 at 5:29 pm

   Yeah, Bam’s proved himself such a staunch supporter of the only democracy in the Middle East.

2. JeffS says:

   June 25, 2012 at 6:34 pm

   Heard from inside the White House:

   “Hillary!!! Bring that reset button, STAT!”

3. Michael Lonie says:

   June 25, 2012 at 9:50 pm

   Kissing up to Iran worked soooo well for Erdogan in Turkey, now didn’t it?

   We can look forward to a three-way tug-of-power here. Except for the brief time the Caliphate ruled both Egypt and Persia, and the longer time during which the Roman Empire ruled Anatolia and Egypt, there has been hostility between the powers that control Anatolia, Egypt, and Persia. The Romans and the Persians had hundreds of years of hostility. The pattern reassertd itself in modern times as well. No sooner had Egypt become de facto independent, under Muhammed Ali Pasha, than Egypt was throwing its weight around as an imperial power. In the 1830s and 40s his armies conquered practically the whole of the Levant and even deep into Anatolia. The pasha of Egypt came near to overthrowing the Turkish Caliph. Muhammed Ali, incidentally, was not Egyptian or Arab but an Albanian.

   As for the Ikhwan al-Muslimi president trying to make nice with Iran, lotsa luck with that. No sooner had Erdogan offered a reset button to the Iranian Ayatollahs than the latter stiffed him. Besides, the Ikhwan is devotedly Sunni, and they hate the Shi’a (and vice versa, of course). The strength of the Salafist support (about one-quarter of the Ikhwan’s, judging by the parliamentary results, but more fanatical), the Ikhwan government, if it actually happens, will be pushed in a Salafist direction. Bad for Israel, but they also hate the Shi’a, so bad for relations with Iran.

   In a way the Arabs are lucky Israel exists. If it had not been for Israel blocking the way, I’m sure this age-old pattern would already have reasserted itself, and a huge intra-Muslim war would have broken out, possibly in the Fifties. If the Arabs/Muslims ever get their evil wish to destroy Israel, I think it won’t be long before such a war over the spoils does happen.

   Destruction of Israel would also mean the elimination of the Palestinian Arabs as a separate people. As the war rolled back and forth across their territory, they would flee from the enemy armies. Once refugees again, nobody will care about them (including their “Arab Brothers”) because they woould not be able to blame their problems on Israel and the Jews. And since the chief method of Arabs making war is the competitive slaughter of civilians (see th Lebanese Civil War 1975-1990 and other episodes of Arab warmaking in recent decades) any Pali Arabs who did not run would end up massacred. No more Israel means no more Palestinians.