Mixed in this tripe is Trager's sadness that he was apparently duped into believing that the Egyptian protesters were somehow liberal democrats just waiting for their own Society to make Great. Sprinkled in this woe-is-me tale is mild criticism of Obama and the administration for failing to have any idea of how to influence this situation in a positive manner. The administration has capitulated everywhere and is currently hoping to work some kind of deal with the Muslim Brotherhood, who themselves are trying to find legal ways to invade Israel.
The sad part of this pathetic mess is that Trager is no doubt is shocked by the events that have transpired in Egypt and everywhere else in the Arab Spring.
The problem is how liberals view revolutionaries. To the leftist all revolutionaries are freedom fighters hoping to relieve the nation of oppression by killing the tyrant and installing socialist governments. In this respect liberals are half right. These revolutions are usually in response to overthrowing a authoritarian tyrant. Mubarak was to Egypt what Fulgencio Batista was to Cuba, a monster.
The problem lies in the solution. Liberals seem incapable of believing that revolutionaries would overthrow a murderous tyrant just to replace him with a murderous tyrant. Yet this regularly happens. Batista was replaced by Castro a Guevara who were monsters in their own right and Egypt is now in the hands of a quasi-military, theocratic totalitarian regime that hates Jews.
What evidence exists in the middle east that would support a spontaneous liberal revolution? The history of that region is one of murderous thug replaced by murderous thug. The only thing that ever changes is what subsection of Islam (Sunni, Shiite, etc.) is going to be in charge of the killing. Outside of Israel the only recently changed country that has even a shred of western democracy in it is Iraq. And that is a tenuous situation at best. If the world can barely get a modernized country like Iraq to accept the slightest democracy after a decade of military presence and a trillion dollars then what hope can we have for a spontaneous coup d'etat executed by religious fanatics?
I'll never understand how liberals can convince themselves that the same people who take to the streets to riot and overthrow the state can be relied on to be good-natured in the aftermath. This is the same tragic logic that results in Laura Logan standing alone around the back of a 72 Pinto hatchback in the middle of this antisemitic, anti-American, misogynistic free for all. Did that tragedy even slow down liberals enthusiasm for the Arab Spring? Nope, full speed ahead. Light has come to the dark, Obama is freeing the Egyptians, let the post Bush world rejoice.
Now Trager has come to the sad realization that most of us knew a year ago. This is a scam. The new guys are worse than the old. People like Trager were just deluded by their own world view. They saw what they wanted to see despite all evidence to the contrary. I hope that these same people slowly coming to this conclusion on Egypt will not make the same mistake in dealing with Iran. I suspect that I'm living in my own delusion on that matter.
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