Eastern Christmas and Egypt's President

Egypt’s Coptic Christians follow the Julian calendar in celebrating Christmas on January 7th of each year. For the second consecutive year, Egyptian president Abdul-Fattah al-Sisi surprised them with an exceptionally kind gesture, once again personally attending their Coptic Christmas Eve mass and . . . . Continue Reading »

Egypt’s New Constitution

Via The Arabist , I found this primer on the new Egyptian constitution, by one Zaid Al-Ali at Open Democracy . Very thorough, and plausibly seeking to lay out the good news and the bad, from a broadly liberal perspective. The summation: Altogether, in comparison with Egypt’s constitutional . . . . Continue Reading »

Civil War in Egypt?

Super-busy week for me, can’t possibly keep up with rapidly changing Egypt developments, but signs suggest a civil war in the making: From a Guardian story, we learn that Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Alexandria and Mansoura were ransacked and in the case of latter, set on fire, prompting . . . . Continue Reading »

More Morsi

Here’s depressing but not-to-be-missed editorial from Jonathan Tobin at Commentary . He’s not as open as I think he should be to the possibilities that a) Morsi might really intend to give up his extraordinary powers in three months, and that b) regardless of his intentions, . . . . Continue Reading »

Morsi’s Power Grab

If you want to bark back at the legacy media praise of the cease-fire our president recently had a hand in arranging, then this Powerline piece , emphasizing the assertion of emergency-powers by Egypt’s president Mohamed Morsi in the immediate aftermath of his role in that cease-fire, is just . . . . Continue Reading »

A Defender, Not A Democracy-Extender?

Or how should we describe Mitt Romney foreign-policy wise? Is he a neo-con? A neo-neo-con? Honestly, I don’t know. I think Peter’s “Mender not an Ender” is the perfect description of the candidate domestically, “Blast from the Past , Mormon Version” is the . . . . Continue Reading »