Egypt Inflamed, Obama Unmasked

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak made fools of the U.S. pundit and political classes yesterday, who had predicted the aging strongman was going to announce he was stepping down in a scheduled speech.

Instead, Mubarak refused to quit, and the world now waits to see if today's protests will escalate into something more akin to civil war.

Mubarak has left the protest-filled capitol and is now thought to be in his home in the resort town of Sharem a-Sheikh, a resort town on the Red Sea.

Throughout the crisis, the world has looked to America to see how the world's only remaining superpower would react. A trio of news stories yesterday showed how incompetent our Administration really is, showing they are incapable of leadership.

• Our President seems to be taking orders from foreign leaders, setting up a situation where he was played as a patsy.
• The Director of the CIA was made to look ill-informed, where he provided information not form his agency, but from the media.
• And of course, our Director of National Intelligence showed his incompetence.

The whole situation is hysterical... for our nation's enemies. The Obama Administration has been unmasked as being simply inept, across the board. They are weak, vacillating, uninformed and incapable of command.

Good marketing slogans and charisma don't equate to leadership.

It is going to be a long two years until January 2013.

Update: Mubarak has resigned, and handed power to the military.

Let us all hope that there is an orderly and peaceful transition.

MIKE NOTES: Dr. George Friedman, head of Stratfor, the premier private intelligence source, believes that Mubarak did not voluntarily step down but was deposed in a "bloodless military coup." According to Dr. Friedman, the Egyptian military was involved in a "weeks long tussle with Mubarak who refused to leave." After the speech where Mubarak announced his intention to stay in power, the military took matters into their own hands and removed him the next morning. Dr. Friedman believes Mubarak will end up in Saudi Arabia where he has many friends. Dr. Friedman sees the beneficiaries of the Egyptian unrest being Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, who have been working for just this opportunity for the last 60 years, and who, he believes, will not waste it. If Dr. Friedman is correct--and Stratfor has an excellent record--Mr. Obama had virtually no influence on the situation, other than to diminish America's stature in the region even further. The word around the region--even with our allies--is that America under Barack Obama is a harmless enemy and a fickle and treacherous friend. If this is an example of "winning the future," it's a future in which we will likely want no part.

For information on the effectiveness of our intelligence officials and diplomats, be sure to check out Quick Takes this Thursday, Feb. 17.