Brian Whitaker on Bush´s mirage

A must read is Brian Whitaker´s latest article on baby Bush´s commitment toward democracy in the Middle East, latest manifested in his speech at the UN yesterday. Choosing Iraq as the test case for democracy in the region was indeeed unvise to say the least(what strikes me as a mindblower is how the closely knit group, who started propagating for this endaouvor more than 10 years ago, and assumingly put a lot of thinking in to this, failed to think about the post-Saddam era, in any other way than the Iraqi population welcomming the soldiers, by showering them with flowers, and the US army leaving Iraq in no time, while handing it over to the ¨extremly able, and much loved Chalabi¨ and the Iraqis living happy togheter ever after...).

That Mr Bush don´t have any wishes whatsoever for truly democratizing the region as a whole, and Egypt in particular has been vividly clear for quite some time now. The lack of consistency in critizing human and political rights violations in Egypt, bringing up the case of Aynman Nour time and time again(rightly so!), but failing to mention the Muslim Brotherhood high profile figures, and activists in prison, on as many occasions, and to a lesser extent Kifayya-activists, is only one of the cases where the administration failed misserably. The latest chapter in this sad story was the subtle endorsement of the¨reform oriented¨ group associated with Gamal Mubarak, perhaps this was only a way for President Bush of thanking him for the wedding invitation?

Brian Whitaker has written many a piece about the situation in Egypt, including the wawe of arrests against the Muslim Brotherhood and the Kifayya activists in jail for some time, i would like to take the opportunity to thank him for his support during difficult times.

Brian Whitaker, Bush, Egypt, Middle East, Iraq