Egypt’s crisis was the easiest market call since Moses warned Pharaoh about the frogs; I wrote half a dozen essays in 2011 predicting it. Obama and his radical coterie were so persuaded that Egypt’s revolution heralded a brave new world of democratic Islam that Washington helped force out Hosni Mubarak, the closest thing America had to an ally in the Arab world. To be fair, Obama’s delusion was shared by many on the right, who hoped for validation of the “Bush Freedom Agenda” in democratic movements in the Arab world, but that is beside the point: Obama is the president, and he owns the Egyptian disaster. Egypt’s horrifying descent into Somali-style chaos will be an extended, excruciating object lesson for those who thought democracy was an exportable technology.

(Dr. Benny Peiser)