Seeing Things

Some anong us see scenes of seething mobs of Arabs and see...seething mobs of Arabs. Others of a more progressive bent see seething mobs of Arabs and espy "freedom-lovers" overturning the yoke of oppression--"no taxation without representation"--who are on the cusp of a new and more democratic future. As Robert Spencer writes, throwing a bucket of cold water over progressive "oracle" Barack Obama, that vision is actually a delusion:

In Barack Obama’s statement on the uprising in Libya Wednesday, he asserted somewhat counterfactually that “throughout this period of unrest and upheaval across the region the United States has maintained a set of core principles which guide our approach.” He added that “these principles apply to the situation in Libya” – and as he delineated them further, it became clear that he was siding strongly with the Libyan people and other Middle Eastern protesters, and that he was assuming that the recent Middle Eastern uprisings were all idealistic, humanistic pro-democracy movements. In reality, they’re anything but.

Obama condemned “the use of violence in Libya,” declaring that “the suffering and bloodshed is outrageous and it is unacceptable. So are threats and orders to shoot peaceful protesters and further punish the people of Libya.” He affirmed that “the United States also strongly supports the universal rights of the Libyan people,” and enumerated several of those rights: “That includes the rights of peaceful assembly, free speech, and the ability of the Libyan people to determine their own destiny.”

That phrasing itself suggested that Obama envisioned the crowds thronging the streets of Tripoli, crying out for Gaddafi’s blood and holding up pictures of him with Stars of David drawn on his forehead, as something akin to the Founding Fathers of the United States of America in Congress assembled. He saw Jefferson and Madison elsewhere, also, as he added that “even as we are focused on the urgent situation in Libya,” his Administration was working to determine “how the international community can most effectively support the peaceful transition to democracy in both Tunisia and in Egypt.”...

How he can even say that "peaceful transition" bit without breaking out into peals of laughter is beyond all rational understanding.

How can Egypt "transition" peacefully into democracy? Such a feat is inconceivable while the supremacist Ikhwan is in the way.