Douglas Carswell's Blog

Egypt: Western policy is in a terrible muddle

It wasn't meant to be like this.  The Arab Spring - an authentic uprising against tyranny - was supposed to mean more political and economic freedom.

And in many parts of the Arab world it has.  But not, it seems, in today in Egypt.

Using their new-found freedom, a narrow majority of Egyptians elected the Muslim Brotherhood.  Inept, extreme and hopeless in office, the Brotherhood looked like they were in serious trouble - until the army ousted them last month.

Far from providing stability, like they promised, the Cairo junta is presiding over a descent into chaos.  Order and elections have been replaced by a state of emergency and blood shed.

This was not only predictable.  Some of us predicted it at the time.  Why, I wondered aloud, were Western governments so muted in their criticism of the overthrow of democracy?  Washington won't even describe the army takeover as a coup.       

US foreign policy under Obama does not seem to be defined by any certain principle or purpose.  Rather than stand resolute in defence of democracy, America - along with Britain and the EU - seem to be drifting.  The US State Department, to many on the streets of Cairo, appears to be in the business of backing tyrants.

The Brotherhood has long maintained that Western-style democracy is a sham - and then the ballot was annulled.  Everything that has happened on the streets of Cairo since, as I suggest in my piece in the Telegraph, has played straight in the radical Islamists hands.       

The pity of it all as we watch disaster fall ....

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