Egypt’s Morsi Berates Syria and Iran

[Valin]

Via Meadia:

 

Walter Russell Mead

8/30/12

 

The Middle East continues its thousand-year-old tradition of sectarian division. Many worried that Egypt’s decision to attend the Non-Aligned Movement meeting in Iran could be a sign that anti-Americanism was trumping sectarian rivalry, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Rather, Egypt’s President Morsi apparently went to Iran to berate the Shiites and schismatics in their own den. In his speech today, Morsi said: ”The bloodshed in Syria is the responsibility of all of us and will not stop until there is real intervention to stop it. The Syrian crisis is bleeding our hearts.”

 

Syria’s delegation stalked out in a huff as Morsi laid on the ultimate insult: comparing the struggle of the Syrian rebels to the Palestinian fight against Israel. Nothing could have wrecked Iran’s hopes for the summit more profoundly. Nothing could have made Iran look weaker or more isolated. Nothing could have done more to increase Morsi’s stature in Egypt and beyond.

 

The alliance of convenience between Sunni Islamists, America, and the West against Iran remains the most important geopolitical fact in the Middle East today. For now, Israel is not the center of Middle Eastern politics. The big Sunni countries, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, want to expel the Persians from their midst and chase their power out of the Arab world—before they turn to other problems.

 

(Snip)

 

Things are always more complicated than the 1st appear.