Morsi to U.S.: Bite Your Tongue

Calling the murder of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other diplomats, “a bump in the road,”  Obama today quietly cancelled his Camp David meeting with Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi.  Today, when he should have been meeting with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Obama was crossing legs with ABC’s The View, instead.

According to Administration officials, Obama had granted a request for the visit with cool caution.  The website, Commentary, noted before the meeting was cancelled, that:

The Egyptian government is looking to scrap parts of its peace treaty with Israel, according to an advisor to President Morsi, claiming a “strategic and security need.”  Morsi has let the Sinai disintegrate into lawlessness, paving the way for incidents like last week’s terrorist attack on Israel. Now Morsi advisors appear to be using the lack of security in the Sinai as a justification for amending the treaty.

In comments published in the online Dostor newspaper, one of Egypt’s independent dailies, a Morsi adviser, Mohammed Seif el-Dawla, was quoted as saying he will soon give the president a proposal on amending the treaty between Egypt and Israel.

El-Dawla provided no details of the proposal, which he said would be drawn up by a panel of consultants. Amending the treaty, he said, was ‘‘a popular demand and a strategic and security need.’’

The Egyptian government’s failure to secure the Sinai puts Israel in a tricky position regarding the peace treaty, and it appears that’s the intention. Egypt will point to each cross-border attack on Israel as a reason for why it needs to militarize the area. Meanwhile, efforts by Israel to fight back against the attacks will be criticized by Egypt as a violation of the treaty.

It’s yet another reason why the U.S. should put stipulations on Egypt’s foreign aid, with one of these demands being heightened border security. The aid has given us visibility into the government and the military, which is helpful, but why not get some more political leverage out of it? There’s no point in having leverage if we don’t use it.

Supposedly, Morsi was the one to cancel the meeting, although other reports claim it was Obama, anxious over a close election race, who put the kibosh on the meeting.  Morsi today lectured the United States on the proper use of freedom of speech.  According to the Islamist president, we must be more responsible in our utterances.  We know what the Islamic solution to criticism of the state and/or the religion is:  beheading.  When the sultan or emir is feeling benevolent, he might only cut out the offender’s tongue.

Congress, meanwhile, is considering cutting off $1.3 billion in aid to Egypt.  That would tend to make Morsi a tad cranky.  Morsi’s first state visits as president were to China and Iran, nations eager to weaken America’s superiority in the Middle East.  Morsi and his administration have signaled a new kind of relationship, based on “mutual interests.”  His foreign minister said Egypt had regained its “free will” in the relationship, according to a local newspaper report.

In response to questions about why Morsi isn't meeting with Obama one on one (they will both be attending the annual meeting of Bill Clinton’s Clinton Global Initiative), one Morsi official told a local Egyptian newspaper that the Egyptian president is “very busy” and will meet with Obama later this year. One hard-line Islamist group called on Morsi to cancel the visit altogether.

No matter what the White House tells the Media, and no matter how the Media tries to portray the polls, clearly the polls told Obama that his plans to meet with Morsi to discuss the release of the Blind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman is a very bad idea with the election so close literally and temporally.

Nothing can really stop Obama from releasing the Blind Sheikh (or KSM) after the election, whether he wins or not.  In fact, he just announced today that he’ll be releasing 55 more terrorists from Guantanamo Bay.  Perhaps it was a move calculated to mollify Morsi until our election is over.  Obama knows he needs to concentrate on his campaign to win over Independent voters by “redistributing the wealth.”

When money talks, terrorists walk.