A banana republic without the bananas

David Goldman examines politics in Egypt, noting that
There wasn’t before, there is not now, and there will not be in the future such a thing as democracy in Egypt.  The now-humiliated Muslim Brotherhood is a Nazi-inspired totalitarian party carrying a crescent in place of a swastika.  If Mohamed Morsi had remained in power, he would have turned Egypt into a North Korea on the Nile, a starvation state in which the ruling party rewards the quiescent with a few more calories. . . . .  The will of a people that cannot feed itself has little weight.
So the cash-flush Saudis will turn Egypt into a client state, in order to keep a lid on the Shi'ites.

2 comments:

Grim said...

Of the possible fates for Egypt, being a client state of a cash-rich Saudi Arabia is probably one of the brighter options.

William Newman said...

I think that's a bit of a stretch. North Korea is not the typical outcome. The typical totalitarian outcome is plenty nasty, but it's less of a bizarre basket case than NK. At various times in the past half century, think Syria, Iraq, or Iran. Or, if you are dreading bizarre basket case outcomes, NK is only one of the possibilities, Pol Pot's Cambodia is another possibility.