Obama Was Warned About Egypt

Egyptian vice president Omar Suleiman

Did a failed assassination attempt on newly appointed Egyptian vice president Omar Suleiman occur this week? Maybe, maybe not. But if so, as Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer suggested yesterday on Fox’s Special Report with Bret Baier, dark forces are at work behind the scenes in Egypt.

The lack of anti-American signs printed in English and American flags being burned would indicate that up to the present time radical Muslim influence has been all but absent in the 10-day-old revolution. But if rumors of the assassination attempt on Suleiman are true the circumstances may be changing.

As events unfold it becomes shockingly clear just how anemic the Obama foreign policy has been during his two years in the White House. This President seems to be given to zigging when he should be zagging. He speaks out of turn and, indeed, his 2009 victory lap speech in Egypt may have had a significant role in the destabilization of entire Middle East.

Passivity with Muslim extremists is like chumming shark-infested waters before taking a swim, and Obama’s Cairo speech was sheer idiocy. Now calling for a “democratic” transition with “non-secular” participation is insane. Why is the President making such a suggestion?

What is not in question is that the Administration was warned as Egyptian elections approached in November that the situation was getting dicey. But it appears that Leon Panetta’s CIA was asleep at the switch and the message may have come too late. The other possibility would be almost beyond belief: that the Administration new in advance and elected to do nothing.

If Obama was truly naïve enough to have maintained a hands-off policy inside the country then it is anybody’s guess as to how the dominos will fall in coming days. The U.S. is the big stakes player in this game and we should have had CIA operatives in place to assure that our interests were being looked after. As Egypt goes so goes the region.

Okay, we are not suggesting that the United States is behind the plot assassinate Suleiman, but one has to wonder what exactly our role is here. Indications are that we are involved in early negotiations between the revolutionists and the Mubarak government. Are we actually toying with the idea of negotiating with the Muslim Brotherhood in the transfer of power?

The fact remains that someone had enough connections inside the Egyptian government to know Suleiman’s schedule, and they nearly pulled off an assassination of the one person who might be holding the regime in tact long enough to see a peaceful transfer of power.