Thursday, November 29, 2012

The Problem With Morsi

"We've got a $4.5 billion IMF loan to Egypt under consideration and Morsi wants our help with that. Why is there massive assistance to Egypt? It grew out of the peace treaty [with Israel]. Without that peace treaty, the chances of our treating Egypt as a special case are going to diminish dramatically." (Aaron David Miller, former analyst with the US Department of State, now with the Woodrow Wilson Center. Quoted in Obama presses Egypt to help rein in Hamas as Gaza conflict escalates, Chris McGreal & Harriet Sherwood, The Guardian, 15/11/12)

"In the words of a CIA agent who had dealings with him between 1952 and 1954 (quoted by Joachim Joesten): 'The problem with Nasser is that he has no vices. We can neither buy nor blackmail him. We hate this guy's guts, but we can't touch him: he's too clean...' " (Nasser: A Biography, Jean Lacouture, 1973, pp 375-376)

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