Obama fails test of global leadership

It was a total shock that President Barack Obama threw Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a long-time American ally, under the bus when 100,000 disenchanted Egyptians protested his autocratic regime. Mubarak was clearly willing to hand over the government, but in an orderly fashion that protected the integrity of Egypt’s national institutions. Obama forced early elections in Egypt, when no group was organized other than the Muslim Brotherhood, who promised that they would not run for political office. Of course, they did run, and won a bogus election without any real competition. They immediately focused on imposing their extremist religious values on the other 75 percent of the country.

It is no wonder that millions of secular Egyptians, Christians and moderate Muslims have been protesting the Muslim Brotherhood regime. The protest leaders have been jailed, any critic in the press is jailed, all organs of the government are led by Muslim Brotherhood extremists in posts where they are ill equipped to govern. Egypt’s infrastructure is destroyed, and the country is on the verge of civil/ sectarian war and is likely to become a failed state like Somalia without global intervention.

Our president gave the Muslim Brotherhood credibility with his undeserved support. Most Mideast scholars knew where this was heading.

Obama is not responsible for the chaos in the Mideast, but he has certainly contributed to reversing 70 years of U.S. policy and is still committed to reducing U.S. influence to the point where our allies no longer have faith in America.

Obama has many problems to deal with today with the NSA, Obamacare and the Mideast. To date he has only shown an ability to be reactive and place blame elsewhere. It would be nice to see some proactive governance that helps shape the world, rather than letting the world shape America.