As Israeli leaders worriedly eye the protests and street battles in neighboring Egypt, they’ve been dismayed to find that the neoconservatives and hawkish Democrats who are usually their most reliable American advocates are cheering for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s fall.
The Egyptian autocrat has kept his side of a chilly peace agreement with Israel for thirty years, permitting an era of relative stability in the Jewish state. And as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear in a cautious speech to the Knesset Wednesday, Israel is deeply worried what will happen to that relationship when Mubarak departs.
One of the big reasons Mubarak kept to the deal is that Egypt, and the Egyptians, got tired of going to war with Israel and getting their asses handed to them every time.
And indeed, while voices cheering Mubarak’s fall can be found across the political spectrum, the Israeli-style fears of the future can be found largely on the margins, and are more likely to be found in the old-line conservative – not neoconservative—foreign policy circles that sometimes clashed with the neocons inside the Bush Administration.
Not often enough.
A longtime nemesis of the neocons, Zbigniew Brzezinski, said he didn’t care much about the stand they are taking on the unrest in Egypt and the broader region, but he couldn’t resist a quick dig.
“I don’t take neocon views very seriously, except when they result in U.S. policy which, in turn, means it turns into a disaster,” (my em) he said, a view he’s elsewhere attached to his criticism of the Iraq war.
Get 'em, Zbig!
Some are worried about this and some are not. Extensive article.