The IDF’s Egyptian Fiasco

Caroline Glick On August 15, 2012 In Daily Mailer,FrontPage

So Muslim Brotherhood President of Egypt Mohamed Morsy just sacked the leaders of the military junta General Hussein Tantawi and the Egyptian Army’s’ Chief of Staff General Sami Enan.

Morsy has also cancelled the constitutional protections that the Egyptian military has enjoyed and overturned their edicts circumscribing his control over foreign and military policy.

That is, as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has declared, today Morsy completed the Egyptian revolution. Egypt is now an Islamic state. Its leaders drink from the same well as al Qaida, Hamas and all the rest. Egypt, with its US armed military has reemerged after 30 years as the greatest military threat that Israel has ever faced.

According the the Israel media, the IDF was surprised by Morsy’s move. Clearly our esteemed generals believed reassurances they received from their Egyptian military counterparts that Israel had no reason to be concerned with the election of Hamas’s big brother to Egypt’s presidency.


This reminds me of what former chief of the IDF’s General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said at the Jerusalem Post’s conference in New York on April 29. In his remarks Ashkenazi said that no one in the IDF foresaw Mubarak’s overthrow during the anti-regime protests in Tahrir Square. I began my remarks by mentioning that I had foreseen his overthrow and replacement by the Muslim Brotherhood already back in 2004. And like me, everyone paying attention to the internal make-up of Egyptian society — rather than to the empty promises of generals with no popular support — recognized that Israel’s peace with Egypt was not long for this world.

Here’s the part of the conference where he and I speak.

His remarks start at 23 minutes. Mine start at 41 minutes.

I am not saying this to rub Ashkenazi’s nose in his massive errors. I mention it because the same general staff that failed to foresee what was going to happen in Egypt, and fails to this day to understand the strategic implications of the Muslim Brotherhood takeover for the IDF, is the IDF that insists today that Israel can trust Obama to take care of Iran for us.
Sadly, perhaps even devastatingly, it is not possible for Netanyahu and Barak to pull a Morsy and fire the General Staff en masse. All of these leftist strategic failures enjoy the unstinting support of the leftist media. But still, their failure to understand Egypt speaks all the more strongly for the full justification and necessity of Barak and Netanyahu’s current media campaign to force the IDF to fall in line on attacking Iran.