The ball’s in General al-Sisi’s court now

Washington – There is nothing sissy about General Abdul Fatah al-Sisi, Egypt’s minister of defence and commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces.

The general is now the man with full power in Egypt, and just as well. He had the courage to take on political Islam, an ideology spreading rapidly under the cloak of President Mohamed Morsi. The now-pushed aside Morsi was elected a year ago in the country’s first free presidential ballot. Ironically, he appointed el-Sisi to the ideal post from which to stage a coup. A sissy would never have dared to declare war on Islamism, a branch of the faith determined to impose Sharia Law even-though, according to surveys and estimates by sociologists, three out of four Egyptians reject it as a curb on liberty with an extra spite for modern women.

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Much like Americans and many others around the world, Egyptians like the secular state they have had for a long time and prefer to keep their faith apart from public life. Coups are something else and it is a given the Egyptian leader knows they are a no-no and his ignoring the taboo that his decision to stage one would put Obama in a quandary. What he should fear, though, is that in spite of his reluctance to do so Obama may comply with the law prohibiting subsidies to foreign militaries guilty of ‘putsching’. The Egyptian military gets a billion dollars annual subsidy from Uncle Sam under the 1978 Camp David accord that brought peace Egypt and Israel. By the way, a seemingly Middle East blog had this timely item three days after Morsi was out and Sisi in. “Gen. Sisi,” it reads, “is well known in Israel ‘s defence establishment for his past roles in military intelligence in northern Sinai” and “his office continued to communicate and coordinate with Israel” from elevated position. Read it plain English and the meaning is unmistakable: Sisi helped to keep the Egypt – Israel Sinai border safe and worked hand in hand with Israel. I say Amen, brother. That’s a pretty good affirmation for Egypt’s new Supremo. Back to coups. I find it difficult to stomach the man on a white horse but neither am I fooled by wanton use of words “elections” and “elected.” Hitler was elected. His Nazi Party won the most seats in the Reichstag and because the socialists, communists and conservatives cold not form a coalition and the German president was left with Hitler to form a cabinet. It is tragic beyond comprehension that this wretched accident of German politics gave the world a war with fifty million dead, the Holocaust and six million Jews murdered in industrial-style extermination camps, and for evil measure a devastated Europe, Hiroshima and the Cold War. Which is to say nothing about the 99.9 percent “victories “communists always won in the Soviet Union and in its satellite Democratic Peoples Republics. It is a hardly debatable assumption that had the coup senior Wehrmacht officers staged on July 20, 1944 succeeded, Hitler would have been dead that day, his regime toppled and millions of lives saved. What does it prove? That not all coups damnable. It is also arguable Morsi’s continued rule would lead to an Islamist Egypt begging the question what that would have meant for the safety of Israel’s and the light it sheds on Sisi’s coup. He has been part of Egypt’s power structure for years and is perhaps a better judge of what is good for Egypt than President Obama and media barons in New York and Washington inured by the dogmatic intolerance of political correctness. But, boys and girls, life compels choices between bigger and lesser evil and Sisi is relevant here. He knows the power games on the Nile and what to expect of the players. It may be rude to exploit a debating point but surely the likelihood of elective office used to usher Islamist dictatorship is worth some attention when the guilt and punishment of coups is before the bench. It must take guts even for the battle-scared Sisi to defy powerful foreign governments whose cash he needs and yet call out his home-side enemies while his benefactors publicly demand compromise, big tents and pulling together for common good. The fight in Egypt is to the death. Al-Sisi has declared war on the Islamists and is locking up their leaders by the gross. Should Morsi prevail in the end he will repay Sisi possibly in a personal kind of way. And where would that leave our political purists? Up the creek, boys and girls, up the creek.