Egypt has been demoted to Somebody Else’s Problem:
Egypt and China earlier this month signed an $800 million memorandum of understanding for the construction of high-speed rail from the country’s northern borders down to Aswan. China will invest $1.5 trillion in Africa during the next 15 years by some estimates, and Egypt is the land bridge to Africa. Egypt will be a spur on the New Silk Road that China is building from Beijing to the Bosphorus.
After three years of hallucinations about the future of the Middle East, we have woken up to a different world with a new set of players and a new set of problems. We have dealt ourselves out of the game and appear condemned to watch helplessly as others play — or, more likely, not to watch at all, for the foreign policy establishment seems oblivious to the great changes around them.
That’s David Goldman. I’m still wincing at the “oblivious” because it’s scarily true. The Administration still talks and sort-of tries to kind-of act like we’re still a player in the region, but our words there no longer carry any weight and its been years since our actions were anything other than self-defeating.
So the Arabs and Persians are rid of their American overlords. They’re going to love their new Chinese overlords gobs better.
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