The Turkish Solution

Three weeks ago I wrote about the “Arab Spring, Turkish Style.” The short version is, Kemal Ataturk’s secular army had an extra-constitutional role to depose corrupt or Islamist governments, clean up the mess, then restore civilian rule. But that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had emasculated the Army to protect his creeping Islamism.

So are you ready for the Turkish Spring, Arab Style? It might be coming to a Nile River near you:

Egypt’s military on Sunday gave the nation’s Islamist rulers and their opponents a week to reach an understanding before planned June 30 opposition protests aimed at forcing out the president, in a toughly worded warning that it will intervene to stop the nation from entering a “dark tunnel.”

The powerful military also gave a thinly veiled warning to President Mohammed Morsi’s hard-line backers that it will step in if the mostly secular and liberal protesters, who have vowed to be peaceful, are attacked during the planned demonstrations.

If the Army has the guts to depose Morsi (I assume it has the tanks; I mean ability; I mean tanks), it would effectively reverse Egypt’s ill-named Arab Spring and restore the status quo ante Morsi. Which would, and you’ll pardon me if I point out the blindingly obvious, be just one more IQ point deducted from President Obama’s “smart diplomacy.”

And that number has already gone from “Idiot Savant” down to “Drooling Moron.”