In an age when Western mainstream media and governments — especially the United States — are busy serving alternate realities, it’s refreshing to see one well-known Western leader speaking the truth.
Despite the widespread narrative that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and former president Morsi are victims of a military coup, the UK’s former prime minister, Tony Blair, recently called it as it is — as Egyptians know it to be. According to the Guardian, “Britain’s former prime minister said Mohamed Morsi‘s Muslim Brotherhood had stolen Egypt’s revolution, and the army who deposed him last July had put the country back on the path to democracy.”
“This is what I say to my colleagues in the west,” said Blair, after visiting Egypt. “The fact is, the Muslim Brotherhood tried to take the country away from its basic values of hope and progress. The army have intervened, at the will of the people, but in order to take the country to the next stage of its development, which should be democratic. We should be supporting the new government in doing that.”
During his televised interview, he further added: “Right here in Egypt I think it is fundamental that the new government succeeds, that we give it support in bringing in this new era for the people of Egypt. And, you know, we can debate the past and it’s probably not very fruitful to do so, but right now I think it’s important the whole of the international community gets behind the leadership here and helps.”
Compare and contrast this with U.S. Sens. John McCain’s and Lindsay Graham’s visit to Egypt, when they condemned the people’s revolution and called for the immediate release of Brotherhood leadership, who are currently being tried for terrorist related activities.
Blair’s position is in keeping with a realist perspective concerning the region. Back in 2011, during the first revolution in Egypt, he predicted that if Mubarak goes, the Brotherhood would come to power: “They [Brotherhood] are extremely well organised and well funded whereas those people who are out on the street at the moment, many of them will be extremely well intentioned people but they’re not organised in political parties yet.”
Many observers made the same warning, but in spite of it — or perhaps because of it — the U.S. administration pushed and hurried Egypt for immediate elections, which played out exactly as predicted, with a Brotherhood take over.