Is Egypt on the cusp of counterrevolution? Over the weekend, Egyptians took to the streets en masse throughout the country to protest the decline and political disorder that have come to define the rule of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government.
History, it is said, doesn't repeat itself, but occasionally it does rhyme. So it is with Western policy toward Iran, which is on the verge of returning to the costly rhythm of the past.
The Egyptian government is, quite literally, running out of gas.
So says the country's petroleum minister, who estimates that Egypt is on track to deplete key strategic energy reserves in the very near future. In a recent interview with Turkey's Anadolu News Agency, Petroleum Minister Sherif Haddara disclosed that the country's stocks of three strategic fuels -- diesel, butane and petrol --might run out by month's end, if not sooner, unless the government receives an infusion of cash from foreign donors.
The United States and Europe are failing to use a tool already in their possession that would deliver a knockout blow to Iran's nuclear program. It isn't a new piece of computer malware or a bomb. The group that would accomplish the mission isn't the Pentagon or the European Union—it's the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift.
Iranians closed the page on the tumultuous eight-year tenure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when they went to the polls on June 14 to pick a new president. In a national election marked by tremendous fervor and massive turnout (some 75 percent of Iran’s roughly 50 million eligible voters are estimated to have participated), the victor was Hasan Rowhani, a soft-spoken cleric widely billed as a “moderate” among Iran’s field of presidential contenders.