By Andrew P. Napolitano
The president's men trash the Constitution to pursue antagonists
A potential Republican presidential candidate complained this week about the "naivete" of the Obama administration's policy toward Syria and urged the White House to recall the U.S. ambassador from Damascus.
What began as a leaderless movement in the streets of Cairo has evolved into a crowded field of would-be power brokers hoping to lead a new government in Egypt.
The Obama administration on Tuesday opened talks with a possible successor to embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as the U.S. ramped up outreach to the hundreds of thousands determined to force their long-time leader out of power.
Increasing the pressure on Egypt's leaders, the Obama administration threatened on Friday to reduce a $1.5 billion program of foreign aid depending on President Hosni Mubarak's response to swelling street protests in Cairo and other cities.
U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford presented his credentials to the president of Syria on Thursday, reopening full diplomatic relations with a country the State Department lists as a sponsor of terrorism.
A U.S. ambassador returned to Syria on Sunday, ending nearly six years of a diplomatic protest from Washington over the 2005 assassination of a former Lebanese leader, whose assassination is widely blamed on Syria and its Hezbollah extremist allies in Lebanon.
"The United States has sought to interest the Egyptian military into expanding their mission in ways that reflect new regional and transnational security threats, such as piracy, border security, and counterterrorism," Ambassador Margaret Scobey said in a cable to Gen. David H. Petraeus, chief of U.S. Central Command. "Egypt's aging leadership, however, has resisted our efforts and remains satisfied with continuing to do what they have done for years: train for force-on-force warfare with a premium on ground forces and armor."
In a hurried effort to gauge what might follow in the wake of a regime collapse, the U.S. ambassador in Cairo, Margaret Scobey, spoke by telephone Tuesday with Mr. ElBaradei, the AP reported.
