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Ted Cruz pens scathing op-ed on Egypt
WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 13: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) holds a news conference to announce their plan to defund the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, at the U.S. Capitol March 13, 2013 in Washington, DC. Although Cruz and his fellow sponsors expect the legislation to fail, they believe it is an important survey of who supports health care reform. Credit: Getty Images

Ted Cruz pens scathing op-ed on Egypt

Over at Foreign Policy, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) offers some stinging criticism for the current administration and its handling of Middle East foreign policy, with special regard to the unfolding situation in Egypt:

On Sunday, millions of Egyptians turned out to protest President Mohamed Morsy and his Muslim Brotherhood-dominated regime. Fed up with his disastrous economic mismanagement and systematic disregard for constitutional freedoms, the Egyptian people took to the streets to demand his resignation. "Leave! Leave!" they chanted in what may have been the largest demonstration in the history of the Middle East -- if not the world.

It was a breathtaking scene -- and potentially a watershed moment. Unlike the angry, disaffected youth that raged through the Arab Spring in 2011, these crowds -- like the recent protests in Turkey -- were made up of middle-class citizens protesting against a regime with an unpleasant tendency to trample on the rights of women, Christians, and Jews -- and to stifle the independence of the press and judiciary, ruining the economy in the process. While there has been some unfortunate violence, the Tamarod (or "Rebel,") movement is also organizing demonstrations, gathering signatures of no-confidence in Morsy's government (they have gathered 22 million already), and threatening additional civil disobedience in the form of strikes if Morsy does not step down.

One would expect to find the United States standing firmly with these people. Surely, after our long and lonely search for secular and democratic partners in the Arab world we could find some common ground with them. Surely, we could see the value of an administration in Egypt that could act as both a southern bulwark for Israel and a much-needed partner in countering the terrorist outposts in the Sinai and Horn of Africa. And surely, we could help support a government that could stand as an example for struggling states like Libya and Iran -- one that proves Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East are not predestined to live in oppressive theocracies.

Tragically, America has been relegated to the sidelines...

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