Paul Pillar on events in Egypt

A characteristically sober and balanced piece by Paul Pillar, commenting on the overthrow of Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi, appears as a blog item on the website of the US journal The National Interest.

Pillar, author of Intelligence and US Foreign Policy: Iraq, 9/11 and Misguided Reform, begins:

The most important consequences of the Egyptian military's ouster of President Mohamed Morsi will become clear only over a long term. But for anyone who believes the coup was on balance a favorable event, an awful lot of favorable news will have to come out in the months ahead to offset what has already happened in the first few days after the generals moved.

To read the full piece, see Falling Off a Cliff in Egypt.

Who will write the history of the Egyptian Revolution?

In a 21 January post on her Democracy Digest blog, looking forward to the first anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution on 25 January, Egyptian blogger Ranya Khalifa poses the question:

"… who's going to write about January 25th and its aftermath in our history textbooks?" How will this revolution go down in history and how will the next generations perceive the "facts"? What are the "facts" and who can claim to have a neutral take on what happened in Egypt, not only during the 18 days till the fall of Hosny Mubarak on February 11, 2011, but on the events of Mohamed Mahmoud street, Maspero and on People's Assembly clashes?

Access her piece here.

For those with a twitter account and an interest in current developments in Egypt, @RanyaKhalifa is worth a follow.