Al-Sisi Could Seize This Chance To Send His Military Into Libya

Muslims in Libya have been killing Egyptian Copts who work in that country; now they have seized, at one blow, more than a dozen of them.

This gives Al-Sisi his chance to intervene in Libya, which he has wanted to do, and may even, with some limited bombing, have done so. But now he can, by intervening to “save Egyptian citizens” do several things at once.

He will be using the Egyptian army to rescue Copts, an unusual, humane, and decent move. He will win points all over the place, and make it harder for the Obama administration to deny aid. He will reinforce support among the Copts, and among those Muslims in Egypt who are not wild about Islam. He will be able to promote the idea of “Egypt” defending Egyptians, and emphasizing the Egyptian — not the Muslim, nor the Arab — identity of Egypt is important to him, and to all those in Egypt who recognize the problem of Islam, and want to limit the identification with Islam by substituting, instead, the “Pharaonic” notions that, back in the 1920s, Taha Hussein so wisely promoted.

And when his military enters Libya, it won’t stop with trying to free the kidnapped Copts but will take the opportunity, one hopes, to help General Hafter and the forces of sanity against the assorted militias and fanatics who oppose him.

He should be like the Mauve Decade man, possibly associated with Boss Tweed (I am always corrected here by a particular careful reader, and I am waiting for his email about this so I may insert the answer he supplies here), who said “I saw my opportunities and I took ’em.”