The Muslim Brotherhood vs the Professionally Naïve

Michael Totten is in Egypt and he has interviewed Esam El-Erian, a member of the executive bureau of the Muslim Brotherhood. He's worth listening to, despite spouting the typical propaganda on the greatness of democracy and the evils of Israel. In addition to pointing out that Qaddafi is 'our man' he comes up with this:

Look, sir. China, Iran, and France are the three players in Africa. America is now out. And the Arab world may be lost to America if it doesn’t revise its strategy. It may be lost. All the Arab world. This American attempt to stop the revolution in Syria and Libya and Yemen is going to fail.

This is absolutely true. As, I have mentioned before, Osama bin Laden's dreams are closer than ever to being fulfilled, while America influence in the area has dwindled. Our military violence, ever widening in scope apparently (six countries- Somalia being the most recent one I've heard about), is a clear sign we are losing control. So, while the media pretends democracy/revolutionary equals friend, the military negotiates with the U.S., and our state department tries to engineer a 'revolutionary government' which would be harmless to its interests among the cognitively challenged on social networking sites.

The title, incidentally, comes from the interview as well:

Esam El-Erian: You are very naïve people.

MJT: I’m not naïve. I do this for a living.

Perhaps professional naïvete equals myopia? Much like the recent debates on raising the debt ceiling, once you take the long view, it become ridiculously obvious that we just have to stop. No more war; no more debt. The journalist, the government official- they seem to thrive off the inertia, though Totten is certainly better than most journalists covering the Middle East.