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Abu Muqawama ("dedicated to following issues related to contemporary insurgencies as well as counterinsurgency tactics and strategy") at the Center for New American Security ("Developing Strong, Pragmatic and Principled National Security and Defense Policies") demonstrates uncommon good sense.Money quote(s):"(I)t was inevitable that in Washington, people would start asking "Who Lost Egypt?" before it was even clear what, exactly, is happening there."&"(L)ong ago the U.S. government had identified the fall or death of Hosni Mubarak as a likely contingency to plan toward. Everyone knew this was going to happen eventually. So I think the blame being heaped on the intelligence community here is a little silly. Intelligence cannot predict the future, though it can assist policy-makers in gaming out possible contingencies, and I think our intelligence services did that here."&
"Even when administrations have decided to pressure Mubarak, by the way, they have found that the ~$1.5b we give Egypt annually has been a largely ineffective source of leverage. (Though it has, I would argue, helped foster now-invaluable connections with Egypt's military. Those last two sentences should serve as a warning for any legislators out there threatening to cut our aid.)"
Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit ("I can take vacations, etc., and not feel any gnawing need to be at the computer.") continues following the finger-pointing narrative.Money quote(s):"Considering what we spend, I don’t think we’re getting our money’s worth."It's a point of view.But it's a great big world out there, and U.S. interests stretch to pretty much all of it. Collecting, analyzing, disseminating, &tc., through all the means, covert and otherwise, is a non-trivial task, and one for which we are constantly re-assessing our ability and capabilities to accomplish.And that's exactly the point, we're constantly evaluating how we do things and trying to come up with better ways to do it. That's how we learn from mistakes (when they're made) and improve.
Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") critiques the inevitable casting about for a fall guy.Money quote(s):"(M)any in Washington are expressing disappointment that the U.S. intelligence community seemingly missed the warning signs"You mean, like Tunesia's "Jasmine Revolution"? Or like the fact that Mubarak was almost 82?" I’ve got to agree with Ed Morrissey that there’s really very little to this criticism, and it looks to me like we’re seeing people in power stake out their positions for a “Who Lost Egypt?” debate should that come to pass"It's right there! Right where it's always been! It was never ours to begin with!"(D)ocuments from the Wikileaks diplomatic cables dump show that the U.S. has been concerned for years about the question of who would succeed Hosni Mubarak, and that we spend the last several years providing behind the scenes support to dissident groups in Egypt"I can neither confirm nor deny (even if I knew, which I don't) whether this last is true, especially since FSOs (and others) have been directly ordered not to access Wikileaks."(O)n some level, the idea that the intelligence community missed anything here is simply absurd."Remember: no policy failures, only intelligence failures. Or, alternatively, diplomatic failures.&"Anyone in Washington who says they didn’t see this coming is either lying or they weren’t paying attention to the world around them."
