Chill, People

While the media are kvelling about "freedom" in Egypt ("protesters" having finally persuaded Mubarak it was high time to am-scray), it behooves us to take a deep breath and consider this: the Egyptians are not like us. The Egyptian concept of "freedom" is an Islamic--not a Western--one. They still hate Jews/Israelis like poison. And you're talking about a country that is essentially a clitoris-free zone (9 out of 10 women in Egypt being the victims of Female Genital Mutilation).

So puh-leeze, knock it off with the romantic "freedom" stuff, 'kay, 'cuz it's a huge crock of shite.

Update: Cool, calm and collected, Mark Steyn remarks:

This is not a happy ending but the beginning of something potentially very dark. The end of the Mubarak regime is the biggest shift in the region in 60 years, since Nasser overthrew King Farouk's dissolute monarchy and diminished London's influence in Cairo. We are witnessing the unraveling of the American Middle East - that's to say, of the regimes supported by Washington in the waning of British and French imperial power after the Second World War. The American Middle East was an unlovely place, and perhaps the most obviously repellent illustration of the limitations of "He may be an SOB but he's our SOB" thinking. It's "our" SOBs who are in trouble...

And, son of a bitch, we're in big trouble, too.