In the shadow of the Pyramids

by the lapping waters of the Nile Eternal...
History once again chases it's tail.
***
Egypt is an odd country, it is ruled by generals all of whom earned their battle stars and brass hats by losing four wars in a row.
In any other country, someone would put two and two together as to the efficacy of being ruled by defeated Generals, but the Egyptian character is apparently a contemplative one, it takes time for a particular idea's scope to become apparent.
And so into the streets stream the masses screaming for blood and dynamite, demanding some relief from the twitchy hamfisted rule of beaten men.
If you think about it, virtually the whole region is run by a series of aging military autocrats of such certain ineptitude that a torpid nullity like General Ambrose T. Burnside could whip their asses in his sleep.
Ah but lets not forget all these men came in years ago promising national self determination, modernization and new and better nation.
Military autocrats are like that, up at five AM, a four mile run, a cold water bath, rice gruel for breakfast and then a good fourteen hour workday plotting treachery & bloodshed, the filling up prisons, reviewing vast infantry parades, the whole panoply of military rule.
Frankly if the Egyptians want this rabble off their backs, I say good riddance to the gleaming bemedaled lot.
At this point the Egyptians could do a lot worse than inviting their deposed King Farouk back.
 Okay he is dead but his heir Fuad is still breathin' and answering the phone.
Farouk was a phenomenon in his day, morbidly obese, a pious muslim, a prodigious consumer of food and wives, he loved to gamble and pick pockets at diplomatic receptions.
He rarely rose before 10am, breakfasting alone took up another hour with maybe two hours a day given over to actual governance before he'd adjourn to the casino or his mistresses' lavish apartment.
Under his regime the police were a bunch of lazy bribe loving gimps and the army was a haven of last resort for every broken down moocher in the Egypt, no threat to anyone at all.
The Farouks of this world are incapable of totalitarian oppression as we understand it, it's too hard it takes up too much time, it means getting out of bed before dawn and cutting back on the blackjack tables.
"Who needs it?" sighs his Royal Majesty as he palms the Brazilian ambassador's watch.

Honestly if the Egyptians want the iron fist of the government off their backs, bring back the House of Farouk they will hardly govern anyone at all.