See Egypt Melting Down? Blame the US

The throngs massing in Tahrir Square and elsewhere in Egypt aren't just livid at Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood—they're angry at the US, too, writes Jeffrey Goldberg at Bloomberg. And what's more, they should be, he adds. The US, in particular ambassador Anne Patterson, did nothing as Morsi shut out the opposition from his government in a bid for absolute power. Patterson has tried to justify the look-the-other-way policy by saying that Morsi won the election and is thus entitled to respect.

But she and the US have given the Muslim Brotherhood, whose motto includes the phrase "jihad is our way," far too much deference, writes Goldberg. The mess now unfolding "might have been avoided had the Obama administration used its leverage—the $1.5 billion in aid the US is giving Egypt this year, for starters—to force Morsi to include the opposition in his government from the outset," he writes. "It didn’t. And the Egyptian masses noticed." Click for Goldberg's full column. (More Egypt protests stories.)