Obama in Egypt.

Here is a good article on Obama speaking in Egypt in the NYTimes.

Good point on Egypt's interest:
Egypt maintains that to tame Iran — with which it is in open conflict — the issue of a Palestinian state must first be resolved. As long as that conflict is festering, Iran will be able to undermine Egypt by attacking its allegiance to the peace treaty with Israel, officials here said. Egypt has struggled to convince its people, and Arabs around the region, that its commitment to the treaty is the best way to help the Palestinians and to preserve Egypt’s own national security.

Good advice in the article from my favorite favorite Egyptian activist dissident, Saad Eddin Ibrahim:
There is, however, a way to navigate the issue of human rights, said Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an Egyptian democracy advocate living in self-imposed exile because the government has threatened to jail him. He said he recently spoke with Mr. Obama’s advisers and suggested that the speech address the “infrastructure of democracy, which to us is the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, free media, autonomous civil society and gender equality.”

Little reminder from Ayman Nour, another great Egyptian activist dissident: (more analysis of this later.)
“America’s standing alongside authoritarian regimes is what created terrorism in the Arab world,” said Ayman Nour, a former presidential candidate who was recently freed after more than three years in prison here on what were widely seen as politically inspired charges. “It is what strengthened the thorn of extremism in the Arab world.”

I wish I could write more on this but I am so busy at work and have little time to write. Soon though I will have all the time in the world, I am taking off two months before heading to Iraq. So don't worry trusty readers, this summer will be exciting for all of us.