More Tehran than Yorktown

Get a grip, folks, or you may find yourself a sad puddle of disappointment. It's highly possible, some say probable, that Libya will turn out to be far different than the nascent democratic utopia that's being sold.

Am I the only who smells a very bad odor emanating from libya? Am I the only one who hears these happy stories of liberation and feels there is something not quite right about the narrative, and the universality thereof?

Maybe not.

Steve Harrigan, live from Tripoli, on Fox, is my hero – he actually told the truth about the rebels and threw cold water on the swooning Shep Smith. When asked about the “transitional government” in Libya, he said:

“I’m extremely pessimistic about their ability to rule, I think they’re in way over their head. I think they’ve proven themselves inept in managing the military, they’ve done a lot of infighting and already proved themselves to be liars to the media, so I think it’s going to be very bad”

Oops. Shep immediately moved to the next story.

I wish these people all of the best, but I've seen this movie before. We were told that the Shah of Iran was an enemy of "the people" and the Ayatollah would, at least, be a step in the right direction...until his minions took over the U.S. Embassy. Then we figured it out, finally. Yes, I know that Libya is a different situation. Iran's revolutionaries were religious in nature, Libya's are not. What concerns me, however, is that the Iranian revolution gave birth to the very brand of Islamic fascism that could very well fill the vacuum that is now exists in Libya.

Pessimistic? Maybe, but there is every reason for pessimism when dealing with Islamic states. Many were agog over the recent Egyptian revolution and that country's situation is tenuous, at best. New hostilities have erupted across the Egyptian-Israeli border which indicates that a new attitude may exist in Cairo regarding relations with Israel. They're the only Arab country with a peace treaty with Israel - for the moment.

This Libyan revolution may well be more Tehran than Yorktown; to expect otherwise is unrealistic. I'm expecting for this thing to end very badly, even while hoping that I'll be wrong.