In the mediocre comedy of the 1984 The best defense is escape, the US was fighting a made-up Iraq that had invaded a made-up Kuwait. The plot it was politically correct because the real Iraq of those years was pampered by the US and the film did not offend anyone.
But history is ironic and in '90 Saddam Hussein seriously invaded Kuwait, creating the basis for a real war. In a moment the Saddam he turned from a friend of the West into a criminal, to the point, that when the Americans entered Baghdad in the Second Gulf War in 2003, they celebrated. The debates and divisions over the legitimacy of the invasion ceased. Stunned by an overdose of democratic conscience, Liberal and conservatives of the planet rejoiced together for the end of a cruel dictatorship. The same humanitarian outrage at the hanging of Saddam was sacrificed on the altar of democracy at all costs.
What Iraq was going to be in the next decade we all saw. The general satisfaction ended up fading, until it became doubt and remorse: admitting that Saddam's Iraq was not worse than the current one, over time has become almost normal.
The so-called Arab Springs of the 2011 have, however, made the drum of good practice roll again. The fall in sequence of Bel Ali in Tunisia, Mubarak in Egypt and Gaddafi in Libya, in spite of analysis and considerations on a case by case basis, has generated other preventive euphoria. If a sympathetic eye could look at the social realities of countries in revolt, the discourse in terms of geopolitical balances had to be very different.
The example of Egypt is emblematic.
The praise of Western public opinion at the Tahrir Square uprising in the 2011 did not take into account the dark scenarios facing the country. Despite the widespread corruption and malpractice, Mubarak was still the continuator of Sadat's policy, which in the wake of Camp David had given the world an alternative to the refrain of the Arab-Israeli wars. At least this credit to the Egyptian president, especially from thought Liberal, could be there.
But no. The resentment of strong presidentialism is so rooted in Western society that many have even ended up winking at Mohamed Morsi, elected to the 2012. Not even the feverish secularism of our house could see its background: for the first time in an Arab country, the Muslim brotherhood it concretized a bridge between radical Islam and institutions and as an Egyptian Hamas alter ego, potentially became the territorial and ideological continuity between the Gaza Strip and Cairo, pivot of a reversal of regional equilibrium, with Israel as its final objective.
The Western conscience, shaken by the fears of Tel Aviv and won by pragmatism, eventually reversed the march, pushing back the enthusiasm for the fall of Mubarak and greeting Al Sisi's military coup as a welcome.
In the end even the law purists, sensing what was boiling in the Egypt pot and what Morsi could stay in power, accepted status quo, despite the authoritarianism of Al Sisi does not envy anything to that of Mubarak (only differences, Mubarak came from the Air Force and was more telegenic ...). 
Thus a curtain of silence fell on the current system of power in Cairo. It is not difficult to understand why.
Egypt, with 82 million souls, is the most populous Middle Eastern country (not only Arab). Together with Jordan it is the only one to have official relations with Israel and it is the only one in the last 30 years to have always taken a position alongside the West. The 2015 doubling of the Suez Canal in the summer has made it, if possible, an even more strategic country, placing it in the midst of every global economic and geopolitical dynamic.
Egypt is also the junction point of two hemispheres, the Atlantic and the Russian. Heir of the Nasserist antagonistic positions preceding Camp David and relaunched along pro-American lines starting from the 80 years, with Mubarak first and especially with Al Sisi then, Cairo has become the meeting room of Washington and Moscow with which it maintains and excells economic and political relations.
The risk Morsi, widely underestimated at the beginning, allowed to shed light on the design of the Arab springs, behind which USA and Saudi Arabia have blown with malice and superficiality. The arc of political destabilization that from the Maghreb was aiming to close to the Turkish-Syrian border, drew a great Sunni crescent, probably easier to create than to check later. The project failed precisely in Egypt, absurdly the very cradle of the first Jihad and much of the anti-Western resentment already in the 70 years.
An exporter not only of militiamen but also of fundamentalist thought, from the assassination attempt on Sadat onwards, the country has witnessed the convergence of native fundamentalist groups, guaranteeing a numerically impressive social base. A lot of work has been done on this Muslim Brotherhood, able to build an unprecedented human reservoir and to direct discontent towards confessional shores. The elections won in the 2012 were the most evident proof.
The history of Islamism has a long path and it is precisely in Egypt that it has played and will play its decisive cards. Today the head of the galaxy Al Qaeda is the Egyptian Al-Zawahiri and from the 2014 the fundamentalist group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis active in Sinai, it is officially affiliated to the Islamic State. The Islamist terrorism that struck tourism (source of the 12% of the country's wealth) already in the 90 years, continues to sow death and threaten the integrity of the country, in a climate of general undervaluation.
If the 97 Luxor bombing caused dead 60, the 321 Russian A2015 disaster made it almost 250. The guerrillas taking place in the Sinai, proclaimed province by ISIS, between the 2011 and the 2015 caused 1100 deaths among soldiers and policemen. The sequence of attacks is impressive reaching a cadence if not daily, at least weekly.
While Morsi is serving a death sentence with postponement indefinitely of the final decision, the Armed Forces of Al Sisi continue the pressure on the borders with Libya, showing the great nervousness that reigns in Cairo. Egypt supports the Tobruk faction concerned about the degeneration of the struggle jihadi in North Africa of which it is still the main objective.
Likely that the hands of democracy in Egypt, already considerably late, have made other shots back in recent years. It could be the price that a country constantly on the brink of the abyss has to pay so that the errors of the Arab springs, averted on its territory, do not end up sweeping it from outside.
To pay an even higher price we would be westerners at the bottom. Geopolitics, like diplomacy, does not coincide with law. This perhaps can still save us.
(photo: القوات المسلحة المصرية / web)
