Anne Patterson's Burden

Obama's envoy to Egypt struggles to influence, not offend

Keith Lane / MCT / ABACA USA

In Cairo, outlandish accusations and outright insults are common against the U.S. envoy.

Barack Obama is about to be impeached. So says a conspiracy theory afoot in Egypt that is filling Facebook walls and Twitter feeds with word that Obama in recent months covertly sent $8 billion to that country's Muslim Brotherhood--led government in return for--here's the fiendish clincher--Israel's annexation of nearly half the Sinai desert. "That's something people seriously believe!" marvels Samuel Tadros, a research fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington.

Never mind that the Islamists with whom Obama supposedly conspired are furious with him, thanks to his refusal to brand the Egyptian military's July 5 ouster of President Mohamed Morsi a...

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