When Did The President Know It?

Egypt: One of President Obama's own nominees has revealed that the CIA briefed him on impending trouble for the Mubarak government. A stronger president surely would have acted.

In October 2008, less than a month before Barack Obama's election, Investor's Business Daily warned — and not for the first time — about the dangers of electing someone president who would project the image of a weak America to our enemies around the world.

"An early sign of the coming greatness of the Reagan presidency," we noted, "was that within an hour of the former actor's taking the oath of office, the Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamofascist regime in Iran released the 52 U.S. hostages it had been holding for 444 days."

As we pointed out, "Somehow, Ronald Reagan's lack of foreign policy experience didn't give Tehran the impression it would be a good idea to find out what he was made of; the mullahs already knew."

Now it's been revealed that Obama was warned about instability in Egypt. During testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee last Thursday, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked associate deputy director of the CIA Stephanie O'Sullivan when, and how well, the president had been briefed on the country's impending unrest.

O'Sullivan, who is Obama's nominee for principal deputy director of national intelligence — the No. 2 post in the massive, multi-agency U.S. intelligence community — told Wyden: "We warned of instability but not exactly where it would come from," and "we didn't know what the triggering mechanism would be."

The briefing warning of what now looks to be a revolutionary crisis in Egypt "happened at the end of last year," O'Sullivan said.

As Talking Points Memo's Susan Crabtree's coverage described it, O'Sullivan was told that Intelligence Committee senators would be asking about presidential briefings on Egypt. Her responses to his questions "did not placate Wyden who immediately grew testy" and complained that it was "unfortunate we're not getting more specifics considering you were put on notice."

This isn't surprising, however, considering O'Sullivan's cheerleading about Obama to the committee that the CIA "is fully on board with his vision, which resonates with us."

The panel's ranking Republican, Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, got O'Sullivan to commit to providing to the senators, within a week and a half, written details of all recent presidential briefings on Egypt. As Chambliss quipped, "We need to make sure we're evaluating the quality of information that's getting to the No. 1 customer, which is the president."

But what about when that No. 1 customer isn't making effective use of the information he gets?

Egypt's government could now fall into the hands — or at least the great influence — of the Muslim Brotherhood. That strongest opposition bloc in Egypt is actually a global jihadist organization dedicated to destroying Western civilization. The Brotherhood wants to impose Shariah law in as many places as possible.

And Egypt's fall could set in motion the dominoes of Jordan, Yemen, and even Saudi Arabia.

With so much at stake, what did the president do when the CIA told him late last year that the Egyptian cauldron was bubbling? Not much of any real effect, it appears. How hollow the president's smug assurances now sound from his much-touted 2007 Foreign Affairs magazine article, "Renewing American Leadership."

"Sustained American leadership for peace and security will require patient effort and the personal commitment of the president of the United States," then-Sen. Obama assured readers. "Throughout the Middle East, we must harness American power to reinvigorate American diplomacy.

"Tough-minded diplomacy, backed by the whole range of instruments of American power — political, economic, and military — could bring success even when dealing with long-standing adversaries such as Iran and Syria."

When you're arrogant enough to think you'll be solving the arduous threats of Iran and Syria, is it a surprise when you're caught with your pants down over keeping an ally like Egypt stable?