An interesting view of how we got to where we are in Egypt

Ambassador Anne Patterson, the Controversial Face of America’s Egypt Policy

“She was pushing for a tight embrace of Morsi. Her view was we need to lock this relationship down. Meanwhile, she alienated the opposition. It was both unwise and unnecessary,” one former Obama administration official told The Daily Beast. “She was telling a lot of people that the opposition was useless, that there was no point investing time in them, that the Muslim Brotherhood was the only game in town.”

In internal discussions, Patterson downplayed the steps the Morsi government’s authoritarian tendencies and failed to respond forcefully to abuses such as the Egyptian government raids on American NGOs, many critics said. Plus, she didn’t foresee the street protests scheduled for June 30 leading to the dramatic events of the past 10 days, leaving the U.S. unprepared.

“The whole point of this revolutionary period is that it is very dynamic and you have to hedge your bets,” the official said. “At every point she misread what was happening.”

Another former Obama administration official outlined for The Daily Beast the defense of Patterson: that she was doing her best to implement a White House policy meant to correct decades where the United States failed to engage the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups in Egypt.