Rommel Drives on Deep Into Egypt, By Paul Greenberg

One headline after another comes as a surprise. Mubarak Departs. Demonstrations Spread Across Arab World. Libya Erupts. “Rebels on Run after Gadhafi Pounds Port/ Libya Dictator Will Prevail, U.S. Intelligence Chief Says … Strikes on Libya get OK at U.N./ No-fly Zone Also to Shield Rebellion … ” Gadhafi Declares Cease-Fire, Continues to Attack. “ROMMEL DRIVES ON DEEP INTO EGYPT” –San Francisco Chronicle, June 26, 1942…
It’s all one big swirl of past and present, expectation and disappointment, an unforeseen sirocco blowing out of the desert, coming out of nowhere and hastening to the place where it arose, covering everything with dust…
None of this was anticipated. It was not possible. So said the graphs and pie charts and PowerPoint presentations and algorithmic computer modeling maintained at the Pentagon, in the think tanks, at Foggy Bottom, in faculty conferences on the Middle East, and they all proved worthless. Fixed ideas stayed fixed…