Ron Smith: All Quiet on the Egyptian Front

With Syria dominating the news from the Middle East, there has been relatively little news in the main-stream media about what might be happening in other places of earlier great interest, such as Tunisia, Libya, and, particularly, Egypt.  Of course, there have been some incidents that have commanded attention, such as the occasional arrests of the remaining Muslim Brotherhood leadership, following the violent suppression of the anti-coup protests, and the recent events in the northern Sinai in which Brotherhood activists, supported by Hamas from Gaza, captured a busload of Egyptian police officers and executed them one by one.  This was swiftly followed by an Egyptian military operation which resulted in the death of most of those responsible.  Other than these events (and the very recent assassination attempt on the Egyptian Interior Minister) Egypt has been relatively quiet since the protests following the overthrow of President Morsi, nearly two months ago.