The Obama administration is losing the battle over Syria before firing a shot. As it dithers on what to do, Egypt appears to be continuing the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. If directing everyone’s attention away from Egypt and toward Syria was by design, it may be having an effect similar to directing everyone’s attention away from Benghazi and toward the IRS. Not only did the IRS scandal fail to make Benghazi go away but it seemed to resonate with people more than the Benghazi scandal did.

Obama: Starting to sweat politics of distraction?

Besides, without the IRS scandal, we likely wouldn’t have learned about Lois Lerner granting illegal tax-exempt status to Barack Obama’s half-brother Malik Obama, who also works for the Sudanese government, a State sponsor of Terrorism.

France and Great Britain appear to be getting cold feet about launching missiles at the Assad regime.

Meanwhile, in Egypt, the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood continues without the meddling interventionist types like the two human gas cans, McCain and Graham. They’re actually leading Obama from behind on Syria.

Check out this roundup, via Fox News:

Egyptian authorities detained more than 60 people associated with the Muslim Brotherhood in less than 24 hours, including relatives of the group’s leaders, officials said Wednesday.

The crackdown on the group, from which ousted President Mohammed Morsi hails, started shortly after the July 3 coup. It intensified this month after security forces cleared out two of the group’s sit-ins, killing hundreds and sparking unrest that killed more than 1,000 people in a few days. The Interior Ministry says more than 100 policemen and soldiers have also been killed since mid-August.

One of those arrested was Saad al-Shater, son of Muslim Brotherhood deputy Khairat al-Shater. There is a very interesting paragraph from the Fox News article which relates back to one of our earlier posts. First, the Fox News excerpt:

It was not immediately clear why police detained el-Shater’s 23-year-old son. Officials only said Wednesday that police had arrested Saad el-Shater and that he had threatened to release documents allegedly showing ties between his father and U.S. President Barack Obama. Officials did not elaborate. {emphasis ours}

Al-Shaters jailed in Egypt: Like father, like son

Earlier this month, we passed along the contents of reports from six Arabic news sources that all said similar things about Saad’s father having very damaging information about Obama. We suggested taking this with a ‘grain of salt’ because we could not confirm that Saad actually did an interview with the Anatolia News Agency cited in those reports. However, this report from Fox adds a bit more credibility to the claims.

If there is any truth to these claims, Obama would indeed want a distraction; Syria could provide it. After the August 21st attack, everyone’s attention is suddenly directed to Syria and away from Egypt. How about the claims made by prominent Egyptian television personality Ahmed Moussa? He reported last month that the passport of Christopher Stevens’ “assassin” was found in the home of Khairat al-Shater. He also reported that this “assassin” (Mohsen Al-Azazi) was hiding out at the Rabia Al-Adawiya mosque with Safwat Hijazy and Mohammed El-Beltagy.

As we wrote at the time, all of those charges, if verified, would show a connection between Benghazi, Egypt, and possibly Obama himself.

Incidentally, Hijazi was arrested on August 21st (date of Syrian chemical weapons attack) and Beltagy was arrested in the recent Brotherhood dragnet.

If Egypt does have something on Obama, shifting focus to Syria doesn’t seem to be helping him. In fact, Egypt seems to be stepping up its game since being out of the spotlight.