Meanwhile, in Egypt

While the civil war in Syria might be the longest continuous revolution since the Arab Spring started in 2011, Egypt's revolution, some might argue, is the most prolific. Part of this is because Egypt is the largest Arab country in the world, so any revolution there should be considered a political benchmark for the region.

But, just like Syria's, it seems like Egypt's revolution is far from finished. What the world thought was a coup for representative democracy in 2011 has degenerated into a scenario that is, in my opinion, one step away from a civil war, replete with coups of a different, anti-democratic nature.

First, some context for those who need to be brought up to speed. In 2011, upon the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, who had been ruling Egypt with an iron fist for 29 years, Egyptians went to the polls and popularly elected the Muslim Brotherhood Party to be the majority in their fledgling parliament. "Majority" is a tad misleading, as with this being their first true democratic election - Mubarak had a rubber-stamp parliament - Egyptians had a plethora of parties from which to choose.

So, after its first free elections pretty much ever, Egyptians find themselves with an Islamist party having the most seats in its first de facto parliament. Forget the fact that Islamist anything is going to be a bitter pill for the West and Israel to swallow. You also have a secular military, moderate, secular Egyptians, and Coptic Christians who might be wary of Islamists being in a position of power. It turns out their concerns were warranted.

Simply put, the Brotherhood got greedy. When your constitution effectively shuts out opposition, pays lip service to freedom of religion while actually threatening it, and the fact that it was fast-tracked right at the same time that Morsi decreed himself sweeing powers, well, fears of Shariah law becoming commonplace don't seem that far-fetched anymore.

So, the world watched in July 2013 as the Egyptian military huffed and puffed and finally deposed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. A military coup; REALLY makes things complicated for the West, the United States, specifically.

Why? Because this isn't the Cold War anymore. During the days of the real-life game of "Risk" that was the Cold War, if a military deposed a leader whose interests were considered contrary to those of the United States - Salvador Allende in Chile is a good example - we tended to look the other way. Like "Risk", the two camps, US and Soviet, accumulated countries like cards.

However, due to changes in the geopolitical landscape since the fall of the Soviet Union, as well as due to obvious moral reasons, the United States tends these days to look down on military coups that depose popularly-elected regimes. In this case, though, if it were only that cut-and-dry. It is obvious that a military coup is anathema to democracy. That said, how do you balance moral sympathies with the the fact that, in this case, the deposed is anti-Western, anti-Israel, pro-Shariah, and was beginning to spread its autocratic wings. Forget American strategic interests; what about the threat that poses to secular and non-Muslim Egyptians?

That ambiguity, that muddle gray area that is now so endemic to international events, needless to say the Middle East, has put Obama between a rock and a hard place. Do you stand up for a government that is outspokenly anti-American, or do you endorse an anti-democratic coup? There are no good answers.

Just as Syria exposes a flash point in the New Cold War, this situation exposes a broader conundrum presented to foreign policy makers in Washington: we are increasingly seeing that the zero-sum outcomes of international events occurring in Old Cold War are being replaced by more and more situations where there are just no good outcomes for American strategic interests.