Despite repeated assurances from President Sisi to protect the country’s large Coptic minority, his government appears unwilling or unable to actually deliver on his promises.

It took me a moment to comprehend. I opened my cell phone to check the news and saw the bold headline: 25 dead and 49 injured in an attack on the Coptic Orthodox cathedral. The spiritual center of Egyptian Christianity had been mercilessly violated.

As Recep Tayyip Erdogan steers Turkey further away from liberal democracy and ever closer to authoritarianism, we’re reminded of just how often President Obama has picked the wrong partners and chosen the wrong direction on the world stage.

After EgyptAir flight 804 fell out of the sky, I exhaled deeply with many Egyptians, sighing in familiar resignation, “Oh no, not again.”

In the evolving determination of American interests, is Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi a repackaged pharaoh, or a miracle of God’s favor?