When Basma Abdel Aziz wrote her latest novel The Queue, Egypt had just experienced the first phase of a revolution that overthrew the three decade rule of dictator Hosni Mubarak and resulted in the first democratically elected president in Egypt’s modern history. The country was riding a wave of democratic euphoria, but where Egyptians saw prosperity, Abdel Aziz noticed that the country’s powerful military was still lurking in the background — exactly as it had during the Mubarak era.

The GOP’s unwillingness to rein him in may be the biggest warning sign.

A photograph of a deceased Syrian boy who drowned in the Mediterranean and washed ashore on the Turkish coast shook the world Wednesday. A shot of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi’s little body resting face-down went viral on social media and Thursday it adorned the front page of most British newspapers.