The summary mass trial and conviction of 529 Egyptians to death this week is yet another example of Egypt’s descent into lawlessness and blatant miscarriage of justice. The rushed decision showed no respect for the most basic standards of due process under the military dictatorship.
The Egyptian court spent less than a [...]]]>
The summary mass trial and conviction of 529 Egyptians to death this week is yet another example of Egypt’s descent into lawlessness and blatant miscarriage of justice. The rushed decision showed no respect for the most basic standards of due process under the military dictatorship.
The Egyptian court spent less than a minute on each of the 529 defendants before sentencing to them. Defense lawyers were barred from challenging state “evidence” and defendants were not allowed to speak. Yet, the Sisi government and the pliant Egyptian media did not question the sentences.
The U.S. State Department issued a statement in Secretary of State John Kerry’s name condemning the sentences. Kerry said he is “deeply troubled” and called on the Egyptian interim government to “remedy the situation.”
The decision, according to the statement, “simply defies logic” and fails to satisfy “even the most basic standards of justice.” Amnesty International deemed the death sentences “grotesque.” Most Western countries have expressed “deep concern” over the sham trial and convictions and the hope that the decision would be overturned on appeal.
In his heady rush to seek the presidency, however, Field Marshall turned civilian Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, however, is not paying much attention to America’s warnings or to international condemnations of the Minya judge who dispensed the ruling.
Sisi sees the Obama administration moving away from values of good governance and the rule of law in Egypt to a myopic doctrine of national interest, which includes coddling Arab dictators and tribal ruling potentates.
Since the Arab upheavals of 2011, President Obama has identified American values of tolerance, justice, fairness, and democracy as a guiding principle of post “Arab Spring” relations with Arab countries. These values, the U.S. President frequently said, “define who we are” as a people and as a nation.
Sisi, on the other hand, much like Putin’s power and land grab in Ukraine, feels empowered to defy the U.S. because he perceives it unwilling or unable to confront him or to shun him or cut military aid to Egypt. He counts on Washington’s inaction against him despite rising lawlessness by state institutions because of Egypt’s pivotal standing in the region.
By ignoring the Egyptian constitution and its traditional claim of judicial independence, the Egyptian judiciary seemed to kowtow to the military-run interim government.
The mass death sentences coupled with Sisi’s announcement of his candidacy for the presidency seem to bring the coup that toppled President Mohamed Morsi full circle. For Sisi, the January 25 Revolution is history, and the demands for democracy are now subsumed under the rubric of fighting “terrorism”, which he equates with the Muslim Brotherhood.
It’s symbolic that Sisi made the announcement on Egyptian television in military uniform even though he had just resigned as minister of defense and as member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). He told the Egyptian public he would continue the struggle “against terrorism” and would fight to “regain Egypt” and restore its “dignity and stature.”
Sisi must have taken a page from the American Tea Party book about “taking back America” and from Putin about taking back Crimea. As if someone has stolen America from Tea Party, or Ukraine from Russia, or Egypt from Sisi.
In fact, it was Sisi and the military junta that stole Egypt from the January 25 Revolution in a military coup. It was Sisi’s regime that has put over 15,000 Egyptians — Islamists and secularists — in jail through illegal arrests, sham trials, and without due process for challenging the coup.
Sisi envisions his presidency to rest on a three-legged stool of pliant media, submissive public, and adulation of him as a rising “selfie” star. In the name of “serving the nation,” Egyptians are being brain-washed not to question the personality cult of Sisi’s budding populist dictatorship.
In addition to frightening the public into submission, Sisi has also shuffled SCAF by sidelining potential challengers like General Ahmed Wasfi and promoting supporters like General Sidqi Sobhi. He sees these actions as an insurance policy against a possible coup that could topple him, much like he did against Morsi.
Although much has been written about Egypt in recent days, the death sentences and Sisi’s presidency have created two serious concerns, which Washington and other Western capitals must confront. First, these actions likely will result in a growing radicalization of some elements within the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups in Egypt.
Radicalization usually begets violence and terrorism.
It would be a nightmare scenario for any Egyptian government if the new radicals join forces with Salafi jihadists in Sinai. Such coordination, which could create an opening for al-Qa’ida in Egypt, would wreak havoc on the country and on Western interests and personnel there.
Second, continued instability, lawlessness, and repression in Egypt under a Sisi presidency would begin to attract Islamist jihadists from Syria to Egypt. Unlike their counterparts from Afghanistan, the new jihadists are honed by combat experience and trained in the use of all kinds of weapons. A jihadist base in Egypt would certainly spread to neighboring countries, including the Gulf tribal monarchies.
To stem this nightmarish tide, The United States and its Western allies must urge Gulf monarchies to start serious dialogue with their peoples toward inclusion and tolerance.
They also must convince Sisi that no stable political system would emerge in Egypt without including secularists and Islamists in the process. An adoring public, a pliant media, a sycophantic government, and an unfettered and corrupt military are a formula for disaster for Egypt and the region.
]]>via IPS News
As the administration of President Barack Obama continues wrestling with how to react to the military coup in Egypt and its bloody aftermath, officials and independent analysts are increasingly worried about the crisis’s effect on U.S. ties with Saudi Arabia.
The oil-rich kingdom’s strong support [...]]]>
via IPS News
As the administration of President Barack Obama continues wrestling with how to react to the military coup in Egypt and its bloody aftermath, officials and independent analysts are increasingly worried about the crisis’s effect on U.S. ties with Saudi Arabia.
The oil-rich kingdom’s strong support for the coup is seen here as having encouraged Cairo’s defence minister Gen. Abdul Fattah al-Sisi to crack down on the Muslim Brotherhood and resist western pressure to take a conciliatory approach that would be less likely to radicalise the Brotherhood’s followers and push them into taking up arms.
Along with the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, Saudi Arabia did not just pledge immediately after the Jul. 3 coup that ousted President Mohamed Morsi to provide a combined 12 billion dollars in financial assistance, but it has also promised to make up for any western aid – including the 1.5 billion dollars with which Washington supplies Cairo annually in mostly military assistance – that may be withheld as a result of the coup and the ongoing crackdown in which about 1,000 protestors are believed to have been killed to date.
Perhaps even more worrisome to some experts here has been the exceptionally tough language directed against Washington’s own condemnation of the coup by top Saudi officials, including King Abdullah, who declared Friday that “[t]he kingdom stands …against all those who try to interfere with its domestic affairs” and charged that criticism of the army crackdown amounted to helping the “terrorists”.
Bruce Riedel, a former top CIA Middle East analyst who has advised the Obama administration, called the comments “unprecedented” even if the king did not identify the United States by name.
Chas Freeman, a highly decorated retired foreign service officer who served as U.S. ambassador to Riyadh during the Gulf War, agreed with that assessment.
“I cannot recall any statement as bluntly critical as that,” he told IPS, adding that it marked the culmination of two decades of growing Saudi exasperation with U.S. policy – from Washington’s failure to restrain Israeli military adventures and the occupation of Palestinian territory to its empowering the Shia majority in Iraq after its 2003 invasion and its abandonment of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and its backing of democratic movements during the “Arab awakening”.
“For most of the past seven decades, the Saudis have looked to Americans as their patrons to handle the strategic challenges of their region,” Freeman said. “But now the Al-Saud partnership with the United States has not only lost most of its charm and utility; it has from Riyadh’s perspective become in almost all respects counterproductive.”
The result, according to Freeman, has been a “lurch into active unilateral defence of its regional interests”, a move that could portend major geo-strategic shifts in the region. “Saudi Arabia does not consider the U.S. a reliable protector, thinks it’s on its own, and is acting accordingly.”
A number of analysts, including Freeman, have pointed to a Jul. 31 meeting in Moscow between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the head of the Riyadh’s national security council and intelligence service, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, as one potentially significant “straw in the wind” regarding the Saudi’s changing calculations.
According to a Reuters report, Bandar, who served as Riyadh’s ambassador to Washington for more than two decades, offered to buy up to 15 billion dollars in Russian arms and coordinate energy policy – specifically to prevent Qatar from exporting its natural gas to Europe at Moscow’s expense – in exchange for dropping or substantially reducing Moscow’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
While Putin, under whom Moscow’s relations with Washington appear to have a hit a post-Cold War low recently, was non-committal, Bandar left Moscow encouraged by the possibilities for greater strategic co-operation, according to press reports that drew worried comments from some here.
“[T]he United States is apparently standing on the sidelines – despite being Riyadh’s close diplomatic partner for decades, principally in the hitherto successful policy of blocking Russia’s influence in the Middle East,” wrote Simon Henderson, an analyst at the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP).
“It would be optimistic to believe that the Moscow meeting will significantly reduce Russian support for the Assad regime,” he noted. “But meanwhile Putin will have pried open a gap between Riyadh and Washington.”
As suggested by Abdullah’s remarks, that gap has only widened in the wake of the Egyptian military’s bloody crackdown on the Brotherhood this month and steps by Washington to date, including the delay in the scheduled shipment of F-16 fighter jets and the cancellation of joint U.S.-Egyptian military exercises next month, to show disapproval.
U.S. officials have told reporters that Washington is also likely to suspend a shipment of Apache attack helicopters to Cairo unless the regime quickly reverses course.
Meanwhile Moscow, even as it joined the West in appealing for restraint and non-violent solutions to the Egyptian crisis, has also refrained from criticising the military, while the chairman of Foreign Affairs Committee of the Duma’s upper house blamed the United States and the European Union for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.
“It is clear that Russia and Saudi Arabia prefer stability in Egypt, and both are betting on the Egyptian military prevailing in the current standoff, and are already acting on that assumption,” according to an op-ed that laid out the two countries’ common interests throughout the Middle East and was published Sunday by Alarabiya.net, the news channel majority-owned by the Saudi Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC).
Some observers argue that Russia and Saudi Arabia have a shared interest in containing Iran; reducing Turkish influence; co-operating on energy issues; and bolstering autocratic regimes, including Egypt’s, at the expense of popular Islamist parties, notably the Brotherhood and its affiliates, across the region.
“There’s a certain logic to all that, but it’s too early to say whether such an understanding can be reached,” said Freeman, who noted that Bandar “wrote the book on outreach to former ideological and geo-strategic enemies”, including China, and that his visit to Moscow “looks like classic Saudi breakout diplomacy”.
But reaching a deal on Syria would be particularly challenging. While Riyadh assigns higher priority to reducing Iran’s regional influence than to removing Assad, some analysts believe there are ways an agreement that would retain him as president could be struck, as Moscow insists, while reducing his power over the opposition-controlled part of the country and weakening his ties to Tehran and Hezbollah.
But Mark N. Katz, an expert on Russian Middle East policy at George Mason University, is sceptical about the prospects for a Russian-Saudi entente, noting that Bandar has pursued such a relationship in the past without success.
“I’m not saying it can’t work, but this has been his hobby horse,” he told IPS. “Whatever happens in Saudi-American relations, however, the Saudis don’t trust the Russians and don’t want them meddling in the region. Everything about the Russians ticks them off.”
He added that Abdullah’s harsh criticism was intended more as a “wake-up call” and the fact that “the Saudis are on the same side [in supporting the Egyptian military] as the Israelis has emboldened them”.
Photo Credit: Analysts worry about the effect of Egypt’s ongoing crisis on U.S.-Saudi relations. Above, CNO Adm. Jonathan Greenert and Saudi Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz in February. Credit: Official U.S. Navy Imagery/CC by 2.0
]]>by Henry Precht
The starting point for understanding Egypt’s August 14th massacre is Black Friday — September 8, 1978 — during the Iranian Revolution.
On that day, 35 years ago, the Shah’s troops killed an untold number of demonstrators in Jaleh Square in south Tehran. Martial law had been declared the day [...]]]>
by Henry Precht
The starting point for understanding Egypt’s August 14th massacre is Black Friday — September 8, 1978 — during the Iranian Revolution.
On that day, 35 years ago, the Shah’s troops killed an untold number of demonstrators in Jaleh Square in south Tehran. Martial law had been declared the day before, but Iranians opposed to the Shah weren’t aware and filed into the square to be confronted by gunfire from soldiers. The government said that fewer than a hundred were killed; the opposition claimed over 1,000. The latter figure was believed by most Iranians.
The same calculus is true of the August 14 shootings in Cairo: the government reports some hundreds killed; its opponents claim thousands have been gunned down.
Few outsiders understood after Black Friday that a turning point had been reached in Ayatollah Khomeini’s struggle against the Shah. It was downhill for the ruler from then on. The Shah was at war with his people, it can be seen in retrospect; there was no way that he could prevail. The Carter Administration, like most outsiders, failed to grasp that. Focused on talks between Israelis and Egyptians at Camp David, the president, together with his Middle Eastern guests, issued a statement of support for the Shah and hope for his “liberalizing” promises.
Something of the same — support [for a return to democracy] and hope [for nonviolence] was President Barack Obama’s message after August 14. He recognizes that Egypt is sharply divided, the Muslim Brotherhood has close to a popular majority, the military have the guns and the US is distrusted and often despised by both sides. Treading carefully, he cancelled next month’s joint military exercise — perhaps aware that visiting American troops might be in danger of deadly attacks by extremists. But he left on the table for now the next tranche of military aid (over $1 billion) — perhaps aware that cancellation would be deeply offensive to nationalists and the blocked contract for F-16 aircraft a burden on the US budget.
Unwisely, he didn’t go far enough.
If Obama is to be true to American values, he should avoid hurting the Egyptian people, but support their aspirations for democracy and dignity. That means no sanctions against the country as a whole or the military as an institution. It does not mean that individual Egyptians responsible for the killings should be immune from US sanctions.
The president should ban any official US contact with General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, his appointed president, prime minister, minister of the interior and any other officials who can be deemed guilty of authorizing violence after the coup and in the subsequent crackdown. The president should call on them to withdraw in favor of a small and politically balanced committee formed by resigned vice president Mohamed ElBaradei (no friend of the US). This committee, in turn, Obama would suggest, would select three individuals — one from the Muslim Brotherhood, one from the military ranks and one distinguished, independent Egyptian — to form a governing triumvirate. Each of the three would be acceptable to the other political elements.
The US would try to enlist other outside powers — EU members, Turkey, Russia and the Arab League — in backing some such scheme. Together they would demand an end to violence by all parties and the release of political prisoners. President Mohamed Morsi, after a very brief return to office, would resign for the good of Egypt — encouraged by the US and other outsiders and, with luck, by some of his MB colleagues. The constitution and parliament would be restored pre-coup. In effect, August 14 would represent a reversal of the coup rather than the beginning of a civil war.
If a plan of reasonable compromise is not worked out very soon, the threat of prolonged sectarian and civil strife is very real. A point of no return is approaching. Every death on the streets creates new martyrs willing to sacrifice themselves. Think Lebanon, Iraq and Syria. Think Iran in 1978.
Photo Credit: Mohamed Azazy
]]>Many Americans, shocked by the appalling casualties from the crackdown ordered by Armed Forces Commander Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, understandably have reacted by calling for a cut-off of US aid to Egypt. Yet, doing so probably would be ineffective, further reducing Washington’s already limited influence [...]]]>
Many Americans, shocked by the appalling casualties from the crackdown ordered by Armed Forces Commander Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, understandably have reacted by calling for a cut-off of US aid to Egypt. Yet, doing so probably would be ineffective, further reducing Washington’s already limited influence over the Egyptian military. And since there are no genuine “good guys” amidst the confrontation between the Egyptian military and the Muslim Brotherhood, the options are less clear than simply meting out one-sided punitive measures. The dynamics of the situation on the ground in Egypt mostly will determine the outcome, but still the US must join with the rest of the international community in trying to convince the Egyptian military that attempts to violently quell pro-Morsi supporters are self-defeating.
Since the early years of President Hosni Mubarak’s tenure, US aid to Egypt has declined in both real terms and as a percentage of Egypt’s annual budget. It was once as high as $3 billion; now it amounts to only $1.3 billion in military assistance. Already the Obama Administration has halted the delivery of four F-16 fighter aircraft and, yesterday, cancelled the joint US-Egyptian bi-annual “Bright Star” military exercises. Neither measure, however, will have much of an adverse impact on the Egyptian military — especially the ability of the military and police to use force to end demonstrations and sit-ins that had disrupted a return to some measure of order and normalcy.
In fact, $1.3 billion amounts to only a little over one-tenth the aid Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait have pumped into Egypt since Mr. Morsi’s ouster. Indeed, should the US take its $1.3 billion off the table, Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Gulf Arab governments (more worried about the threat from the Muslim Brotherhood than al-Sisi’s behavior) could more than compensate the Egyptian government.
Also, the policies of most US regional allies, whether in a position to materially assist Egypt’s current government or not, are hostile toward the Brotherhood. And none of these governments are themselves democratic. The sole exception in the region, in both respects, is moderate Islamist NATO-ally, Turkey.
It is difficult to gauge accurately the overall reaction of most Egyptians to the events of the past 24 hours. Within the population there is so much polarization and mistrust that many of the millions who took to the streets to push the military into taking action against President Morsi have mixed feelings. Indeed, among many Christians, liberals and relatively secular Egyptians, Muslim Brotherhood attacks upon or the torching of 20 to 30 Coptic Christian churches during August 14-15 could be more chilling than the terrible loss of life in the streets at the hands of the security forces. Even the statement made by resigning liberal vice president Mohamed ElBaradei yesterday seemed to focus almost as much on his concern that “the beneficiaries” of the military crackdown are “those who call for…terrorism and the most extreme groups” as the bloodshed itself.
Al-Sisi would have been wise to have tolerated ongoing Brotherhood demonstrations and gone about the business of arranging a return to civilian rule on schedule. Instead, the military-dominated interim government has shown imprudence, impatience and a dangerous penchant for ultimately self-destructive bouts of violent intimidation driven by its frustration over sit-ins disrupting a number of Egyptian urban centers.
There are extremist elements within the Brotherhood probably hoping to goad the military into just such bloody shows of force in order to sully the government, score points on the international scene and inflame their own ranks — as has now happened. Sensing this, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius today urged Egyptian authorities to exercise “maximum restraint” lest “extremist groups take advantage of the situation.”
By late Thursday, however, many Brotherhood demonstrators already were chanting: “End to peace,” so more violence is likely during the Brotherhood’s “Friday of Anger” today as masses of pro-Brotherhood protestors move toward and fill the planned demonstration site at Cairo’s Ramses Square. The authorities appear ready to use gunfire if there are more attacks on government buildings (quite possibly including the city’s main railway station adjacent to that square).
And with the Brotherhood now in a vengeful mood, a dangerous pattern of cyclical violence could set in. If such a situation takes hold with round after round of tit for tat violence, neither the US and the West nor the UN would likely be able to have much success in bringing matters back under control anytime soon. Hopefully, it is not already too late to avoid such a self-perpetuating scenario.
Thus it is urgent that Washington and other governments use whatever limited clout they still have with the Egyptian military to hammer home the message that lashing out only will provoke the Muslim Brotherhood to respond likewise. Convincing al-Sisi and other senior officers that they are acting against their own best interests is more important than high-profile gestures of disapproval that have far more resonance with domestic audiences back home than in the halls of government or the streets of Egypt.
Photo Credit: Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
It’s time to ask some tough questions about US policy regarding Egypt. The most pressing being what that policy is, exactly?
I agreed with the easily assailable decision by the Obama administration to refrain from labelling the ouster of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi a coup. It still [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
It’s time to ask some tough questions about US policy regarding Egypt. The most pressing being what that policy is, exactly?
I agreed with the easily assailable decision by the Obama administration to refrain from labelling the ouster of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi a coup. It still is my belief that doing so might be consistent with US law, but would not be helpful to Egypt. Instead of taking funding away from the military which, since it now directly controls the Egyptian till, would simply divert the lost funds from other places (causing even more distress to an already reeling Egyptian economy) it would be better to use the aid as leverage to push the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) toward an inclusive political process that would include drafting a broadly acceptable constitution and, with all due speed, re-installing a duly elected civilian government.
Yet, despite rhetoric supporting just such an outcome, the United States has done nothing to push for such an Egyptian future. The withholding of four F-16 fighter planes means nothing; the SCAF knows they will get the planes in due course and they have no immediate need for them. Mealy-mouthed statements from US officials calling for “all sides” to show restraint are boilerplate and meaningless, all the more so in the wake of the massive violence last weekend, where scores of Egyptian supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood were slaughtered.
What is the US’ desired outcome? Surely, the Obama administration is not comfortable with the level of violence we are currently seeing in Egypt. And equally surely, however much SCAF might be the familiar partner — the one we know and who can be counted on to cooperate with US policy initiatives — the administration must realize that a renewal of the sort of military dictatorship embodied by Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak cannot be re-installed permanently in Egypt anymore.
But it is also clear that the United States was not at all comfortable with the Muslim Brotherhood leadership in Egypt, or the rise, swept in by the Arab Awakening, of the moderate, anti-Salafist version of political Islam the Brotherhood represented. (Before there is any confusion, I do not believe the West did anything to hasten the downfall of Morsi in Egypt, nor to create the agitation against similar regimes in Tunisia and Turkey. But neither do I believe that Morsi’s failure elicited anything but satisfaction in Washington.)
The question of the US response to the coup in Egypt is not simply about Egypt. It is about the region more broadly. It is about Tunisia, the Gaza Strip, Syria and Turkey. The desire to pivot away from the Middle East, as well as Obama’s disdain for Bush-style “democracy promotion”, meant the US wouldn’t do much about the spread of political Islam. But when Morsi and, now, the Tunisian Ennahda Party, stumbled badly, they certainly didn’t mind.
The Turkish AKP seemed, at first, to have integrated some liberal values, including neo-liberal economics, with Islamist politics, but that too has frayed in 2013. US discomfort with Turkey was certainly sharpened by Turkish support for the Hamas government in Gaza. But it struck harder as Morsi’s Egypt and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s became closer and, using the historic prestige both countries have in the Muslim world, staked out regional leadership roles. There was every possibility that similar Islamist governments could emerge in Jordan and Syria, along with Libya. In time, the Gulf States could also see similar uprisings (as Bahrain already has) that, if successful, might give rise to Islamist governments. The possibility of that sort of regional unity must have given pause to policymakers in Washington, Jerusalem, London, Paris and even Moscow.
So it is not surprising that the US is lobbing rhetoric, rather than substantive pressure, as SCAF seeks to hammer the Brotherhood back into submission; back into an outlaw role. The declaration by SCAF Commander-in-Chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi that the crackdown on the Brotherhood was part of a renewed “war on terror” was hardly lost on Western observers. Nor was the accompanying action against Hamas in Gaza, which is of a piece with the domestic battle against the Brotherhood. The US may feel that the SCAF is going too far with its tactics and risking long term instability, but they cannot object to the goal of neutralizing the Brotherhood and similar organizations in the region as a political force.
This is all a serious mis-read of the realities in the Middle East. Morsi brought the strife upon himself, with his bungling governance, his transparent attempt at a power grab and ignoring his campaign promises to create an inclusive government an restrain his own party’s Islamist leanings. The June 30 protest was a very real statement of dissatisfaction.
But since June 30, history has been re-written in Egypt. The Brotherhood was somehow cast as having been an illegitimate ruling party all along. Their electoral victory was supposedly a reflection of the fact that they were the only group that was organized and thus took advantage of hastily scheduled elections. This, of course, completely ignores the fact that the Brotherhood was not the only Islamist party to garner significant support. In fact, 368 of the 508 parliamentary seats went to Islamist parties. Only 115 were garnered by the liberals, centrists and leftists combined. The Egyptian people, having been burned by half a century of secular(ish) dictatorship, wanted to try something new. When that didn’t work, they protested and moved in a different direction. It’s called democracy.
And while June 30 certainly represented widespread dissatisfaction with the Morsi government, the numbers quoted have been called into serious doubt, and it is not at all clear that those demonstrating also supported a coup. What is clear is that the Brotherhood still has significant support in Egypt, along with major opposition. Driving them underground and labelling them terrorists is unlikely to produce a stable Egypt. A better tactic would have been to allow popular disenchantment with the Brotherhood to continue to grow and express itself in the ballot box.
In the last analysis, the US is largely standing by and watching rather than using the leverage it has with the SCAF to push for an inclusive political transition. The hope is surely that a stable Egypt will emerge after a death blow has been dealt to political Islam, not only in Egypt but throughout the region. That hope seems a bit too ambitious. The words of Professor Fawaz Gerges seem to encapsulate the larger view well:
The military’s removal of Morsi undermines Egypt’s fragile democratic experiment because there is a real danger that once again the Islamists will be suppressed and excluded from the political space. The writing is already on the wall with the arrest of Morsi and the targeting of scores of Brotherhood leaders. This does not bode well for the democratic transition because there will be no institutionalization of democracy without the Brotherhood, the biggest and oldest mainstream religiously based Islamist movement in the Middle East… As the central Islamist organization established in 1928, the failure of the Muslim Brotherhood’s first experience in power will likely taint the standing and image of its branches and junior ideological partners in Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and even Tunisia and Morocco. Hamas is already reeling from the violent storm in Cairo and the Muslim Brothers in Jordan are feeling the political heat and pressure at home. The Syrian Islamists are disoriented and fear that the tide has turned against them. The liberal-leaning opposition in Tunisia is energized and plans to go on the offensive against Ennahda. Even the mildly Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Gulen Movement in Turkey are watching unfolding developments in neighboring Egypt with anxiety and disquiet. Nevertheless, it would be foolish to pen the obituary of the Islamist movement.
The US is allowing stability to be sacrificed in the hope that political Islam will be dealt a death blow. It is possible, of course, that its ability to affect SCAF’s behavior is limited, but this seems unlikely. SCAF is dependent on its good relations with the US and Europe; it won’t simply ignore significant pressure from Washington. More likely, that pressure is as absent in private as it obviously is in public. The US will probably pay a long-term price for such a short-sighted strategy. Par for the course in the Middle East. One can only hope that the recent efforts by the European Union, including a visit to Morsi by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, bodes some sort of change in Western policy with Egypt.
]]>Taking in the sweep of the jarring events in Egypt over the past month more broadly, it seems all concerned should brace themselves for an ongoing crisis. Regardless of whether many in the Muslim Brotherhood eventually resign themselves to make the best of adversity, others probably will not; it is, after all, [...]]]>
Taking in the sweep of the jarring events in Egypt over the past month more broadly, it seems all concerned should brace themselves for an ongoing crisis. Regardless of whether many in the Muslim Brotherhood eventually resign themselves to make the best of adversity, others probably will not; it is, after all, a movement comprised of many earnest true believers — and some extremists. Meanwhile, the Egyptian military can be expected to remain steadfast in its decision to be rid of President Mohamed Morsi, possibly the result of even deeper differences with him than were known at the time of his removal. This sets up a scenario in which ending unrest without greater repression appears unlikely.
Quite a few inside and outside Egypt hope that as the process of transition to new elections and an amended constitution plays out over time, the Brotherhood eventually will bow to what appears to be the inevitable, wearying of its most likely futile defiance and pragmatically accepting the need to deal itself back into the Egyptian political process. Yet, as it becomes clearer that demonstrations almost certainly will not produce President Morsi’s return, militants within the Brotherhood could very well move in more dangerous directions.
The spike in attacks against the police and military in the Egyptian Sinai in reaction to Morsi’s fall reveals the sort of anger among Islamic militants that so far largely has been absent within Egypt proper — restrained in large part by the Brotherhood’s own leaders. In fact, the lack of a robust military reaction to the latest wave of Sinai attacks (other than placing tough new restrictions on travel between Sinai and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip) suggests General Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi and other senior military officers fear a more widespread outbreak of Brotherhood violence, and have kept the bulk of their security assets in Egypt’s heavily populated Nile core. Meanwhile, they may be willing to tolerate — at least for now — scattered extremist assaults in the sparsely populated Sinai.
The main obstacle to stability amidst transition has been violence that repeatedly has broken out associated with mainly peaceful Muslim Brotherhood demonstrations. Many deaths since the killing of dozens of Brotherhood demonstrators in early July by the army at the Republican Guard compound have been blamed on either anti-Morsi elements or perhaps the security forces harrying Brotherhood protesters. During the night of July 22-23, nearly a dozen more were killed at several demonstrations that some credible witnesses claim originated from perpetrators outside the demonstrations.
If it is true that various parties, perhaps even the authorities, are acting as agents provocateur on the fringes of such demonstrations; eventually such actions could generate ugly confrontations with Brotherhood cadres hitherto willing to remain non-violent. Also, if these attacks arouse an especially strong reaction from Brotherhood zealots, suppressing such violence would require much tougher repression — placing the Egyptian military in greater danger of international condemnation as little more than an ongoing military coup. Yesterday, Washington delayed a delivery of F-16 fighter jets, quite possibly to signal its dismay over reports of military heavy-handedness.
And then there was yesterday’s bombing of a police station in Mansoura 50 miles north of Cairo. General al-Sisi quickly responded with a call for mass rallies tomorrow to hand him a “mandate” to “confront violence and potential terrorism.” The anti-Morsi youth group “Tamarud” (Rebellion) that played a key role in bringing Morsi down yesterday supported al-Sisi’s appeal by calling upon its supporters to take to the streets once again tomorrow.
Brotherhood leaders naturally warned of an “apparent plan by security and intelligence agencies” to carry out such attacks in order to implicate the Brotherhood. Today, Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie called al-Sisi a “traitor” and further inflamed matters by describing Morsi’s overthrow as worse than destroying Islam’s holiest shrine, the Kaaba. Those responsible for the Mansoura attack remain unknown, but even if Brotherhood elements were responsible, such a violent response at some point had been rendered all but inevitable by the Brotherhood’s mounting losses to violence since the military’s July 3 takeover.
Information from the military and security officials from mid-July alleges that substantial differences between al-Sisi and Morsi increasingly caused the military brass to question Morsi’s intentions. Morsi supposedly blocked the military from taking stronger security measures in Sinai and declined to get tougher with Hamas in reaction to a serious Hamas provocation.
Finally, in response to al-Sisi’s 48-hour ultimatum on July 1 demanding that Morsi work with his opponents toward stability, Morsi reportedly attempted to replace al-Sisi with another general (who instead warned al-Sisi). If these allegations are true, as long as the military remains the arbiter of Egyptian domestic affairs, there is no question it would allow Morsi to return or another Brotherhood figure to become as dominant a figure in Egyptian politics.
As with Morsi’s tenure in office, the result of continuing unrest probably would be the prolongation of Egypt’s economic woes. Wealthy Arab Gulf allies might well be willing to prop up the transitional order with still more financial largesse. Still, with the economy’s enormous structural problems and corruption unaddressed and tourism unlikely to rebound, ordinary Egyptians in the most need could very likely see little difference in their lives.
Such a situation of heightened repression and continued economic stagnation could evolve into a situation akin to what Morsi’s government faced: rising public anger and alienation. It would be ironic if that were to happen. Just as an overconfident Morsi set the stage for his own fall by his determination — even seizing extra-legal powers at one key point — to ram through the Brotherhood’s agenda while shunning as much as half the electorate, the military also could become isolated by going too far in its zeal to suppress the Brotherhood. This Friday could bring the first glimpse of just how far Egypt’s military leaders are willing to go in that direction.
Photo Credit: Jonathan Rashad
]]>The military’s removal of democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi poses a serious challenge to Washington’s pro-democracy agenda and its ability to influence events in Egypt and the rest of the region.
The Barack Obama administration should make it clear to Egyptian Secretary of Defence [...]]]>
The military’s removal of democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi poses a serious challenge to Washington’s pro-democracy agenda and its ability to influence events in Egypt and the rest of the region.
The Barack Obama administration should make it clear to Egyptian Secretary of Defence Abdel Fattah al-Sisi the coup cannot stand, and Egypt’s unsteady march toward democracy should continue.
Although senior religious and opposition leaders were present on the stage, General al-Sisi’s military action to depose Morsi, suspend the constitution, and appoint an acting president was a major blow to the January 2011 revolution.
Toppling Morsi by the military in the name of national security makes a mockery of the principles of freedom, justice, and the rule of law for which millions demonstrated 30 months ago.
It is deeply disturbing that many within the Egyptian opposition who fought against the Mubarak regime are now welcoming the military’s intervention.
Long gas lines, high unemployment, exorbitant food prices, and pervasive corruption might explain people’s anger, but do the millions of protesters who called for Morsi’s head expect the post-Morsi government to solve these problems within a year or two? What will the new civilian government do about the military’s massive control of the economy and their opaque “black box” budget?
Al-Sisi’s brazen “in your face” action speaks volumes of perceived, and some say actual, U.S. impotence in the region. His temerity was largely driven by Washington’s timidity to prevent a coup or to denounce it after it happened.
Because of U.S. strategic interests in the region, its ongoing concerns about Syria, Iran, and the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement, and Egypt’s pivotal role in the region, Washington cannot abandon Cairo. The Egyptian military, however, must be made to understand this is a two-way street.
It’s time for U.S. policymakers to act boldly and decisively in support of democratic transitions and in opposition to reprehensible human rights violations across the region. They should stand firm against Arab militaries’ ever-present temptation to usurp the political process in Egypt and elsewhere.
Morsi inherited a dictatorial, military top-heavy, corrupt regime and a stalled economy. Several groups and centres of power in Egyptian society – including the military, the police, remnants of the old regime, secularists, and radical Salafis – opposed his election and refused to be governed by a Muslim Brotherhood man. They were bent on defeating him and brought out millions in the streets to do just that.
Ironically, this is not dissimilar to how some U.S. politicians have felt about President Obama’s election. Those who were bent on defeating President Obama have used the courts, state legislatures, the Republican controlled Congress, and the ballot box to advance their agenda.
Egyptian oppositionists, by contrast, have gone to the streets despite their seeming initial acceptance of the results of the election.
Yet, incompetence, insensitivity toward minorities and other groups that do not share the Muslim Brotherhood ideology, reticence to consult with his cabinet, and an inability to revive the economy marred Morsi’s one-year tenure.
When he came to office, Morsi promised to be president of all of Egypt. He failed to deliver. As a majority in the parliament, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood showed no inclination to form alliances with other parties and groups.
While he halted the downward spiral of the economy and successfully sought international loans, the daily life of the average Egyptian has gotten much worse. In the past year, Egyptians have suffered from a lack of personal security and high unemployment.
Egyptian women under the new regime have been subjected to widespread personal attacks, sexual abuse, and humiliation. Morsi and his government failed to combat the pervasive terror against women meaningfully and convincingly.
Lawlessness and joblessness are rampant. Thuggery and fear have replaced civility and hope.
Let’s be clear. These conditions and Morsi’s demise resulted from the failure of a particular Islamic party in power and a particular leader. They do not signal the defeat of Arab democracy or a failure of political Islam.
Rachid Ghannouchi and al-Nahda, by contrast, have successfully created an inclusive, tolerant, and workable political governing model in Tunisia.
Washington should actively encourage the Egyptian military to take several immediate steps. First, urge the newly appointed Acting President Adly Mansour to form a national unity government and set a date certain for parliamentary and presidential elections within six months.
Second, in light of President Obama’s recent statements, urge the military to free Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood and other top leaders, who have been detained in the past few days. These leaders should not be tried on trumped-up charges or for political vendettas.
Third, urge the Egyptian military to allow the acting president a free hand to establish civilian rule and for the military to return to the barracks.
Fourth, urge the acting president to proceed with national reconciliation by including representatives from all political parties and civil society organisations. The Muslim Brotherhood and the Freedom and Justice party, of course, should be included.
These steps do not necessarily guarantee saving Egypt from total collapse or preventing a possible civil war. They do offer, however, a civilian-managed “roadmap,” that could be embraced by all Egyptians.
Washington should be clear: Al-Sisi should know the era of military dictatorship in the Arab world has run its course. Such excuses as “foreign armed groups,” “Shia terrorism,” and now “Muslim Brotherhood plots” to justify a military takeover are stale and no longer believable.
If al-Sisi and his generals doubt that, let them take another look at Tahrir Square.
Photo U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton meets with Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in New York, New York on September 24, 2012.
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