by Wayne White
The arrest of many senior Muslim Brotherhood (MB) leaders and the banning of the organization are the latest blows in what appears to be a relentless campaign by General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s government to deny the Brotherhood any future role in Egyptian politics. The MB’s continued defiance has driven [...]]]>
by Wayne White
The arrest of many senior Muslim Brotherhood (MB) leaders and the banning of the organization are the latest blows in what appears to be a relentless campaign by General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s government to deny the Brotherhood any future role in Egyptian politics. The MB’s continued defiance has driven the military to bear down even harder, but the new regime can do little to divest the Brotherhood of its popular base. Also of concern are various moves that smack of a calculated effort to return to Mubarak-style military rule, this time centered upon el-Sisi. Meanwhile, despite generous Arab Gulf financial support, a deeply troubled economy, poor governance, and repression will most likely cause many Egyptians to become weary of the new regime as events play out.
President Obama stated in his September 24 UN General Assembly address that future US support for Egypt “will depend upon Egypt’s progress in pursuing a democratic path.” Yet, despite several sharply negative developments along those lines over the past two weeks, Obama so far has resisted cutting off US military assistance. Key administration officials believe all such aid should be suspended except for a portion related to bolstering security in Sinai, and such a recommendation reportedly has been with the President since August. Reluctance to crack down on the new Egyptian regime on the part of not only Washington, but the West more broadly, probably has emboldened el-Sisi.
For now, Egypt’s foreign aid situation is relatively rosy thanks to lavish financial assistance from Arab Gulf states like the UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia since Morsi’s fall. In fact, el-Sisi felt comfortable enough financially to return $2 billion to Qatar in a pointed gesture of dismay over Doha’s generous assistance to the Morsi government (the exact amount transferred to Egypt yesterday by Kuwait). In contrast, however, violence and uncertainty continue to discourage investors. With so many multi-national corporations (including Chevron, BP, General Motors, and BASF) closing operations in Egypt or taking investments elsewhere, roughly 25 percent of Cairo’s best office space is now vacant.
The Brotherhood and its popular following have done little to encourage el-Sisi & Co. to ease up. The MB’s core leadership is unlikely to abandon its disciplined focus on the establishment of Islamist rule. This ideological agenda almost certainly led to MB excesses under Morsi. Despite occasional pragmatism during Morsi’s tenure in office, for the most part the Brotherhood revealed its intent to ram home its doctrinal goals, shoving opposition aside.
Since Morsi’s ouster, the outbreak of Muslim extremist violence against army and police cadres in Sinai (and some in Egypt proper) has probably infuriated senior military commanders. Attacks on Coptic Christians, their businesses, and churches, plus reports of localized threats of more should security forces drop their guard, could sustain sufficient public outrage against the Brotherhood for el-Sisi’s government to retain substantial support for quite a while despite its own increasingly authoritarian behavior. Pro-Brotherhood students have revived anti-regime protests since the opening of the school year on the 21st, warning of a return to the days of Mubarak. Still, the Brotherhood’s own credibility has been reduced because Morsi too allied himself with the military. And, quite simply, many Egyptians at this point just yearn for the return of some semblance of stability and “normalcy” after over two years of turmoil.
Permitting Morsi to chat with his family for the first time earlier this month has been of little consolation to the Brotherhood amidst other harsh measures. Morsi apparently is still to be tried for inciting the killing of protestors as well as potential charges relating to alleged slander against judges and supposed involvement in Hamas prison attacks during the anti-Mubarak uprising back in 2011. Additionally, 18 members of the MB’s most senior “Guidance Bureau” (along with its high profile spokesman), hundreds of mid-level cadres, most of its legislators and provincial governors under Morsi, plus over half of Morsi’s planned legal defense team have been taken into custody.
And then on the 25th, two days after an Egyptian court banned “all activities” of the Brotherhood on the 23rd, security forces closed the offices of the MB’s flagship newspaper “Freedom and Justice,” confiscating equipment and furniture. State owned al-Ahram printers claimed it would continue to publish the Brotherhood’s daily (which apparently has not been produced in the building seized), but only if its length is reduced by half and its circulation cut ten-fold.
Despite el-Sisi’s July statement that he has no political ambitions, a group of professionals and former army officers initiated a petition on the 23rd urging him to run for president. A major effort to create an al-Sisi personality cult has been underway for quite some time with huge al-Sisi posters plastered everywhere, fawning TV coverage, pro-military pop songs and videos, as well as talk shows featuring discussions on whether el-Sisi should run for president (with positive conclusions). And a military spokesman did say back in early July that doing so would be possible if el-Sisi retired. Amidst all this, there have been arrests of Egyptians for spraying anti-Sisi graffiti and even a farmer for naming his donkey el-Sisi and riding it through his village.
Plans also are in motion to draft either a new constitution (or substantial amendments to the one passed hastily by Brotherhood parliamentary representatives) that seem to include doing away with the ban against Mubarak-era officials serving in public office. And the new or revised constitution will be prepared by a 50-member committee chaired by former Mubarak Foreign Minister Amr Moussa. The committee contains only two Islamists–neither from the Brotherhood.
Over the short-term, el-Sisi and the military obviously will be in the political driver’s seat. Western condemnations have been relatively restrained (probably hoping—so far in vain–for el-Sisi’s behavior to improve). And, with extremists on the rampage in Sinai, the Brotherhood also having ruled abusively, and the extremist problem growing in places like Syria, East Africa, and Iraq, many governments could view watching & waiting as the least risky option at the moment.
Farther out, however, the situation in Egypt could worsen once again. The military’s current path seems to lead back to neo-Mubarak authoritarian rule. If so, Egyptians will gradually sour on el-Sisi, as military-dominated governance entails a return to restrictions on freedoms, rampant official corruption, institutional dysfunction, and lack of transparency. Right now, the Brotherhood is reeling from the multiple blows it has suffered since July 3, and its leadership has been seriously disrupted. However, hundreds of thousands of its most fervent adherents might not remain on the sidelines under such a regime (especially after having tasted national power). So, if al-Sisi cannot be persuaded to change course, economic stagnation, various other ills, rising popular dissatisfaction, and eventually yet another major Egyptian political crisis could lie ahead.
Photo Credit: Mohamed Azazy
]]>by Jasmin Ramsey
Almost 1,000 Egyptians have died, according to the official count, since Aug. 14 when Egypt’s armed forces began clamping down on Muslim Brotherhood-led protests against the military ouster of President Mohamed Morsi. That number well exceeds the 846 people who officials say died during the 18 days of protest [...]]]>
by Jasmin Ramsey
Almost 1,000 Egyptians have died, according to the official count, since Aug. 14 when Egypt’s armed forces began clamping down on Muslim Brotherhood-led protests against the military ouster of President Mohamed Morsi. That number well exceeds the 846 people who officials say died during the 18 days of protest that ended Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule in Jan. 2011.
The democratically elected Morsi, a leading member of the MB, has not been seen in public since Jul. 3. But Mubarak has been released from prison into house arrest while he faces retrial. Egyptian media has for the most part adopted the language of the army in framing the unrest — Muslim brotherhood members are alleged “terrorists” who are trying to destroy the country.
While the US, who the Egyptian media claims conspired with the Brotherhood, has cancelled military exercises with Egypt and urged both sides to halt violence, it has so far resisted calls for halting military aid to its strategically positioned ally.
The rapid turn of events in Egypt, from a revolution to perhaps a “counterrevolution”, has left US President Barack Obama in quandary. Having eventually supported the fall of Mubarak, the US looks hypocritical in continuing its relationship with the military as authoritarian rule is restored.
In an interview with IPS, Emile Nakhleh, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Islamic Strategic Analysis Program, explained why repression will not prevent the Muslim Brotherhood from continuing its existence as a rooted, cultural and political force. Continued repression could also push the Brotherhood’s younger members to embrace violence as a political tool.
The US should pursue its own interests in Egypt, which “do not necessarily equate with dictatorial repressive regimes,” the Middle East expert told IPS. “In the long run, democratically elected governments will be more stable than these autocratic regimes.”
Q: There are different accounts circulating, especially in the Egyptian media, about what the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) actually is. Can you provide some background?
A: The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 as a social, religious, educational, political and partly military movement. It was founded against British colonialism and with it came the fight for Palestine, starting in the early 30s. Its main ideology is as follows: Islam is the solution. And the 3 D’s in Arabic, which translate to Islam is faith, state and society. There is to be no separation between the mosque and state in any of these.
The Muslim Brotherhood spread more than any other party in the Middle East in the last 85 years. It focused heavily on Islam, but took all those other things into consideration. And then of course they got involved in politics. That put them in conflict with the monarchy at the time. In 1948 this conflict became violent. Muslim Brotherhood members assassinated the Egyptian Prime Minister and in turn, the regime assassinated the founder of the MB in 1949.
By the mid-90′s, the Brotherhood decided to forgo violence and move toward their original mission, Da’wa, to proselytize their doctrine by Islamizing society from below. They wouldn’t allow themselves to be removed by force; they saw what happened in Algeria in 1991 and redirected their ideology to society itself, modeled after that American baseball-feed ideology, you know, you build it and they will come. So you Islamicize society from below and once society becomes Islamicized, you can establish a position in government and become a Shari’a-friendly government.
This process started in the late 80s, when the MB entered 4 or 5 parliamentary elections as independents or in alliance with other parties, such as the Wafd Party and the Labor Socialist party. Why? Because the government passed Law 100, which prohibited religious parties from participating in politics.
In the 2005 election, the MB won 88 seats in parliament, the largest ever for the MB. But they ran as independents. They emerged as the largest opposition party in parliament after Mubarak’s ruling party. In their 85-year history, the MB has been banned and repressed by regimes — from King Faruk to Mubarak; that’s why they’re not going away. They’re part and parcel of the religious foundation of Egyptian society.
With every regime Egypt has had since 1948, the relationship with the MB has always initially been good and then soured toward the end. Gamal Abdel Nasser was the same. He reached out to the Muslim Brotherhood in 1954 and by 1955-6, when a plot to assassinate him was uncovered, the Muslim Brotherhood was repressed and exiled. Then in 1966 Nasser’s government hanged one of the MB’s conservative thinkers, Sayyid Qutb.
Q: Is that what’s happening now, with the army’s arrest of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, Mohamed Badie?
A: Qutb was actually more of a radical thinker than the mainstream MB. It’s also very interesting to note that a number of MB activists were exiled to Saudi Arabia where they established a more radical view of Islam. That view led Saudi Arabia to oppose Nasser’s actions in Yemen and other Arab nationalist projects.
Q: The Saudis welcomed the MB because they were Salafis?
A: The Saudis welcomed the MB with open arms because they were Salafis and because they were opposed to the secular Arab nation ideology that was preached by Nasser. The MB’s relationship with Nasser soured until 1970 when Nasser died and Anwar Sadat came to power. Sadat also began to court the MB as a countervailing force against leftist and Nasserist nationalist ideology.
The MB’s influence really began in the 1970s when they reconstituted themselves as a religious party that underpinned society. The constitution reflected Islam and allowed them freedom to preach and participate in associations, so much so that by the 1980s, the MB, through elections, controlled almost every professional association and university student council.
That scared the hell out of Hosni Mubarak, who also tried to court the MB in the beginning. It was, by the way, Mubarak who approved a change in the constitution to say Sharia is the source of legislation.
General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s game is thus very dangerous. It will fail because the MB is the most organized and the most disciplined in Egypt and because they have been used to repression from Farouk to Nasser to Sadat and to Mubarak. Sadat allowed the MB to reconstitute itself and invited MB exiles to return home, but by the late 1970s, the MB broke with Sadat because of his trip to Jerusalem and the peace treaty with Israel. At that time, the entire Arab world broke with Sadat.
Although Sadat warmed up to the MB, he never recognized them as a political party, only as a social religious element, which was great for the MB. This gave them freedom to penetrate the soft ministries, education and welfare, and establish all kinds of religious schools, alongside al-Azhar University. Because of that, religious education under their guidance began to expand tremendously.
Q: Should military aid to Egypt be stopped?
Aid should be cut off. We supported the removal of Mubarak so we can’t support the resurrection of a military dictatorship. The cut-off by itself is not enough. It should be accompanied by a high-level conversation about Egypt’s future in accordance with the ideas of Egypt’s January 2011 revolution. In Bahrain, we should make it very clear to the al-Khalifas that repression and exclusion of the Shia majority cannot continue.
Q: How much does Egypt need the US and how much does Egypt — especially the Egyptian army — need the US?
A: Don’t forget that most of Egypt’s military aid is spent in this country for weapons systems. But that’s not the main reason for the aid. U.S. military aid to Egypt has been a tool of American national interests, which are to maintain the peace treaty with Israel, give us priority over the Suez Canal and flights over Egypt, etc, and to help us with the war on terror, especially since 9/11.
There’s a side interest, too: Egypt’s role with the Palestinians and Hamas and the push for negotiations. The main interlocutor with Hamas over the years has been Egyptian intelligence folks like Omar Suleiman.
Q: Does the Egyptian military truly fear the US stopping aid?
A: The military would be devastated if the US stopped aid because of the training the US provides and also because of the prestige. All the statements by Egyptian officials contradicting this notion is just talk.
Q: What if Saudi Arabia steps in to support the military more than it is already supporting them, as it has offered to do?
A: The Egyptian military doesn’t want to be beholden to Saudi Arabia. One of Sadat’s primary goals in reaching out to the US was to reestablish relations with the US after the October 1973 War, specifically so Egypt could acquire that training and prestige. Threatening to halt aid will be met with tremendous consternation by the Egyptian army.
Q: So the US stops the aid. Then what?
A: It’s a 2-way street. Consider our national interests, but it’s also in Egypt’s interest to maintain the peace treaty, by the way. Even Morsi wasn’t going to touch it. And when there was terrorism in the Sinai, he worked with the Israelis in fighting it.
The president’s speech in Cairo in 2009 was important because, at least rhetorically, it reflected the belief that the Islamic world is diverse and there is a distinction between the majority and the minority who are the radicals. We need to engage mainstream Muslims. He believed in that and has been interested in engaging mainstream parties that have been elected through peaceful and fair processes. That’s why he accepted to work with the MB and the Freedom and Justice Party.
Q: There was an article article in the New York Times on July 10 suggesting that the ouster of Morsi was actually planned from early on. What’s your take?
A: Morsi appointed el-Sisi himself and el-Sisi turned against him. Elements of the old regime and the so-called Egyptian liberals, who never accepted the election results, plotted from day one to undo Morsi. That’s not to say that Morsi did not make mistakes. He reneged on most of his promises. He promised to include women and Egyptian minorities in the country’s decision-making processes and he did not. But the old guard and the military never forgave Morsi for finally removing Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi. So even after Morsi’s hard work, he brought in el-Sisi. Well, el-Sisi pretended that he supported Morsi but in fact he didn’t. There’s an unholy alliance between the military, the old regime and Egypt’s so-called liberals against Morsi. It’s also a fact that the revolution removed Mubarak but it did not remove the regime. So after Morsi came to power, the ministries and their bureaucrats began to torpedo his program. There were lines in Cairo after the flow of oil was restricted and somehow they disappeared shortly after Morsi was toppled.
And then el-Sisi called on people to go to the streets and give him a “mandate” to act in the national interest and remove Morsi. In January 2011, people went into the streets to remove Mubarak, and in 2013, by el-Sisi’s request, they removed Morsi. Very soon they are going to discover that this is a military dictatorship and they’re going to go into the streets again.
Q: Why is the military so revered in Egypt?
A: In addition to everything else, they have a first-rate propaganda machine. They have a tremendous public relations operation. They are masters at what we call strategic communication with the public. They probably control more than 30% of the Egyptian economy, much like China, Pakistan and Iran
The military claimed during the Nasser regime and then under Sadat that it did a great job in its wars with Israel and it was the politicians who actually undermined their missions. They are always blaming someone else. So it has emerged as symbol of national sovereignty. Nasser gave that impression when he took over the Suez Canal in 1956.
Every president since the end of the monarchy in Egypt has come from the ranks of the military. So they remove their military uniform, don a suit and become president. Morsi was the first president since 1954 who didn’t come from the military and the military didn’t trust him. I’m not a defender of Morsi, he made many mistakes, but this was the first freely, fairly, democratically elected leader since Egyptian independence. All the others were selected through sham elections with a lack of viable political opposition.
Q: What do Saudi Arabia’s explicit calls to back up the Egyptian military financially in battling the Muslim Brotherhood say about US-Saudi relations?
A: The Saudis are terrified of the MB as a reform movement. Now Saudi Arabia is also playing a dangerous game. A coalition of Arab autocrats is trying to stifle democracy because they do not like these revolutionary movements and are terrified of seeing them in their own countries. That’s why the Saudis sent troops to Bahrain to control the Shia, they said. When no one bought this argument, they said they were battling terrorism. And they say they are trying to kill it in Egypt, which is the main Arab country. If it’s killed there, they will feel more comfortable in their rule.
But this is not about the MB in Egypt or the Shia in Bahrain. Its about reform movements and opposition to repressive regimes in those countries.
Q: What options does President Obama have at this point?
A: The president had to face a new reality with the Arab Spring. He decided on going with the pro-democracy movements and that’s why he supported the removal of dictators in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. Now, he has been a bit silent on Bahrain, even though the American ambassador has spoken out. I think the United States has got to create a clear balance between national security and our democratic values and it has to communicate such a balance to the American people and to peoples in the region clearly.
We should still pursue our own interests, but they do not necessarily equate with dictatorial repressive regimes. In the long run, democratically elected governments will be more stable than these autocratic regimes.
Q: Which means the US should be willing to make some sacrifices in the short-term?
A: I think so, yes. You can’t have a cookie-cutter approach to the whole region. For Bahrain, you should emphasize that if the ruling family wants to maintain its rule, they should seriously engage in dialogue with the opposition, should stop human rights abuses, release political prisoners from jail and provide the Shia majority equal access to employment in government sectors, including the military and security services.
Q: Won’t these autocratic regimes worry that implementing reforms will present more challenges to their rule?
A: They believe that they can maintain power through repression, but they should know by now that staying in power can’t be guaranteed without popular support. Look at what we’re seeing in Egypt, in Syria, in Libya…
What concerns me is that in Bahrain and Egypt, our personnel are being threatened; our ambassadors are being vilified in the media, which in Egypt and in Bahrain are the mouthpieces of the regime. The autocratic regimes in both countries run sophisticated PR campaigns. The al-Khalifa in Bahrain believe the US supports Bahrain’s Shia! The Egyptian military and some liberals believe the US supports the MB and Morsi.
So this lack of clarity in our positions is generating personal threats to our diplomatic personnel, journalists and private citizens in those countries.
Q: Is Egypt becoming a military state?
The military regime is making it clearly so. Arresting the General Guide of the MB, at el-Sisi’s instructions, which no previous regime has done, signals that the military regime is here to stay.
I worry about Egypt. I really think by moving to reinstate military rule, the el-Sisi regime is inviting more violence.
Something worries me more. In the last 20 years, the MB and other mainstream Islamic political parties have supported man-made democracy and rejected al-Qaeda’s calls, including its calls against participating in this election. And now, with democracy being torpedoed by the military, this is something that the younger generation is going to tell the older leadership within the MB — that we tried democracy and it failed and the only alternative is violence.
We might see the rise of a youthful generation in the MB that no longer believes in democracy as a viable political system.
Q: Where is the Egyptian revolution heading?
A: El-Sisi has presented himself as a guardian of national sovereignty, not a new Mubarak. It’s going to be a while before the so-called liberal and mainstream Egyptians begin to see the reality of the new military regime in Egypt. And in the meantime, the youthful members of the Muslim Brotherhood are going to turn to violence if their peaceful protests continue to be violently repressed.
Q: So far the only country where the so-called Arab Spring has had seemingly stable results is Tunisia, where a moderate Islamic government remains in place. What do you see in Egypt’s future?
The toppling of Morsi in Egypt doesn’t mean the failure of Islam or Islamic politics. It represents the failure of a particular leader in a particular country at a particular time. In Tunisia, Moncef Marzouki and Rachid Ghannouchi avoided the mistakes that Morsi made. The ruling party, Ennahda, has tried to be more inclusive and consult with other groups and parties and be more open. That’s why by comparison, Tunisia has succeeded despite the killing of two senior opposition members.
To be fair, the MB and Morsi inherited a very dysfunctional economy. The economy in Tunisia was much better by comparison. And frankly, there’s no way in hell that any party in Egypt would have been able to address Egypt’s economic issues in 1 year. If the military stays in government in the next year and they also don’t address Egypt’s severe economic problems, including unemployment and tourism, people are going to ask again, what have you done for us? That’s why I argued earlier this year that if they had just waited for Morsi to finish his term, he would have never been re-elected. We should never worry about the first election; we always should look at the 2nd and 3rd elections.
Photo Credit: Charles Roffey
]]>by Daniel Luban
For the last few weeks, Lobelog has been noting the continued disagreements among US neoconservatives over how to respond to the military coup in Egypt, with a few prominent neocons such as Robert Kagan denouncing it while many others are supporting it and calling on [...]]]>
by Daniel Luban
For the last few weeks, Lobelog has been noting the continued disagreements among US neoconservatives over how to respond to the military coup in Egypt, with a few prominent neocons such as Robert Kagan denouncing it while many others are supporting it and calling on the Egyptian military to finish off the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). These disagreements are continuing apace; yesterday, the Wall Street Journal‘s Bret Stephens offered the latest salvo with a call for the US to “Support Al Sisi“. The column is vintage Stephens: after offering his typical platitudes about the need to throw off comforting pieties and make the best of a set of bad options, he concludes: “Gen. Sisi may not need shiny new F-16s, but riot gear, tear gas, rubber bullets and Taser guns could help, especially to prevent the kind of bloodbaths the world witnessed last week.” Evidently this clear-eyed apostle of Seeing The World As It Is has determined that the Egyptian military has been massacring protesters with live ammo only because it’s been running low on rubber bullets.
But the neocons are only one segment of the US right-wing coalition, and their disagreements may not be symptomatic of what’s happening in the rest of it. Indeed, a wider focus could suggest that US right-wing support for the Egyptian military is even stronger than it might otherwise appear.
One particular aspect of the story that we might miss by focusing only on the neocons is the religious angle. Read National Review, still the flagship of the right and a place where various elements of the coalition mingle, and you will find very little on the killing of MB supporters, the rumored release of former President Hosni Mubarak, or other stories that have dominated mainstream coverage of Egypt. Instead, there’s a whole lot of coverage — and I do mean a whole, whole lot of coverage — of the plight of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority. The Copts are facing a “jihad,” a “pogrom,” a “Kristallnacht“; unsurprisingly, the magazine’s editors have urged the US to “back Egypt’s military,” in large part to protect the Copts, whose status is “a good bellwether for whether progress is being made in Egyptian society.”
Meanwhile, other NR commentators are going farther. Witness David French (former head of Evangelicals for Mitt [Romney] and prominent Christian Zionist) demanding that the US leverage its aid to force the Egyptian military to step up its anti-MB campaign in defense of Christianity: “The Muslim Brotherhood is our enemy, the Egyptian Christians are victims of jihad, and the American-supplied Egyptian military can and should exercise decisive force.” While French does not spell out exactly what he means by “decisive force,” given the current political context it can only be taken as a show of support for the military’s indiscriminate massacres of MB supporters.
None of this, of course, is to diminish the plight of Egypt’s Coptic Christians — those of us living in security elsewhere should not scoff at the justified fear and foreboding that they must feel. It’s merely to say that reports on their predicament, like Andrew Doran’s, which make claims like “bizarrely, Western media have largely portrayed the Muslim Brotherhood [rather than Christians] as the victims of violence” — while making no mention whatsoever of the hundreds of MB supporters who have been killed in recent weeks — give readers a rather skewed perspective on the current situation.
Yet this is a perspective that we discount at our own peril. The foreign policy commentariat may tend to view the situation in Egypt through the lens of realism versus neoconservatism, or democracy promotion versus authoritarianism. But for large segments of the US public, the situation in Egypt is first, foremost and last a struggle between Muslims and Christians, and when viewed through this lens their unstinting support for the coup leaders is all but guaranteed.
Photo Credit: Mohamed Azazy
]]>As the Obama administration struggles to walk a fine policy line on Egypt that takes appropriate account of the diverse U.S. interests at stake, one subject that is often mentioned, but shouldn’t be, as a reason to go easy on the head-cracking Egyptian [...]]]>
As the Obama administration struggles to walk a fine policy line on Egypt that takes appropriate account of the diverse U.S. interests at stake, one subject that is often mentioned, but shouldn’t be, as a reason to go easy on the head-cracking Egyptian generals is to maintain the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. This is not to say that Egyptian-Israeli peace is not still quite important to regional security as well as to U.S. interests; indeed it is. But the reason this topic should not be shaping U.S. policy toward the political drama today in Egypt is that the peace is simply not in danger. No Egyptian regime would see any advantage in breaching it.
That is so because not just the generals but also any Egyptian leader with at least half a brain would realize that in any new round of fighting the Egyptians would get clobbered by a vastly more capable Israeli force. Getting clobbered would mean not just military defeat but also the humiliation and political costs that would go with it.
The last time the Egyptians were able to hold their own militarily against Israel was in the opening days of the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when Anwar Sadat used the advantage of surprise to score just enough success on the battlefield to atone for the humiliation of the war six years earlier and make it politically possible for him to undertake the initiative that led to the peace treaty. Even that military success did not last long. By the time of the cease-fire Israeli forces had successfully counterattacked, had surrounded the Egyptian Third Army, and were rolling toward Cairo.
So as Israel lobbies western governments to keep supporting General el-Sisi and his colleagues, let us not act as if the Egyptian-Israeli peace is at stake when it really isn’t. We might reflect instead on other possible and actual Israeli motives for taking that position. There is the understandable concern, which any country in Israel’s geographic position would have, of violent militants operating in, and out of, the Sinai. But recent history lends little support to the idea that this problem is likely to diminish rather than to grow if the generals are left in charge and unpressured from outside the country. The opposite is more likely true, given the prospect their harsh policies will provoke increased violent militancy from battered Islamists. In any case, cross-border violence by militants is the sort of thing the Israelis have repeatedly shown themselves quick to address with their own means, regardless of what any government on the other side of the border may think.
Because the Egyptian generals’ policies are most conspicuously a form of Islamist-bashing, the Israeli government naturally and reflexively smiles on those policies. Here again, however, the connection between political outcomes in Cairo and the effects that most interest the Israelis is not clear-cut. During his tenuous one year in office, Mohamed Morsi did not prove to be as steadfast a friend as Hamas—the Islamists Israel works hardest at bashing—had hoped he would be.
Some in the Israeli government may be thinking of a possible downside for them of emphasizing the idea that the peace treaty is endangered. This idea may bring to mind how the U.S.-Egyptian aid relationship is rooted in the bargains struck by Jimmy Carter at Camp David, in which voluminous U.S. assistance to Egypt was part of the price the United States paid to get Sadat to assume the costs and risks of making a separate peace with Israel. That in turn may bring to mind how Israel did not fulfill its part of the bargains, which was to make a peace with the Palestinians within five years and withdraw Israeli troops from Palestinian territory.
This subject leads to what may be the strongest motive for the Netanyahu government to oppose squeezing the flow of aid to Egypt, although it would not openly acknowledge it as a motive. The Israeli Right has to be discomfited by any thought of the United States using leverage based on a major aid relationship in that part of the world to get the recipient to change destructive policies. It is the failure of the United States to use the even greater leverage it could exert on Israel that permits Netanyahu’s government to continue the occupation and colonization of conquered territory and, 35 years after Camp David, to deny the Palestinians self-determination.
Photo: US President Jimmy Carter shaking hands with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty on the grounds of the White House on 26 March 1979
]]>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
]]>by Wayne White
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 [...]]]>
by Wayne White
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
The comedy of errors that is US involvement in Egypt is reaching new heights. The Obama administration continues to be torn by conflicting preferences and concerns. This week its blunders reached new heights after it blessed the trip of Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham to Egypt. The [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
The comedy of errors that is US involvement in Egypt is reaching new heights. The Obama administration continues to be torn by conflicting preferences and concerns. This week its blunders reached new heights after it blessed the trip of Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham to Egypt. The ensuing farce was inevitable.
The GOP Senators are somewhat less obstructionist than others in their party; they have not always opposed Barack Obama’s policies simply because they were his policies. While many of the current Republican crew are virtually absolute in opposing anything Obama does, McCain, in particular, has only done that most of the time. But they are certainly not Obama’s allies, and, while the administration made it clear that the duo were not their representatives in Egypt, it was almost certain they would only complicate matters. So, they did.
By hypocritically (even if accurately) labelling the military’s ouster of President Mohammed Morsi a coup, McCain and Graham further aggravated the box of Obama’s indecision. If anyone believes the good Senators are sincere in their call for the interim government to engage with the Muslim Brotherhood, they need only recall McCain’s description of them in 2011: “I think they are a radical group that first of all supports Sharia law; that in itself is anti-democratic — at least as far as women are concerned. They have been involved with other terrorist organizations and I believe that they should be specifically excluded from any transition government.” Does anyone seriously believe his views have changed so much in two years?
Moreover, while Graham and McCain made it clear they consider Morsi’s ouster a coup, they also support continuing aid to Egypt, which would be forbidden under US law if there was indeed a military coup.
But McCain and Graham are only one side of the coin. On the other is US Secretary of State John Kerry and his ill-advised statement that the military acted to “restore Egyptian democracy” when they ejected a duly elected president. In other words, we had the administration’s lead diplomat angering the Muslim Brotherhood with his statement, and GOP senators infuriating the military and its current government with their own. A nice double whammy.
As I pointed out last week, this sort of snafu is the result of indecisiveness on Obama’s part regarding how to respond to the events in Egypt. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) represents the old Egypt, the one the US had a very cozy relationship with, and their announced agenda in the wake of deposing Morsi was for a new transition to a civilian government. But despite that, SCAF still ousted a democratically elected president in a military coup. The Muslim Brotherhood was one of a number of so-called moderate Islamist governments coming to power in the region in recent years, and might have represented a worrying trend for the Western interests of a potential region-wide alliance of states including Tunisia, Turkey and possibly others as change continues in the Arab world. The Brotherhood shot themselves in the foot by trying to impose their will on Egypt and attempting to re-establish a nearly dictatorial presidency and failing to take significant action on the economy. It seems, from current polls, that the Brotherhood has a lot less support in Egypt than they once did. But they were ousted in a coup, and while their protests are not winning over hearts and minds, neither is the harsh crackdown by the government.
What the US is seeing now is the potential for the Brotherhood to rebound from this major setback by taking up their familiar position of a besieged minority. Indeed, one of the greatest obstacles to reconciliation in Egypt is the Brotherhood’s willingness to embrace that familiar role again, and the government’s apparent willingness to use excessive force, which will enable the Brotherhood to regain some of the sympathy it has lost, if not now, at least in the long-term.
The military and Brotherhood seem both to be pursuing their agendas while remaining completely deaf to the interests and legitimacy of the other side. Indeed, while the Brotherhood is casting the military as just the latest in a long line of military usurpers in Egypt, the SCAF is portraying its adversary’s actions as a part of a “war on terror”, with the Brotherhood in the role of al-Qaeda. That will resonate in the West, which has a tendency to view all Islamists with the same lens. But such abject demonization is likely to have lasting and divisive effects, not only in Egypt, but throughout an Arab world already seething with conflict.
The words of McCain and Graham have perhaps chilled some of the US’ cozy relationship with the SCAF, but the SCAF leadership is well aware of the fact that the Senators do not speak for the Obama administration. In the end, their work will make Obama’s job a bit harder, mostly because they made the entire United States look foolish and poorly organized.
Kerry’s words, however, will prove to be a much greater impediment to US diplomacy in Egypt. By legitimizing the coup, Kerry may well have eliminated any chance for US mediation toward the goal of a truly inclusive government — the only alternative to anti-democratic rule by iron-fist or more spiralling chaos in Egypt. With the Brotherhood’s supporters continuing their protests, while apparently engendering only minority support among the Egyptian populace for such actions, and the military government continuing — and perhaps soon escalating — its crackdown on the Islamist forces it has recently characterized as terrorist elements, true mediation is needed now more than ever. But the waters are now so poisoned that the US and EU may be unable to help even with pure motives.
Considered together, the words of Kerry, Graham and McCain reflect the confusion of US policy in Egypt. It is an absence of policy, caused by a conflict between a desire to see the Middle East move toward moderate Islamist politics on the one hand and the understanding that a return to dictatorship, and the accompanying crackdowns on Islamists, is not going to bring the stability that, above all else, the West most desires. Those conflicting impulses have paralyzed US policymaking and brought about the comedy of errors we are now witnessing.
Ironically, the Brotherhood and related parties throughout the region were already marginalizing themselves and screwing up their chances at power. All the US and the Egyptian military had to do was let them hoist themselves on their own petard. Even now, freeing Morsi and other Brotherhood leaders in Egypt and allowing the people to vote again can well be expected to produce a very different result than it did in 2011. The deafness of all sides to the other — and the refusal to allow political processes to take their own course — has narrowed the options on all sides, leaving few good ones for anyone, especially the United States.
]]>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
]]>by Henry Precht
I wonder if it might help to puzzle out where the army might be taking Egypt in the period ahead if we think back to the Iranian revolution and the military’s role therein.
Old timers will recall that as Iran’s revolution gathered force, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah [...]]]>
by Henry Precht
I wonder if it might help to puzzle out where the army might be taking Egypt in the period ahead if we think back to the Iranian revolution and the military’s role therein.
Old timers will recall that as Iran’s revolution gathered force, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, was urged by supporters, foreign and domestic, to apply the “iron fist.” That was taken to mean the army would shoot down large numbers of troublemakers — as many as it takes to restore order. The Shah resisted that remedy, hoping that friends might help him find a less bloody way out of his predicament. He was loathe to leave a legacy of violent repression when his son succeeded him on the throne.
I argued in the State Department against relying on the iron fist. First, the military’s senior leadership, in general, lacked the talent or fiber to manage a brutal crackdown. They had risen through the ranks because of the one quality the Shah most valued: loyalty. In the absence of an active enemy, they had grown soft behind desks and in parade reviewing stands. There were, to be sure, a few exceptions — a few younger men mainly in the second rank, who might wield an iron fist. But the Shah didn’t entirely trust them. The air force chief, General Mohammad Khatami, for example, might have been one, but he had died in a hang glider accident — which some voices suspected was not, in fact, an accident, despite his marriage to the Shah’s sister.
Now let’s turn to the Egyptian army, a truly professional force, well trained, carefully selected and generally enjoying good morale. Egypt has fought more than five wars since 1948 and the army was plainly essential to the nation’s security. (Very different from the peaceable pre-revolution Iranian army — just as the present Revolutionary Guards are different from the Shah’s troops.) Widely respected and dear to the hearts of Egyptians, the army has been generously pampered, becoming a separate economic and social state within the state. From Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser onwards, senior Egyptian officers filled most of the top civilian government jobs in Cairo and the provinces.
That tradition has faded a bit in recent years as business and academic appointees replaced generals in the cabinet. Times change. The army leadership began to look inward after its own interests. Few generals now on duty have experienced, or expect to face, combat.
Still, national honour adheres to the officer corps; Egypt’s Free Officers Movement, after all, created the republic. The Egyptian on the street affords them respect, particularly in comparison with the run of old and new civilian politicians, who are often deemed corrupt or incompetent. I doubt, however, whether the current crop of military brass has the imagination, other political skills or relevant background to manage with subtlety the tricky weeks and months ahead. Shooting and jailing, no problem, they come naturally; wheeling and dealing in back rooms are an unfamiliar foe on a strange battlefield.
Will the senior corps remain unified as stress builds? The Iranians didn’t. Will they take guidance from the Americans? The Iranians were reluctant to do so without guidance from the Shah. Some Egyptian generals might; others will resent foreign meddling.
Neither Iranian nor Egyptian officer corps have seen themselves as Turk generals do, the ultimate protector of the inheritance from Ataturk and the constitution. There is no national ideology that conferred on Iranian and Egyptians a similar authority. Yet the Egyptian top brass earned praise for the way it engineered the removal of Hosni Mubarak and, by liberals and ancient regime remnants for the removal of Mohamed Morsi. It is a reputation that could fade quickly depending on events.
So much for a comparison of the two senior officer corps. In combatting iron fist-adherents in the Washington bureaucracy during my Iran days, I also argued that the draftee ranks were either (1) from the lower classes, twin brothers of those devout demonstrators whom they were supposed to shoot across the barricades or (2) technically trained, modern men who had been enlisted to cope with the sophisticated gear the Shah was acquiring. Below the officer ranks, the Iranian and Egyptian services are similar in origins and how they are treated. The modern men, it seemed to me, would, sooner or later, begin to think for themselves and some would conclude the Shah had no future. The Iranian draftees and noncoms, I thought, would in due course lay down their arms, follow the dictates of their religion and switch from the Shah to Ayatollah Khomeini. Right on both counts in Iran. Right also in Egypt? We shall see.
Before too many weeks pass we shall see how cohesively the new masters of Cairo in uniform hold together and how skillfully they can manage the nation during bitter strife. I am not sanguine.
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