by Mitchell Plitnick
The fighting in Gaza will continue for some time, as a ceasefire agreement brokered by Egypt fell apart. Despite the bellicose language Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has employed over the past week, it was Hamas and not Israel that rejected the proposal. This was, to be [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
The fighting in Gaza will continue for some time, as a ceasefire agreement brokered by Egypt fell apart. Despite the bellicose language Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has employed over the past week, it was Hamas and not Israel that rejected the proposal. This was, to be sure, the direct result of that proposal not meeting any of Hamas’ demands for a ceasefire and, because as one Israeli official put it, “…we discovered we’d made a cease-fire agreement with ourselves.” The dynamics of this turn of events are important and tell us much about how the ground has changed in the region. We first must ask why Hamas rejected the Egyptian proposal. They have been rather clear about their reasons:
- Hamas felt, quite correctly, that Egypt had essentially negotiated this deal with Israel, then presented it as a fait accompli to Hamas. In fact, they said they first heard about it through social media.
- Hamas has declared that they intend to come out of this round of fighting with some gains. In particular, they want to end the siege that Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip since 2007, the release of all the prisoners who had been re-arrested recently after being freed in exchange for Hamas freeing Gilad Shalit in 2011, and the negotiation of a long term truce, as was agreed in 2012, but never acted upon. The terms of the proposal offered no such relief, or any real change to the status quo.
- Many among Hamas and other groups believe this proposal was deliberately put forth by Egypt as one Israel would accept and Hamas would reject, in order to legitimize further attacks on Gaza. The way things have unfolded, they may be correct.
Those reasons may show a certain rationality in Hamas’ refusal to accept a ceasefire. Wisdom and real concern for the innocents suffering under Israel’s bombings are far less apparent, however. In fact, Hamas’ refusal to accept the ceasefire completes the process of wiping from the memory of much of the world the fact that Israel initiated this round of fighting.
Rarely has Netanyahu been more accurate than earlier yesterday, when he said “[If Hamas] doesn’t accept the ceasefire proposal…Israel will have all the international legitimacy to broaden its military activity in order to achieve the necessary quiet.” Indeed, Hamas’ decision does exactly that. There will still be expressions of concern from various quarters, but for the most part, pressure on Israel to stop its onslaught from the US, EU, UN and even many Arab states will diminish essentially to zero. It is hard to imagine that the refusal is going to lead to a better deal. The only thing that might, and only might, do that is a massive uptick in civilian deaths from where the number is at now. Hardly something anyone would wish for. So, while Hamas may have had very good reason to reject this deal, it does not seem that rejection is a better option.
Indeed, one may argue that accepting the ceasefire deal with certain reservations may have put Hamas in a better position. At least the massive uptick in death and destruction in Gaza would have been stemmed, even if temporarily.
Egypt’s New Position
Hamas has issued a statement rejecting further Egyptian efforts to mediate a ceasefire. They will now accept only Turkey or Qatar in that role. Those are, not coincidentally, the only two significant states who support the political goals of the Muslim Brotherhood, which the new Egyptian regime joins Saudi Arabia and many of the Gulf States in despising.
Egypt has now demonstrated that not only has its position on Hamas hardened since the ouster of the Brotherhood and President Mohamed Morsi, it is even more antagonistic to Hamas than former President Hosni Mubarak. Given this, it is likely that the role Mubarak frequently played as a broker between Israel and Hamas is not one that the current General/President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi can assume, and this was a failed attempt to show that he could.
This will please Netanyahu, who is surely seeing the new Egyptian regime as much more to his liking than anything that ever came before it. But it is going to complicate matters for the United States, all the more so as Israel is not likely to accept Turkey or Qatar as an intermediary. Without Egypt as a broker, the US is going to have a much harder time stabilizing these periodic escalations between Israel and Hamas. This, again, may suit Netanyahu, who believes US President Barack Obama is much too quick to try to end conflicts. But it also makes Israeli decisions as to when to back off more complicated, as the US will not be able to give Israel a way out that shields its leadership at least a little from the political fallout of ending these operations while Hamas is still in control of the Strip.
Hamas’ weakened position
Hamas is facing serious isolation. Egypt was surely never very sympathetic to Hamas, even when Morsi was in office. It is now even more firmly in the US-Israeli camp. Hamas’ support for Syrian rebels and the slow thaw of relations between the United States and Iran has (to Netanyahu’s chagrin) cooled the Hamas-Iran relationship, and Qatar has had to back away to some degree from its support of the Brotherhood and its affiliates like Hamas due to pressure from other Gulf states. This is why, despite the forecasts by many that this latest round will end with the status quo more or less maintained, Netanyahu, and probably also Mahmoud Abbas, believes a severe blow can now be struck against Hamas.
Netanyahu believes, not without reason, that this can be done without resorting to the kind of all-out assault, and even re-occupation, which is being pushed by his right flank in Israel. Consider the Islamist group’s current position. It was already struggling to pay workers in Gaza and had been arguing with the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah about who bears the responsibility. Egypt’s harder line has been stifling the “tunnel economy,” which was the only method for bringing many goods and supplies into Gaza that Israel would not permit to pass through its blockade. Hamas seemed to have nothing but rhetoric to offer to deal with the situation, and it was losing standing among the Palestinians, both in Gaza and the West Bank.
Islamic Jihad and other, more radical Palestinian factions, which Hamas was generally preventing from taking violent actions against Israel from Gaza, were accusing Hamas of abandoning its revolutionary ideals. Add to this the loss of much of its support from the rest of the Arab and Muslim world, in the wake of the decline of the Brotherhood throughout the region, and it’s not hard to see why Netanyahu believes that, even if the outcome of the current fighting is merely an agreement to go back to the way things were, he will still come out a big winner.
He may be right. But it is more likely that Israel’s continued attacks will cause the various factions to rally together, as they have in the past, strengthening Hamas’ position. It is also more likely to exacerbate the already dire predicament Abbas is in, as he has cracked down in the West Bank to prevent anti-Israel protests during the fighting, sacrificing what little respect and confidence the Palestinians had left in the PA President.
To Cease or not to Cease
Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other factions fighting in Gaza can certainly make the case that they have successfully stood firm under Israel’s attacks while demonstrating that they can shoot their missiles throughout Israel. The rockets being used in many cases were actually made in Gaza, along with what they have been able to smuggle in from outside. The fact that the locally made rockets include some of the medium range ones that have been penetrating farther into Israel than ever before is one reason Hamas is perhaps in less of a rush than one might think to stop the fighting.
The calculus, though, is cold and fails on a number of levels. The most obvious failure is the suffering of the people of Gaza. Over 190 Gazans have been killed, the vast majority civilians. These deaths do raise a great deal of anger among Palestinians against Israel, but to what end? There does not seem to be any victory, or even small gains, on the horizon for which these people are dying. When the fighting dies down, Israel will be the same villain in Gaza it always was, but people are surely going to wonder why the fighting went on for as long as it did with no gains in sight. And that is really the nub of it — there seems to be no hope for Hamas to achieve any of its goals, such as lifting the maritime blockade on Gaza or easing the border crossings. If they are hoping that other forces — such as those in Lebanon, which have lobbed a few projectiles across the border and to which Israel has responded quite forcefully — will be opening another flank against Israel, they are not paying attention to events in Syria and Iraq, which are occupying the efforts of Hezbollah and other parties that might be willing to engage Israel.
There simply isn’t an endgame that represents progress for Hamas. In 2012, when then-Egyptian President Morsi brokered an agreement, Hamas could claim a few minor concessions from Israel (which never really materialized once there was no pressure on Israel to follow through with them). There will be nothing of that sort here, but Hamas seems to be desperately clinging to the hope that it can extract something to base a claim of victory on.
That’s a terrible gamble. It is much more likely that the refusal to agree to a ceasefire is giving Netanyahu exactly what he wants: the chance to deliver a blow to a weakened Hamas regime in Gaza. Hamas has given Netanyahu the means to do this without having to overcome the global opposition that was apparent at the beginning of the current fighting. Their refusal is understandable. Israel has repeatedly failed to live up to prior agreements, and this entire thing does look very much like a setup cooked up by Egypt and Israel.
Still, it seems like the rejection of the ceasefire plays into Netanyahu’s hands even more than going along with it would have. Hamas was faced with two bad options. Some may say they chose the lesser of two evils, but they seem to have opted for the path of salvaging some pride while losing more innocent lives and gaining nothing.
Photo: A school in Gaza after an Israeli bomb attack.
]]>As the Egyptian revolution against Mubarak celebrates its third anniversary, the military junta under General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is resurrecting dictatorship under the veneer of “constitutional” legitimacy and on the pretense of fighting “terrorism.”
Syria is still ablaze. Yemen has yet to sever the tentacles of the Saleh regime, and [...]]]>
As the Egyptian revolution against Mubarak celebrates its third anniversary, the military junta under General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is resurrecting dictatorship under the veneer of “constitutional” legitimacy and on the pretense of fighting “terrorism.”
Syria is still ablaze. Yemen has yet to sever the tentacles of the Saleh regime, and Libya remains in the chaotic throes of tribal fissures and militia violence. Tunisia is the only “Arab Spring” country that is transitioning to democracy wisely and pragmatically.
The uprisings in the past three years have rattled Arab dictators and forced Washington to reassess its relations with the region. Arab autocrats have fought the uprisings and resisted all efforts to redesign the decades-old social contract with their people. Four fell.
Those who are still in power continue to inflict destruction on their countries and repress their citizens.
Yet, some policymakers, talking heads, and academics in Washington and other Western capitals are myopically advocating reconciling with existing regimes, including the Syrian tyrant. Self-proclaimed regional experts are advising these policymakers that Gulf monarchies, for example, are stable and secure and should be embraced.
Likewise, some of these experts are calling on Washington to engage the Egyptian military junta because, they argue, Egypt is the centerpiece of American policy and interests in the region. They maintain these interests should trump American values, which were trumpeted by President Barack Obama in his initial support of the anti-Mubarak revolt.
This “expert” advice reflects a shortsighted, shallow knowledge of the region and is devoid of any strategic analysis of future relations between Arab peoples and their rulers. If followed, it would harm long-term US interests in the region.
Let us remember that three years ago, many of these experts missed the Arab Spring all together, as was pointed out in the 2011 Stimson Institute’s Seismic Shift report.
Many academics and journalists paid scant attention to endemic grievances in Arab societies and focused instead on the “deep state” narrative, which they bought from the regimes’ hook, line, and sinker.
A few distinguished American journalists, such as the late Anthony Shadid of the New York Times, were aware of what was boiling below the surface in places like Egypt despite the glossy mask of stability that Mubarak and his fellow autocrats presented to the outside world.
It is unfortunately understandable that some policymakers and academics are leaning toward accepting this narrative now because they are becoming disgusted with the bloody tumult across the region and the rise of radicalism and terrorism.
Some academics similarly are trumpeting the “stability” narrative, especially in the Gulf. These “access academics” — who forego serious analysis of regimes’ repressive policies in order to be allowed into those countries and meet with officials — are repeating the same analysis they offered before the revolutions of 2011.
In the Gulf monarchies, as the British academic Christopher Davidson of Durham University has pointed out in his book After the Sheiks, the absence of legitimacy, continued repression, and sectarianism will hasten the collapse of these tribal regimes.
Professor Davidson maintains some academics, retired generals and sitting and former diplomats are peddling the “stability” fiction for potential access and economic gain.
Promising business deals, lucrative post-retirement jobs, country visits, and Gulf investment in European and American university buildings are even influencing the type of research, analysis, and academic conferences that are being conducted on the present and future of Gulf monarchies.
Fortunately, some scholars such as Toby Matthiesen of Cambridge University are seriously assessing the long-term destructive nature of bloody sectarianism across the region, which for the most part is being pushed by regimes.
Several factors are driving this pernicious phenomenon. First, although dictators fell, most of the old regimes remained intact. The re-emergence of the Mubarak-era dictatorship under General Sisi is the most vivid example.
The military junta’s harsh sentencing of Ahmad Maher, Ahmad Duma, and Muhammad Adel–key activists in the January 2011 revolution–and the espionage charges against two of Egypt’s most prominent intellectuals, Emad Shahin and Amr Hamzawy, signal that the deep security state is alive and well in Egypt.
The military’s harsh crackdown against all opposition–secular and Islamist–belies its claim that Egypt is on the road to democracy.
The recent branding of the Muslim Brotherhood as a “terrorist” organization moves Egypt away from political reconciliation, the new “constitution” notwithstanding. In fact, the recently ratified document enshrines the power of the military as an institution impervious to any form of accountability.
The politically motivated capital crime charges against the deposed President Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders underpin the vengeful anti-democratic policies of General Sisi.
Despite flagrant human rights violations and sham trials, the Obama administration is tragically maintaining its military aid to the Egyptian military.
Furthermore, the US State Department has withdrawn the name of Robert Ford as Ambassador Designate to Egypt from consideration in response to objections from the Egyptian military, according to media reports.
Second, the authoritarian regimes that are still in power are employing comprehensive hard and soft power tools, violently and viciously, in order to keep their rule. Bashar al-Assad has rendered his country a wasteland, killing over a hundred and thirty thousand Syrians and forcing millions to become refugees in an attempt to defeat the opposition.
Much like Egypt’s Sisi, he is feverishly trying to convince Washington and other Western capitals that he is the most effective force against terrorism and (Saudi) Wahhabi extremism. His foreign minister has repeatedly stated that if Western leaders hope to keep Salafi jihadists from overrunning Syria, Assad is their man.
It would be tragic if Washington falls for this ruse. It was Assad who worked closely with radical Salafis first in Iraq and then in Syria. He had hoped Salafis would discredit the moderate, secular opposition–a self-fulfilling prophecy he is happy to see come to pass.
Third, as these regimes fail to defeat their popular revolts and reject meaningful dialogue with the opposition, radical elements and Salafi jihadists begin to fill the power vacuum in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere. The ensuing stalemate is already producing more turbulence, anemic economies, debilitating uncertainty, and diminishing personal security.
No winner will emerge in the foreseeable future, which hopefully would force Washington to make hard choices. Simply put, these choices involve drawing a morally palatable balance between values and interests. If Washington hopes to be on the right side of history, interests should never be allowed to trump values of good governance, certainly not in the wake of the Arab uprisings of 2011.
]]>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.
]]>The economy is clearly the most important problem facing Egypt today. Unemployment and underemployment are vast. Tourism has been shattered by recent events and may take a long time to get back on track. Foreign investments have dropped and have even turned to a net outflow from the country rather than [...]]]>
The economy is clearly the most important problem facing Egypt today. Unemployment and underemployment are vast. Tourism has been shattered by recent events and may take a long time to get back on track. Foreign investments have dropped and have even turned to a net outflow from the country rather than a net inflow into the country. Many domestic investors have also become quite wary and are considering leaving Egypt. This is especially true of some of the major Coptic Egyptian and conservative Muslim investors who are anxious about what the future may hold with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood. The liberal and “secular” investors are about as wary and anxious as some of the Copts. There are some younger investors who see this as an opportunity. Some of the Muslim Brotherhood people are considerable business people and view the anxiety of some as an opportunity.
Even so, foreign exchange reserves are hemorrhaging from the treasury. Most of the government run factories and firms are in dire need of reform, refitting or even shutting down. The economy in general is in need of great reform toward more international competitiveness. If this is not done, Egypt will be in even worse shape in the future. The privatization and structural adjustment programs of the 1990s are looked down upon by many in Egypt due to the massive corruption that was brought along with these programs. However, the last thing Egypt needs now is to go back to the time of Nasser, nationalizations, 95 percent tax rates and the destruction of the business and landowning classes.
Egypt has to find its way to a more prosperous future and the United States and others could be of some help if they become more practical partners for this change. The focus should be on jobs, investment, education, technological change, and the practicalities of getting things done – not on the misty and often unproductive goals of “good governance”. This term has a bad reputation amongst many Egyptians I met during my recent 6 week trip because, they say, the US talked about helping with good governance and really did nothing as Hosni Mubarak and company robbed and oppressed the country. Many Egyptians are also quite suspicious of non-governmental organization (NGOs) in general and governance NGOs in particular.
The US will need to try to develop some sort of relations with the new leadership of the country. In the past, there was little real contact at the strategic or any other level with the Brotherhood. Now the president of Egypt is from the Muslim Brotherhood, even if he said that he quit after he was elected. The new parliament and some of the new cabinet members – and even some of the future military leaders – could be Muslim Brotherhood or at least sensitive to the Brotherhood’s ideas and goals. Improving relations with the Brotherhood should be seen as a practical calculation, not as an acceptance of their principals. Egypt is an important country. We need to keep our relations going. President Mohamed Morsi is an example of the changes that are occurring in Egypt.
Building relations with the Salafists is another story altogether. I would be very careful with this. Their views of the US are dangerous, radical and extremist. Building relations with them should be geared more toward keeping potential enemies close to understand them better. I see very little hope in any real improvement in our relations with the Salafists.
The liberals, “secularists”, Nasserists and many others think we dropped them. Many also blame us for bringing the Muslim Brotherhood to power. Why, they ask, did we not help them more during the most difficult times? This is a tough question that our diplomats and others need to work on to develop future relations with these groups. They are splintered and weak compared to the much better organized Brotherhood, Salafis and others. However, they will be involved with Egyptian politics for some time and should not be discounted as potential future leaders.
The Egyptian revolution and the political churn from it are far from over.
The US has had very good relations with the Egyptian military. Friendships and long term understandings have been developed. The strongest relations we have with Egypt are still with the military even after the changes that lead to the retiring of many senior officers. The military needs to be handled in a more nuanced manner now given the power of the Brotherhood overall. However, the tensions and chess game between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military are not over. Those who think that President Mohamed Morsi checkmated the military with the recent retirements are clearly and plainly wrong. There will be a lot more to this story.
The most important relation that the US needs to develop in Egypt is with ordinary Egyptian people. Our diplomats, business people, professors and others need to reach out more to the regular folks. We need to understand them better and they could understand us a lot better. The farmers in the countryside, the tea people in Cairo and Alexandria, and the TukTuk drivers from all over are Egypt’s backbone.
Regular Egyptians could become very important arbiters for the future of Egypt, especially if a potential “Revolution of the Hungry and Poor” breaks out. If the economy is not fixed quickly, there is a good chance for this. There is another important reason to reach out more to the regular folks: they are mostly decent, good people. The US could help them and help itself at the same time by building more small clinics in the poor areas, building school houses, helping with infrastructure repairs, giving scholarships to poor Egyptians to US schools and colleges, developing cultural exchanges and more. We cannot distance ourselves from average Egyptians anymore.
Egypt is likely going to take on new roles for regional and global issues. Egypt’s relations with Israel are likely to change. This will depend on how the politics of the revolution and bread work out. Egypt’s relations with Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Sudan, and many other places and groups that the US considers problematic could also change. We need to understand these changes as they happen and respond in more nuanced and strategic ways than how I think we will.
Egypt will also likely reach out more to China, India, Russia, Brazil, the Gulf Cooperation Council and others to diversify its support. It will likely rely much less on the US than at any time since Anwar Sadat if the Muslim Brotherhood acquires even greater power. President Morsi’s visits to China, Saudi Arabia and more are not just to get frequent flier points and to meet and greet. Morsi’s trips are mostly about diversifying Egypt’s international relations and its sources of economic and political support. The Chinese seem quite happy to oblige and I expect that the Chinese military’s relations with the Egyptian military will also change.
We need to be very careful as changes in the international relations of Egypt develop.
Egypt is an important country in overall US-Islamic and US-Arab relations. We need to move with great care and consideration of not just the first, but also the second, third and fourth order effects of any new moves Egypt makes – and what moves we might make in response. The building of Sunni-Shia tensions may also work into this situation.
Egypt is a relatively poor country with big ambitions. Maybe it is time for the US to rethink its posture towards Egypt as well. Many Egyptians in leadership and others I have met during the 20 years I have been associated with the country have told me about the condescension they have sometimes felt from visiting Americans. The perception becomes the reality no matter what may actually be occurring. Building relations is complex. Rebuilding them during a time of great political and revolutionary flux is even more complex and fraught with risks. We need to send the best, brightest and most intelligent people to represent us.
It is hard to tell where Egypt’s new path is going. What US relations with Egypt will be like in the years to come is anyone’s guess. There will be lots of internal changes in Egypt. There will be many changes across the region as the inherent instabilities and tensions work themselves out or get worse while US politics also evolve.
Fluid and complex situations require nuanced strategic thinking. This is an area where Americans can stand to improve with respect to the Middle East. It is time to develop these skills and understanding in our people or pay the much heavier prices that could be coming our way if we don’t.
]]>The findings of the BBC World Service’s 2011 Country Rating Poll reveal that an average of only 16% of nearly 29,000 respondents in 27 countries queried regard the Islamic Republic’s global influence as being “mainly positive,” while 59% consider it to be “mainly negative.” That’s lower than North Korea, Pakistan and Israel, who are also among the bottom feeders in public popularity. (North Korea’s approval/disapproval ratings were 16%/55%; Pakistan’s 17%/56% and Israel’s 21%/49%.)
The methodology of the pollsters doesn’t presume respondents have any basic knowledge, let alone expertise, about current world affairs. It’s more of an instantaneous free association quiz: the pollster names a country, and the respondent offers his or her gut reaction. South Africa’s hosting the 2010 World Cup, for example, was presumably responsible for a 7-point surge in its popularity rating, according to the BBC World Service.
Not surprisingly, the sums of the positives and negatives for nearly all the countries on the list fall far short of 100, with “don’t know,” “not sure,” and “it depends” responses (not offered as an option by pollsters, but accepted nonetheless) making up the difference. Nor were respondents queried as to why they view any given country’s influence as positive or negative.
Germany ranked at the top of the 16 countries about which respondents were asked. The survey was conducted by Globescan/PIPA between late December 2010 and early February 2011. Germany’s favorable rating was 62%, with an unfavorable average of only 15%–a lower disapproval rate than any other country except Canada (12% disapproval). Forty-nine percent of respondents rated U.S. influence positively, while 31% viewed it negatively. (See Jim Lobe’s analysis, Views of U.S. Influence Steadily Climb Under Obama.)
Iranian influence is regarded more favorably in the Middle East and Asia, however, than the average positive/negative figures would seem to imply, weighted as they are by the overwhelmingly negative views expressed by respondents in North America, South America and Europe. A BBC press release noted that “There was a significant increase in negative views of Iran in key Western countries including the United Kingdom (up 20 points), Canada (up 19 points), the USA (up 18 points), and Australia (up 15 points).”
Nonetheless, digging through the data, Iran doesn’t fare quite as badly closer to home. Iran’s most positive ratings draw from Pakistan (41%), China (38%), Turkey (36%) and Indonesia (35%). Negative views of Iran expressed in these four countries countries range from a low of 13% in Pakistan to a high of 48% in China, and are shared by 35% of Indonesians and 36% of Turks. Despite the Islamic Republic’s apparent popularity in Pakistan, it polled relatively well in India too, attracting 27% favorable, 28% unfavorable ratings.
Although western media sources tend to emphasize the longstanding rivalry between Iran and Egypt for regional hegemony, as well as the reportedly irreconcilable differences between Sunnis and Shiites, Persians and Arabs, BBC poll data indicates that 25% percent of Egyptian respondents view Iran favorably, nearly the same number as view U.S. influence as positive (26%). (The Egypt data was collected Dec. 5-12, 2010, before the popular uprising that led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.) Nearly equal numbers of Turkish respondents approve of the influence of the U.S. (35%) and Iran (36%).
However, half of those polled, in countries long regarded as the staunchest Middle East allies of both the U.S. and of Israel–50% in Egypt, 49% in Turkey– expressed negative views about U.S. influence, with only 32% of Egyptians and 45% of Turks worried about Iran. Turkey saw its own averages improve dramatically in this year’s BBC poll, with its positive ratings up by 22 percentage points and its negatives dropping by 21%.
In contrast, only 5% of Egyptians and 9% of Turks said they view Israeli influence as positive, while more than three quarters (78% in Egypt; 77% in Turkey) expressed negativity about Israel, Iran’s nuclear nemesis. Israel also drew fewer favorable ratings than Iran in India (21%) and China (32%)–two countries with which it has attempted to cultivate trade and security relationships–Iran garnering 27% and 38% approval ratings, as noted above. In China, 48% of respondents were negative about Israeli influence, a view shared by only 18% of those polled in India.
Iran may not be loved, but it isn’t isolated either.
For the full text of the BBC 2011 Country Rating Poll, click here.
]]>The first argument states that Israel is a central character in Arab nationalism and that irrational hatred of Israel and Jews has a prominent place in any [...]]]>
The first argument states that Israel is a central character in Arab nationalism and that irrational hatred of Israel and Jews has a prominent place in any Arab government.
On January 31 2010, Andrew Mccarthy offered an example of this talking point in his National Review blog post, “Fear the Muslim Brotherhood,” writing:
The Brotherhood did not suddenly become violent (or “more violent”) during World War II. It was violent from its origins two decades earlier. This fact — along with Egyptian Islamic society’s deep antipathy toward the West and its attraction to the Nazis’ virulent anti-Semitism — is what gradually beat European powers, especially Britain, into withdrawal.
But with the Middle East in a state of upheaval after Hosni Mubarak’s resignation and what appears to be the approaching end of Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-year reign, a more popular talking point has taken over the opinion pages: Hawks seek to deny the destabilizing role that the U.S. has played in supporting authoritarian Arab leaders who have kept peace with Israel.
Two promoters of this theory recently popped up in the pages of the Wall Street Journal.
Today’s issue of the WSJ offered up an excerpt, in the paper’s “Notable & Quotable” section, of journalist Brendan O’Neill’s writing. O’Neill had written in The Australian, on February 16:
[O]ne of the most striking things about the uprising in Egypt was the lack of pro-Palestine placards. As Egypt-watcher Amr Hamzawy put it, in Tahrir Square and elsewhere there were no signs saying “death to Israel, America and global imperialism” or “together to free Palestine.” Instead, this revolt was about Egyptian people’s own freedom and living conditions.
O’Neill observes that at “the pro-Egypt demonstration in London on Saturday, there was a sea of Palestine placards. ‘Free Palestine,’ they said, and ‘End the Israeli occupation.’” The WSJ’s excerpt ends:
This reveals something important about the Palestine issue. . . . [It] has become less important for Arabs and of the utmost symbolic importance for Western radicals at exactly the same time.
While O’Neill’s point may have been more broad, the WSJ editorial board’s decision to narrowly quote him and promote the few sentences he wrote about the “lack of pro-Palestine placards” is telling.
Of course, this analysis overlooks the U.S.’s support for Mubarak as well as the Egyptian government’s maintenance of the Israeli-Egypt peace agreement and assistance in enforcing the siege on Gaza. (See Alex Kane’s excellent dismantling of the “Israel has nothing to do with this” argument.)
Yesterday, the Journal’s European edition published an op-ed on the non-existent role Israel played in the unrest shaking the Middle East.
The Foundation for Defense for Defense of Democracies’ Emanuele Ottolenghi wrote:
Arab freedom has taken precedence over Israel and Palestine—or so says the much-maligned Arab Street, as it topples one tyrant and challenges the next. The conventional wisdom that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the mother of all problems in the region has now been exposed as nothing but a myth. Will Western leaders finally learn?
Ottolenghi uses this argument to belittle the Obama administration for its public endorsements of linkage—the idea, accepted by the upper echelons of the U.S. military, that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will help promote U.S. strategic interests in the Middle East.
While it is convenient for Ottolenghi to take up this argument as the Middle East is falling into turmoil, he hasn’t been immune from reverting to the argument that a deep-rooted anti-Semitism is prevalent in the Middle East.
In March, 2010, Ottolenghi wrote on Commentary’s Contentions blog:
A bi-national state is actually more promising than a nation-state […] because it would keep their nationalist dream alive — a dream whereby, as Professor Fouad Ajami once so artfully put it, “there still lurks in the Palestinian and Arab imagination a view, depicted by the Moroccan historian Abdallah Laroui, that “on a certain day, everything would be obliterated and instantaneously reconstructed and the new inhabitants would leave, as if by magic, the land they had despoiled.” Arafat knew the power of this redemptive idea. He must have reasoned that it is safer to ride that idea, and that there will always be another day and another offer.”
And in February 2009, he wrote in Haaretz:
[H]istory shows us that Palestinian demands are rooted in a grievance culture of victimhood, not in facts.
Western-allied Middle Eastern countries are under increasing pressure to yield to protesters’ demands for more representative governments and improvements in human rights. It’s convenient for pro-Israel hawks to hide behind the argument that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had nothing to do with this quickly unraveling situation. But, as Ottolenghi’s contradicting op-eds illustrate, any expression of Palestinian solidarity from a newly democratic Arab government will most likely be met with accusations that an irrational hatred of Israel is central to the Arab psyche.
]]>It is too early to say unequivocally that this is the course the Obama administration has decided to take. The nature of the current US-Egypt relationship is such that backroom negotiations are far more important than public pronouncements, and thus there’s no way of knowing exactly what the administration is telling its Egyptian counterparts. It’s not impossible that the US really does see Suleiman as nothing more than a brief stopgap to smooth the transition to a more robust democracy, as administration officials have been claiming. If that proves to be true, I will withdraw my reservations about the administration’s approach.
But if the US does end up trying to prop up some form of Mubarakism without Mubarak, it will represent a serious error – and one that even those who are generally sympathetic to the Obama administration should not hesitate to criticize it for. Regular readers will know that I was extremely skeptical of right-wing criticisms of the Obama administration for not “doing more” during the 2009 Iranian political crisis. The reason was that “doing more” generally turned out to mean one of two things: either engaging in more self-righteous public posturing, or taking a harder line on the Iranian nuclear program by escalating sanctions and considering a military strike. Neither course of action stood any likelihood of doing anything to help the Green Movement’s cause – in fact, as Iranian dissidents like Akbar Ganji warned, the course of action favored by the Iran hawks was likely to destroy the Iranian opposition altogether.
Why do I think criticisms of the Obama administration are justified in the Egyptian case when they weren’t in the Iranian case? Simply because in Egypt the US does actually have the potential to “do more,” and to have a tangible impact on the fate of the democracy movement. While the US had no relationship with the Islamic Republic that would allow it to exert leverage on the regime’s behavior, the Mubarak regime is a US client, and the US thus has an great deal of leverage – particularly on the Egyptian military, which will play a decisive role in any political transition. Putting the possible discontinuation of US military aid on the negotiating table, for instance, might exert a real influence on the decision-making of Suleiman and his circle.
It has been repeated to the point of platitude in recent weeks that Egyptians must determine their own fate, and that the US cannot dictate Egypt’s future to it. This is certainly true, but it is frequently misused and misunderstood. It is fallacious to believe that if the US sits back and allows the perpetuation of the status quo it will thereby be “doing nothing,” for the simple reason that the status quo – US backing for a military regime in Egypt – itself represents a serious intervention into Egyptian politics. For the Obama administration to continue its current backing for the regime under Suleiman while refusing to push for political reform would not be “letting Egyptians decide their own fate.” It would be siding with the regime against the protesters.
This is not chiefly a matter of rhetorical posturing. I don’t particularly mind that the administration has taken a restrained tone in its public pronouncements, and I don’t think that issuing gauzy paeans to Freedom and Democracy would do much to help the cause of freedom and democracy in Egypt. (Not to mention that after thirty years of US support for Mubarak, such rhetoric would surely strike most Egyptians as obviously insincere.) Rather, it is chiefly a matter of the serious use of US leverage – most likely in private – to make clear to the regime that continued US political patronage will depend on major political reform. It’s possible that the administration is already doing this, in which case these worries will be unfounded. If not, however, Obama will have a lot to answer for.
]]>On January 28th, MSNBC’s Richard Engel and Rachel Maddow had a surprisingly frank [...]]]>
On January 28th, MSNBC’s Richard Engel and Rachel Maddow had a surprisingly frank discussion about the U.S. role in backing Mubarak. Engel told Maddow that “many Egyptians see the U.S. having stood solidly by President Mubarak while the government grew more and more corrupt.” Engel held up to the camera a teargas canister which had been fired at protesters and read the writing on the side:
‘Made in the USA by Combined Tactical Systems from Jamestown, Pennsylvania.’ And [the protesters] say this is the kind of support that the United States has been giving to the Egyptian government.
This public questioning of U.S. foreign policy for the past thirty years occurred not on Al Jazeera (which continues to have some of the best coverage out of Cairo) or on liberal blogs, but as part of a major network’s programming.
The shift in tone from the U.S. news media continued through the weekend. On Monday, CNN’s John King asked Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) how the Congressman’s support of Hosni Mubarak fit in with the U.S.’s interest in promoting democracy in the Middle East.
King started by questioning McCotter’s representation of the protesters as subversive elements [see the transcript here].
KING: Your initial statement as the crisis unfolded from Friday, said, “Right now freedoms radicalized enemies are subverting Egypt and our other allies.”
We have correspondents who have been out in the streets in these demonstrations, and they say, yes, there are some members of the Muslim Brotherhood there, but by and large it is middle class Egyptians, young and old, who are frustrated with their government. Who have had no political rights. The elections have been a sham. They want Mubarak to go. What’s wrong with that?
MCCOTTER: Well, it’s the same thing we saw in 1979 with the Shah, where you had a very broad-based popular coalition that was subverted by the Khomeinis of the world, and the radical Islamic factions within there. So what you have to do is find a way to separate the movement of the young people and of the middle class and others-separate them from the radical elements within the Muslim Brotherhood, who have not renounced the goal of Sharia law on a global basis, or the return of the Caliphate, which would be a disastrous not only for the Egyptian people but for the peace process in the Middle East, the Suez Canal and international commerce, and the interest of the United States.
King went on to press McCotter on the U.S.’s inconsistent record of promoting democracy:
KING: President Bush pushed for elections in the Palestinian Territories, as you know, and Hamas won those elections. Some said it was a big mistake on the president’s part, President Bush’s part to do that, when they weren’t ready. And Hamas won that election. An others have said, you know what, not it’s not. It’s not a mistake. The United States should stand for democracy, let the people have their will and Hamas will prove it can either deliver services or it can’t. Again, why not do the same in Egypt? If somebody is maybe not friendly to the United States in the first round, we take our chances the second round.
MCCOTTER: Because if the individuals come in, as we saw in Iran, as we could see with the potential takeover from the Muslim Brotherhood, not only is it not in the best interest of the United States, it is not in the best interest of the people of Egypt, any more than it was in the best interest of the people of Iran.
King again challenged McCotter’s talking point that the Muslim Brotherhood would take over a future government, saying, “Most of our people who have been there for a long time, and have reported on the region, said maybe they would get 25 or 30 percent.”
The major network news outlets are way behind in reporting on the tangled U.S. Middle East policy which, thirty years after the Camp David Accords, continues to hinge on backing authoritarian Arab governments and unconditionally defending Israel against accusations of human rights abuses. But the scenes of Egyptian security services attacking protesters with U.S.-supplied equipment and the administration’s unwillingness to openly take sides against Mubarak is clearly making many Americans take note and ask questions.
That frustration, along with the questioning of U.S. policy, has long been kept under a lid by those who warn that changes of government in U.S.-aligned Arab states would bring the rise of radical Islamists who would work against U.S. and Israeli interests. The protesters on the streets of Egypt don’t look like radicals to U.S. viewers. A-list talking heads are starting to ask real questions about the assumptions and strategies used to justify U.S. support for rulers like Hosni Mubarak.
]]>It’s right there in the opinion section of the Washington Times, where even Frank Gaffney is zoomed in on the Muslim Brotherhood and has the decency not to mention Iran. (Gaffney’s piece is [...]]]>
It’s right there in the opinion section of the Washington Times, where even Frank Gaffney is zoomed in on the Muslim Brotherhood and has the decency not to mention Iran. (Gaffney’s piece is called “The Muslim Brotherhood is the Enemy“, and I didn’t read it, but searched it for ‘Iran’, ‘Tehran’, and ‘mullah’, and: nada.)
But not Pipes. The show must go on. (Just as Clarion Fund‘s “Iranium” premieres tomorrow.) Here’s Pipes’s lede:
As Egypt’s much-anticipated moment of crisis arrived and popular rebellions shook governments across the Middle East, Iran stands as never before at the center of the region. Its Islamist rulers are within sight of dominating the region. But revolutions are hard to pull off and I predict that Islamists will not achieve a Middle East-wide breakthrough and Tehran will not emerge as the key powerbroker.
Check out that deft change of subject in the first sentence!
Oh, and did you know that U.S. President Barack Obama is supporting the nasty Islamists in Egypt, the very Brotherhood that Gaffney is warning us about?
Sure, you say, democracy advocates from across the political spectrum are asking for Obama to do more to usher Egyptian dictator Honsi Mubarak out of power. But Pipes has a different story. He concludes:
Barack Obama initially reverted to the failed old policy of making nice with tyrants; now he is myopically siding with the Islamists against Mr. Mubarak.
The link for that Islamist allegation, from the version of the piece on Pipes’s hompage, goes to Obama’s catch-up speech on Thursday night after he spoke to Mubarak. Only Pipes saw the Islamist connection; he went to Harvard, you know, and runs a think tank.
But do tell, Pipes, what should Obama do?
He should emulate Bush but do a better job, understanding that democratization is a decades-long process that requires the inculcation of counter-intuitive ideas about elections, freedom of speech, and the rule of law.
If there’s any question about whether some neoconservatives are democratic opportunists for the purpose of scoring political points, that about settles it.
And the “inculcation of counter-intuitive ideas about elections, freedom of speech and the rule of law”? It seems to me that Egyptians, at this moment, are perfectly attuned to these notions. How racist.
And wasn’t the idea that all people have these aspirations at the very heart of Bush’s 2005 State of the Union? Jennifer Rubin, the neoconservative Washington Post blogger, cited that very passage in support of her hallucination “that it was the left that said that democracy was alien to the Middle East. Bush was right; they were wrong.” (Pipes may actually be on Rubin’s left.)
Elliott Abrams, too, hauled out a similar Bush passage — that everyone is ‘ready’ for democracy — when he presented his own bogus narrative that the Iraq War was being vindicated by current events. (Doesn’t Pipes read his comrades?)
Nonetheless, on Egypt: Eli Lake has a good piece on the New Republic about Bush’s failure to push for genuine reform in Egypt. We don’t really know exactly what’s going on in the White House right now, though we’re getting some hints (Mubarak will be out).
After reading Lake’s piece, what’s stands out as ironic is that Obama’s caution, at the moment, seems an awful lot like he’s already ‘emulating’ Bush. To do something about it, and call for or arrange Mubarak’s ouster, would indeed be doing a “better job” than Bush, as Pipes put it.
But Pipes can’t be bothered with details or history. It’s all about Iran.
Oh, and the guy in the Obama administration responsible for designing U.S. policy toward Iran (and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process) sits on the board of editors at Daniel Pipes’s pseudo-academic journal. How comforting is that?
]]>The anti-Mubarak revolution won’t only topple an authoritarian regime. It will also topple 40-plus years of wrong-headed thinking about the causes of Middle East instability among the world’s foreign-policy cognoscenti.
In that view, the horrible relationship between Israel and the Arabs is the dominant issue for the Near East’s 20-plus nations and its 250-million-plus people — and the root cause of the region’s tempestuousness.
And poses the question:
If there were a Palestinian embassy in Washington today, would Hosni Mubarak have been any more mindful of the eventual consequences of his iron-fisted fecklessness in refusing a transition to a more representative Egypt because there was an ambassador from Palestine in Washington?
While Podhoretz considers this to be a rhetorical question, a slightly nuanced reading of the situation would respond affirmatively to that question.
Perhaps Podhoretz should answer this question: Could Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian rule in Egypt have lasted for thirty years had Egypt not enjoyed the benefits—largely in the form of U.S. aid and military assistance—of a peace deal with Israel?
Podhoretz writes:
Cure the Israeli-Palestinian problem, they tell us, and you cure regional instability. But the problem for the overwhelming majority of countries in the Middle East hasn’t been instability. The problem has, rather, been an excess of stability — the result of sclerotic regimes of preposterously long duration.
Mubarak has been in power since 1981, as part of a movement in charge of Egypt for nearly 60 years. The al-Saud family has run Saudi Arabia since 1903; the al-Sabahs have been Kuwait’s poohbahs since 1913. The Jordanian royal family has held sway for eight decades; the Assads, father and son, have bossed Syria since 1970.
Is it any coincidence that these governments all benefit from close relationships with the U.S.? Are we to believe that Washington’s support of these governments is totally independent from its concern over Israel’s security?
A June 15, 2010 Congressional Research Service report (PDF) spelled out the U.S.’s aid strategy in the Middle East (my emphasis):
The degree to which foreign assistance has contributed to the achievement of U.S. objectives in the Middle East is difficult to measure, but the consensus among most analysts seems to be that
U.S. economic and security aid has contributed significantly to Israel’s security, Egypt’s stability, and Jordan’s friendship with the United States. The promise of U.S. assistance to Israel and Egypt during peace negotiations in the late 1970s helped to enable both countries to take the risks needed for peace, and may have helped convince both countries that the United States was committed to supporting their peace efforts. Excluding Iraq, Israel and Egypt are the largest two recipients of U.S. aid respectively.
While Podhoretz would like to have his readers believe that Israel is a totally independent variable in the region’s stability, the reality is that U.S. aid and support for authoritarian regimes who maintain peace with Israel is a real side effect of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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