Where is Egypt heading?
Caroline Glick assesses the situation in Egypt in light of the recent mob attack on the Israeli embassy in Cairo. The crowd was prevented from killing six Israeli security officers only because the military leaders of Egypt, who had been sitting on their hands as the drama played out (either in order to appease the mob or because they sympathized with it, or perhaps both), finally acceded to US pressure and intervened at the eleventh hour to save the Israelis.
This says quite a few things, some of them things we already knew. One is that in the absence of Mubarak events will probably be going more poorly for Israel in terms of Egyptian attitude and actions towards it. Another is that in a pinch, the Obama administration will sometimes intervene to avoid a result that is bad for Israel. If one looks at it cynically (and I am strongly inclined in that direction), Obama knows that any bad repercussions from the current Egyptian leaders will be placed at least somewhat on his head, and that that sort of thing could bode very badly for him in the 2012 election (see this for more).
Of course, it’s also possible that Obama is trying to do the right thing by Israel. But there’s not a whole lot of precedent that would support that belief.
At any rate, as Glick writes:
…US leverage may end after [Egypt’s] November’s elections. The Muslim Brotherhood and its allies are expected to win a parliamentary majority and the presidency.
And then it will get a lot more interesting.
Egypt is not alone in this trend. Iran, of course, is the template, as many (including me) feared when the movement to depose Mubarak began, and Obama decided to play the Jimmy Carter role. But once-moderate Turkey is not far behind, as well.
Michael Totten has an in-depth piece on what’s been happening in Egypt since the revolution, and the news isn’t good (the piece, on the other hand, is). Here’s the summary version of the article, which features an interview by prominent liberal Egyptian intellectual Hala Mustafa:
“All we can do,” Mustafa said, “is preserve the minimal amount of our liberal tradition that still remains. But the military rule and the growing Islamization of the society make it very difficult. The conservative forces are trying to prevent any sort of progress in the country. The military rulers are different from the Muslim Brotherhood, but they don’t contradict each other.”…
“It was a premature revolution. Mubarak’s regime wasn’t Mubarak’s. It was the regime that was founded in 1952 and it’s still here. The regime’s attitude against Israel is the same. Americans thought Mubarak was with Israel, but it’s not true. Mubarak did nothing to change the propaganda or advance peace. You have to rethink what was happening.”
The elite in the government and the army [have] never stopped broadcasting the message that Israel and the United States are their enemies. Right now the army is blaming all the problems in the country on foreign (i.e., Israeli and American) saboteurs and subversives, and just a few days ago tightened entry requirements on Western visitors, even tourists. This is not the way a peaceable ally behaves, but aside from the new visa requirements, it’s nothing new, really. Mubarak’s government did the same thing.
So Totten’s interviewee doesn’t think the new regime will be worse than Mubarak’s was—but that’s scant comfort to those who support Israel, because Mubarak’s relative friendliness to Israel was a sham, anyway.
As fare as transparency of the new leaders goes, this says it all:
It’s next-to impossible to get an interview with anyone on the junta. I was laughed at when I tried. “They won’t give interviews to the Egyptian media let alone the American media,” by Egyptian colleague Yasmin El-Rifae said.
They are the men behind the curtain, pulling the levers of power. After the election, will they lose some of that ability? And will it even matter, or are the military leaders mostly reacting to both the mob and to the Muslim Brotherhood, already?
Mustafa makes it clear that she thinks the military will remain in control in Egypt even after the elections; after all, they’ve been in control there for at least a half century. And certainly she knows more about Egypt than I do. But I’m not sure she’s correct, because something in my gut tells me that Iran—which effectively destroyed the old military leaders of its country after the revolutionary Islamicists came to power—may be the model in that respect, despite major differences otherwise between Egypt and Iran. As Totten writes:
Egypt’s revolution is very different indeed from Iran’s, but history doesn’t need to repeat itself exactly before its lessons ought to be heeded.
The key thing about Egypt is that it’s Dirt Poor. Although Mubarak and the Army have their own personal industries to loot there isn’t much to steal.
Egypt has only a little oil and cannot grow enough food for it’s huge (and growing) population. Political instability has already killed tourism, trade with Israel and any future direct investment. War with Israel would close the Suez canal, another moneymaker for the State. Egypt was only a military power in the 1960’s due to Soviet largess. We shouldn’t be too cowed by Arab street demonstrations. A firm, but fair US is necessary (and secretly desired by many Arabs) to keep a minimum of calm.
DirtyjobsGuy is right on. Egypt imports have its food, has massive unemployment, has killed tourism, and has little oil or cash reserves. They will soon crash.
The good news is the Egyptian army does not want a war with Israel because it would lose badly.
Egypt: Ruled by Pharaohs for, what, 3,000 years. What makes this new boss different from the old boss?
vanderleun,
Not directly related, but I always thought of the regime Mao set up in China as just another Chinese imperial dynasty.
History can be fascinating just as much in what stays the same as in what changes.
Is it unreasonable to expect major bad events in the ME in the next 15 months, while Obama the Craven remains at the helm?
Amazing. The first time somebody gets an idea that a tyranny in his country is a bad idea, the place is running over with Jeffersonian democrats (old sense). Might have been some, but once the organized guys get going, the Jeffs disappear, one way or another.
Hard to think of very many places where the new boss wasn’t worse than the old boss, at least in the last century and a half.
Much of the MENA is a net importer of food, due both to climate/geography and miserable economic practices. Our boneheaded attempt to subsidize burning food to run our cars has the happy effect of raising food prices and starving millions around the world, thus sparking revolutions. Every cloud….
And Egypt and the whole middle east used to be the regional breadbasket in Roman times. Gee, I wonder what could have happened in about 700 AD to have plunged the whole place into an agriculturally barren and mismanaged s**t hole?
When the Egyptian revolt was being discussed here a few months ago nearly all of us were skeptical there could be a positive outcome. The victory of the MB will be felt throughout the region. Egypt is influential simply because it is the most populous, albeit hungry, arab nation.
“But once-moderate Turkey is not far behind, as well.”
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk weeps and the perils facing the Israelis continue to multiple.
We subsidise Egypt to the tune of $2 billion a year. Obama might not do it, but a later President could use that for a lot of leverage. If they become too hostle, just cancel it and let them eat jihad.
Richard Aubrey:
Which will spur even more anti-American sentiment. Demagogues will say, “Americans are taking food out of your mouths in order to fuel their cars.”
Yet the greenies claim that the poor nations hate America because we consume too many resources, including fossil fuels. The law of unintended consequences strikes again.
I think Obama is trying to do the right thing by Obama. As a politician and president that’s hardly news, but it tends to drain consistency and coherence out of his actions, and makes it less predictable what he might do as winds shift. Best outcome may be that he feels no need to further involve himself in the Middle East before the election.
ziontruth’s comment about Mao being just another Chinese Dynasty brought another historical tidbit to mind. Islam has had a tradition of it’s military powers securing a sense of legitimacy from it’s religious authorities in exchange for providing protection and a relatively free hand in social and legal affairs (at least as applied to the general populace, as the military is usually granted a degree of exemption).
On some level, I find it hard to see what’s going on in Egypt as anything but the latest chapter in that history, a renegotiation of the terms, if you will. At which point, it’s down to the old joke with the punchline, “we’ve established what you are, now we’re just haggling over the price.”
rickl
You sure the consequences are unintended?
This is the first administration where I asked such a thing without attempting to be snarky.
Richard:
No, I’m not sure. But this case sounds like a classic unintended consequences screwup.
Problem: Americans consume too much fossil fuels, a non-renewable resource.
Solution: Make ethanol out of corn. It’s a renewable resource!
I don’t think the people responsible for banning DDT intended to kill millions of African children. They had the best of intentions towards baby birds.
I didnt see the last debate, but on the one previous Bacchmann actually mentioned the unmentionable…”caliphate”.
I cant help but wonder if all this is leading to that…
“This is the first administration where I asked such a thing… ”
Me too, and I don’t like the thinking/feeling that way.
Spengler points out where this is headed, and it isn’t good for Egypt.
“Egypt imports half its caloric consumption, 45% of its people are illiterate, its university graduates are unemployable, its $10 billion a year tourism industry is shuttered for the duration, and its foreign exchange reserves are gradually disappearing.”
My wife and I did the Egypt experience in 1991. You couldn’t pay me enough to go back now.
“I wonder what could have happened in about 700 AD to have plunged the whole place into an agriculturally barren and mismanaged s**t hole?”
Climate change. And it happened not in 700 AD, but 3 centures before it, finishing Roman Empire and destroying agriculture in all of Northern Africa. That is when Sahara began to spread, and Libya and Tunisia became a desert.
Muslim Brotherhood (but not Salafists) does not want to seize the power just now. They know what a mess is ahead and do not want to inherit it. Egypt is not a failed state, it is a failed society, actually, a dying society. What we will see quite soon are its death throes.