The Army Is Egypt's Last, Best Hope

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has upped the ante in the Egyptian Crisis.  She was all over Sunday morning talking heads shows with a clear message for Hosni Mubarak--and the opposition.  While she did not directly call for the aging dictator (with apologies to Joe Biden) to step down, she made it as plain as the pyramids that his days were numbered and the number isn't a big one.

In her statements Ms Clinton ran ahead of President Obama which is a good thing.  The president as is his wont has been too cautious, too ambiguous, too noncommittal, too, in a word, academic in his public statements.  And, get a grip on this, it is the public voice which matters most with the Egyptians in the street.  As has been reported all over the MSM of the English speaking world, the newly empowered Egyptian street has been demanding a loud, unmistakable message from the US.  Are we Americans on the side of the opposition or are we locked in a death embrace with the current regime?

From the statements oozing out of the Oval the answer is not clear.  The Clinton posture is more so, but, arguably not sufficient.  It would be most helpful both to the Egyptians and to American policy interests in the region if Ms Clinton received backup from Secretary of Defense Gates.  The US provides over a billion dollars a year in military assistance to Egypt and, as a result, has very good ties with the senior and mid-level officers of the Egyptian armed forces.  If Gates were to come out with a public statement backing the army as the necessary transitional presence, it would go a long way to assuring the army would do the right thing.

In this case, the right thing consists of impartially maintaining order.  So far all reports indicate that the army has been doing just this.  The forces deployed in Cairo and elsewhere have not taken robust (or any perceptible) action against the demonstrators but, rather, have shown sympathy with the cause of reform/regime change.  This means nothing has happened yet to impair the prestige which the army enjoys with the mass of the Egyptian people.  Quite unlike the massively despised police forces, the army enjoys a high measure of support and is viewed by many on the street as the ultimate guarantor of Egyptian identity and pride.

No observer can conclude that any outcome which does not feature the departure of Mubarak is conceivable.  There is no certainty about what will transpire after Hosni and company depart.  The possibilities include a reasonably fair, honest, and open election occurring on or about the date already scheduled.  They also include the nightmare outcome of chaos, chaos which tosses up the Muslim Brotherhood to power.

The best way of bending events closer to the first rather than the second outcome hinges on the Egyptian army.  As long as the men and officers of the army see that they and their organization are lionized by the mass of the citizenry for playing a fair game, the blandishments of the Muslim Brotherhood--which includes their adherents within the armed forces--will be lessened.  By acting as an impartial honest broker, by maintaining order, by not seeming to favor either the current regime or the radicals of the Muslim Brotherhood, there is a better than even chance that a semblance of a fair presidential election can take place.

The problem with an election, of course, resides in the absence of a high profile non-Islamist candidate.  The former director of the IAEA, Mohamad ElBaradei, comes closest to filling this niche.  The unfortunate reality is he is much better known outside of Egypt than he is within.  Except for the percentage of the Egyptian population which is tied into international affairs, ElBaradei is very much an unknown quantity.  This translates into a strong chance that he could be defeated by a better known personality who is backed by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Again, it would be the army which would have to carry the freight of preventing a takeover by the Brotherhood.  The reality which must be understood by the army at all levels is simply that a Muslim Brotherhood run Egypt would become a danger not only to the region but the world.  As such, the group, as an advocate of armed political Islam, would be a very real danger to Egypt itself.  In its role as ultimate repository of Egyptian sovereignty and identity, the army would have to act to prevent this internal threat--or by failing to do so consign Egypt to the status of pariah.

The US and other Western countries have made one major mistake after another in dealing with Mubarak over the past couple of decades.  Out of a superabundance of concern for the sensitivities and cooperation of the regime, one American administration after another has refused to put any credible pressure on Mubarak to undertake real, albeit gradual reforms.  Rather, in pursuit of compelling but short-term policy interests, the US has made only the softest of noises, the most gentle of nudges.  Not surprisingly, all have been ignored in Cairo.

The best chance of recovering from this unblemished record of error resides with the leverage provided by the high level of US support for the army.  The time has come for the US to cash in on the mass of IOUs piled up over the years.  This requires not only the correct sort of public statements regarding the necessity of regime change but also blunt talk behind the scenes to the senior and mid-level officer corps.  Not only must these men be made aware of the consequences which would ensue should the Muslim Brotherhood come to power either directly or by proxy but also should be reminded that the bastion of national identity and sovereignty has been the army in Muslim majority countries ranging from Turkey to Algeria to, most recently, Tunisia.

Thirty plus years ago the Carter administration wrote the book on how not to deal with internally driven radical regime change.  Among the courses of action not taken by the feckless Carter and his team of foreign policy midgets was insisting that the Iranian army, a creation of American largess, play the role of stability maintainer.  There was no insistence, not even the mildest suggestion, that while the Shah may have to go, the primary responsibility of the armed forces was that of keeping the change within internationally acceptable limits.

The statements by Secretary Clinton a couple of weeks ago as well as today show that at least one member of the current administration is not given to the blindness of the Carter days.  One can only hope she is not alone in this.