Different Clocks Are Running In Egypt

Political revolutions, even those which are (relatively) nonviolent, have clocks.  This has to be realized not only by the status quo regime--which, of course, has its own clock--but outsiders.  The outsiders have clocks as well, but their timepieces are the slowest running of all.

The people on the streets, the actual fomentors of revolution, the people who have the most direct emotional and physical investment in the process of change, run on clocks which tick very, very fast.  On the street, riding the waves of uncertainty, fear and hope, a standard hour is longer than Christmas Eve to a five year old; a week becomes an unimaginable extent of geological time and months, an unacceptable eternity.

The effect of the fast time mentality has been highly visible in Cairo's Tahir Square, the epicenter of seismic political shock in Egypt.  To the assembled demonstrators, and, in high probability, to others of similar mind connected to the square by television, cell phones, and the Internet, the idea of having Hosni Mubarak soldier on to the end of his current term as president is akin to waiting for the end of the universe.  It may be coming, but not in a time frame that any can accept.

The same dynamic was evident in Tunisia.  The fast clock phenomenon was at work each and every time the status quo offered some temporizing compromise.  No one in the midst of the emotional tsunami which crested in Tunisia could abide the idea of keeping on the crest of change without the orgasm of final relief--the exit of Ben Ali.  The same sort of ejaculatory inevitability has grabbed the minds and bodies of the footsoldiers of change in Egypt.

Leaders, whether of the opposition or the status quo, are but dimly aware of the driving imperative at work in the minds and glands of the thousands of disaffiliated people in or connected with Tahir Square.  Outsiders, the politicians and diplomats of countries ranging from the US to Europe, are also not truly appreciative of the fast time process as they call for an orderly transition and the time required for this to happen.

This implies that the most critical conflict unfolding in the Egyptian Crisis is that between the clocks of the protesters and the outsiders in search of effective influence on the unfolding of events.  At base this conflict is irreconcilable.

The position of the US is both easy to understand and defend.  The probability of a too rapid removal of Hosni Mubarak resulting in a species of chaos easily exploited by advocates of political Islam as well as national entities such as Iran which support these groups is high.  At the same time it is necessary to caution that the anxieties regarding the hijacking of revolution by the adherents of violent political Islam can be overstated with ease.  Mubarak has done so.  So has Benjamin Netanyahu.  Up until a couple of days ago so had President Obama.

Reinforcing the argument in favor of "deliberate speed" is the absence of a clearly acceptable consensual choice of leader by the assorted opposition elements.  Given that the powerhouse of the uprising has been the existence of self-organizing, predominantly youthful, assemblages of the discontented and the disaffected, the leadership problem is inherently pronounced.  The entrance of the Muslim Brotherhood to the open opposition has done nothing to clarify the leadership haze.  Nor has the direct participation of old line opposition political parties.

Mohamad ElBaradei offered himself as leader.  The offer was accepted by a broad assortment of opposition groups including the Muslim Brotherhood, but that did not make it so.  As any number of demonstrators quoted in the international media have made clear, ElBaradei is not their choice.  More, many of those quoted, have seen ElBaradei as part of the old guard or self-interested and remote from the Egyptian realities.  It is easy to get the impression that the several high profile meetings between ElBaradei and other "leaders" of the opposition groups are somehow not relevant to the dynamics in the Square.

One of the major problems of this leadership vacuum is the meetings, the declarations, the demands, the pre-conditions (such as Mubarak must leave before negotiations on the future commence) all combine to accelerate the already fast running clocks in the Square.  Meetings of opposition figures like the demands and dictates create an expectation of success--success being defined by the demonstrators as the sight of Hosni Mubarak getting on a plane.

When no success is seen, the almost inevitable result is an increase in both frustration and action predicated upon frustration.  This, unsurprisingly, means an escalation in violence and concomitant hardening in the positions of both demonstrators and status quo.  This, undoubtedly, is what the perpetual bad boys of the world in Tehran and their proxies in Egypt are hoping and working for.

A drastic increase in disorder will force the hand of the army.  Either the army will have to crack down and do so hard and fast, or its leaders will have to tell Hosni the time to leave has come while deciding who among the opposition the army will choose as transitional leader.

The army would risk very, very much should its leadership order the use of force against the demonstrators.  Not only would it risk its own junior officers, NCOs and enlisted personnel disobeying the order, it would put in hazard its treasured place as the ultimate guarantee of legitimacy for state and regime alike.

Of course, it is unlikely that repression would do more than buy some time at a very high price.  It would not put the incubus of radical political change back in some sealed bottle.  Rather, repression would assure the incubus would reemerge bigger and badder in not too many months--at the longest.  It is most likely that repression would do little other than make the clocks on the street run faster.

It is far safer, albeit harder emotionally, for the senior military leadership to tell Hosni that the game is over.  Should it do so and then offer a high visibility and evidently responsible position to a person well known in the ranks of the opposition as an honest and effective politician, the act would serve to slow the clocks in the Square by giving a very real, quite substantial success to the demonstrators and their supporters.  It would bode well to slow the clocks of Tahir Square to a point they mesh with the always slow watches of the West.

There is even a good choice for the position of politician as army partner.  That choice is not Mohamad ElBaredei.  He is neither well enough known nor trusted by the army--or many of the opposition.  The post of political partner can best be filled by one time foreign minister and more recently head of the Arab League, Amr Moussa.  Moussa has long been a relatively charismatic politician well known not to be a line hewing partisan of Mubara even though he was Hosni's ForMin for much of the Nineties.

Mubarak finally chaffed with Moussa's fits of independence as well as his growing popularity.  The dictator then shelved Moussa over at the Arab League.  His years as foreign minister as well as head of the League mean Moussa is a known and respected commodity internationally as well as in the region.  His appearance in the Square yesterday brought enough cheers to indicate he has not lost his luster with the street.

While the current vice-president, Omar Suleiman, is not acceptable to the fast clock folk in the Square, the addition of Amr Moussa to the ticket might be sufficient.  While the army may not be as happy with Moussa as they are with Suleiman who is, after all, one of their own, they may be persuaded to accept the duo.  At the least, Moussa is better than ElBaradei and, certainly no flaming Islamist.

If President Obama gets over his snit with the spooks for not having gotten Tunisia and Egypt perfectly right in their prognostications (who did?) and his pretense that he has gotten out in front of events in Cairo, he and his foreign policy "team" might take a close look at how the army can bring the opposition on board, smooth Hosni's (rapid) departure, and slow down the clocks in the Square.  As those clocks tick, they are counting down the seconds to genuine disaster and they will not slow by themselves.