In a set of moves which is in no way surprising, the supreme command of Egypt's armed forces is seeking a continued, large role in the upcoming government. The reason for the sudden political aspirations of the generals is not hard to unpack. They are more than a tad scared of the Muslim Brotherhood and other advocates of political Islam.
Both the Washington Post and New York Times have taken note of the development. That implies the US government will soon do so as well. One would hope that the Deep Thinkers of the current administration have already taken cogniscence of this development, but you can never be sure given the number of blunders which constitute the Obama and Company's excuse for a Mideast policy.
It is clear both from the US media accounts and those appearing in Egypt that the senior leadership of the Egyptian armed forces sees the military as the guarantor not only of territorial sovereignty but also the integrity of the government. As the ultimate protector of state, nation, and government, the Turkish model is completely accurate.
Until the recent stare-down between the Islamist predicated AKP and the military, the people of Turkey not only allowed but expected the army to take over whenever the civilian government was unable or unwilling to put a stop to internal violence of whatsoever origin and goal. Parsing the public remarks of Egyptian generals in recent days, it is evident that they see the army as the only neutral party able to impose and maintain peace between highly motivated contestants willing and able to resort to violence in pursuit of political goals.
The armed forces' moves in the direction of greater authority to be exercised over an indeterminate span of time has perturbed some of those who provided the muscle of the "Lotus Revolution." Many of these individuals see the armed forces' counsel, the transitional government, as having stolen the fruits of the revolution, of having become a set of Mubarak clones. This sense of betrayal has motivated the recent sit-in demonstrations in the same Cairo square as those which brought down Mubarak.
Months ago as Mubarak prepared to call it quits, the demonstrators chanted, "The Army and the people are one!" Now to many, the memory of that chant rings hollow and empty. Many in the younger demographic segment of the Egyptian population no longer see the armed forces as a protector or the powerful force multiplier which assured Mubarak had no choice but abdication.
The generals who run Egypt behind the screen of carefully chosen civilian political nonentities have made concessions to the outraged "kids" in the square. Hundreds of senior police officials were forced to take early retirement. Mubarak, his sons, and close associates have been arrested and face trial on a number of charges even though the armed forces high command had promised initially to spare the aging autocrat this fate.
The concessions have not been enough to satisfy the dissidents. They could not be. The very success of the protesters assures that. In a completely understandable way, the heady aroma of having dumped the dictator has clouded a lot of folk's judgement. The armed forces commanders have recognized something of which the dissidents are either totally unaware or, at best, have a dim awareness.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a threat to any sort of secular Egypt. The Brotherhood has employed very slick public relations moves to convince many in the West, in the US particularly, that the MB is not a collection of Muslim crazies with delusions of power. The leadership, or at least the visible portion, has denied any ambition of taking power--immediately. They have publicly distanced themselves from any imposition of Shariah upon the state--again immediately. They have declined to run a candidate for president and will not enter a candidate in many of the upcoming parliamentary elections. The message is: See, we are not hell-bent on taking over Egypt, of establishing a new Cairo caliphate.
Not unlike the senior echelons of the world's foremost seat of Islamic learning, al-Azhar university, located in Cairo, the commanders of the Egyptian military do not believe the Muslim Brotherhood's protestations of innocence. Alone or in conjunction with other apostles of political Islam, including those willing to use violence, the Muslim Brotherhood will move as quickly as is politically expedient to establish a Shariah compliant state, a Cairo Caliphate. This is what the generals hope to preclude.
Kemal Ataturk had the same fear in the wake of World War I and the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire. He and his fellow officers knew the power of Islam, its raw emotional force acting on a people who had been oppressed and humiliated for years. The inevitable internal violence which would accompany a religious conflict would destroy Turkey at worst or, at best, prevent its entering the modern world for generations. The Turkey of Ataturk would be resolutely secular--and the army would guarantee that.
In the days following the Second World War, the Turks discovered that secular political ideologies could be as violent and disruptive of social and political life as any religious conflict. Thus, the army was expected, empowered really, to step in and take over whenever political passions overflowed the dikes of civil discourse. Much as the periodic military takeovers bothered the states and people of Western Europe, the Turks saw them not only as unexceptional but quite necessary.
(Her Geekness was a student at METU in the early Seventies when the Left and Right exchanged gunfire on campus. She found no dissenting voices--save among the ideological combatants--when the army moved onto the streets and lowered the noise level to a saner level.)
The Egyptian generals are not any less perceptive than Ataturk and his supporters. They know the Egyptians and the Muslim Brotherhood with the fine grained detail that no foreign observer can muster. They also are aware that the armed forces of Egypt (like those of Turkey in an earlier period) have a level of universal approbation that no other institution possesses. They fear the passions of a long oppressed people which can be tapped with ease in the full flush of democracy poorly understood as to practice. They fear with good reason the potential power of the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies, a power which can unleash the passions with no good result for Egypt.
The move by the senior commanders to keep a firm hand on the levers of power is both prudential and justifiable. It can be hoped that they use the firm hand with caution and restraint, a caution and restraint which was often lacking under Mubarak and Sadat. If they fail to use their authority in a controlled and minimal way, their failure will bring more problems, problems which cannot be solved by tanks and troops. For decades the Turks played the game well, so there is a paradigm for the Egyptian military to follow.
It is questionable whether or not the Obama administration recognizes the motives of the generals in Egypt. It can be hoped that the Deep Thinkers will understand that stability in Egypt and the region requires not only an exercise in plausible democracy but also mechanisms to assure the passions will not swamp a civil society and a polity sailing in new and troubled waters.
Well, one can hope. Can't one?
Showing posts with label Egyptian Army. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Egyptian Army. Show all posts
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
If You Like Pakistan, You'll Love The "Arab Summer"
Now that all the hyperbolic prattling about the wave of democracy rushing tsunami like over the sands of Arabia is fading away, perhaps overpowered by the sounds of exploding NATO delivered ordnance in Libya, it is possible to take a less biased look at the most likely course of events for the long hot Arab "summer" which is looming like the smoke of an Arizona wildfire. While the details of the forthcoming "summer" are obscure, the broad outlines are coming more clear by the day.
It is not inaccurate to posit Pakistan as the paradigm soon to apply to the countries of North Africa and the Mideast which were convulsed to a greater or lesser extent by the pseudo-revolutions of recent months. This means that there will be a contest for political supremacy pitting the interests of a microscopic economic and political elite against the rising expectations of the marginalized majority egged on by increasingly extremest members of the Muslim clerical establishment. It means the ultimate arbiter of authority will be the armed forces of those states which already possess a large, well organized, well equipped military. Finally, there will be an overlay of regional and tribal loyalties which can serve as effective king-makers.
In the North African states, most notably Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt, the trappings and forms of democracy will be followed. This process will not apply to Libya unless and until Gaddafi is removed--and the date for this event is impossible to predict beyond saying there is no reason for optimism. Democratic processes are less important in Mideast centers of protest: Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen. But even in these states there will be eventual genuflections before this prime totem of Western affections.
Despite the observance of democratic forms, the substance of representative democracy will be conspicuous by its absence. There is a simple reason for this prediction. Democracy per se is irrelevant to the majority of those who sought the overthrow the established regimes while the exercise of actual democracy is not in the interests of the major contestants for power: the elite and the adherents of political Islam. Insofar as either contestant favors the appearance of democratic processes, it is only to ensure that some middle ground movement comes to power in order to assure that the inevitable failure to bring prosperity to the many will be blamed on the scapegoat so as to allow the real contest to be waged and won.
Western governments and elites would be best advised to discount any and all blather about democracy in action completely. At best elections and the other accoutrement of vox populi is a charade. At worst it will be a mechanism for hijacking power. Elections, after all, sanctified not only the coming to power of the Nazis in 1933 but assured the creation of the statist theocracy in Iran in 1979. To look at the paradigm of Pakistan, elections matter not, for regardless of what party or individuals win at the polls, the army still runs the show.
The army will run the show as well in Egypt or Tunisia or anywhere else that sees the old regime involuntarily retired. As in Pakistan--and Turkey before--the army is the final custodian of nationhood. It is the ultimate guarantor of internal tranquility as it is the defender of the state's borders. Whether openly or from the shadows of the barracks, the army will do the same in the forthcoming governments of North Africa and the Mideast. No government will be allowed to act in a way which is not approved in advance by the armed forces. At the same time, the armed forces will have both the will and ability to direct the government to undertake specified actions or policies.
The limitations which can be imposed by the military are understood by even the most ardent supporter of political Islam. The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt has implicitly acknowledged this in various fora. This recognition along with the strategic consideration of assuring Islam and Islamists are not tarred with the brush of economic policy failure is behind the MG's entering into coalition agreements with a secular party.
Taking a longer term view, the primacy of the armed forces will be countered by the adherents of political Islam through a program of education and indoctrination. This path has been blazed by the Pakistanis for the past thirty years with the result that the percentage of adherents of political Islam including that of the violent sort is higher among armed forces personnel, including company and field grade officers, than among the population as a whole. Given both the Pakistani paradigm and the power of current social and economic pressures abroad in the several "Arab Spring" countries, there is no reason to believe that the lengthy time period need be followed.
The armed forces of Egypt and Tunisia are well aware of the limits which the West will apply to the foreign and military policies of their states. They also understand the tools available to the West and the effectiveness of these tools. There will be no false bravado operating as there has been with Pakistan. The states of the "Arab Spring" have learned from Pakistan's mistakes as they have from Islamabad's successes.
The backlash against the super-wealthy currently underway in Egypt will slow and halt. The fact is the country, all the "Arab Spring" countries, need these hated rich folk. Even if it is true that one hundred percent of the wealthy became so as the result of the old regime's corruption, the wealth and skills of the rich business types are needed greatly for the country as a whole. The narrow elite will be constricted and placed on the defensive, but it will not be erased. As it will continue to exist, so also will it continue to seek and retain power.
The economically marginal will remain so regardless of the government and its promises. This reality will be exploited by the most extreme elements within the political Islamists. Practically, the results will be a co-option to the "left" which will be expressed primarily in foreign policy. Terror attacks against the "Zionist entity" will increase as will strident diplomatic and propaganda support for the deligitimatization campaign. Anti-Americanism will also ramp up markedly. The armed forces will try to keep the level of attacks below the threshold triggering a robust Israeli response but will fail ultimately.
The evermore vituperative attacks on the US provided these are not matched with terrorist operations, will motivate the American people and its representatives to disengage from the region pleading financial exigencies. This disengagement will exclude Israel. The result will be the worst of all possible worlds for the US--diminished influence with the governments of the "Arab Summer" while making the commitment to Israel more and more of the "blank check" variety.
With the high probability of Yemen becoming a collapsed state, the US will become more and more involved with the assorted tribes on the ground as a mechanism of self-defense. The US will wage an undeclared war with AQAP using civilian personnel and civilian controlled weapons systems. As a "deniable" set of operations run by CIA, the US will be able to act in a more discrete, small footprint way enlisting tribal assistance, using paramilitary officers and UAVs with a sufficiently low public profile not to excite public or congressional opprobrium. In fact, as the experience in Pakistan has shown, the opposite will be the case--widespread approval in both public and congress.
If the Libyan Affray ends in stalemate or a collapsed state or should the Algerian monolith once more show its underlying cracks, the US would rightly apprehend the use of the new opportunities by AQIM. The only viable American response would be similar to that emerging in Yemen--think of it as FATA 3.0. With a civilian agency in the lead and assets from JSOC available on an "as-needed" basis, the US would have the capacity to inhibit the rise of violent political Islam--or at least its ability to operate abroad.
The experiences of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan have taught all but the most terminally obtuse American policy and decision makers all the critical lessons regarding "nation-building." We have learned for the umpteeth time that nations cannot be built by foreign intervention. This means that the US has only two choices when confronted by violent political Islam: ignore it and hope it goes away or target it with the most lethal and finely focused tools (both human and technological) that are available.
The inherent dilemmas posed by the uprisings of the "Arab Spring" should have shown American decision and policy makers that there is no one-size-fits-all approach possible. The internal dynamics of each uprising as well as the regional and global contextual differences means that each event must be examined as a one-off proposition. The realities of the game of nations also has demonstrated once again that national ideals, values, and norms must support well defined national interest. To state categorically that national interest is predicated on ideals, norms, and values may make for good sound bites but provides a poor basis for effective policy.
On the upside, we can be thankful for our years of frustrating experience with Pakistan. All that we have come to know and dislike about Pakistani politics and international relations has prepared us for the overriding realities which will exist for years to come as a consequence of a few fun filled and exciting weeks last spring. The folks in Foggy Bottom and at the EOB should be pulling out the archives detailing the last twenty-five or so years of our dealings with Islamabad. The contents will be hard to read, embarrassing even, but when the day is done, one can look up and say with genuine feeling, "Good training. Damn good training."
It is not inaccurate to posit Pakistan as the paradigm soon to apply to the countries of North Africa and the Mideast which were convulsed to a greater or lesser extent by the pseudo-revolutions of recent months. This means that there will be a contest for political supremacy pitting the interests of a microscopic economic and political elite against the rising expectations of the marginalized majority egged on by increasingly extremest members of the Muslim clerical establishment. It means the ultimate arbiter of authority will be the armed forces of those states which already possess a large, well organized, well equipped military. Finally, there will be an overlay of regional and tribal loyalties which can serve as effective king-makers.
In the North African states, most notably Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt, the trappings and forms of democracy will be followed. This process will not apply to Libya unless and until Gaddafi is removed--and the date for this event is impossible to predict beyond saying there is no reason for optimism. Democratic processes are less important in Mideast centers of protest: Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen. But even in these states there will be eventual genuflections before this prime totem of Western affections.
Despite the observance of democratic forms, the substance of representative democracy will be conspicuous by its absence. There is a simple reason for this prediction. Democracy per se is irrelevant to the majority of those who sought the overthrow the established regimes while the exercise of actual democracy is not in the interests of the major contestants for power: the elite and the adherents of political Islam. Insofar as either contestant favors the appearance of democratic processes, it is only to ensure that some middle ground movement comes to power in order to assure that the inevitable failure to bring prosperity to the many will be blamed on the scapegoat so as to allow the real contest to be waged and won.
Western governments and elites would be best advised to discount any and all blather about democracy in action completely. At best elections and the other accoutrement of vox populi is a charade. At worst it will be a mechanism for hijacking power. Elections, after all, sanctified not only the coming to power of the Nazis in 1933 but assured the creation of the statist theocracy in Iran in 1979. To look at the paradigm of Pakistan, elections matter not, for regardless of what party or individuals win at the polls, the army still runs the show.
The army will run the show as well in Egypt or Tunisia or anywhere else that sees the old regime involuntarily retired. As in Pakistan--and Turkey before--the army is the final custodian of nationhood. It is the ultimate guarantor of internal tranquility as it is the defender of the state's borders. Whether openly or from the shadows of the barracks, the army will do the same in the forthcoming governments of North Africa and the Mideast. No government will be allowed to act in a way which is not approved in advance by the armed forces. At the same time, the armed forces will have both the will and ability to direct the government to undertake specified actions or policies.
The limitations which can be imposed by the military are understood by even the most ardent supporter of political Islam. The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt has implicitly acknowledged this in various fora. This recognition along with the strategic consideration of assuring Islam and Islamists are not tarred with the brush of economic policy failure is behind the MG's entering into coalition agreements with a secular party.
Taking a longer term view, the primacy of the armed forces will be countered by the adherents of political Islam through a program of education and indoctrination. This path has been blazed by the Pakistanis for the past thirty years with the result that the percentage of adherents of political Islam including that of the violent sort is higher among armed forces personnel, including company and field grade officers, than among the population as a whole. Given both the Pakistani paradigm and the power of current social and economic pressures abroad in the several "Arab Spring" countries, there is no reason to believe that the lengthy time period need be followed.
The armed forces of Egypt and Tunisia are well aware of the limits which the West will apply to the foreign and military policies of their states. They also understand the tools available to the West and the effectiveness of these tools. There will be no false bravado operating as there has been with Pakistan. The states of the "Arab Spring" have learned from Pakistan's mistakes as they have from Islamabad's successes.
The backlash against the super-wealthy currently underway in Egypt will slow and halt. The fact is the country, all the "Arab Spring" countries, need these hated rich folk. Even if it is true that one hundred percent of the wealthy became so as the result of the old regime's corruption, the wealth and skills of the rich business types are needed greatly for the country as a whole. The narrow elite will be constricted and placed on the defensive, but it will not be erased. As it will continue to exist, so also will it continue to seek and retain power.
The economically marginal will remain so regardless of the government and its promises. This reality will be exploited by the most extreme elements within the political Islamists. Practically, the results will be a co-option to the "left" which will be expressed primarily in foreign policy. Terror attacks against the "Zionist entity" will increase as will strident diplomatic and propaganda support for the deligitimatization campaign. Anti-Americanism will also ramp up markedly. The armed forces will try to keep the level of attacks below the threshold triggering a robust Israeli response but will fail ultimately.
The evermore vituperative attacks on the US provided these are not matched with terrorist operations, will motivate the American people and its representatives to disengage from the region pleading financial exigencies. This disengagement will exclude Israel. The result will be the worst of all possible worlds for the US--diminished influence with the governments of the "Arab Summer" while making the commitment to Israel more and more of the "blank check" variety.
With the high probability of Yemen becoming a collapsed state, the US will become more and more involved with the assorted tribes on the ground as a mechanism of self-defense. The US will wage an undeclared war with AQAP using civilian personnel and civilian controlled weapons systems. As a "deniable" set of operations run by CIA, the US will be able to act in a more discrete, small footprint way enlisting tribal assistance, using paramilitary officers and UAVs with a sufficiently low public profile not to excite public or congressional opprobrium. In fact, as the experience in Pakistan has shown, the opposite will be the case--widespread approval in both public and congress.
If the Libyan Affray ends in stalemate or a collapsed state or should the Algerian monolith once more show its underlying cracks, the US would rightly apprehend the use of the new opportunities by AQIM. The only viable American response would be similar to that emerging in Yemen--think of it as FATA 3.0. With a civilian agency in the lead and assets from JSOC available on an "as-needed" basis, the US would have the capacity to inhibit the rise of violent political Islam--or at least its ability to operate abroad.
The experiences of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan have taught all but the most terminally obtuse American policy and decision makers all the critical lessons regarding "nation-building." We have learned for the umpteeth time that nations cannot be built by foreign intervention. This means that the US has only two choices when confronted by violent political Islam: ignore it and hope it goes away or target it with the most lethal and finely focused tools (both human and technological) that are available.
The inherent dilemmas posed by the uprisings of the "Arab Spring" should have shown American decision and policy makers that there is no one-size-fits-all approach possible. The internal dynamics of each uprising as well as the regional and global contextual differences means that each event must be examined as a one-off proposition. The realities of the game of nations also has demonstrated once again that national ideals, values, and norms must support well defined national interest. To state categorically that national interest is predicated on ideals, norms, and values may make for good sound bites but provides a poor basis for effective policy.
On the upside, we can be thankful for our years of frustrating experience with Pakistan. All that we have come to know and dislike about Pakistani politics and international relations has prepared us for the overriding realities which will exist for years to come as a consequence of a few fun filled and exciting weeks last spring. The folks in Foggy Bottom and at the EOB should be pulling out the archives detailing the last twenty-five or so years of our dealings with Islamabad. The contents will be hard to read, embarrassing even, but when the day is done, one can look up and say with genuine feeling, "Good training. Damn good training."
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Democracy Isn't All That Simple And Easy
As expected President Obama just cannot leave well enough alone regarding Egypt. The aging and now semi-retired dictator Hosni Mubarak hasn't even finished unpacking in his seaside estate and the Clueless Guy In The Oval is already exhorting (that is to say, making low key threats towards) the military regime running the show to march smartly down the parade route to full, free, and transparent elections. If this is mere Obama style oratorical flourishing, well and good. But, should it represent actual policy, that's a camel of a different color.
Hey! Geek! Are you about to get in bed with professional paranoid Glen Beck? You got a thing about the Muslim Brotherhood or what? Don't the Egyptians deserve democracy as much as anyone else?
Sure, bucko, they do. So do others, say, the Iranians, a people who do not seem to cross the Obama radar scope very often. The problem is not one of "deserving" democracy or aspiring to it, but rather of accomplishing it. The crux of the difficulties confronting Egypt and a host of other countries where authoritarian regimes prevail is simply that democracy is a devilishly complex process in which the forming of political parties (or "factions," to use the blunt terms of the American Founding Fathers) and holding elections, even elections which meet the Jimmy Carter test of fairness, openness, and honesty, is the easy part of the job. Without the surrounding far more difficult to accomplish contextual matters, the mere electoral process is more likely than not to be an exercise in futility and failure.
Democracy depends upon an elaborate support system to survive let alone thrive. There must be, for example, a tradition of civic society, a legacy of law and independent judiciary, a vibrant and multifaceted media, a custom of good losing as well as non-triumphalist victory, and a general perception that the system is legitimate regardless of the specific outcome of any particular election. While difficult to assess given the lack of historical experience, it appears that a proper separation between the institutions and systems of the political state and those of communities of faith might be very important, even central.
It is important to keep in mind that none of the prerequisites for the success of democracy exist in Egypt any more than they do in Tunisia or in many other countries. While some of the former Warsaw Pact countries and now independent states carved from the former Soviet Union have shown a high degree of success in the rapid establishment of democratic processes and their necessary support systems, these experiences should not be extended automatically to Egypt. In this regard it is most critical to note that the former satellite and component states of the Soviet Union which have had the greatest success are those with prior experience or a tight linkage to the evolutionary dynamics of Western Europe. As one moves east from the old Cold War "Trace," the success rate of democracy trends downward.
None of this should be construed as implying that the Egyptian military should (or, realistically, can) fail to move in the direction of reform. Indeed, the major task for the military is that of maintaining order so that basic liberties, the sine qua non of democratic support structures, can be instituted. This means the Egyptian high command must do something totally foreign to their training and experience (and, in high probability personal inclinations.) The high command must start the process of creating a genuine civic society which is open to all comers--even the members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Perhaps the most important component of this exercise in nation-building will be the assurance of an independent judiciary, the embedding of a concept of the rule of law, and, central to this, insulating the judiciary from the strictures and commands of religion. Egypt must avoid the grave, even fatal error of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other majority Muslim states--it must create a judiciary which exists independent of Shariah.
A strong argument can be made for the contention that the foundation of democracy as practiced first in England and later in the US and the rest of Western Europe can be found with the concept of the King's Peace. This English construct removed justice in all its manifold ways from the realm of the private and made it an abstract applicable to all with equality under the authority of the state. The Islamic tradition is antipodal. Down to the present day justice under Islamic law remains essentially private with the state playing a limited role. Criminals are punished or not dependent upon the attitude of the victim--a plea for mercy will result in the nullification of criminal sanction even in cases of murder. Private justice is inherently unequal justice; private law is essentially codified anarchy.
With the establishment of the King's Peace, the great foundation stone had been laid. The state became an independent entity. All individuals resident under the authority of the state were entitled to equal justice. As an outgrowth each would become entitled with a right to equal representation in the lawmaking of the state. Over time distinctions in status, wealth, landowning, gender, and other personal factors would be ruled irrelevant to the proper functioning of the state as well as the processes by which equality of voice in the affairs of the state were assured.
Independent law, impartial justice, equality of responsibility, equality of representation taken together provided the basic support structure for flourishing democracy. These basics were necessary but, in themselves, not sufficient for the full development of democracy. It was also necessary for people living in a democracy to be both good winners and good losers. The US passed a great test in the election of 1800 in which power was transferred peaceably between two "factions" which had fought a hard, bitter, and very uncivil fight for power. The transition of power marked the beginnings of a tradition of respecting the outcome of an election--no matter how disappointed the losers might be or ready to gloat the winners might feel.
While the US passed a test in 1800 the rest of the story was anything but simple or nice. Differences of political view ultimately required a bloody settlement. Elections were often far from clean, quite marked with corruption, often stolen. Still, the basic legitimacy of the process was granted by the majority of citizens.
A perception of legitimacy is utterly central if democracy is to work. Importantly, perceptions of legitimacy do not emerge rapidly. They are not the result of any one election but rather emerge from the full play of elections with the contextual supporting structures. If people are persuaded that they have equal voice, equal responsibilities, equal treatment under an impartially applied law, are served by a diverse and open media, have access to the full sway of political processes, then the emergence of a general perception of legitimacy is more likely than not to emerge.
There is an unfortunate but very real probability that the entire exercise in promoting democracy in Egypt will run aground on the reef of Islam. This is not to say that Muslims do not deserve democracy, that is a ludicrous proposition. It is to imply that Islam--as quite a few clerics have stated publicly--is incompatible with democracy. The position taken by Muslim clerics to the effect that all law derives from the deity and, as a result, democracy is blasphemous is rooted in the sacred writings of the religion--at least as interpreted by these clerics. Even more mainstream in the Muslim clerical world is the supremacy of Shariah. Shariah is not compatible with the concept of the King;s Peace--and all that evolved from that small beginning.
On the hopeful side is the ground truth that in Islam as in all religions, the presumed word of the deity is spoken through the mouths of men with the result that new interpretations, new understandings, new implications cannot be overlooked. This, of course, takes time. In Egypt time is a luxury at the moment, but the armed forces high command must be encouraged to use the time it has to make steps in the direction of reform while putting the main emphasis where it has been each and every day since the toppling of Farouk in 1952--maintaining order.
The Geek prefers the reality of long term stability to the appearance of short term order. But a country must survive the short term to achieve the long term. It would behoove the Obama administration to keep that in mind as it contemplates how hard to hector the old/new rulers of Egypt.
Hey! Geek! Are you about to get in bed with professional paranoid Glen Beck? You got a thing about the Muslim Brotherhood or what? Don't the Egyptians deserve democracy as much as anyone else?
Sure, bucko, they do. So do others, say, the Iranians, a people who do not seem to cross the Obama radar scope very often. The problem is not one of "deserving" democracy or aspiring to it, but rather of accomplishing it. The crux of the difficulties confronting Egypt and a host of other countries where authoritarian regimes prevail is simply that democracy is a devilishly complex process in which the forming of political parties (or "factions," to use the blunt terms of the American Founding Fathers) and holding elections, even elections which meet the Jimmy Carter test of fairness, openness, and honesty, is the easy part of the job. Without the surrounding far more difficult to accomplish contextual matters, the mere electoral process is more likely than not to be an exercise in futility and failure.
Democracy depends upon an elaborate support system to survive let alone thrive. There must be, for example, a tradition of civic society, a legacy of law and independent judiciary, a vibrant and multifaceted media, a custom of good losing as well as non-triumphalist victory, and a general perception that the system is legitimate regardless of the specific outcome of any particular election. While difficult to assess given the lack of historical experience, it appears that a proper separation between the institutions and systems of the political state and those of communities of faith might be very important, even central.
It is important to keep in mind that none of the prerequisites for the success of democracy exist in Egypt any more than they do in Tunisia or in many other countries. While some of the former Warsaw Pact countries and now independent states carved from the former Soviet Union have shown a high degree of success in the rapid establishment of democratic processes and their necessary support systems, these experiences should not be extended automatically to Egypt. In this regard it is most critical to note that the former satellite and component states of the Soviet Union which have had the greatest success are those with prior experience or a tight linkage to the evolutionary dynamics of Western Europe. As one moves east from the old Cold War "Trace," the success rate of democracy trends downward.
None of this should be construed as implying that the Egyptian military should (or, realistically, can) fail to move in the direction of reform. Indeed, the major task for the military is that of maintaining order so that basic liberties, the sine qua non of democratic support structures, can be instituted. This means the Egyptian high command must do something totally foreign to their training and experience (and, in high probability personal inclinations.) The high command must start the process of creating a genuine civic society which is open to all comers--even the members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Perhaps the most important component of this exercise in nation-building will be the assurance of an independent judiciary, the embedding of a concept of the rule of law, and, central to this, insulating the judiciary from the strictures and commands of religion. Egypt must avoid the grave, even fatal error of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other majority Muslim states--it must create a judiciary which exists independent of Shariah.
A strong argument can be made for the contention that the foundation of democracy as practiced first in England and later in the US and the rest of Western Europe can be found with the concept of the King's Peace. This English construct removed justice in all its manifold ways from the realm of the private and made it an abstract applicable to all with equality under the authority of the state. The Islamic tradition is antipodal. Down to the present day justice under Islamic law remains essentially private with the state playing a limited role. Criminals are punished or not dependent upon the attitude of the victim--a plea for mercy will result in the nullification of criminal sanction even in cases of murder. Private justice is inherently unequal justice; private law is essentially codified anarchy.
With the establishment of the King's Peace, the great foundation stone had been laid. The state became an independent entity. All individuals resident under the authority of the state were entitled to equal justice. As an outgrowth each would become entitled with a right to equal representation in the lawmaking of the state. Over time distinctions in status, wealth, landowning, gender, and other personal factors would be ruled irrelevant to the proper functioning of the state as well as the processes by which equality of voice in the affairs of the state were assured.
Independent law, impartial justice, equality of responsibility, equality of representation taken together provided the basic support structure for flourishing democracy. These basics were necessary but, in themselves, not sufficient for the full development of democracy. It was also necessary for people living in a democracy to be both good winners and good losers. The US passed a great test in the election of 1800 in which power was transferred peaceably between two "factions" which had fought a hard, bitter, and very uncivil fight for power. The transition of power marked the beginnings of a tradition of respecting the outcome of an election--no matter how disappointed the losers might be or ready to gloat the winners might feel.
While the US passed a test in 1800 the rest of the story was anything but simple or nice. Differences of political view ultimately required a bloody settlement. Elections were often far from clean, quite marked with corruption, often stolen. Still, the basic legitimacy of the process was granted by the majority of citizens.
A perception of legitimacy is utterly central if democracy is to work. Importantly, perceptions of legitimacy do not emerge rapidly. They are not the result of any one election but rather emerge from the full play of elections with the contextual supporting structures. If people are persuaded that they have equal voice, equal responsibilities, equal treatment under an impartially applied law, are served by a diverse and open media, have access to the full sway of political processes, then the emergence of a general perception of legitimacy is more likely than not to emerge.
There is an unfortunate but very real probability that the entire exercise in promoting democracy in Egypt will run aground on the reef of Islam. This is not to say that Muslims do not deserve democracy, that is a ludicrous proposition. It is to imply that Islam--as quite a few clerics have stated publicly--is incompatible with democracy. The position taken by Muslim clerics to the effect that all law derives from the deity and, as a result, democracy is blasphemous is rooted in the sacred writings of the religion--at least as interpreted by these clerics. Even more mainstream in the Muslim clerical world is the supremacy of Shariah. Shariah is not compatible with the concept of the King;s Peace--and all that evolved from that small beginning.
On the hopeful side is the ground truth that in Islam as in all religions, the presumed word of the deity is spoken through the mouths of men with the result that new interpretations, new understandings, new implications cannot be overlooked. This, of course, takes time. In Egypt time is a luxury at the moment, but the armed forces high command must be encouraged to use the time it has to make steps in the direction of reform while putting the main emphasis where it has been each and every day since the toppling of Farouk in 1952--maintaining order.
The Geek prefers the reality of long term stability to the appearance of short term order. But a country must survive the short term to achieve the long term. It would behoove the Obama administration to keep that in mind as it contemplates how hard to hector the old/new rulers of Egypt.
Friday, February 11, 2011
The More Things Change--The More They Stay The Same
Both Veep Biden and the Nice Young Man From Chicago have lost themselves in the stratosphere of oratory today following the long anticipated departure of Hosni Mubarak. That the old man would leave was never in doubt, only the details of timing, details which would be and were determined solely by the supreme command of the military. The arrogance of the Obama/Biden duo in both proclaiming the end of the Mubarak era as being of world historical importance equal to the fall of the Berlin Wall (and, by heavy handed implication, the result of US policy) is both breathtaking and totally false.
The movement of Mubarak from the presidential palace to his private compound on the Red Sea is not even as dramatic as the events of 1952. The overthrow of the Egyptian king in that year by a consortium of army officers was not only better theater than the street festivities of the past eighteen days, it was also a very real break from Egypt's past. The retirement of Mubarak is no such gap between past and future.
It is important to understand something which has quite evidently eluded all the Deep Thinkers surrounding the Clueless Guy in the Oval. The violent deposing of King Farouk by the Young Officers--a group which included future strongmen Nasser and Sadat--marked the end of Egypt's centuries as a colonial backwater exploited by European powers as well as the Ottoman Empire. It was a reclamation of national dignity, national identity, national pride. Nasser and Sadat rode this revolutionary camel for all it was worth over the next thirty years with the result that Egypt became a major player in the non-aligned movement as well as a skilled exploiter of cold war rivalries.
Egypt emerged from the coup as the aspiring leader of a united Arab mega-state. The dream never became a reality for reasons inherent to nationalism and national egoism alike, but Egypt did become a good simulacrum of the regional hegemon, the go-to state whenever something needed to get done in the region. Not a bad accomplishment for a state which did not have and still does not have a solid economic base, but does have a very large, often fractious population and no tradition of democracy.
Despite having been defeated in three of the four wars it fought with Israel, and nearly losing the fourth one after a brilliant beginning, the army has carried the luster of the 1952 revolution intact to the present day. It is this which gives the military its special role in Egyptian politics. It is the 1952 overthrow of the dissipated king coupled with the splendid success of the opening days of the Yom Kippur war which allows the army to smoothly assert control today regardless of the precise wording of the constitution. The military has unique status, unique power, and unique responsibility. It is exercising the first two in pursuit of achieving the third.
The responsibility of the army is to preserve the apparatus of state from subversion. This means the armed forces have the task of preventing a takeover of the mechanisms of government and state by such groups as the Muslim Brotherhood. Put in general terms, the armed forces have the sole responsibility of assuring order.
Note the word use was "order," not stability. As laid out the other day, stability can emerge only over time in a way which is organic to the society and polity and only when citizens have sufficient personal liberty to engage in the never ending task of creating stability. The best the army can do is provide (or impose) order on a day to day basis.
Of course it is the maintenance of order which has been at the root of every Egyptian government since 1952. None of the several regimes have made the slightest attempt to foster conditions compatible with the slow and painful evolution of stability. Nor is that reality going to change with the departure of Hosni Mubarak. No matter how much Mr Obama or anyone else may clamor for democracy, for an "orderly" transformation, there will be no change in the basics of the Egyptian system of government.
The painful truth is that there is only one way in which the basics of the Egyptian system will change. That one way involves the armed forces losing the will or ability to maintain order. Should that happen, the way will be wide open for fundamental revolutionary change. The least unlikely scenario in the event the armed forces bobble their job is a violent bid by the Muslim Brotherhood for power. Should that happen, the Brotherhood will come out on top.
The same outcome is likely should the foreign advocates of "democracy" gain sufficient influence on the Egyptian military to force elections. In the event of an election the Muslim Brotherhood will win power hands down. The years of social, medical, educational, and economic services efforts by the Brotherhood have bought it great perceived legitimacy. Nor are the majority of Egyptians opposed to the austere view of Islam held by the Brotherhood. Quite the contrary, the majority of Egyptians support shariah in all its brutal aspects, are in favor of gender inequality, view Islam as the only true faith, oppose Christianity, and are hostile to Jews to the highest degree. There is nothing in the Brotherhood's manifesto which is abhorrent to the typical Egyptian man in the street.
For the US, for Israel, for the civilized states generally, the best outcome of the recent events in Egypt will be a continuation of the "spirit of 1952." That is simply a continuation of business as usual as it has been conducted for the past sixty years. A few cosmetic changes would be nice, as would an emphasis on the creation of jobs for Egyptians, but there should be no rush, no pressure, no insensible demands for democracy. There are times and places where order is the best which can be hoped for over the short to medium run. Egypt today is both time and place where order must be promoted even at the cost of postponing the stimulus of stability for some more years.
The best advice for the hyperbole prone administration is this: Chill out. The time for high blown and unsupportable oratory is most definitely not now. Sure, a few genuflections before the totem of democracy are OK, but don't take it seriously--particularly in the back channel talks with the generals in charge of daily life. You have to let those fellows know that you understand where they are coming from and support the goal of keeping order preferably without body counts.
Most of all, the denizens in and near the Oval would be well advised to not break their arms patting themselves on the back. The US was massively irrelevant to most of the events of the past three weeks as can be seen by the absence of burning American flags or "Death to America" chants. Heck, even the nervous money guys of the world overlooked US T notes and dollars as safe haven investments--and that sort of defines American irrelevance, doesn't it?
The movement of Mubarak from the presidential palace to his private compound on the Red Sea is not even as dramatic as the events of 1952. The overthrow of the Egyptian king in that year by a consortium of army officers was not only better theater than the street festivities of the past eighteen days, it was also a very real break from Egypt's past. The retirement of Mubarak is no such gap between past and future.
It is important to understand something which has quite evidently eluded all the Deep Thinkers surrounding the Clueless Guy in the Oval. The violent deposing of King Farouk by the Young Officers--a group which included future strongmen Nasser and Sadat--marked the end of Egypt's centuries as a colonial backwater exploited by European powers as well as the Ottoman Empire. It was a reclamation of national dignity, national identity, national pride. Nasser and Sadat rode this revolutionary camel for all it was worth over the next thirty years with the result that Egypt became a major player in the non-aligned movement as well as a skilled exploiter of cold war rivalries.
Egypt emerged from the coup as the aspiring leader of a united Arab mega-state. The dream never became a reality for reasons inherent to nationalism and national egoism alike, but Egypt did become a good simulacrum of the regional hegemon, the go-to state whenever something needed to get done in the region. Not a bad accomplishment for a state which did not have and still does not have a solid economic base, but does have a very large, often fractious population and no tradition of democracy.
Despite having been defeated in three of the four wars it fought with Israel, and nearly losing the fourth one after a brilliant beginning, the army has carried the luster of the 1952 revolution intact to the present day. It is this which gives the military its special role in Egyptian politics. It is the 1952 overthrow of the dissipated king coupled with the splendid success of the opening days of the Yom Kippur war which allows the army to smoothly assert control today regardless of the precise wording of the constitution. The military has unique status, unique power, and unique responsibility. It is exercising the first two in pursuit of achieving the third.
The responsibility of the army is to preserve the apparatus of state from subversion. This means the armed forces have the task of preventing a takeover of the mechanisms of government and state by such groups as the Muslim Brotherhood. Put in general terms, the armed forces have the sole responsibility of assuring order.
Note the word use was "order," not stability. As laid out the other day, stability can emerge only over time in a way which is organic to the society and polity and only when citizens have sufficient personal liberty to engage in the never ending task of creating stability. The best the army can do is provide (or impose) order on a day to day basis.
Of course it is the maintenance of order which has been at the root of every Egyptian government since 1952. None of the several regimes have made the slightest attempt to foster conditions compatible with the slow and painful evolution of stability. Nor is that reality going to change with the departure of Hosni Mubarak. No matter how much Mr Obama or anyone else may clamor for democracy, for an "orderly" transformation, there will be no change in the basics of the Egyptian system of government.
The painful truth is that there is only one way in which the basics of the Egyptian system will change. That one way involves the armed forces losing the will or ability to maintain order. Should that happen, the way will be wide open for fundamental revolutionary change. The least unlikely scenario in the event the armed forces bobble their job is a violent bid by the Muslim Brotherhood for power. Should that happen, the Brotherhood will come out on top.
The same outcome is likely should the foreign advocates of "democracy" gain sufficient influence on the Egyptian military to force elections. In the event of an election the Muslim Brotherhood will win power hands down. The years of social, medical, educational, and economic services efforts by the Brotherhood have bought it great perceived legitimacy. Nor are the majority of Egyptians opposed to the austere view of Islam held by the Brotherhood. Quite the contrary, the majority of Egyptians support shariah in all its brutal aspects, are in favor of gender inequality, view Islam as the only true faith, oppose Christianity, and are hostile to Jews to the highest degree. There is nothing in the Brotherhood's manifesto which is abhorrent to the typical Egyptian man in the street.
For the US, for Israel, for the civilized states generally, the best outcome of the recent events in Egypt will be a continuation of the "spirit of 1952." That is simply a continuation of business as usual as it has been conducted for the past sixty years. A few cosmetic changes would be nice, as would an emphasis on the creation of jobs for Egyptians, but there should be no rush, no pressure, no insensible demands for democracy. There are times and places where order is the best which can be hoped for over the short to medium run. Egypt today is both time and place where order must be promoted even at the cost of postponing the stimulus of stability for some more years.
The best advice for the hyperbole prone administration is this: Chill out. The time for high blown and unsupportable oratory is most definitely not now. Sure, a few genuflections before the totem of democracy are OK, but don't take it seriously--particularly in the back channel talks with the generals in charge of daily life. You have to let those fellows know that you understand where they are coming from and support the goal of keeping order preferably without body counts.
Most of all, the denizens in and near the Oval would be well advised to not break their arms patting themselves on the back. The US was massively irrelevant to most of the events of the past three weeks as can be seen by the absence of burning American flags or "Death to America" chants. Heck, even the nervous money guys of the world overlooked US T notes and dollars as safe haven investments--and that sort of defines American irrelevance, doesn't it?
Saturday, February 5, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Worrying By Analogy
Since even Hosni Mubarak has agreed that his days are numbered and that the number isn't a large one, it seems fair to consider the hypothetical "day after." The fact that quite a few Egyptians do not agree with Hosni's estimate of seven more months in his political life gives the consideration a real impetus.
Humans have a tendency (lamentable much of the time) to reason by analogy. Often the basis of analogy is historical with the inevitable consequence that the reasoning process is highly selective both as to the data used and the interpretative methods used. In considering Egypt after Mubarak there is a great appeal to employing the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution as the analogy.
There are some seemingly compelling points of identity between Egypt today and Iran of thirty-two years ago. Both countries belong to the species dictatorship. Both dictators enjoyed very significant American support. Both were seen by administrations of both Democratic and Republican nature as key allies in the region as well as islands of predictable stability. In both countries the armed forces and internal security organs received massive US assistance and training.
Both Egypt and Iran are majority Muslim countries. Egypt today like Iran thirty-two years ago fields a large, well organized, and militant advocate of violent political Islam.
At that point the identities end. Even similarities fade. The differences become all important--and, critically, make the process of reasoning by analogy suspect.
Chief among the differences is the brand of Islam prevalent in Egypt compared with that of Iran. Egyptians are predominantly Sunni while ninety percent or more of the Muslims in Iran in 1979 were Shia. There is a mound of distinction between the two "brands." Shia is given to political expression, martyrdom, and centralization of religious doctrine. Sunnis, while far from indifferent to politics per se, are not such eager seekers after martyrdom as their Shia cousins. More importantly, religious doctrine and direction is decentralized, diffuse within the Sunni community. There is no figure equivalent to the Grand Ayatollah, the Supreme Guardian of the faith.
Another critical distinction between Iran in 1979 and Egypt today (and one which is still subject to change) is the role of the army. The army in Egypt is held in high repute due to its having administered a severe drubbing to the Israelis during the Yom Kippur War. The Iranian army had no such cachet. Beyond that, the Egyptian army to date has taken no suppressive actions against the demonstrators.
When the Iranian army made the fateful and fatal decision to execute the Shah's orders to open fire on demonstrators on 8 September 1978 (with the result that hundreds died in Tehran's Jaleh Square from tank and helicopter gunships), that spelled the end of any perceived legitimacy for the army as a transitional instrument. So far the Egyptian army has not done the same. Hopefully, it will not even should Mubarak be so ill-advised as to order a crackdown.
Another important consideration is the role of the Muslim Brotherhood as compared to the Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers. The Muslim Brotherhood has been a latecomer to the party, undoubtedly as a calculated decision later reversed when the demonstrators were not blown away in the first police actions. In sharp contrast, the followers of Khomeini were good to go from the giddy-up moving swiftly to the forefront as the Shah's regime crumbled.
While the Geek in no way agrees with presidential advisor and former CIA officer, Bruce Reidel, to the effect that there ain't no reason to be scared of the Muslim Brotherhood as the group has long dropped its agenda of violent political Islam, there is no basis for the belief that the Brotherhood will take over the post-Mubarak environment. The Brotherhood has a wide base of popular support within Egypt's most impoverished and politically marginalized citizens thanks more to its excellent network of social, education, and medical services than to its agenda, the assumption that this will translate into domination of any post-Mubarak government is poorly justified at best.
Egypt contains not only a large demographic segment of the impoverished and marginal, of former peasants forced to seek employment in the bursting urban centers, it also contains a larger portion of educated, more or less, Westernized youth who seek jobs, opportunity, a sense of personal dignity, personal future, who are not prone to accept the austere religious dictates of the harder line Muslim Brotherhood cadre. The balance of power resides with the second group to a far greater extent than to the myrmidons of the Brotherhood. This view is reinforced by the nature of the demonstrators as well as their creative use of Western developed horizontal communications methods as well as the absence of obvious Islamist slogans (either in Arabic or English) in the iconography surrounding the protests.
The most likely result of the tension between Muslim Brotherhood and other Egyptians less given to political Islam is the formation of an Egyptian version of the Turkish AKP. While the AKP has shown some disquieting signs of being a little too inclined to see the positive with respect to more violently inclined advocates of political Islam, it has not gone over--or even near--the edge of the abyss. The AKP has shown itself to be more pragmatic than ideological, more success oriented than willing to risk all for the "cause."
Another key distinction which is all too often overlooked particularly by members of the American Right is simply that Barack Obama is not Jimmy Carter. Even when it became obvious to all but the most intellectually challenged, Jimmy Carter dithered. He did not put effective pressure on the Shah to step aside in a bid for "orderly transition." Then he made the situation worse by not supporting the Shah when support would still have mattered. Finally, he turned sentimental with his allowing the ailing fugitive Shah to find sanctuary for a time and of a sort in the US. This demonized the US all the more in the eyes of the True Believers of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Obama may have started late compared to events on the Egyptian street but has come up fast, perhaps claiming too much credit for Mubarak's I'm-leaving-in-September pledge.
The influence of the US on the Egyptian military should not be overlooked either. That plus the personal relationship between Mubarak and Secretary of State Clinton have been of great assistance in assuring that Mubarak came to realize sooner rather than later that getting out of power skin intact requires speedy action.
This is not to imply that there is no cause for anxiety about the next few days and weeks to say nothing of the hypothetical "day after," but it does imply strongly that the Iranian analogy is not the best one to use in assessing Egypt or US policy toward that country. It does imply that the probability of the Muslim Brotherhood establishing a Sunni counterpoise to the Shia Islamic Republic of Iran or the Egyptian army becoming the next Revolutionary Guards Corps is very low.
The looming regime change in Egypt should give Israel grounds for reconsidering its intransigence on the Two State Question. This becomes more salient given the pressure being exerted by advocates of violent political Islam and others on the government of Jordan. The specter of these countries both abrogating their peace agreements with Israel should focus Israeli attention sharply on the role of the Two State Solution in maintaining the less-than-perfect but still acceptable Mideast status quo. A dramatic move by Israel to meet some of the demands of the Palestinian Authority would go a long way to pulling the propaganda fangs of the Muslim Brotherhood and others of the political Islam bent. It would also bolster the PA against the potential of Hamas going more radical hoping to capitalize on the general dissatisfaction in the Arab populations.
It would behoove the US administration to play this card not only in its dealings with the political opposition in Egypt and Jordan but also with the Netanyahu government. Right now intransigence is not in Israel's best interests, even at the cost of losing domestic political support. Rocks may stand against the waves but will always be submerged by the tide. At this time the tide of events in the Mideast is running in favor of change, even remarkable, unprecedented change.
Egypt can yet become the new century's Iran. But, for that to happen will require stupidity in Cairo, in Washington or in Jerusalem of a very high order. One way, perhaps the best, to assure stupidity reigns is to focus too narrowly on the Iranian analogy.
It has been mooted about that President Obama is a keen student of history as well as being a very unsentimental character. The second proposition is no doubt correct. The first can be proven only if Mr Obama really understands history rather than simplemindedly reasoning by (inapposite) historical analogy.
Humans have a tendency (lamentable much of the time) to reason by analogy. Often the basis of analogy is historical with the inevitable consequence that the reasoning process is highly selective both as to the data used and the interpretative methods used. In considering Egypt after Mubarak there is a great appeal to employing the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution as the analogy.
There are some seemingly compelling points of identity between Egypt today and Iran of thirty-two years ago. Both countries belong to the species dictatorship. Both dictators enjoyed very significant American support. Both were seen by administrations of both Democratic and Republican nature as key allies in the region as well as islands of predictable stability. In both countries the armed forces and internal security organs received massive US assistance and training.
Both Egypt and Iran are majority Muslim countries. Egypt today like Iran thirty-two years ago fields a large, well organized, and militant advocate of violent political Islam.
At that point the identities end. Even similarities fade. The differences become all important--and, critically, make the process of reasoning by analogy suspect.
Chief among the differences is the brand of Islam prevalent in Egypt compared with that of Iran. Egyptians are predominantly Sunni while ninety percent or more of the Muslims in Iran in 1979 were Shia. There is a mound of distinction between the two "brands." Shia is given to political expression, martyrdom, and centralization of religious doctrine. Sunnis, while far from indifferent to politics per se, are not such eager seekers after martyrdom as their Shia cousins. More importantly, religious doctrine and direction is decentralized, diffuse within the Sunni community. There is no figure equivalent to the Grand Ayatollah, the Supreme Guardian of the faith.
Another critical distinction between Iran in 1979 and Egypt today (and one which is still subject to change) is the role of the army. The army in Egypt is held in high repute due to its having administered a severe drubbing to the Israelis during the Yom Kippur War. The Iranian army had no such cachet. Beyond that, the Egyptian army to date has taken no suppressive actions against the demonstrators.
When the Iranian army made the fateful and fatal decision to execute the Shah's orders to open fire on demonstrators on 8 September 1978 (with the result that hundreds died in Tehran's Jaleh Square from tank and helicopter gunships), that spelled the end of any perceived legitimacy for the army as a transitional instrument. So far the Egyptian army has not done the same. Hopefully, it will not even should Mubarak be so ill-advised as to order a crackdown.
Another important consideration is the role of the Muslim Brotherhood as compared to the Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers. The Muslim Brotherhood has been a latecomer to the party, undoubtedly as a calculated decision later reversed when the demonstrators were not blown away in the first police actions. In sharp contrast, the followers of Khomeini were good to go from the giddy-up moving swiftly to the forefront as the Shah's regime crumbled.
While the Geek in no way agrees with presidential advisor and former CIA officer, Bruce Reidel, to the effect that there ain't no reason to be scared of the Muslim Brotherhood as the group has long dropped its agenda of violent political Islam, there is no basis for the belief that the Brotherhood will take over the post-Mubarak environment. The Brotherhood has a wide base of popular support within Egypt's most impoverished and politically marginalized citizens thanks more to its excellent network of social, education, and medical services than to its agenda, the assumption that this will translate into domination of any post-Mubarak government is poorly justified at best.
Egypt contains not only a large demographic segment of the impoverished and marginal, of former peasants forced to seek employment in the bursting urban centers, it also contains a larger portion of educated, more or less, Westernized youth who seek jobs, opportunity, a sense of personal dignity, personal future, who are not prone to accept the austere religious dictates of the harder line Muslim Brotherhood cadre. The balance of power resides with the second group to a far greater extent than to the myrmidons of the Brotherhood. This view is reinforced by the nature of the demonstrators as well as their creative use of Western developed horizontal communications methods as well as the absence of obvious Islamist slogans (either in Arabic or English) in the iconography surrounding the protests.
The most likely result of the tension between Muslim Brotherhood and other Egyptians less given to political Islam is the formation of an Egyptian version of the Turkish AKP. While the AKP has shown some disquieting signs of being a little too inclined to see the positive with respect to more violently inclined advocates of political Islam, it has not gone over--or even near--the edge of the abyss. The AKP has shown itself to be more pragmatic than ideological, more success oriented than willing to risk all for the "cause."
Another key distinction which is all too often overlooked particularly by members of the American Right is simply that Barack Obama is not Jimmy Carter. Even when it became obvious to all but the most intellectually challenged, Jimmy Carter dithered. He did not put effective pressure on the Shah to step aside in a bid for "orderly transition." Then he made the situation worse by not supporting the Shah when support would still have mattered. Finally, he turned sentimental with his allowing the ailing fugitive Shah to find sanctuary for a time and of a sort in the US. This demonized the US all the more in the eyes of the True Believers of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Obama may have started late compared to events on the Egyptian street but has come up fast, perhaps claiming too much credit for Mubarak's I'm-leaving-in-September pledge.
The influence of the US on the Egyptian military should not be overlooked either. That plus the personal relationship between Mubarak and Secretary of State Clinton have been of great assistance in assuring that Mubarak came to realize sooner rather than later that getting out of power skin intact requires speedy action.
This is not to imply that there is no cause for anxiety about the next few days and weeks to say nothing of the hypothetical "day after," but it does imply strongly that the Iranian analogy is not the best one to use in assessing Egypt or US policy toward that country. It does imply that the probability of the Muslim Brotherhood establishing a Sunni counterpoise to the Shia Islamic Republic of Iran or the Egyptian army becoming the next Revolutionary Guards Corps is very low.
The looming regime change in Egypt should give Israel grounds for reconsidering its intransigence on the Two State Question. This becomes more salient given the pressure being exerted by advocates of violent political Islam and others on the government of Jordan. The specter of these countries both abrogating their peace agreements with Israel should focus Israeli attention sharply on the role of the Two State Solution in maintaining the less-than-perfect but still acceptable Mideast status quo. A dramatic move by Israel to meet some of the demands of the Palestinian Authority would go a long way to pulling the propaganda fangs of the Muslim Brotherhood and others of the political Islam bent. It would also bolster the PA against the potential of Hamas going more radical hoping to capitalize on the general dissatisfaction in the Arab populations.
It would behoove the US administration to play this card not only in its dealings with the political opposition in Egypt and Jordan but also with the Netanyahu government. Right now intransigence is not in Israel's best interests, even at the cost of losing domestic political support. Rocks may stand against the waves but will always be submerged by the tide. At this time the tide of events in the Mideast is running in favor of change, even remarkable, unprecedented change.
Egypt can yet become the new century's Iran. But, for that to happen will require stupidity in Cairo, in Washington or in Jerusalem of a very high order. One way, perhaps the best, to assure stupidity reigns is to focus too narrowly on the Iranian analogy.
It has been mooted about that President Obama is a keen student of history as well as being a very unsentimental character. The second proposition is no doubt correct. The first can be proven only if Mr Obama really understands history rather than simplemindedly reasoning by (inapposite) historical analogy.
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