Egypt (Or Its Generals) Looks To Ataturk's Turkey

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?

Pragmatism Or More Obama-esque Truckling?

Secretary of State Clinton has admitted that the US not only has been engaged in "limited" contacts with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood but intends to continue doing so, perhaps on a significantly expanded basis.  These contacts have been described as "official" by some unnamed sources but are more accurately seen as "informal" or "unofficial" so as to avoid both political and legal embarrassment.

In any event and under whatsoever term, the contacts with the MB will prove controversial.  Whether they will turn out as useful remains to be seen.

Not surprisingly, assorted bloggers on the Right have picked up cudgels to pound the current administration into so much jelly.  Individuals such as the redoubtable defender of Israel, Barry Rubin, have alleged the Obama administration is once again demonstrating its typical, ill-informed, and counterproductive genuflection before the political totems of the Islamists.  Certainly, this US policy lends itself to this interpretation given the context of Obama's apparent hostility to the government of Israel, at least as presently constituted.

It is possible to see the continued and perhaps expanding dialogue between the US and the MB as a pragmatic ploy given the political dynamics within Egypt today and into the near future.  The MB in the land of its origin is a very real, very potent political player.  Even with self-imposed limitations on the number of parliamentary seats and seeking the presidency, the MB is and will remain the most critical political force in Egypt--the power behind the throne even if a secular rump fills the exalted seat itself.  Beyond that consideration, which is non-trivial to say the least, a constructive relation with the MB would assist the US in gaining a degree of rapprochement with other groups in the region which espouse political Islam.

The inducements for the US to have contact with the present senior leadership of the MB is not reduced by the very evident generational split within the Brotherhood.  The "Young Turks" of the Egyptian Brotherhood may be quite annoyed with their elders, particularly with the ukase tossing any Brother out of the hood should he break the ban on running for the presidency or join a party other than the official MB organ.  The split is real, but its effects are easy to exaggerate.

Also easy to exaggerate is the purported differences between those Brothers who emphasize practical programs aimed at solving the numerous and almost overwhelming social and economic problems currently besetting Egypt and those Brothers for whom the establishment of an Islamic state based on all Shariah all the time is the goal.  There is a difference not so much in basic views and understandings separating these two wings of the MB as there is a disparity of tactics, of priorities, and of means.

Neither the "Young Turks" nor the "Old Guard" of the Brotherhood, neither the "practicalists" nor the "idealists" differ on a single basic and highly critical point.  Even if this one point is all that binds together the assorted sub-groups within the Brotherhood it would be sufficient to make the MB a potent threat looming over the future of Egypt and the region.  Here is the point:  No member of the Brotherhood has any more regard for the nature of democracy as understood in the West than Ron Paul has for the Federal Reserve System.

Of course there are a plethora of points upon which all Brothers agree.  Israel must go is one.  Another is that the sway of Islam must be extended over the House of War.  Still another is the debased, evil, and threatening nature of the US.  There are others, but you get the drift from this very short list.

The mere fact that the Muslim Brotherhood not only in Egypt but around the world would like to see Israel expunged as the deity laughed with delight or the population of the US boiled in the pit for all eternity as the blessed of the faith watched from the gallery thoughtfully provided in Paradise for the amusement of the Muslim saint is no bar to talking with the Brothers.  In past years the various administrations and their diplomats have talked both officially and otherwise with any number of people who sought our defeat.  Talking with those who oppose you is one of the most, arguably the most, important aspects of diplomatic work.

Given that the MB in Egypt is a very real fact on the political ground and will remain such for some time to come, it is critical that we convey to them the limits of acceptable conduct.  It is even more critical that the Brotherhood's leaders come to understand not only the limits but become convinced that the US will exact a price for any violation of these limits.  In this context "contacts" does not imply a dialogue between equals but rather the transmission of facts to an auditor.

If the contacts are limited to the task of delivering a clear understanding of the limits of acceptable conduct as well as the range of possible penalties, the exercise is worth the effort.  It is important that the contacts do not fall prey to mission creep.  Whenever conversations, particularly those of an allegedly "informal" or "unofficial" nature, take place, the temptation to expand, make official, or otherwise raise the importance and status of the talks exists.  This temptation must be resisted.  Regardless of any impressions to the contrary, there is no more chance that the Brotherhood or any significant sub-group within the MB will accept American views of proper governance, proper social and political equality, proper policy regarding Israel than there is the Tea Party embracing Obamacare.

The folks on the Right and other reflexive defenders of all things Israeli ought to get a grip and stand down from their ramparts of indignation.  The time to man those ramparts will come when and if the Obama administration and its diplomatic personnel get off the track of squaring away the MB on what US policy will allow and what it will not, wandering instead into the bottomless morass of palaver about democracy, transparency, the rule of law and similar (to the mind of a Brother) fables.

After all, Mr Rubin and all you others, it is not possible to draw a line in the sand without talking to the opposition.  For the benefit of the Egyptians, the Americans, and, yes, the Israelis, it is rather important that the US draw a line and tell the Brothers of all stripes where the line is and what will happen should they be so ill-advised as to cross it.

Pan-Arab Movement 2.0

One of the most hardy recurrent failures in modern history has been the movement for a pan-Arab super-state.  The most dynamic proponent of this notion--One Big Tent For All Arabs--was Abdul Nasser of Egypt.  When he was not  trying to be the Pharaoh of the Non-Aligned Movement, the colonel who made himself dictator of Egypt was plumping for his vision of an Arab super-state--under Egypt's leadership, of course.  Nasser's dream including its real world expression, the United Arab Republic, foundered on the rock of nationalism.

The zombie may be lurching back from the tomb.  Under a different guise and with a different ideological core, but with the same goal.  This time around it is the Muslim Brotherhood which is testing the wind.  Admittedly the Brotherhood is speaking cautiously even in Arab media but the presence of recurrent references to a pan-Arab aspirations of MB founder Hassan al-Banna make it clear that the Egyptian Brotherhood seeks to succeed where Nasser failed.

The vision of pan-Arabism riffs off the key idea within Islam, the idea of the One Community, the Ummah.  Insofar as the core of Islam is Arab it stands to reason (at least in the MB understanding) that the creation of an authentic Arab super-state would constitute the necessary first step toward making the ummah a reality rather than a pleasant abstract.

In recent interviews published by a pan-Arab oriented daily, al-Sharq al-Awsat, a heavyweight of the Brotherhood, Dr Kamal al-Helbawi, makes strong noises concerning the desirability, the necessity and even the virtual inevitability of the Brotherhood forming a pan-national entity in which one "Amir" would guide the many different national "voices" of the Arab nation.  That the Brotherhood does not now have such an international organization, Dr al-Helbawi maintains, is the result of the repressive actions of authoritarian states, particularly Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Of course the repressive authoritarian regimes are gone now in Egypt and Iraq as is the one in Tunisia.  Anti-Brotherhood governments in Syria and Libya are under severe and ongoing attack.  There is no doubt but Dr al-Helbawi and others of his ideology are tempted to see the will of the deity at work to the ultimate advantage of the Brotherhood.

Leaving aside the ministrations of a benevolently inclined deity it is true that the Brotherhood is the largest and best organized movement in Egypt with a political agenda in play.  In Syria the Brotherhood has been cautiously emerging from the deep shadows where it has survived since Assad, fils obliterated its ill-timed and worse planned uprising nearly thirty years ago.  The (comparatively) minor political demonstrations in Jordan have featured the MB in a front and center role.  With respect to Tunisia the any manifestation of significant differences between the Renaissance Party and the Brotherhood are more apparent than real.

In short, while it may lack presently any sort of international organization the Brotherhood exists everywhere in the Arab states, the tumultuous as well as the quiet, the authoritarian as well as the "democratic."  The foundations of a multi-national movement exist.  The only question is whether or not a superstructure can be erected on these.

For the moment the question of how to build an international organization is premature.  Arguably it is premature for the Brotherhood under whatsoever name to seek power in any of the states presently going through the painful process of reinvention.  Nowhere is this more true than in Egypt.

Egypt is the key.  The Muslim Brotherhood must ultimately succeed in Egypt if it is to have any potential as the instrument of Pan-Arabism.  But, to succeed the Brotherhood must stand back, avoid governmental responsibilities and allow other parties, other ideologies to fail in office.

"Winning" in the Egyptian political game is predicated on every other competitor failing.  The Brotherhood must stand unpolluted by failure as the last, best hope for Egyptians and their financial well being.

In Egyptian politics "it's the economy, stupid!"  Bill Clinton's slogan of twenty years ago applies to Egypt with a power far surpassing its relevance to the long ago election of the Boy Wonder of Whitewater.  A recent US government poll of Egyptian attitudes confirmed what the Geek and a few other observers argued months ago, the nitty-gritty of the uprising which ended an era was and is economic not political.  There was no great and unsatisfied thirst for democracy just a very real, very painful hunger for real jobs with real paychecks.  Four out of every five Egyptians who supported the "Lotus Revolution" did so out of personal economic motivations.

Considering that the Egyptian economy is far worse now than before the revolution and giving proper weight to the unrealistic expectations of the average man on the street in Cairo, the next government, the purported product of pure democracy in action will have the most impossible of missions: impossible.

The Egyptian public will expect an economic millennium, the instant arrival of a whole new day of prosperity, a new dawn without the sullying clouds of cronyism and corruption.  A fresh era of equitably distributed wealth, low food prices, cheap gas, almost free electricity.  A paradise on Earth where the grapes are fresh and juicy, the pomegranates plump and low on the bush while the streams run sparkling with not just cool, clear water but wine which neither befuddles or brings hangovers in its wake.  Maybe even seventy-two raisins as well.

The Egyptian people will be disappointed.  There is not going to be a whole new day of prosperity and headache free wine.  Not even the international welfare program already announced by the US and others is going to bring about the desired outcome of endless and equitably distributed wealth.  Disappointment brings anger in its wake.

With a sort of we-did-it-before-and-we-can-do-it-again mood the mobs will take to the streets one more time.  Well, more likely many more times.  Push will go to shove and shove will move to shoot.  Either the army or the Brotherhood will be the eventual knight on a white horse.  In all probability the army will defer to the Brotherhood, staying in the background as the final guarantor of sovereignty.

When all other parties and ideologies have been tried and have failed, the Brotherhood will come to the fore.  At this point the spirit of desperation will be pervasive and deep.  The MB will be seen as a savior and so hailed.

Under whatsoever name the Brotherhood's political arm will focus on a message of Give the Koran a Chance.  It will invoke Shariah to the max.  In keeping with the Islamic fear of division (fitna) the army will support the Brotherhood's demand for unanimity and suppress dissent to a degree far surpassing anything ever contemplated by the ancien regime.  If the combination of repression and Shariah works to any extent at all or if the religious passions unleashed by the interaction of financial suffering and the exhortations of preachers are strong enough, Egypt will become Ground Zero in the emergence of a new form of Pan-Arabism.

In a way the MB and its kindred adherents of political Islam cannot lose.  After other, less religiously predicated political parties fail to bring promised prosperity, the MB will either succeed where the others have failed (unlikely) or will be able to motivate more commitment by more Egyptians to an austere form of militant Islam by claiming that when and only when the Egyptians and other Arabs prove themselves to be deserving of the deity's favor will that favor be bestowed (quite likely.)

The MB, if it moves cautiously for a few more months, maybe a year at most, and lets everyone else try, get elected and fail, it will be in a classic "heads I win; tails you lose" dynamic.  Either foreign (infidel) governments will have to support the MB dominated regime for fear of unleashing one more terror based war or the MB will call for jihad as the best way to prove obedience to the will of the deity so as to gain the deity's favor and attendant rewards.

Either avenue leads to pan-Arabism with Egypt at the center.  Either route will allow the Brotherhood to succeed where the secular socialist Nasser failed.  Best of all either approach requires nothing beyond what the Brotherhood already possesses in abundance: an ideological agenda, patience and the willingness to preach a very basic, quite pure form of Islam.

Or, the capo di tutti capi, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence might have been right when he stated the Brotherhood was a deeply divided bunch of secular quasi-politicians.  Well, the Geek won't bet his ranch on that thought.

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 Army Is Egypt's Last, Best Hope

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hardball In Egypt And Yemen Goes A Bit More Down The Tube

As expected, the anti-government demonstrators took to the streets in large numbers following Friday prayers.  In an important change the Muslim Brotherhood got off the sideline fence and came down on the side of the demonstrators.  This may mean the leadership cadre has concluded the anti-regime movement has a chance of winning.  Or it may indicate simply an unwillingness for the Brotherhood not to get its fair share of abuse during the protests and concomitant crackdown.

Also without surprise was the decision of the Mubarak regime to order the army into the fray with instructions to support the police.  This may mean a tipping point will shortly arrive.  While the army has been sent on riot control duty twice before during the Mubarak years--once to quell the bread riots and once to suppress a strike by police--it has not fired upon Egyptian civilians during the thirty years of Murbarak's rule nor during the terms of this two predecessors.

The big unknown is simply what will be the response of the senior army commanders--or the snuffies in the streets when--or if--the order to open fire is given.  The entrance of the Muslim Brotherhood into the contest complicates answering this question as the Brotherhood has significant support within both the enlisted men and junior officers of the Egyptian armed forces.  This reality implies that there may be a split between the senior leadership and those down the food chain should the Mubarak dictatorship order the use of live fire on demonstrators for any purpose other than immediate self-defense.

If the high command refuses the order or--as is more likely--the men with guns down on the streets say, "Hell, no!" the days of the Mubarak regime are numbered.  And the number will not be a large one.  The governing ground truth in this is that while the internal security police have a vested interest in the continuation in the status quo, the army below the most exalted levels has no such motivation.

In addition to dispatching the army "in aid of the civil power," the regime has taken other measures.  It is widely known that Egypt has ceased to exist in the world of internet.  It is equally well known that Egypt has blocked mobile phone service.  These moves will cripple the capacity of the anti-government demonstrators to enlist the understanding and support of foreigners.  To a lesser extent it impairs the ability of the demonstrators to organize their efforts.

Beyond the blocking of internet and mobile phone services, the government has mounted a wave of preventative arrests.  Among those either detained or put under house arrests are leading figures of the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohamad ElBaradei.  The former head of the IAEA and current presidential candidate was placed under house arrest only hours after he returned from Vienna with the announced intent of joining with the demonstrations and sharing the fate of the demonstrators.

The arrests and blocking orders are not fatal to the anti-government movement.  In fact the arrests may rebound against the interests of the Mubarak regime by granting status to both the Brotherhood and Mr AlBaradei.

While these events were taking place, the Obama administration continued its imitation of their Carter days predecessors during the fateful days of 1979.  The Secretary of State like the President have made all the usual boilerplate appeals for peace, non-violence, the universal rights of Egyptian citizens, the desirability of reform, of transparency, of democracy, of yadda-yadda.  This can be seen either as a statesmenlike detachment of the US from the internal affairs of a sensitive Arab state or the clueless act of an administration adrift at the policy level.

The demonstrators know the US is involved in the demonstrations as tear gas projectiles clearly marked "Made in the USA" are littering the streets of Cairo, Alexandria, and other cities.  This is the dismal consequence of the years of American military aid.  Unless the US administration undertakes some form of compensatory action, the narrative of a Mubarak-USA linkage will be developed from the fragments of tear gas canisters.  In the estimate of most people, physical evidence trumps distant, diplomatic verbiage.

President Obama has convened his ":foreign policy team" for discussions of the events on the streets of Egypt.  Well, ain't that something?  A question for the "team:"  Is Joe Biden representing your official view when he dissented from characterizing Mubarak as a "dictator?"

As soon as the "team" has decided if Biden was right, it must consider a very alarming situation: Right now the only factor separating the Muslim Brotherhood from power in Egypt is the stance of the Egyptian army.  Specifically, what is the army likely to do if given the order to shoot on demonstrators--Shoot, don't shoot or shoot on the police?  That is the single most important subject for the "team" and president to consider. It is also the issue they must get right or pay the consequences should we get it wrong.

The administration must take a stance on the matter of the army pulling the trigger.  There is every probability that the Egyptian government either has or will shortly test American support for a use of force order.  Even if Mubarak does not order use of force, it is inevitable that should the army open fire, a narrative emphasizing US support for the status quo and therefore responsibility for any army inflicted bloodshed will explode across the Arab world.

Should the opposite happen--should for example, the army in the field oppose the police and take sides with the demonstrators, the administration best consider what, if anything, can be done to prevent the Muslim Brotherhood coming to power, either de facto or de jure.  The emergence of the Brotherhood to power would exceed the impact of the Iranian Islamic Revolution as the Brotherhood has branches or subsidiaries around the world in Muslim and non-Muslim states as well as an outward looking stance infinitely broader than that possessed by the Iranian clerical establishment.

While the Deep Strategic Thinkers of the administration are meeting they might spend a few nanoseconds reviewing the situation in Yemen.  The "Jasmine Revolution" has inspired an offshoot movement in Yemen which has sponsored demonstrations in the capital of Yemen, Saana, the other day.  It is unclear at the moment if the demonstrators want to end the current regime or gain some reforms.  In either event, the demonstrations add one more facet to the deeply fractured and desperately poor country.  The divisions are so profound, the rivals for power so extreme, that any change in the status quo would be in the direction of making Yemen a failed state.

The strong possibility of Yemen going all the way to failed state status is not remote.  And, even though Yemen does not have the international sex appeal of Egypt, it remains a key venue in the Saudi Peninsula.  A failed Yemen would be a perfect launching point for both regional and global terror attacks by al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula and others of their ilk.  This is what makes Yemen important to the US--and even more so for states such as Saudi Arabia.

Before leaving for the day, it is only fair that a moment of silence be observed.  The moment of silence is on behalf of President Obama.  It has been terribly wrong for all these pro-reform, anti-status quo demonstrators dotting the Arab world to have raised their ugly heads and cause just now.  Mr Obama would much rather be focusing on his "Sputnik moment" and convincing Americans that they can have growth if and only if We the People "go green" en masse.  The poor clueless guy never expected this and wonders just what the hell he ever did to deserve this.

Hosni Mubarak, The Shah Of 2011?

Over the last couple of days as demonstrators, albeit in diminished numbers, took on the security forces of Egypt, the US has been issuing contradictory statements which are redolent of those made in 1979 in the weeks before the plug was pulled on the Shah of Iran.  Secretary of State Clinton, for example, has tacked between imploring the government of Hosni Mubarak to refrain from suppression and to seize the opportunity to meet the grievances of the demonstrators and averring that the Mubarak regime was "stable"--presumably even without granting ground on the demonstrators demands.

The "stability" of Mubarak's rule is identical to that of the late Shah's.  That is to say, it has the appearance of short term order being (mis)represented by Washington as the reality of long-term stability.  To err on the side of accuracy, it is not so much that the Deep Thinking Global Strategists of the current and prior administrations have simply represented the Egyptian government as stable over the long haul as they have inappropriately invested the regime with capacities it never has possessed.

During the Cold War this confusion of the autocrat's ability to impose and maintain public and political order on a day-to-day basis with the substance of long term stability based upon a perception of existential and functional legitimacy widely shared within the country's population drove most of the glaring errors of US foreign policy.  It was this confusion of the short and long term which joined the US shoulder and hip with the most distasteful dictators in the world.  When night fell as it must on each of these despicable creatures, a roster which includes the Shah, the legacy was one of profound anti-American sentiment which took firm hold not only on the new rulers but the population at large.

The long practice of supporting odious and repressive regimes simply because they assured Washington that the enemies of America were their enemies as well went on a (short) hiatus following the collapse of the Soviet Union.  The rise of violent political Islam brought the Cold War golem out of the tomb and back into the policies of the US government.

Hosni Mubarak made the transition of Dictator Meriting American Support due to his anti-Soviet, anti-Communist stance to the new role of Dictator Meriting American Support because he was resolutely opposed to violent political Islam, at least the sort espoused by the Egyptian based Muslim Brotherhood.  Of course, ole Hosni had reinforced his position by carving a key if sometimes ambiguous role for himself in the Mideast Peace Process.  (You gotta admire professional competence even in the service of a rotten cause--the perpetuation of Rule By Hosni.)

It is necessary to recall that Mubarak came to power courtesy of a subscriber to violent political Islam having gunned down his predecessor Anwar Sadat thirty years ago.  Mubarak moved quickly and effectively to suppress the Muslim Brotherhood and other exponents of violent political Islam.  The jails, torture chambers, and graveyards were filled to capacity by Egyptians who either did or might have supported violent political Islam.  Since then Mubarak and his effective internal security organs have launched waves of repression separated by carefully calculated intervals of tolerance.

Many of the periodic tolerance festivals remind the observer of Mao's Let A Thousand Flowers Bloom campaign which encouraged dissent in order that all dissenters might expose themselves and subsequently be liquidated.  At the same time Mubarak did take measures which allowed followers of political Islam to engage in the allegedly semi-secular political life of Egypt.  This served to tie the Muslim Brotherhood to the government at least to a limited extent and gave the government some relief from public criticism as a result of the Muslim Brotherhood's highly effective social welfare programs.  (And, never forget, it gave additional opportunities for the several secret political police agencies to penetrate the Brotherhood and related entities with greater effect.)

All of this implies that Mubarak is a crafty and calculating political survivor.  His use of robust coercion, official terror as well as his willingness to rule by decree when such is either necessary or merely desirable show Hosni is one determined dude, determined to hold on to power by all means necessary be they fair or foul.  Taken together, these aspects of the Egyptian dictator's character indicate strongly that he is not going to exit the stage easily or gracefully despite his advanced years (he is on the wrong side of eighty) and less than splendid health.

There is no sign that the Egyptian army is likely to emulate its Tunisian equivalent.  Nor have the internal security police shown any suddenly developed sense of tender mercy or squeamishness.  Without defection by either or both of these instruments of state power, the probability of Mubarak acceding to the importuning of people power and getting on a jet plane to Saudi Arabia is very slim to none.

The dissidents are cranking up for another round of monster rallies on Friday following prayer services   These may be a real humdinger.  But, they will not mean the end of Hosni.

The anti-government movement is diffuse, lacking a national stature leader (although ElBaradie is headed back home from Vienna) and confined in the main to those meriting the loose sobriquet, "youth."  On the downside, Mohamad ElBaradei is lacking street cred due to his frequent and prolonged absences from Egypt since announcing his presidential candidacy, which impairs his status as a leader of the demonstrations and the movement of which they are the most dramatic sign.

Another very big unknown is the intention of the Muslim Brotherhood.  The Brotherhood has been on the sidelines.  Perhaps its leadership cadre has been taken by surprise but that seems unlikely.  Far more probable is the assessment that the Brotherhood is being cautious.  The leaders most probably do not expect the demonstrations to have any useful outcome beyond radicalizing an ever larger segment of the politically disaffiliated.  This means the Brotherhood will have a much larger potential recruitment pool in the months to come.

Another, less probable, motive for the Brotherhood's bystander posture is they are waiting for the main chance.  In the event that Mubarak does decide that a trip to Saudi Arabia is in his best interests, the Brotherhood will be in the catbird seat for a takeover bid.  The Brotherhood is very large, quite well organized, highly motivated, sufficiently financed, possesses tendrils nearly everywhere (including the armed forces), and can count on the support of the clerics and faculty of al-Azar university.  In short, it is the only entity in Egypt that can take control of the government.

The ascendancy of the Muslim Brotherhood to the seat of power in Egypt would be a very real nightmare for the Deep Thinkers of Global Strategy in Washington.  The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt could equal the mullahocracy of Iran as a sinister actor in the region and on the global stage.  From the perspective of either Israel or the US, the Muslim Brotherhood taking control of Egypt is a worst case scenario--on steroids.

There is not much the US government can do to directly influence events in Egypt in the short run.  And, there is not a whole lot more it can do in the longer term.  In a very real sense we chopped off our options when we climbed into bed with Mubarak back in the days following Camp David.  The perceived imperatives of the Cold War and the quest for Mideast peace pushed the US and Mubarak together in a marriage of mutual necessity.  When the Cold War ended, the continued search for the chimera of Arab-Israeli peace precluded ending the marriage.

The coming of Osama bin Laden and with him the challenge of violent political Islam prevented any sane and objective reassessment of the American support for the Egyptian autocrat.  We were stuck with him.  And, stuck with him today we remain.  Our least-worst option is to hope that (and in a low key way, assist) Mubarak remains in power.

Mubarak may be as unpalatable as cyanide but the Muslim Brotherhood would be much, much worse.  And, that, bucko, is all the choice we have.

We Are Safer Today--Or Not

Fareed Zakaria has charged to the fore once again with his contention that we Americans are far safer from the threat of terror operations conducted by proponents of violent political Islam today than the doom-mongers of the Right would have us believe. He argues that the Bush/Cheney administration's decision to invade Afghanistan and displace Taliban in favor of a democratic (and presumably pluralistic, liberal, free enterprise) system--and the "amping" of the effort by Mr Obama necessarily resulted in the defanging of al-Qaeda and the insurance of our safety.

Ironically, one of the architects of the Great Effort In Afghanistan, Robert Blackwell, has come to an antipodal conclusion. Reportedly, he has told the London based International Institute of Strategic Studies that the US led effort has come such a cropper that the only viable option now is to partition Afghanistan. Taliban should be left alone in the Pushtun dominated areas while the US and its partners limit their efforts to securing some sort of rump state in the rest of the geographic expression, those areas where Pushto is not the primary language.

The reason for this volte-face on the part of Mr Blackwell is one commented upon quite frequently by the Geek. He now rues the mission leap decreed by his bosses which shifted the goal from that of a limited punitive expedition directed at destroying al-Qaeda and the upper layers of Taliban to one of displacing Taliban with the mythical democratic etc. new regime. As a consequence of this change in mission, the Islamist insurgents were given time, a place, and motivation to recreate themselves and come back bigger and badder than ever.

Leaving aside such bagatelles as Mr Blackwell's role in the shift or the under-resourcing of the Afghan effort in favor of the main event over in Iraq, there are more important considerations which can be adduced to support the Blackwell Thesis that the US is losing (or already has lost) the war in Afghanistan. These more important considerations also serve to undercut fatally the unjustifiably optimistic view taken by Mr Zakaria.

Several often overlooked or quite underestimated factors combine to point in the direction of an American failure in our ongoing conflict with the advocates of political Islam both armed and unarmed. Oh, this gloomy prognostication should not be taken to mean that in the future We the People will be banging our heads on the floors of mosques five times a day or putting women in garbage sacks. But, it does mean the US will be limited, perhaps quite severely, in its ability to operate diplomatically in a wide area of the world.

And, it means that We the People will have to live with the limitations of fear and the mechanisms of security put in place to assuage our anxiety for many, many years to come, essentially in perpetuity. It means the "war on terror" will prove to be not the "long war" but the "forever war."

One of the key factors at work to our collective disadvantage was alluded to by Victor Davis Hanson albeit in an unnecessarily indirect way. The thrust of Dr Hanson's point as the Geek understands it is that the motivation, the evil, if you will, has been denatured from the attacks of 9/11, making the events as disconnected from human authorship and motives as would be the random strike of a meteor. The net effect of this deracination is to strip the progenitors of the attacks as well as their consequences from the human context.

That result is as wrong as grilled watermelon.

The subtext of the neutering of the attacks of 9/11 as well as the resultant US actions constitutes a set of phenomena permeating contemporary American values. Bluntly put, this set revolves around the major message of the American Left over the past forty years--the US is inherently evil, intrinsically mean spirited, reflexively imperialistic, arrogant, self-serving, self-seeking, and, all in all, a thoroughly unpleasant member of the global neighborhood. Beyond that, Americans, We the People, are afflicted with every "ism" listed in the catalogue of misery. We are a completely unpleasant bunch of chauvinists, sexists, xenophobes, religious bigots, and fanatical "clingers."

As a result, the American people are encouraged to back away from the challenges to us, our values, and way of life by our own self-appointed political, media, and academic elites. We are and have been told repeatedly that our values and way of life are not exceptional, that they are no better (but might be worse) than the values of other societies and cultures. There is no message from those who purport to mold and lead public opinion that we are unique, that we possess qualities and values which have provided institutions worthy of both envy and emulation.

As has been true throughout the West, the US has experienced not simply a crisis of confidence, a crisis of faith, but a meltdown of belief in ourselves and our worth which has extended for the best part of three generations. Absent the buoyant self-assurance of earlier generations, we have been unwilling or unable to both articulate what we stand for, why we stand for it, why it worth believing and standing for, and not simply defend against all comers but advance against all odds.

From the closing years of the Vietnam War forward the loss of faith in ourselves and the unique past which served to make us an equally unique people and nation in the present has become evermore pervasive and structured into the rituals of passage from the child to the adult. The early and complete capture of academia by the aging New Lefters nearly forty years ago has resulted in a transformation of the formal mechanisms of inculturalization (and most of the informal ones as well) from one which both reinforced and celebrated American exceptionalism to one which denied and deprecated it.

Our faiths both religious and civic have evaporated over the years. The education reinforced evaporative process has left us rather hollow, and certainly confused about the value of our values, the worth of our institutions, the deservingness of our nation, even the status of our country in the world. It is hard as hell to fight a war when you have little if any idea as to why you are fighting and what difference it might make if you win or lose.

This opens the door to the folks on the other side of the hill. The Muslims. Or, to err on the side of accuracy, the proponents of political Islam, particularly those who advocate the necessity or desirability of armed, violent political Islam.

Unlike the faiths, both religious and civic in the West, in the US, the faith of the Muslim is alive, vivid, vigorous, full-bloomed. In a very real and critical sense, Islam has recaptured the militancy of its youth during the past thirty to fifty years. While the faiths of the West have aged, aged quite ungracefully, the faith of Islam has regained its full vigor of centuries ago.

Islam, it must be understood, is not simply a religious confession. It is that. It is a faith. But it is much more. Islam is a way of life and of living. It is a complete, total system encompassing all aspects of the human condition. It is law. It is government. It is a system of economic philosophy. It is a community. It is a way of war. There is no part of life too small to elude its all inclusive embrace.

The basics of Islam, the Five Pillars, are both easy to understand and not overly onerous to execute. There is no complex liturgy, no complicated doctrine to parse and accept even if not understood. In effect, Islam provides emotional engagement, a strong sense of community, an equally strong and appealing sense of purpose, even destiny. It provides a commonsensical, real world based system for governing relations, solving disputes, maintaining harmony.

So far, so good. And, it gets better. Islam is multifaceted. Not only is there no central clerical establishment, there are actually two foundation forms of Islam.

No, not Shia and Sunni. Rather there is an "official" Islam, the Islam of the clerics, the scholars of jurisprudence, the Ulema. There is also an "unofficial" Islam, the Islam of people, particularly people organized in the semi-secret brotherhoods, the tarika.

For centuries the tarika have been the primary instrument of missionary activity, humanitarian efforts, community organization, and a multitude of other matters. These brotherhoods give Islam a flexibility, a vitality, a capacity to expand unequalled in other religions and unrivalled by government entities.

Today, the brotherhoods are alive and well as the shock troops of Islam both political and otherwise. The prototype Muslim Brotherhood has given rise to a near tsunami of derivatives, offshoots, descendants which cover the globe and do all manner of activities both laudable and (to us) potentially threatening. The capacities of the brotherhoods have been consistently underestimated by decision makers here and elsewhere to our profound disadvantage.

There is another area which has been underappreciated in the US. It is the one factor which ties together disparate elements in the recent history of Muslim majority countries so as to explain why there has been the sudden expansion of not only militant Islam but the advocates of political Islam, again, particularly those who espouse violent political Islam.

That factor is the educational systems of majority Muslim countries. The essential contextual matter is the expansion of the number of genuinely independent majority Muslim states at the end of World War II--four--to the nearly sixty of today. With independence came the new educational systems which universally emphasized a heady combination of nationalism and Islam.

Particularly since the late Fifties, the expansion of educational systems indoctrinating students in the glories of Islam and the evils of the West has been critical. By the time of the Iranian Islamic Revolution and the somewhat later perceived triumph of armed Muslim believers over the Red Army, the educational systems of many, even most, Muslim majority states were producing large numbers of graduates who may have been deficient in their proficiency in secular subjects but were most knowledgeable in Islamic belief, values, and history as well as in the purported lacks, weaknesses, and "sins" of the West.

Against the backdrop of this form of indoctrination oriented education, the youth of Muslim countries soaked up the perceived victories of their co-religionists in Iran (against the Great Satan, the US) and Afghanistan (against the atheistic Soviet Union) with the result they were good to go in jihad. All that was needed was a "brotherhood" ready, willing, and able to provide the leadership, training, and strategic goal.

This was the role of al-Qaeda, Taliban, and the numerous others in Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, across North Africa, in the Arabian Peninsula, and even in Europe. The troops were there, produced by the madrassas and state operated systems alike. The "brotherhoods" were there. The motive was there--cleansing the Arab Peninsula of the "infidel" Americans and the Arab Mideast of the "Zionist entity."

The decentralized nature of "official" Islam is both complemented and potentiated by the assorted brotherhoods. Simultaneously, the educational systems of Muslim majority states continue to churn out fully indoctrinated graduates who are eager to defend and advance the One True Faith, to die (and kill) for the faith.

In short, Muslim strengths mirror our weaknesses.

They are confident. We are not.

They are educated to believe in the high value of their faith, their beliefs. We are educated to doubt, to distrust, to eschew the beliefs and values upon which our society, our polity, our culture are predicated.

They have a broad set of flexible, informal, self-organizing brotherhoods. We rely upon remote, rigid, tinted with arrogance official bureaucracies.

They see the future as theirs, ordained by Allah. We see our best days as being well in our past.

When these more basic considerations are given their proper priority, the conclusions are simple and not particularly enjoyable. It really doesn't matter if we "triumph" in Afghanistan. Nor will merely surrendering a part of that place to the violent political Islamists of Taliban buy us any peace.

Nor does it really matter if every last member of al-Qaeda is killed. We will be no "safer."

Not unless and until we regain the confidence, the faith which we have so heedlessly and unnecessarily tossed away these past two generations, can we hope to wage effective war with the violent political Islamists. And, not unless and until we can see the decay of the current high level of Muslim certainty that the future belongs to the Slaves of Allah can we have any hope of being safe at home and potent abroad.

Looks like some very grim decades ahead.

ADMIN NOTE: The Geek invites, welcomes and will post all on topic comments but due to having been attacked by spam comments he has had to take precautions for which he apologizes.

Sunni And Shi'a--Edging Toward Alliance?

The news out of Iraq riding the blast waves of suicide bombers points once again to the ongoing sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shi'a. The conventional wisdom well reinforced by daily experience is the centuries of rivalry, fear, loathing and killing which have separated Sunnis and Shi'as is alive, well and precludes any unity between the two.

Even if a common goal exists between the Islamists of both, they will never act in common. Faced by a common threat, the two will not fuse, not fight as one but constantly fritter away strengths in internecine strife.

Until recently there has been little evident reason to question the conventional wisdom. There has been no visible evidence to suggest any potential of change in the long extant dynamic.

The first real hint of rapprochement has emerged from a seemingly unlikely source, the Muslim Brotherhood. Yousef Nada posted a lengthy and well considered article on the Muslim Brotherhood's official website.

Nada contends that there is no religious justification for Sunnis to view Shi'as as apostates. Rather Twlever Shi'a should be understood as a Fifth School of Islam, an equal with the Four Schools of Sunni. He argues that the split between Sunni and Shi'a is purely political and does not represent any binding understanding of the sacred writings of Islam.

This position was criticised almost immediately by a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Supreme Guide's staff, Mahmoud Ghazian. The response held that Nada's views were strictly personal and ran counter to the tenets of Sunni doctrine as well as the stance of the Muslim Brotherhood today as well as at its beginning.

Then came the surprise. The Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad Mahdi 'Akef, disagreed with Ghazian. The Supreme Guide concluded that Nada's position was essentially correct. That the division between Sunni and Shi'a was far more political than religious in nature.

What politics and political realities seemed to dictate ages ago, 'Akef seemed to be saying, now could be reversed in acknowledgement of shifts in the political landscape. 'Akef paid a large measure to the changes in political realities in recent decades as he assessed the impact of the Iranian Revolution on the fortunes not only of Iranian Muslims but on the Islamic community globally.

His assessment is highly favorable. Indeed, it would be quite hard for the most dedicated Iranian nationalist to find a single syllable in 'Akef's presentation which was less than laudatory for the Revolution or its leader.

Clearly there is a strong tendentious flavor to the entire three section exchange. One cannot help but suspect the entire point-counterpoint-concluding point trialogue was a set up, a pre-planned pseudo-debate with the end goal of laying the groundwork for a working relationship between the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood and the Shi'a mullahs of Iran and their clients Hezbollah and Hamas.

Perhaps the Geek should be forgiven for thinking that this Muslim Brotherhood gambit is redolent with the fragrance of the Popular Front days of Soviet diplomacy in Western Europe in the days prior to World War II. But, the idea of Iranian Shi'a mullahs climbing into bed with the Sunnis of the Muslim Brotherhood is far less disquieting in many ways than the long ago bedding of Soviet Communists with those most hated of political scum, the Socialists.

"Hold on there, Geek! Those Sunni bombers in Iraq don't seem to be in a hurry to kiss and make up with the Shi'a they are killing."

Right, bucko, so it seems. We are well advised not to play the religious motivation too heavily in the Iraqi context. In Iraq it is not religion-as-politics, but, rather, politics-as-religion. The Sunni powered, al-Qaeda denominated insurgency in Iraq is all about regaining the ascendancy lost in the wake of the American invasion. As you will recall, the long dominant Sunni minority held the Shi'a majority in political subordination and a fair degree of cultural reprobation.

The thwacking great boot of the US invasion kicked the nifty (from the Sunni perspective) status quo into small, bloody fragments. Scared, shaken and deeply angered by the sudden change in fortune, the Sunnis, who had long been more secular than observant, suddenly discovered the power of belief to motivate fighters and suicide bombers alike. Religion is a tool to be invoked, used and exploited, but the goal is rigorously political--the re-acquisition of lost power.

Similarly the Iranians have been invoking, using and exploiting the mystical faith of Shi'a and its history as a political tool. To the mullahs of Tehran it is neither a matter of politics-as-religion or religion-as-politics but rather, religion-is-politics. The very able and resolute men at the top of the Iranian religious and political structure are pursuing the goal of regional hegemony--at the very least.

The opponents of Iranian hegemony are by and large Sunni in their affiliation. The most wealthy and potentially influential of these opponents, Saudi Arabia, is not simply Sunni but of the austere, demanding Wahhibist interpretation of Sunni doctrine. The Saudi Wahhibists, not unlike the Sunni insurgents of Iraq, are playing the politics-as-religion gambit seeking to spread Saudi authority through the Mideast (and far beyond their main region of interest) by exporting Wahhibism with its intense rejection of Shi'a as apostasy.

The Muslim Brotherhood is seeking to outflank the Saudi ploy by employing a "Popular Front" strategy of seeking an apparent melding or at least an alliance between Sunni and Shi'a. The Brotherhood has a portfolio of goals starting with the re-establishment of Islam as the solid foundation of Mideast politics but extending far beyond that initial end.

The potential of even a relatively short-lived tactical alliance between Iran and the Brotherhood is (or should be) of major concern to the secularist regimes such as that of Egypt. For decades now the secular leaning rulers of Egypt, Syria, Iraq as well as the purportedly Islamic "conservative" sheikdoms of the Gulf have depended on a continuation of antipathy between Sunnis and Shi'as to continue their regimes. The Brotherhood's new gambit threatens the continuation of the so far successful approach of "divide and rule."

The imponderable in play, the perhaps "knowable unknown" is the degree to which the assorted highly inflated egos of the leadership of the Brotherhood, its "national" subordinates and the mullahs of Iran and Iraq can accommodate themselves to the requirements of a political relationship of mutual goals and shared perceptions of threat. In any uneasy alliance, the question of just who will be "first among equals" surpasses all others. Absent the sort of iron discipline that could be imposed by Joe Stalin seventy years ago, the clash of egos and parochial interests can destroy the possibilities raised by unity.

The Popular Front could and did survive the pre-war stresses of national politics and personal ego only to be shattered by the Nazi-Soviet pact in August 1939. After that fatal wound, it could never be effectively resurrected in the post-war years despite repeated Soviet efforts in that direction. The Popular Front was a weapon which could be used only once.

Whether the Muslim Brotherhood effort will prove successful to even the slightest extent is yet to be demonstrated. It is too early to predict success or failure. It is not too early to see the exchange on the Brotherhood's website as other than what it is--a wakeup call to policy makers in the West. It is a clear warning that the reign of conventional wisdom is over.