Day: February 3, 2011
Simmer until ready
While it is hard to take eyes off Egypt, the rest of the Arab world is simmering. We should make sure nothing boils over while we aren’t watching:
- Syria: “days of rage” demonstrations called for Friday and Saturday. One wag has proposed calling them “days of mild frustration” and President Bashar al Asad has claimed he is in favor of “opening.” My month studying Arabic in Damascus two years ago suggested to me that the population, while more than mildly frustrated, lacks the stomach for anything like what is going on in Cairo. Bashar knows that. Feb 5 update: the days of rage failed.
- Jordan: Ditto Amman, where weekly protests haven’t grown very large and the government is busy increasing food and fuel subsidies and civil service salaries, despite budget problems. The King sacked the Prime Minister this week, but that won’t change much.
- Algeria: President Bouteflika has promised to lift the state of emergency “soon.” Next, planned and banned rally scheduled for February 12, focused on economic and social issues, not politics. Anyway that’s a political year away at this point.
- Libya: Quiet. Qadhafi looked frightened when Tunisia happened, but I guess oil income that makes GDP well over $12,300 per capita provides a lot of simmering time.
- Sudan: scattered, small protests, but the big news in Khartoum is the loss of the relatively Western-oriented, sometimes English-speaking and Christian South. That will shift the center of gravity in Khartoum sharply in the Islamist direction.
- Yemen: demonstrations and a president who promises not to run again in 2013, but this is at least the third time Saleh has made that promise. Revolution is tough to organize when a good part of the population chews qat, but keep an eye on the southern rebellion (the northern one has gone quiescent).
So to my eye nothing else seems ready to boil over yet, but the outcome in Cairo could well heat things up, especially in Syria. Bashar al Assad gives a great interview to the Wall Street Journal, but I doubt he is quite as in tune with his people as he claims.
PS: I really should not have skipped Saudi Arabia, which was treated in a fine NPR piece by Michelle Norris yesterday. No demos, but a lot of people watching and wondering, sometimes out loud.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Mubarak’s order
Tuesday was the peoples’ day, yesterday was the regime’s day. What will today and Friday be?
Let there be no doubt. Wednesday afternoon’s rioting against the demonstrators was organized and paid for by the Mubarak regime, which at the very least could have stopped it. I imagine Mubarak hesitated to use his uniformed police for the crackdown, presumably fearing Washington’s wrath, so he had it done in civilian clothes, but many of the rioters carried Interior Ministry identification. They targeted especially the news media, in an apparent attempt to intimidate them from covering the malfeasance. If these are the forces of law and order, why not try chaos?
The demonstrators have done well to hold Tahrir Square, but physical contests with their antagonists are not a good idea. Sometime in the middle of the night the number of demonstrators declines, making another Interior Ministry attack all the more likely. Last night it was sporadic gunfire aimed mainly at legs and feet. Officially five killed. Tonight it may get worse. Mubarak will try to intimidate as many as possible from joining the demonstrations Friday. There is no substitute for a massive presence in Tahrir.
Washington naturally turns to the question, “what should Barack Obama do?” White House spokesman Gibbs was seen today in the twittersphere as less than forceful in condemning the regime violence, but at the same time he was pretty good in insisting that change had to start right away. My sense is that the White House needs to play hard ball with Mubarak in private, but not get too far out in front in public. This shouldn’t be about the United States. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry, in a statement that will be the shame of every professional Egyptian diplomat I know, was only too happy yesterday to reject foreign calls to incitement.
I’m not keen on recalling ambassadors, especially the American one, because it hurts communication with both protesters and the army, not to mention with the regime. Nor do I like blanket aid cuts, though if we can find juicy items the regime is particularly interested in I would be happy to see them cut. I trust Admiral Mullen is making it clear to the Egyptian army that we won’t be able to be as helpful as in the past unless the rioting against the demonstrators stops. This revolution still has to be made, or unmade, in Egypt, not inside the beltway.
It will however have effects within the beltway, and throughout America. The implications are admirably outlined in a piece by Steve Clemons. The big worry is the impact on Egypt’s peace with Israel. While I would not be surprised if Egypt adopted a more pro-Palestinian voice, it seems highly unlikely that a democratic government in Cairo would prefer to pick a serious fight with Israel rather than tend to its own citizens’ needs. But that is precisely what Tehran did after its nondemocratic revolution, so who can predict?
The Egyptians seem remarkably willing to keep up their efforts. If they can hold Tahrir square today, we’ll know Friday whether they can defeat autocratic thuggery with democratic commitment.
RSS - Posts
