Egypt, the US and Israel

These are the (slightly amended) talking points I used today in a presentation about Egypt to a pro-Israel American group:

1. I’ll start with the bottom line: I am not optimistic about Egypt’s revolution finding its way to stability or democracy, objectives I would certainly like it to reach.

2. Egypt is a big, complicated, diverse and poor country that simply has not found a consensus on the rules of the road.

3. My colleague Marc Lynch calls this Calvinball, which is a game never played the same way twice in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. The rules are constantly changing.

4. I think of it a bit like Cairo traffic: everyone aggressively doing his own thing, to the detriment of the collective outcome.

5. The big divide is now between the coup—led by the army, the justice system and secularists with support from Saudi Arabia and the UAE—and the Qatari supported Muslim Brotherhood, with the Nour party Salafists somewhere in the middle.

6. If this divide is not bridged, I still anticipate the new revolution will proceed with revising the constitution and holding elections, at a pace forced in part by international pressure.

7. But that won’t fix much unless the Brotherhood rejoins the political game and agrees to play by democratic rules, which it has refused to do so far. Legitimacy depends on participation.

8. If the Brotherhood does rejoin, it may well capture a big part of electorate, which in six months or a year won’t be any happier with the economy and social conditions than it was when Morsi was in power.

9. So Egypt is damned if Brotherhood participates, and it is damned if the Brotherhood doesn’t participate.

10. I’d much prefer to see the Brotherhood inside the tent peeing out rather than outside the tent peeing in, but I can’t pretend to predict which way it will go, as most predictions prove incorrect.

11. What does this all mean for the United States and Israel?

12. Egypt is important to the United States, because it is the center of gravity of the Arab world.

13. If the revolution moves definitively in a democratic direction, that will show the way for Libya, Tunisia, Yemen and eventually Syria.

14. If it fails to move in a democratic direction, the cause in those countries will not be lost, but the odds of success will decline.

15. For Israel, the question is less about democracy and more about security. Morsi was not threatening the treaty, but his slipshod regime was nevertheless bad for security, especially in the Sinai.

16. We’ll have to see whether the present regime will do any better. The Egyptian military seems already to be destroying the tunnels into Gaza, something the judiciary ordered some time ago.

17. I assume this is welcome in Israel. The emergence in Egypt of anti-Palestinian sentiment is likely welcome there as well, though I hasten to add that anti-Israeli sentiment is also strong.

18. In any event, I see nothing to be gained at the moment by ending or suspending US aid to Egypt, which if the pledges are fulfilled will have ample cash from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

19. Influence flows in the same direction as money. You may have a one-time impact from shutting off the money flow, but then influence will rapidly decline.  Relationships will be seriously damaged.

20. Better in my view to use the leverage the assistance provides to push for what the United States wants: an inclusive democratic outcome.  Assistance should be conditional.

21. Will inclusive democracy in Egypt be good for Israel?  That depends on which Israel you support.

22. It is clear that any truly democratic regime in Egypt, and in other Arab countries, will be more sympathetic to the Palestinians than the autocracies, which talked a good line but did little.

23. At the same time, the Arab street seems for the moment more interested in personal safety, jobs and bread than the plight of the Palestinians, so resources will flow to those higher priorities.

24. That said, the Egyptian revolution is taking a much more nationalist turn. I imagine this nationalism will include more belligerence against Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

25. I do not anticipate it will include renunciation of the Egypt/Israel peace treaty, mainly because the Egyptian military does not want the burden of the resulting security requirements.

26. For Israel the greater threat comes from instability in Egypt. If the Egyptian state continues to weaken, it may have real difficulty controlling extremists in Sinai and elsewhere.

27. Cairo’s political influence in Gaza is also likely to decline, since Hamas is a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate.

28. Which brings me back to where I started: a stable and democratic outcome is unlikely. Both Israelis and Americans are going to need to learn to manage a much more fluid and uncertain situation than in the past.