Tag: Egypt
Due for a rethink
As US policy towards the Middle East is floundering, the Center for American Progress (CAP) released a timely report Monday entitled “US Middle East Policy at a Time of Regional Fragmentation and Competition,” based on field research in four countries. At CAP to discuss the results of the report were Peter Mandaville of George Mason University, Haroon Ullah of the State Department, and Brian Katulis, CAP Senior Fellow and coauthor of the report.
Islamists are at the center of the regional struggle, but fissures within and between different groups are multilayered and run deep. The Sunni-Shia rivalry is only one element of the conflicts embroiling the Middle East. The intra-Sunni rivalry is another, if less prominent, aspect. The division between rich and poor countries is an additional ingredient, as wealthier states tend to fight out proxy battles in weaker and more divided nations.
In Egypt, for instance, Qatar and Turkey threw their support behind the Muslim Brotherhood, while Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are backing the new military regime. Saudi Arabia sees the Muslim Brotherhood as a potential competitor, rather than just another disjointed Salafist group. A key dynamic is between countries with more resources and less division at home, who fear the success of an alternate model of governance. This complicates US policy, as it is difficult to execute a cohesive strategy in the region while Qatar and Saudi Arabia are locked in a struggle over Egypt’s future.
Mandaville said that the US must look beyond the Sunni-Shia frame to recognize that we are witnessing a potential unraveling of the entire post-Ottoman order. The aftermath of 9/11, coupled with Arab uprisings of 2011, has seen a withering away of post-WWI arrangements. The upheaval is comparable to what we saw in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, when groups whose identities had been in check during the Cold War emerged and began questioning, and ultimately restructuring, the existing order.
One of the major weaknesses of US policy in the region is our tendency to oversimplify the debate. Whether or not American troops should have stayed in Iraq misses the larger picture. American diplomatic engagement needs to be better informed about the regional dynamics of movements in the Arab world. Even after many years, the Arab nationalist-Islamist divide is still not well understood. Americans are good at understanding groups who want to attack us, but we need to peer further into what drives these conflicts in the first place.
Katulis suggested that Obama has bungled his attempts to reengage with the Muslim world. By addressing them as a separate community, he signaled that they are a single constituency, one that should be handled with kid gloves, an approach comparable to George W. Bush’s. The implication is that all Muslims subscribe to a single, transnational identity, a message that is echoed by groups like al Qaeda.
Political Islam has always existed in the background. Partial openings in the political and media environment after the Arab uprisings have allowed some Islamist groups to come to the fore. Islamism, as a point on the political spectrum, has broadened significantly. Despite Egypt’s best efforts to silence Islamists, they are here to stay. Ullah noted that, while President Sisi wants to dismantle the Muslim Brotherhood’s comparative advantage in Egypt and revert to the weaker Sadat-era Brotherhood, this is not possible in modern media environment.
He also noted one positive development in America’s attitude towards political Islam, pointing to Assistant Secretary of State Patterson’s comments last week:
Some people in this region conflate Islamists with terrorists and desire to eliminate the Islamists entirely from the political scene. Our difficult fight against violent extremists is made more complicated by this viewpoint. The need for compromise is underscored by political experience in the Arab world as well as our own.
One of the myths the report attempts to debunk is the so-called moderation thesis. This is the false belief that Islamists will moderate their positions if they join the political fray. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood failed to accommodate more moderate positions. Islamist groups have fared better in other countries in the region, including Tunisia’s Ennahda party, partly because they had to contend with a large secular/liberal bloc. Nonetheless, many mainstream Islamists have internalized only the procedural spirit of democracy, without embracing pluralism.
Another myth is that socioeconomic conditions are the primary drivers of extremism. Research has found no causal link between poverty and extremism. The key constituency for Egypt’s Salafist al Nour Party, for instance, is that country’s urban-based middle class.
One persistent challenge to foreign policy is US counterterrorist doctrine, which relegates violence committed by Muslims to the “terrorist” category. This neglects the fact that in places like the Sahel, conflicts are based on ethnic, rather than religious, differences. In Obama’s speech at West Point, he called for additional funding of counterterrorism programs, but the real problem in many of these countries stems from long-running ethnic conflicts.
Mandaville noted that the US government still thinks about the world in terms of the blocs that arose during the Cold War. We would do well to shed these outdated notions of the Middle East, although it will be difficult in light of our current investments in the Gulf and rising sectarianism in the region. As Iraq and Syria descend into sectarian-fueled chaos, it is time for the US to reexamine its strategy in region.
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Survey says
Tuesday Jay Leveton presented the results of the 2014 ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller survey at the American Security Project. It focuses on Arab youth perspectives, concerns and aspirations throughout the region. The survey consisted of 3,500 face-to-face interviews conducted over the past year across sixteen countries in the Middle East. The sample was split equally between males and females ranging from 18 to 24 years old. Leveton highlighted the top ten findings:
- Arab youth are embracing modern values. 46% of Arab youth believe that traditional values are outdated and belong in the past. This number has risen from only 17% in 2011, demonstrating a shift away from traditional values. This change is also reflected in the decreasing influence of parents, family, and religion on Arab youth.
- They remain confident in their national government’s abilities. Arab youth show approximately 60% confidence in the government’s ability to address living standards, economic stability, war, unemployment and terrorism. There is great surprise in this confidence, specifically in countries that have suffered from economic hardship or political instability following the Arab Spring. Approval of the impact of the Arab Spring has declined from 72% in 2012 to 54% in 2014, most likely due to the continuous civil unrest and political instability in countries such as Egypt and Syria.
- They are increasingly concerned about the rising cost of living and unemployment. 63% of Arab youth are concerned about growing living expenses, while 42% expressed significant worry over unemployment. Approximately half are apprehensive about their own national economy. However, 55% of youth in countries outside of the GCC are concerned about unemployment, while only 39% within the GCC. This is due to the GCC’s proven ability to assist in job creation, while countries in North Africa and the Levant struggle with their youth unemployment rates.
- Arab youth believe that the biggest obstacle in the Middle East is civil unrest. 55% believe that the recent uprisings and instability are the greatest impediments to the advancement of the region. 38% believe that the lack of democracy is the greatest issue, while some believe it is the threat of terrorism.
- They are increasingly looking towards entrepreneurship as a source of opportunity. 67% feel that the younger generation is more likely to start a business than in previous generations. This entrepreneurial spirit hints at the perceived opportunities in starting one’s own business, specifically in response to some governments’ inability to provide jobs for their youth.
- The country that the younger Arab generation would most like to live in is the United Arab Emirates. 39% said that the UAE is the ideal country they would move to, while 21% said the United States, and 14% said Saudi Arabia. The UAE is the model country for Arab youth in terms of the right balance of governmental responsibility, national economy, foreign relations, etc. The United States has remained high in favor in Arab youth perspectives.
- Arab youth see their country’s biggest allies to be Saudi Arabia and the UAE. 36% believe that Saudi Arabia is their country’s biggest ally and 33% said the UAE. This was followed by Qatar, Kuwait, and lastly the United States, which marks a shift away from Western countries as the largest allies.
- They have a new concern for obesity and rising health issues. Over the past year, there has been a sharp increase in the percentage of youth concerned about obesity from 12% in 2013 to 26% in 2014. An increasing number of the younger generation is worried about diabetes, cancer and heart disease. Among all countries, 52% of youth feel as though the healthcare in their country has remained the same over the past year, while 34% believe that it has improved.
- They believe that the government should subsidize energy costs and aren’t too concerned about climate change. 74% believe that energy, electricity, and transport fuel should be subsidized by the government. This comes from the rising concern about the cost of living in each respective country. While this is the greatest worry among youth, concern for climate change and the environment is a very low priority at only 6%.
- There has been a great increase in daily news consumption, specifically through online media and social networking sites. Television has been the most popular source of news for the sixth year in a row with 75% of Arab youth using it as their most frequent news source. However, a declining number of youth see the television as the most trusted source of news– 39% now view social media as the most reliable source, rising from 22% in 2013.
While the 2014 survey ranges across sixteen countries that vary in political, economic, and social characteristics, there is nonetheless a great sense of continuity in the hopes, concerns, and priorities of Arab youth in the region.
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Responses to Al Qaeda 3.0
The American Security Project Tuesday discussed “Al Qaeda 3.0: Three Responses to the Changing Nature of Al Qaeda” on the current terrorist threats in the Middle East and North Africa and how several countries have responded to these concerns. Speakers Said Temsamani, Zack Gold and Timothy Fairbank detailed the principal terrorist threats in Morocco, Egypt, and Yemen, and whether each country’s approach has been successful in combatting these threats in recent years.
The previous Senior Political Advisor of the US Embassy in Rabat, Said Temsamani, said the primary terrorist threat in Morocco is the rising number of Moroccans participating in the Syrian civil war. Approximately 3,000 have voluntarily left to fight in Syria over the past several years, largely due to the ideological appeal of participating in the war. It has become logistically easy and inexpensive for these young Moroccan men to get to Syria—a visa is not required and they receive immediate combat training upon arrival.
While many combatants have been drawn to organizations such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham (ISIS), it is now an increasing concern to the government that young Moroccans have established their own group, known as Harakat Sham, to engage in this ideological–and some would even say jihadist–war.
The foremost issue lies in the reentry of these fighters who are now choosing to return to Morocco after participating in the Syrian civil war. In response to this influx of combatants, Morocco has focused on an approach centered on “spiritual diplomacy,” specifically providing training to both men and women to become scholars and imams. This counter Salafist-jihadist strategy centers on a revival of Moroccan Islam and has largely been successful—so much so that other countries throughout the region, such as Libya and Tunisia, have begun to request this teaching for their own religious leaders and scholars.
Zack Gold, researcher and writer on US-Middle East policy, analyzed the major terrorist threats in Egypt after the revolution in January 2011. Terrorist activity over the past several years has risen both in the Sinai and along the Libyan border due to the disappearance of security forces from these areas. As a result of past crackdowns and repression in the Sinai, the tribal Bedouin population responded to this void in authority by destroying police stations and producing weapons intended for Gaza. The Egyptian government has responded to these threats with brute force and repression. While somewhat effective in deterring the Sinai threats, it is merely a short-term measure.
Timothy Fairbank examined the current terrorist activity in Yemen and the challenges the government faces. He highlighted the weaknesses of the Yemeni cabinet in combatting the significant threats of Al Qaeda of the Arab Peninsula (AQAP), specifically due to the lack of elected officials with a true mandate. AQAP has become the number one terrorist challenge in the country over the past several years. It has continued to gain supporters both from Yemen as well as Saudi Arabia.
While AQAP is always in a state of flux, Fairbank emphasized that the increase in counterterrorism and drone strikes has in fact coincided with an increase in the size and presence of AQAP in Yemen. A state is weakened when the people do not support local government leaders and suffer from violence and poverty. In the case of Yemen, he concluded, “the weaker the state, the greater the chance for AQAP to infiltrate.”
Morocco is doing better than Egypt and Yemen, where revolution and war have sapped the strength of the state.
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Parody as tragedy
Usually I wait until after an election to comment, as the shelf life of pre-election posts is so limited. But I breached that practice for Egypt, since the outcome was not in doubt. I’ll breach it also for Syria, as the result is again apparent. The only thing uncertain about tomorrow’s election is what numbers Damascus will claim for turnout and for the votes of the two unknowns supposedly running against Bashar al Asad. High turnout and some substantial number of votes for his opponents would help the regime claim that the election provides a measure of legitimacy, which is the purpose of the exercise.
More than three years of attacks on the civilian population, the displacement of perhaps one-third of the population and the flight of more than three million people to other countries tell a different story. Syria is today a disaster, one that will almost surely have broader impacts in the years to come. Thousands (maybe 10,000?) foreign jihadis are fighting each other, the more moderate factions of the opposition and sometimes the regime. Still more radicalized Syrians are involved. If you want to re-establish an Islamic caliphate, Syria and Iraq are attactive places in which to do it, since the Umayyad caliphs originally made their capital in Damascus and the Abbasids in Baghdad.
The West is denouncing Syria’s election as a parody of democracy. But it is not a funny parody. It is a tragic one with wide implications. Those foreign jihadis will no doubt return home some day, not only to America but also to Europe and Russia. The massive refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey cannot be emptied so long as Asad holds power in Syria. Lebanon, which has not wanted camps, is now burdened with more than a million Syrians, causing serious strain on its education and health systems. Overflow of the Syrian war into Iraq has contributed to sectarian strife in a country already suffering severe centrifugal strain.
President Obama at West Point last week indicated he would be increasing the supply of arms to more moderate rebels in Syria. That may be necessary to rebalance the military situation and create conditions for a negotiated settlement. But much more is needed. Moderates won’t win out in Syria unless they can respond to the dramatic needs of the population and govern effectively on liberated territory. The worst outcome in Syria would be a failed state. The situation is already perilously close to that–the regime is losing its capacity to govern in the territory it controls and extremists are gaining the upper hand in the territory it has lost.
Preventing a failed state will require a much more substantial state-building effort than we have engaged in so far. All American presidents want to avoid such enterprises. They are difficult, expensive and unfulfilling. But a Syrian state is necessary if we are to avoid a major rearrangement of borders in the Middle East. Once that starts, it will spread to Lebanon and Iraq for sure, and possibly Jordan and Turkey. You don’t have to like the Sykes-Picot borders to realize that rearranging them will be violent, killing even more than the 150,000 Syrians who are already dead and creating resentments that could embroil the region in war for a decade or more to come.
So when we hear tomorrow that Bashar al Asad has been re-elected with perhaps 70-80% of the vote, we need to remind ourselves that this parody is occurring under tragic conditions and will be prelude to more mayhem unless something more effective is done to create the conditions for a negotiated solution. There are many in the opposition ready to talk. They were well-represented at the
Geneva 2 conference by the Syrian Opposition Coalition. The regime needs to be convinced that it cannot continue to gain militarily and needs instead to come to the negotiating table.
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Reform first
Steven Cook, who knows lots about Egypt, offers an insightful analysis of its impending financial and economic problems. In a word, Egypt could go broke and the state could disintegrate:
Egypt’s economy remains shaky and the threat of a solvency crisis lingers. Indeed, the continuation of violence, political protests, and general political uncertainty—even after planned presidential and parliamentary elections—along with a hodgepodge of incoherent economic policies, all portend continuing economic decline. This in turn could create a debilitating feedback loop of more political instability, violence, and economic deterioration, thus increasing the chances of an economic calamity and yet again more political turmoil, including mass demonstrations, harsher crackdowns, leadership struggles, and possibly the disintegration of state power.
Only Gulf generosity has kept Egypt’s foreign currency reserves above the minimum required, tourism is in a tailspin, debt is close to 100% of GDP and subsidies (especially for fuel) burden the state’s budget. There are many ways in which Egypt could be sent into default. I recommend you read Steven’s trenchant account.
But much as I am taken with his account of the problems, I find it difficult to see merit in the options he discusses: US loan guarantees, US debt relief, foreign assistance to pay down domestic debt and Gulf fuel transfers. He also proposes, in the event of default, that the US support the military, provide financial assistance and restore food aid. None of this is contingent on Egyptian economic reforms.
Here is where I depart from Steven:
It is up to the Egyptians to undertake reforms to forestall this outcome. Given the fact that the Egyptians have done little in this regard, a solvency crisis is entirely plausible. Consequently, the United States has a strategic responsibility to do what it can in Egypt to prevent the causes of insolvency…
This is a slippery slope: he is proposing that the US try to prevent insolvency, even though the Egyptians have been unwilling to undertake reforms. Doing so will relieve some of the pressure on Cairo to undertake reforms, make insolvency more likely and increase pressure on the US to prevent it. Moral hazard lights are flashing.
No. That is not the path we should go down. We should encourage Egypt to put forward a plan for reform first, then provide assistance. The way to do this without putting the US on the front line is to encourage Cairo to go first to the International Monetary Fund for money. This is politically difficult in Egypt, as everyone knows the IMF will condition its assistance on reforms. But it is a lot better for the US than asking American taxpayers to pay for Egyptian fuel subsidies. And Field Marshall, soon to be President, Sisi should be expected to do unpopular things as early as possible in his mandate. He surely won’t do them as the time approaches for another election.
Steven envisages the IMF eventually playing what he calls
an important role in assisting the next government to redraw Egypt’s social contract in a way that is both politically acceptable at home and can command the strong support of the rest of the world….foreign donors will need to accept a slower reduction in subsidies than under a conventional IMF program in order to increase the likelihood that Egyptians can make headway on reforms in a coordinated and more coherent manner.
I’ve got no problem with this: a slower than usual reduction in subsidies may be necessary, though it seems to me the IMF has in fact accepted some pretty slow reductions from other countries as well. What I object to is providing unconditional US assistance and then expecting the IMF to succeed in negotiating conditions. The IMF should go first. The US can then be generous, promising its taxpayers that the money it provides will in fact finance a transition away from subsidies.
The US has gotten very little for the billions it has provided Egypt in the past. Cairo is headed back to military autocracy and its economy to insolvency. Nor has Egypt gotten rich off the aid. A lot of it was wasted on military hardware Egypt didn’t need but American companies were glad to sell. The best that can be said is that the money encouraged Egypt to maintain its peace treaty with Israel, though Cairo had ample other reasons to avoid yet another, likely unsuccessful, war once it regained sovereignty over Sinai.
We need to avoid being trapped into another several decades of fruitless expenditure on aid to Egypt. Reform first is the way to go.
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What’s wrong with this picture?
After extending voting for a third day, the Egyptian authorities are claiming turnout of 46% of the 54 million eligible voters in the presidential election, with over 90% voting for Field Marshall Sisi. This would give him close to twice as many votes as Mohammed Morsi in 2012.
There are a lot of things wrong with this picture. No one seems to believe the the turnout figure was even close to what the High Election Commission is claiming. The third day of voting was testimony to popular disinterest in half the population. The other half is genuinely enthusiastic, so 90% or more of whatever percentage voted is believable. The trouble is it betrays the intimidatory atmosphere in which this shame election took place. Media and government institutions lined up to salute the new autocrat, who has shown no inclination whatsoever to reach out to his antagonists or to include anyone but yes men and women in the new government he will appoint. There is no parliament to approve or disapprove. Sisi will presumably proceed with parliamentary elections, which won’t likely be any freer, fairer or more participatory than the presidential poll.
Nathan Brown concluded earlier this month:
if the country is transitioning to anything, it is not to a democracy in anything other than the most technical sense of the term.
What should the US do, or not do, about all this? Frank Wisner, the extraordinarily capable former ambassador in Cairo, argues that we have no choice: our security interests dictate that we unfreeze assistance and support Sisi, lest Egypt turn away from the strategic relationship with the US. Frank suggests the autocracy won’t be as bad as last time around and the Egyptians will find a way to some decent modus vivendi.
I don’t agree. Sisi has already made a mockery of democratic process. This is restoration of military autocracy by electoral means. No one should have any doubts about that. Things are unlikely to move in the right direction of their own accord, but I’m not sure there is much we can do to turn things around. Senator Leahy is insisting that some assistance remain suspended. But Egypt is getting so much assistance from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which loathe the Muslim Brotherhood and have no problem with autocracy, that our contribution is a drop in the bucket. They have also pledged to replace any cuts we make.
So what should we do? First, we should not delude ourselves. The July coup was a coup, and this election was a sham. If US security interests require continued assistance, the Administration should convince the Congress and obtain relief from existing legislation. Meanwhile, our diplomats (there is still no ambassador in Cairo, as Senate Republicans are holding up nominations) should be explaining clearly and in detail why we can’t welcome an election that met neither international standards nor the aspirations of something like half the Egyptian population, if not more.
Egypt has its own reasons to fight terrorists and maintain the peace treaty with Israel. Cairo doesn’t need American pressure for our top immediate priorities to be fulfilled. Washington should keep its eye on the longer-term objective of seeing Egypt escape the autocracy trap it has fallen into. If Sisi is half as smart as his supporters like to think, he’ll recognize quickly that the country’s economic, water and political problems require a more open and transparent approach to governance than what it had under Mubarak and Morsi. If he fails to recognize that, he’ll follow them to the trash heap of Egyptian autocrats.
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