Tag: Egypt
Washington’s fault
Even for someone who served abroad as an American diplomat, the Egyptian penchant for conspiracy theories about Washington’s supposed role is astonishing. So too is the crudeness of Egyptian anti-Americanism. While I was treated to a good deal of poor taste and baseless speculation about American machinations while serving as an American diplomat in Italy and Brazil, the admixture of hope for good relations with the United States was significantly greater there. Egyptians seem genuinely to dislike the US and attribute many of their ills to it.
It is difficult to understand how people as clever as the Egyptians have failed to break the code of American behavior: Washington understands that it has relatively little influence over what happens in Egypt and is prepared to accept whoever comes to power with a modicum of legitimacy and promises to steer the country towards something like a democratic outcome with as little violence as possible. That’s what happened when Mubarak fell, it is what happened when Morsi took over, and it is what happened when the demonstrations and General Sissi pushed him out.
Washington is following the Egyptian lead. If American behavior seems erratic and incomprehensible to Egyptians, that is largely because the revolutionary course the Egyptians have chosen is so unpredictable. The result is that all sides in Egypt are convinced the Americans are arrayed against them. Neither secularists nor Islamists in Egypt seem inclined to look in the mirror to see the origins of what ails their country. Both prefer to blame it all on Washington, which has been less than adroit in countering the vituperation.
This is not to say there is no basis whatsoever in the conspiracy theories. Ambassador Patterson likely did try to get General Sissi to negotiate some sort of deal with the Muslim Brotherhood. Deputy Secretary of State Burns did not spend several days in Cairo recently lounging around the embassy–he surely pushed for Sissi to clarify the future roadmap for preparing a constitution and holding new elections. The Americans will be concerned to see things in Egypt move towards relatively democratic stability, with the state’s monopoly on the legitimate means of violence restored (especially in Sinai). They may make mistakes of judgment about how that would best be accomplished, but to imagine that they want Morsi back in power, or Sissi to continue in power without elections, is just plain wrong.
I don’t begrudge Egypt its enthusiasm for its latest military rock star. General Sissi has clearly tapped some deep vein of political gold in the Egyptian body politic. But we should all recognize this cult of personality for what it is: a budding autocrat whose similarity to Gamal Abdel Nasser should raise eyebrows not only in Washington. My dean Vali Nasr predicts that the Americans will soon be back to a policy of supporting Middle Eastern autocrats against more and less radical Islamists.
I hope not. The Arab uprisings are a tremendous opportunity to encourage greater freedom in a part of the world that has seen little of it. Things are now going sour in Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, and Egypt, not to mention poor Syria. Each circumstance is distinct, but in all of them the genie will be difficult to put back in the bottle. What is needed from the United States is consistent backing for democratic processes, which require relatively stable and orderly environments. The only thing we should want to be blamed for is support to those who seek human dignity and open societies.
Whining narcissist
The interview excerpts published in this morning’s Washington Post dash any hope that Egypt might get lucky and find a serious democrat in General Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, the July 3 coup leader and still Defense Minister. Normally I would gripe that the Post failed to publish the entire text, but it would be hard to read much more.
It’s not that Sissi doesn’t say interesting things. His annoyance at President Morsi’s disrespect for the Mubarak-appointed judiciary and other state institutions (read Egyptian army) and his disdain for the Brotherhood’s anti-nationalist, pan-Islamist political program confirm that the coup represents in part the revenge of the Mubarak deep state, which Morsi did relatively little to dismantle during his year in power.
But the whining screeches through:
I wouldn’t want to start from here
Senators McCain and Graham are packing their bags for Cairo, reportedly having been asked to go by President Obama. EU High Representative Catherine Ashton has visited already, including a meeting at an undisclosed location with former President Morsi. The question is this: what should all these luminaries be telling the military-backed government and its Muslim Brotherhood opponents?
Abdul Rahman al Rashed, editor-in-chief of Asharq Al- Awsat, suggests:
Everything can be negotiated, except Mursi’s return to the presidency—a demand that the Brotherhood knows will be impossible to fulfil. Thus, the solution can be as follows: a consensual cabinet, a short-term interim government and internationally supervised elections in which the Brotherhood participates. Then, everyone can return home claiming that they have got what they wanted.
My guess is that the senators will be taking a line close to this, insisting on a timetable for elections and as broad a government as possible to prepare for it. In his less than articulate way, Lindsay Graham has suggested as much: Read more
Peace picks July 29 – August 2
1. Squaring the circle: General Raymond T. Odierno on American military strategy in a time of declining resources, American Enterprise Institute, Monday, July 29, 2013 / 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM
Venue: American Enterprise Institute
1150 17th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20036
Speakers: Mackenzie Eaglen, General Raymond T. Odierno
With sequestration a reality and little hope for a bargain on the horizon, the US military is facing a steeper-than-planned defense drawdown that few wanted but fewer still seem to be willing or able to stop. What are the implications for the men and women of the US Army if the sequester stays on the books for the foreseeable future?
AEI’s Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies will host General Raymond Odierno, Chief of Staff of the US Army, for the second installment of a series of four events with each member of the Joint Chiefs.
Register for the event here:
Real reform requires organized action
Marwan Muasher, former Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Jordan, is now a vice president at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A leading figure calling for reform in Jordan, he was interviewed by Ala’ Alrababa’h of peacefare.net:
Click here to view this interview in Arabic.
Q. How do you expect events in Egypt to impact the Muslim Brotherhood and the reform process in Jordan? Would they weaken the Muslim Brotherhood? And would they be used as an excuse to hinder the reform process?
A. I think the Arab World should establish the rules of democracy in a way that allows everyone to work. I don’t believe in excluding anyone from the political sphere, whether it is the Muslim Brotherhood or otherwise. I also believe that excluding the Muslim Brotherhood by force, or not involving them in governance by force, has helped to strengthen rather than weaken them. If we look at the Egyptian or Tunisian experience, we see that the Brotherhood did not become weak among the population using force. [They were only weakened] when they took power and had to apply the slogans they called for, whether economic or political [slogans].
In the short term, I am not optimistic about Egypt, because the other side, the civilian forces, treat the Brotherhood with the same exclusion it accused the Brotherhood of. They [civilian forces] accuse the Brotherhood of wanting to exclude others, while they do the same thing. And I believe that the best would be to agree on the rules of the game from the outset, such that everyone receives guarantees that all political and social forces in the society would not be marginalized or excluded, and that they can participate in ruling before writing a new constitution that gets the approval of all sectors of society.
As for us in Jordan, it is possible to read what happened in Egypt in two ways. The first way, which is happening now, and I think it is wrong, is to see that the Muslim Brotherhood was excluded in Egypt, and thus we can do the same in Jordan. And as I said, I don’t think that exclusion happens by force, and if it happens by force, it would help to strengthen, rather than weaken, the Muslim Brotherhood. Or it could be read in another way, which is what I hope the Jordanian society would reach, with the help of the wise people in the society, that this is time to agree on the rules of a game, which allows everyone to participate in the political process, and that prevents anyone from monopolizing this process in the future. Would this happen soon? The signs so far are not encouraging.
Peace Picks July 22-26
1. Rouhani: Challenges at Home, Challenges Abroad, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Monday, July 22 / 9:00am – 11:30am
Venue: Woodrow Wilson Center
1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20004
Speakers: Bijan Khajehpour, Shervin Malekzadeh, Suzanne Maloney, Roberto Toscano, Ali Vaez, Shaul Bakhash
Six Iran experts discuss President-elect Rouhani’s domestic and foreign policy challenges.
Register for the event here:
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/rouhani-challenges-home-challenges-abroad