Hold up the tank sale until after Egyptian elections
This is just not very smart politics or foreign policy:
While everyone in Washington was concentrating on the debt crisis this week, the Obama administration attempted to slip through a questionable arms deal that requires serious scrutiny. Though it got little attention, the Defense Department officially notified Congress on Friday that it was authorizing the sale of 125 M1A1 tanks to Egypt as well as other weapons, equipment, parts, training and logistical support. While most of the military sales to Egypt have sailed through without objection in the more than 30 years since it signed a peace deal with Israel, this is the first such sale since the fall of the Mubarak regime earlier this year. Which is exactly why the sale ought to be held up until the unsettled situation in the most populous country in the Arab world is better understood.
Why?
In the wake of Mubarak’s fall from power, the Egyptian military seems to have retained a firm grip on power. But the army seems intent on sharing power with a resurgent Muslim Brotherhood movement that threatens the foundation of the relationship between the United States and Egypt. Since the 1979 Camp David Accords, the Egyptian military has gotten all the high-tech and expensive equipment it wanted so long as it was clear their new toys would not be used to threaten or attack Israel. But as Egypt lurches toward the election of a new government that will probably be made up of Islamist elements, that peace is in jeopardy.
Emphasis mine. We have no assurance or reason to believe that won’t happen given the direction of the country and the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood, an avowed enemy of Israel whose representatives have repeatedly said the treaty Egypt has with that country must be voided.
So here we are going along as though nothing has happened and preparing to sell 125 of the world’s most advanced battle tank to a country which could conceivably turn around and use them against Israel. Since, as I noted in another post, we seem to have little if any leverage there and it appears the Muslim Brotherhood has little desire to talk with us, I would think we’d be leery of such a deal and perhaps use it as a method of gaining some leverage. No?
Yes, I know we might see another country try to fill the gap by offering their tanks and equipment, but such a switch (Egypt is presently equipped with US military equipment) isn’t as easy as it sounds and it would be quite expensive. It may be worth it to a Russia or a China (given the Suez Canal, etc.) to do that.
But at the moment this sale makes no sense – at least until the political situation is much more settled than it is at the moment. 125 tanks may not be enough to get the Brotherhood to change it’s mind, but it does represent more leverage than we currently have with their military – the institution that may be able to moderate the Brotherhood’s stance on Israel. Why give away that sort of leverage for nothing?
~McQ
Twitter: @McQandO
About the "Twitter" revolution in Egypt
Things have certainly gotten better there – especially for US interests in the area – haven’t they?
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently announced the U.S. administration’s intention to officially renew dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. She said the move came as part of the administration’s readiness to talk with any peaceful group wishing to participate in the Egyptian elections, and that this dialogue would be a continuation of limited and intermittent contact that had existed between the U.S. and the Muslim Brotherhood over the past six years.
Responding to Clinton’s statements in an article published on the official website of the Muslim Brotherhood, its secretary general in Cairo, Dr. Muhammad Al-Biltagi, wrote that the movement had no personal interest in engaging in dialogue with the U.S., except as part of dialogue between the U.S. and Egypt as a whole. He added that the U.S.’s supportive stance toward Israel, its aggressive policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its support of Mubarak’s anti-Muslim Brotherhood policies could not be ignored.
Or, “once we take over we have no intention of having the close relationship with the US that it had under Mubarak. Oh, and as long as you support Israel and are in other Muslim countries, we’re not particularly interested in “dialogue” either.”
Sounds pretty much what we all warned those enthralled with the “Twitter” revolution, as well as the “benign” Brotherhood about.
Tiger. Stripes.
~McQ
Twitter: @McQandO
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt: “oops, we lied”
I’m sure you remember all the rhetoric about how benign the Muslim Brotherhood was and how it really didn’t have designs on the government of Egypt, right? In fact, we were reassured (well, some of us weren’t) they only wanted a little representation in government and had absolutely no interest in or designs on the presidency. Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a prominent Muslim Brotherhood leader, makes the point back in early February:
We are mindful, however, as a nonviolent Islamic movement subjected to six decades of repression, that patent falsehoods, fear mongering and propaganda have been concocted against us in Mubarak’s palaces the past 30 years and by some of his patrons in Washington. Lest partisan interests in the United States succeed in aborting Egypt’s popular revolution, we are compelled to unequivocally deny any attempt to usurp the will of the people. Nor do we plan to surreptitiously dominate a post-Mubarak government. The brotherhood has already decided not to field a candidate for president in any forthcoming elections. We want to set the record straight so that any Middle East policy decisions made in Washington are based on facts and not the shameful – and racist — agendas of Islamophobes.
Well, apparently that was “then” (when it was important to keep the wool pulled over the West’s eyes, and particularly the eyes of Washington) and this is “now”:
Notwithstanding the official Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s promise not to seek the presidency or any other positions of power, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, 60, member of the MB’s Shura Council and head of the Egyptian Doctors’ Union, has announced he would run for president in Egypt’s coming election.
Who is that again? Oh, yeah, the same MB member that assured us in February that, “The brotherhood has already decided not to field a candidate for president in any forthcoming elections” , the very same Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh. An “independent”?
Good grief, there’s not even any plausible deniability here.
And that then puts this, something else Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh said, in the “laugh out-loud” column for believability:
Our track record of responsibility and moderation is a hallmark of our political credentials, and we will build on it. For instance, it is our position that any future government we may be a part of will respect all treaty obligations made in accordance with the interests of the Egyptian people.
A political leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Thursday [Feb 3] called on any government that replaces Hosni Mubarak’s regime to withdraw from the 32-year-old peace treaty with Israel.
"After President Mubarak steps down and a provisional government is formed, there is a need to dissolve the peace treaty with Israel," Rashad al-Bayoumi, a deputy leader of the outlawed movement, said on Japan’s NHTV.
And he isn’t the only MB leader that’s been making that call. So who should we believe? I’d say probably not the MB guy who said the MB wouldn’t be putting up a presidential candidate but who is now a presidential candidate. Agreed?
Yes, it’s pretty hard to find proof of democratic institutions beginning to flower in Egypt. There’s obviously been a lot of fertilizer spread, but it isn’t the type that grows healthy plants, that’s for sure.
[HT: Legal Insurrection]
~McQ
Twitter: @McQandO
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood mourns bin Laden
Perhaps it is becoming clearer to even those in deep denial that that the Muslim Brotherhood is "moderate" only if the term is redefined into meaninglessness. The death of Osama bin Laden provides another indication of the MB’s true character:
But in its first public statement on the killing of bin Laden, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood used the honorific term "sheikh" to refer to the al-Qaeda leader. It also accused Western governments of linking Islam and terrorism, and defended "resistance" against the U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan as "legitimate."
The Muslim Brotherhood’s response to bin Laden’s death may finally end the mythology — espoused frequently in the U.S. — that the organization is moderate or, at the very least, could moderate once in power. This is, after all, precisely how Muslim Brothers describe their creed — "moderate," as opposed to al-Qaeda, which is radical. "Moderate Islam means not using violence, denouncing terrorism, and not working with jihadists," said Muslim Brotherhood youth activist Khaled Hamza, for whom the organization’s embrace of "moderate Islam" was the primary reason he joined.
Yet the Muslim Brotherhood’s promise that its "moderation" means rejecting violence includes a gaping exception: the organization endorses violence against military occupations, which its leaders have told me include Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, and Palestine — in other words, nearly every major conflict on the Eurasian continent.
It should end the mythology, but it won’t. There are those on the left to invested in the belief that they are a moderate force that they won’t back down even in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary. This is your “moderate” Muslim Brotherhood’s reaction to the death of bin Laden:
"The whole world, and especially the Muslims, have lived with a fierce media campaign to brand Islam as terrorism and describe the Muslims as violent by blaming the September 11th incident on al-Qaeda." It then notes that "Sheikh Osama bin Laden" was assassinated alongside "a woman and one of his sons and with a number of his companions," going on to issue a rejection of violence and assassinations. It goes on to ominously declare that the Muslim Brotherhood supports "legitimate resistance against foreign occupation for any country, which is the legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and international agreements," and demands that the U.S., the European Union, and NATO quickly "end the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and recognize the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people." It closes by demanding that the U.S. "stop its intelligence operations against those who differ with it, and cease its interference in the internal affairs of any Arab or Muslim country."
As Eric Trager says, the statement issued by the MB is “vintage bin Laden”:
[I]t’s Muslim lands, not America, that are under attack; it’s Muslims, not American civilians, who are the ultimate victims; and, despite two American presidents’ genuine, effusive promises to the contrary, Islam is the target. It’s an important indicator that despite its increased responsibility in post-Mubarak Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood may well remain deeply hostile toward even the one of the most basic and defensible of American interests in the Middle East — that of securing Americans from terrorism.
In Egypt, at least, this is the result of the “Arab Spring”. As predicted, the best organized and most ruthless are winning out. And the result will not advance the peace process in the region. On the contrary, “moderate” has come to be defined by bin Laden, not by any recognizable dictionary. The Muslim Brotherhood has fooled a lot of so-called “scholars” into believing them to be a benign force for good and interested in democratic reform. Instead, they’ll most likely find out that they’re anything but benign and they are only interested in democracy if it advances their agenda. And that agenda is anything but moderate.
~McQ
Egypt, predictably, begins to go the way of radical Islam
Damien McElroy in Cairo, reporting for the UK Telegraph, has the following observations:
The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest Islamic movement and the founder of Hamas, has set up a network of political parties around the country that eclipse the following of the middle class activists that overthrew the regime. On the extreme fringe of the Brotherhood, Islamic groups linked to al-Qeada are organising from the mosques to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of the dictatorship.
The military-led government already faces accusations that it is bowing to the surge in support for the Muslim movements, something that David Cameron warned of in February when he said Egyptian democracy would be strongly Islamic.
{feigned surprise} Oh, my, who’d have thought that could happen? Only the terminally naïve or those with no understanding of the area or human nature would have figured otherwise.
Power vacuums produce opportunities for others to fill them. The US helped create that vacuum by insisting Hosni Mubarak must step down.
Usually, as we’ve mentioned here any number of times, the most organized and ruthless succeed in filling such power vacuums. And that’s precisely the case in Egypt where Islam in general is as pervasive as the air breathed there and the Muslim Brotherhood, while never allowed to be in power previously, was the most organized of the groups with the potential to fill the power vacuum.
And that is coming to fruition. Not just in an Islamic sense, but in an Islamist sense as well. The Muslim factions are poised to take over and control any government voted in by the public and do it in a big way:
Mohammed Badie, the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, last week predicted the group’s candidates would win 75 per cent of the seats it contested.
Fundamentalist factions have also emerged as parties. Gamaa al-Islamiya, an al-Qaeda linked group that promotes Salafist traditions has used its mosques as a political base for the first time since the 1970s.
Egypt attempted in the past – however oppressive that effort was – to keep a largely secular government, at least by Middle Eastern standards. And that was to our benefit and certainly to the benefit of the region. It produced the peace treaty with Israel and ushered in a few decades of relatively peaceful times in the Middle East. That’s pretty much likely to go by the wayside soon. This next government will be steeped in Islam if not a good measure of Islamism. That has been ordained by the first “democratic” vote in Egypt:
A scare campaign that a No vote in last months referendum would eliminate Islamic law from the Egyptian constitution ensured a 77 per cent Yes result.
As for those who participated in the April 6th movement and want a more secular and democratic Egypt? Well, again, the best organized is the most likely to succeed, right? And they have little or no organization:
But the April 6th movement that spearheaded protests has no clear plan for party politics. Diplomats have warned the demonstrators are not well prepared for elections.
"The leadership of the protests was so focused on the street-by-street detail of the revolution, they have no clue what to do in a national election," said a US official involved in the demonstrations. "Now at dinner the protesters can tell me every Cairo street that was important in the revolution but not how they will take power in Egypt."
Entirely predictable and clearly not in the best interest of the US – which calls into question the administration’s decision not to back Mubarak but call for his ouster. The result is an unintended consequence one assumes – we backed a faction that we knew little about, which has had little impact since and now we’re going to see results that we don’t want and are not in the best interests of the US or peace in the region. The same could be said about Libya.
Finally, don’t be fooled by the “independent” status of Egyptian political candidates for the Presidency there. Their independence is in name only as they must court the factions that are likely to hold power in any legislature that forms.
Although the leading contenders for Egypt’s presidency are independents, many have begun wooing the Muslim blocs. Front-runner Amr Moussa, the Arab League president, has conceded that its inevitable that Islamic factions will be the bedrock of the political system.
Of course they will and that means, inevitably, that Egypt will eventually revoke its treaty with Israel thereby setting the peace process back to square one.
Yes, this has been beautifully played by the President and the State Department. If naiveté in foreign affairs was ever more evident than now, I’m having difficulty remembering it (Jimmy Carter is as close as it comes, and they’re making even him look competent).
~McQ
Meanwhile in Egypt …
I hate to throw out the old “I told you so”, but it appears Egypt is trying to go according to my prediction. That is, the Muslim Brotherhood – the best organized of the opposition forces – would take the lead in forming the “new” Egypt and the military – which has held power for 60 years – would find a way to retain its power. The New York Times reports that’s exactly what seems to be happening:
In post-revolutionary Egypt, where hope and confusion collide in the daily struggle to build a new nation, religion has emerged as a powerful political force, following an uprising that was based on secular ideals. The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group once banned by the state, is at the forefront, transformed into a tacit partner with the military government that many fear will thwart fundamental changes.
Emphasis mine. As I’ve mentioned previously, “secular” may not mean what you think it means in an Islamic country. And I’ve all but worn out the David Warren quote, but again which group has the “simplest, most plausible, most easily communicated “vision?” That means:
It is also clear that the young, educated secular activists who initially propelled the nonideological revolution are no longer the driving political force — at least not at the moment.
Indeed, my guess is that the moment is lost for them for good. Why? Because it isn’t in the best interest of either the MB or the military to let that particular “political force” reemerge. So:
As the best organized and most extensive opposition movement in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was expected to have an edge in the contest for influence. But what surprises many is its link to a military that vilified it.
“There is evidence the Brotherhood struck some kind of a deal with the military early on,” said Elijah Zarwan, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group. “It makes sense if you are the military — you want stability and people off the street. The Brotherhood is one address where you can go to get 100,000 people off the street.”
And there you have it. Result?
“We are all worried,” said Amr Koura, 55, a television producer, reflecting the opinions of the secular minority. “The young people have no control of the revolution anymore. It was evident in the last few weeks when you saw a lot of bearded people taking charge. The youth are gone.”
So much for the “Twitter” revolution.
~McQ
Secular democracy in Egypt? The devil is in the details
The committee empaneled to rewrite the Egyptian Constitution and given 10 days to do so has named it’s head.
Egypt’s new ruling military council has appointed an Islamist judge to head the committee drawing up a new constitution, angering some of those who argued last week’s revolution would deliver the country to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Of course there are some who continue to argue this is all a secular movement (how does one conclude a group calling itself the Muslim Brotherhood is somehow a “secular” group as the West would define “secular?) and that the end result will be a strong democracy as demanded by the people.
Uh, probably not. Careful monitoring says that most likely the next government will be anything but “secular” as defined by the West:
But the make-up of the new committee, and the fact it has been given just ten days to come up with a new constitution, has dashed hopes that it will remove Article 2, which makes Islam the state religion and says Shariah is the main source of law.
There is something very concrete for you to watch for and monitor – the status of “Article 2” in any new constitution. The double-talk isn’t just confined to the word “secular”. “Moderate” gets a going over too. What anyone in the West would consider a “moderate” here would most likely be called a “secular liberal” there. The West might consider Egypt’s “moderates” as fairly radical here. As an example of having to read carefully, look at this:
"Al-Bishry is a figure who is accepted by all Egyptians," said Aboul Ella al-Madi, leader of Al-Wasat. "He has criticised the Coptic Church but he has also criticised the Muslim Brotherhood and the former regime.
Sounds great right? But what is “Al-Wasat”? It’s an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. And you have to love the fact that he feels qualified to speak for “all Egyptians”.
Another claim made by those appointing the committee is it includes a “Coptic Christian” (The NYT names him as Maher Samy Youssef, a judge and Coptic Christian). Or maybe not:
But Bishop Markos, a member of the Coptic Church’s Holy Syndicate, said no one from the Military Council had been in touch since it came to power.
He said: "We do not know the result of this but we hope the committee will be wise enough to take into account the rights of all Egyptians."
And Islamists in general (using “Islamist” in the generally accepted sense of “religious radical”)?
In another sign of increased freedoms for Islamists, the Gama’a Islamiya, the radical group responsible for a wave of terror attacks in the 1990s, held a public meeting in a town in southern Egypt on Monday night, according to a local newspaper, Al-Masry al-Youm.
Nice – radical terror groups go main stream and hold public meetings.
Back to the head of the committee …. a person who knows Egypt pretty well has weighed in:
Wael Abbas, the best-known human rights blogger in Egypt, who was sentenced to prison by the Mubarak regime last year, said it was a "worrying" choice.
"There is no such thing as a moderate Islamist," he said. "We want a secular state that respects all religions and which belongs to all religions."
Take that one sentence to heart – “there is no such thing as a moderate Islamist”. We’ve come to understand that over the years, yet many of us seem to want to ignore that when it comes to Egypt. Note that Abbas wants a real secular state as you and I might define it, not one as the Muslim Brotherhood would.
This move by the military council is one, I think, that is calculated to further calm fears that the military plans to continue to hold on to control. The NYT says:
Though the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which seized power with Mr. Mubarak’s exit, has repeatedly pledged to uphold the goals of the Egyptian revolution, many in the opposition have questioned the army’s willingness to submit for the first time to a civilian democracy after six decades of military-backed strongmen.
So appointing the committee helps calm those fears:
“The move to appoint the panel is the first concrete thing the army has done since taking over,” said Hossam Bahgat, a prominent civil rights lawyer and Mubarak critic. “We have only had communiqués. We have been analyzing the rhetoric. But now is the first concrete move, and there is nothing about it that concerns us.”
That last sentence is very telling, especially the claim “there is nothing about it that concerns us”. The fact that Bahgat isn’t concerned doesn’t mean others shouldn’t be concerned. An Islamist judge heads the committee and:
The biggest surprise was the inclusion of Sobhi Saleh, an Alexandria appeals lawyer and former member of Parliament who is a prominent figure of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Mubarak government repeatedly portrayed Mr. Saleh as extremist. Mr. Saleh has espoused some views many here might consider excessive, like advocating a ban on public kissing in most places, and he was released from an Egyptian intelligence prison recently.
Is that a “moderate” position? Would such bans be “secular” in scope? My guess is the answer would be “yes” from someone like Saleh if passed by a Parliament (using the democratic process to pass authoritarian laws). Anyway, you then have to love this analysis of the committee by Saleh:
“The committee is technical and very balanced,” Mr. Saleh said. “It has no political color, except me because I was a member of Parliament.”
Well yeah, so who is it that will lend “political color” to this work? A radical member of the Muslim Brotherhood on a committee headed by an Islamist judge.
There’s no question there’s a lot of “hope” going on in Egypt right now – but as when “hope” was a prominent word here in the US during the last election cycle, everyone is being left to write their own interpretation on the large blank page “hope” has provided. The problem there, as it was here, is what the people of Egypt “hope” will come about and what they will actually get out of this process – as it appears to be lining up – are probably not the same thing at all.
~McQ
Observations: The QandO Podcast for 13 Feb 11
In this podcast, Bruce, Michael, and Dale discuss the situation in Egypt, and CPAC.
The direct link to the podcast can be found here.
As a reminder, if you are an iTunes user, don’t forget to subscribe to the QandO podcast, Observations, through iTunes. For those of you who don’t have iTunes, you can subscribe at Podcast Alley. And, of course, for you newsreader subscriber types, our podcast RSS Feed is here. For podcasts from 2005 to 2010, they can be accessed through the RSS Archive Feed.
Egypt – Remember when the military taking over, dissolving Parliament and suspending the Constitution was a bad thing?
Just sayin’. Because to hear some in this country, that’s the best thing that’s happened since sliced bread. Yes, the euphoria over what is happening in Egypt that has gripped an element of the fairly naïve here in this country has been truly breathtaking to behold.
Don’t get me wrong – I’d like as much as anyone to see “democracy flower” and everyone live happily ever after as true statesmen come to the fore and deliver Egypt from the tyranny of dictators and forever ensure one man, one vote, representative government and government of, for and by the people.
I just don’t live in moon pony land. That’s not to say it couldn’t happen, but it is to say that’s very unlikely to happen.
Why?
Well let’s consider the facts concerning this benevolent military takeover. It hasn’t taken over anything. The military has been in defacto charge of the country since Nasser.
Yes, Mubarak is gone. So what? Who replaced him? Omar Suleiman. He’s a product of the military, Egypt’s intelligence chief and named in a 2007 diplomatic cable found in WikiLeaks as Mubarak’s “consigliore”. He’s been in that position in 17 years and has been the main means of the Mubarak regime’s ability to oppress opposition. He’s now serving on the “Armed Forces Supreme Council “.
And speaking of the Armed Forces Supreme Council, others who serve on it are Defense Minister (and Lt. General) Anan and the new Prime Minister (and Air Marshal) Shafiz – both very stalwart supporters of Hosni Mubarak.
This 18 member body has dissolved the Parliament, suspended the constitution and banned labor strikes. And although it has promised elections in 6 months, well, that’s 6 months away, isn’t it? We really have no idea if that Council really means to actually hold the election or will find ruling the state to be much more to their taste than turning it over to the rabble.
The military – of all institutions – played this whole thing very well. It was in charge but it pretended it wasn’t. It took the side of the protesters, nominally, and removed one of its own to be replaced by 18 of its own. What has happened is a very well done defusing of a volatile situation while in reality nothing much has changed in terms of who is in charge of government.
That’s not to say some things aren’t different – for instance, that well-known “secular” organization (according to our chief of intelligence) the Muslim Brotherhood (yup, real secular name there, skippy) is attempting to take advantage of the situation as well and has applied for status as a political party.
And it appears, despite reassurances to the contrary, that the MB is setting itself up to be another in a long line of theocratic parties that use elections (at least once) to legitimize their rule. Read these two paragraphs carefully:
The Brotherhood’s charter calls for creation of an Islamic state in Egypt, and Mubarak’s regime depicted the Brotherhood as aiming to take over the country, launching fierce crackdowns on the group. Some Egyptians remain deeply suspicious of the secretive organization, fearing it will exploit the current turmoil to vault to power.
But others – including the secular, liberal youth activists who launched the anti-Mubarak uprising – say the Brotherhood has to be allowed freedom to compete in a democracy alongside everyone else. Support by young cadres in the Brotherhood was key to the protests’ success, providing manpower and organization, though they never came to form a majority in the wave of demonstrations.
The question is, once it has competed in “a democracy” and won, does it ever plan to compete again? Nothing has changed in the MB’s charter. And having watched other “Islamic states” come into existence, democracy is not one of their foundations – although it would certainly be useful in a peaceful takeover vs. having to do so through violence. Bottom line, though, the end state is the same. See any number of authoritarian regimes (such as Venezuela or Iran) which began with “free and open elections”.
To answer the question on the minds of some reading this, no, I don’t consider myself cynical about this, I instead see my pessimism grounded in observing the experiences of like states and the results that’ve unfortunately resulted. I consider my take to be quite realistic. And that’s a pity as I’d like nothing more than to see a magic flowering of democracy in Egypt.
The irony of course is the same people who said a democracy could never be established in Iraq are now saying democracy is spontaneously establishing itself in Egypt. Of course democracy in Iraq has been established, however tenuously, by the presence of the US military. However, in Egypt, those now ruling the country are from the military. I’d appreciate someone – anyone – pointing out why Egypt, without a US military presence or the presence of any other entity capable of forcing the country down the road to democracy will suddenly become a democracy?
In fact it seems the fox is guarding the hen house in Egypt. There’ll be a lot of busy work in the interim - a new or at least amended constitution (who is going to pass it or debate it with Parliament dissolved? The military council? The people?), the organization of political parties and elections, etc. All the while, I expect the military to quietly consolidate its power over the next 6 months while others are buzzing around doing the busy work that will keep them out of the streets.
Will the military willingly turn over its power to a president elected by the people? If I knew that I could probably make a fortune. Let me just say it like this – if the winner of the election is a candidate that is acceptable to the military (say some military officer from “the club’’), then probably “yes”. Accepting such a candidate would most likely keep the military’s grip on government in place, just with a new (and somewhat more benevolent) face.
If the winner isn’t acceptable to the military (such as a theocrat from the MB – one of the reasons they play this “we’re secular” game is an attempt to head off those sorts of charges.) I expect to hear charges of vote fraud, illegal activities and arrests to ensue, along with a declared “state of emergency” after which the military will retain control and begin the inevitable crack-down on dissent. It will also claim to want to hold new elections at some time in the unspecified future – to keep the West off its back and the people at home.
Not a rosy picture, that’s for sure – and I could be completely wrong. But unfortunately, I just don’t think so.
Call it wisdom – intuition, experience and observation combined to come to a conclusion. And it isn’t necessarily a pretty one.
~McQ
The Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt
There are a whole lot of folks who have been flapping their gums and saying the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) should be welcomed into the “process” in Egypt. Two things – right now the “process” is an active attempt to overthrow the government in place. I’m not saying it shouldn’t go or that’s a bad thing. I’m just saying let’s be cognizant of what the “process” is at the moment.
Two, as I’ve pointed out in the past and will continue to point out, the MB is a wolf is sheep’s clothing and quite content to say whatever the West wants to hear in order to be considered a legitimate organization bent on the democratic ideal of Western democracy.
To put it bluntly, that’s nonsense. They are and always have been an Islamist organization, i.e. their ideology is rooted in Islam and their method of choice is violent “jihad”. You simply have to look around the net and you can find countless examples of where their Arabic writings and speeches have been translated to understand the point. Don’t look at their English language site – it is designed to placate you. Root out what its leaders have been saying to, shall we say, more local audiences. When they talk of “liberation” they’re not talking about the type of Western freedom you and I assume by the word. They’re talking about something completely different.
Here’s an example from a book by Mustafa Mashhur, entitled “Jihad is the Way”. Mustafa Mashhur was the fifth General Guide, the official leader, of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt from 1996 until his death in 2002. He makes no bones about the duty of all Muslims as far as he’s concerned – and he certainly would be seen to speak for the MB’s attitude given he was their leader for 6 years.
.
Jihad is the way. We need to be fully aware of this and to act and follow in its way. The faltering of faith has led the Muslims to their current state: one of laxity, disintegration, the dominion of Allah’s enemies over the Muslim’s resources, and the succumbing of some of them to abandoning their faith. The revival of the faith is the starting point for the revival and revitalization of the Islamic Ummah [nation], so that it can regain its power and be liberated and assume its rightful position which was intended by Allah, as the most exalted nation among men , as the leaders of humanity, and through this religion of truth they will deliver humanity from darkness unto light.
You can read the rest at the link, plus there is a link in the cite with the full pdf. Obviously, encapsulated in that paragraph are the fundamental religious beliefs of the MB as they apply to their politics. Notice how he uses the word "liberated". You are “liberated” if you come under the power of Islam. It certainly refutes the claim of a willingness to establish a secular government as we understand it.
I’m simply saying don’t be fooled by this organization’s expressed willingness to establish a “secular democracy” in Egypt. Like many organizations of its type, it is willing to say anything – and most likely do anything, at least for a while – to establish itself in power. Once there it will justify its takeover in the name of Allah – all things being fair when establishing a theocracy, since all moves will have been ordained by the religion’s all powerful being.
Together with the power of faith, there is no escaping from the power of unity among the Muslims to unify efforts. Then comes the power of arms and weapons, when nothing else will suffice, and this is the role of Jihad. The Imam (Muslim religious leader) and Shahid (Martyr), Hassan al-Banna (founder of the Muslim Brotherhood) learned of the need for these three forces, from the biography of the Prophet [Muhammad], may Allah bless him and give him peace…
Fair warning – again.
~McQ