Egypt Post-Mubarak

First installment: Civil-Military Relations

Questions on my mind: how helpful are European and American views of what constitutes "healthy civil-military relations" in approaching Egypt? Some have argued that the EU's standard demands for civilian control over the military have, in the case of would-be member Turkey, facilitated Erdogan and the ruling AKP to consolidate their power in disconcerting ways.

From the little I know, it seems that civil-military relations in Egypt are in some ways at least sui generis. What are the most important ways in which this is the case?

What does it mean that Egyptian military officers apparently have important commercial holdings and have an major stake in the Egyptian economy? This seems to be something rather different from the "military-industrial complex" that we speak of in the US.


A helpful summary and analysis of the debate from the good folks at Tablet Magazine:
Marc Tracy. "Egypt's 'Democratic Transtion' Begins: Can martial law lead to the ballot box?"
Feb. 14, 2011.


Steven Cook, "Egyptian Military's Moment of Truth." Council of Foreign Relations Blog. February 12, 2011.


"Will Egypt's Army Be a Change Agent or Maintain Status Quo?" PBS Newshour. Feb. 8, 2011.
With Matthew Axelrod and Shibley Telhami.

Matthew Axelrod, "The Egyptian Military Calculus." Foreign Policy. Jan. 31, 2011.

Military officers share the Egyptian people's frustration with the Mubarak regime. As a Fulbright Fellow in Egypt researching the U.S.-Egypt strategic relationship, I interviewed active and retired military officers who expressed resentment that military courts were being used to prosecute the regime's political enemies. They were also quick to distance themselves from the Ministry of Interior and lament the brutal tactics of the Central Security Forces. They indicated that the situation was unlikely to improve under the current political leadership.

But the military was not supposed to get involved. Presidents Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak isolated the armed forces from domestic affairs to prevent prominent officers from emerging as political rivals. This isolation has made the military an infrequent but critical player in Egyptian politics. Because it enters the fray only in times of crisis, and then in a "national guard" capacity, it maintains great credibility with the Egyptian people. Ironically, by withdrawing from politics, the military now is in a position to usher in new political leadership.

However, doing so comes at personal financial risk. Senior military officers are believed to benefit handsomely from the revenues generated by military-owned corporations, private contracts with foreign companies, and post-retirement postings in the private and public sectors. General Ahmed Mohamed Shafik, former head of Civil Aviation and now Egypt's new Prime Minister, is the most prominent example. During my research in Cairo, foreign diplomats told me that Egyptian military officers regularly supplemented their incomes by receiving cash for routine military services, including Suez Canal passage. Some of those funds are believed to be held in Switzerland, where General Magdy Galal Sharawi, head of Egypt's Air Force from 2002-2008, currently serves as Ambassador.  An accurate calculation of these activities is difficult to quantify, but they are systemic. We can assume that military officers are thinking about how the current crisis might affect their own livelihoods.

There is a tension between the military's interests -- maintaining its credibility by siding with the people on the one hand, and maintaining its vast economic apparatus on the other.

Steven Cook, "Five Things You Need to Know About the Egyptian Military." Council on Foreign Relations Blog. January 31, 2011.

Books I wish I had time to read:
Steven Cook, Ruling but not Governing: The Military and Political Development in Egypt, Algeria, and Turkey. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 2007. 

Security Sector Transformation in Southeastern Europe and the Middle East. Ed. Thanos Dokos. Proceedings of NATO Advanced Research Workshops on Security Sector Transformation in Southeastern Europe and the Mediterranean 2004-2005. Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2007. Includes "Civil-Military Relations in Egypt: An Overview," Obaida El-Dandarawy. 


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Tariq Ramadan, Europe's go-to moderate--calling for vengeance against Allah's enemies in Palestine

The enemies in Palestine are the enemies of Islam, of Allah himself.
This is most emphatically not a moderate teaching. 




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More coverage of Egyptian demonstration and its implications at home and abroad

Archive of comprehensive Egypt coverage at Tablet Magazine

Amr Bargisi, "Egypt doesn't have a democratic culture." Wall Street Journal. Feb. 1, 2011.

"Why 25 January will be a date enshrined in the country's history," Ayman Nour and Wael Nawara, The Guardian (UK). Feb. 5, 2011. 

"U.S., Arab Leaders Walk Fine Line as Egypt's Power Center Remains Uncertain"

PBS NewsHour: Analysis. Feb. 4, 2011.


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America's challenge in Egypt

Four different analyses of the Americans' bind regarding the prospects for an Egyptian "revolution."
Alas, I find them all persuasive. 


Leslie Gelb considers the alternatives to Mubarak and critiques wishful thinking about the Muslim Brotherhood

Of course, the Obama administration, most Americans, most Egyptians, and I myself would prefer a democratic government in Cairo instead of President Mubarak's corrupt and repressive establishment. That's not the issue. The real issue is this: If Mubarak tumbles and if Washington uses its influence—and yes, it does have influence at approximately $3 billion in annual total aid—to push him out, what kind of government will follow his? Will it be even less democratic and more repressive? And what will be the implications for U.S. security in the region?...

The real danger is that our experts, pundits and professors will talk the Arab and American worlds into believing we can all trust the MB. And that's dangerous because, outside of the government, the MB is the only organized political force, the only group capable of taking power. And if they do gain control, it's going to be almost impossible for the people to take it back. Just look at Iran.

For the record, I am not saying that Arabs or Muslims are incapable of democracy. I am most certainly saying that Arabs, Muslims, or anyone else would find it almost impossible to establish a stable democracy out of chaos and years of corruption and injustice.

 Shadi Hamid  counsels that the U.S. must weigh in on the side of regime change. 

Those who propose the United States somehow adopt an approach of "noninterference" should remember that silence will be interpreted as complicity by Egyptians. America, after all, far from a bystander, is the Egyptian regime's primary benefactor. The billions it has given Egypt in economic and military aid means that the United States, more than any other country, enjoys significant leverage with Egypt. Now is the time to use it...

No one should underestimate the crucial role of international actors. Rarely do successful democratic transitions occur without constructive engagement from Western governments and organizations. 

Of course, a major question remains: does the United States, in fact, want real democracy in Egypt? Or would it prefer that the current regime -- perhaps after agreeing to reforms -- somehow stay in power? Answering that may be one of the most important things President Obama does this year. 

Barry Rubin weighs in with caution against hoping for something decent replacing the current regime.

 On one hand, everyone knows that President Husni Mubarak's government, based on the regime that has been running Egypt since the morning of July 23, 1952, is a dictatorship with a great deal of corruption and repression. 

This Egyptian government has generally been a good ally of the United States yet has let Washington down at times. For example, the Mubarak government has continued to purvey anti-American propaganda to its people; held back on solving the Israel-Palestinian conflict (it did not endorse the 2000 Clinton plan, though I have good sources saying Mubarak said later he regretted that decision); has not taken a strong public stance on pressuring Iran; and so on.

For a long time it was said that Egypt was the most important U.S. ally in the Arabic-speaking world. There is truth in this but it has been less true lately, though due more to passivity in foreign policy than to hostility.

Clearly, though, Egypt is an American ally generally and its loss to an anti-American government would be a tremendous defeat for the United States. Moreover, a populist and radical nationalist-much less an Islamist-government could reignite the Arab-Israel conflict and cost tens of thousands of lives.

So the United States has a stake in the survival of the regime, if not so much that of Mubarak personally or the succession of his son, Gamal. This means that U.S. policy should put an emphasis on the regime's survival. The regime might be better off without the Mubaraks since it can argue it is making a fresh start and will gain political capital from getting rid of the hated dictator. Given the weakness of designated successor, Gamal Mubarak, who is probably too weak to deal with the situation the regime might well be a lot better off. 

On the other hand, the United States wants to show that it supports reform and democracy, believing that this will make it more popular among the masses in the Arab world as well as being the "right" and "American" thing to do. Also, if the revolution does win, the thought is, it is more likely to be friendly to America if the United States shows in advance its support for change.

Finally, the "pro-democracy" approach is based on the belief that Egypt might well produce a moderate, democratic, pro-Western state that will then be more able to resist an Islamist challenge. Perhaps the Islamists can be incorporated into this system. Perhaps, some say (and it is a very loud voice in the American mass media) that the Muslim Brotherhood isn't really a threat at all.

So in this point of view, U.S. policy should favor the forces of change. 

Of course, it is possible to mix these two positions and that is what President Obama is trying to do. 

Thus, Obama said:

"I've always said to [Mubarak] that making sure that they are moving forward on reform -- political reform, economic reform -- is absolutely critical to the long-term well-being of Egypt, and you can see these pent-up frustrations that are being displayed on the streets....Violence is not the answer in solving these problems in Egypt, so the government has to be careful about not resorting to violence and the people on the streets have to be careful about not resorting to violence. I think that it is very important that people have mechanisms in order to express legitimate grievances. As I said in my State of the Union speech, there's certain core values that we believe in as Americans that we believe are universal: freedom of speech, freedom of expression -- people being able to use social networking or any other mechanisms to communicate with each other and express their concerns."

On paper, this is an ideal policy: Mubarak should reform; the opposition should not use violence; and everything will turn out all right. Again, this is the perfect policy in theory, and I'm not being sarcastic at all here.

Unfortunately, it has little to do with reality. For if the regime does what Obama wants it to do, it will fall. And what is going to replace it? And by his lack of support--his language goes further than it might have done--the president is demoralizing an ally. 

And it is all very well to believe idealistically that even if Egyptians are longing to be free, one has to define what "free" means to them. Also, the ruler who emerges is likely to be from the best organized, disciplined group. People in Russia in 1917 were yearning to be free also and they got the Bolsheviks. In Iran where people are yearning to be free, the Obama Administration did nothing.

No matter what the United States says or does at this point, it is not going to reap the gratitude of millions of Egyptians as a liberator. For the new anti-regime leaders will blame America for its past support of Mubarak, opposition to Islamism, backing of Israel, cultural influence, incidents of alleged imperialism, and for not being Muslim. If anyone thinks the only problem is Israel they understand nothing.

Leon Wieseltier, while wary about what comes next, is more hopeful that our strategic interests and our ideals are overlapping in Egypt.

About the justice of the protestors’ anger there can be no doubt. But the politics of the revolt are murky. Its early stages have not been the work of the Muslim Brotherhood, but it is hard to believe that the Islamist organization will not be tempted to play the Bolshevik role in this revolution: it has the ideology and the organization with which to seize control of the situation, and it is the regime’s most formidable political adversary...

What is not unclear, however, is that the Obama administration, and American liberals more generally, have been caught intellectually unprepared for this crisis. The administration’s predicament, it must be said, is strategically complicated: since Mubarak may fall, it cannot afford to alienate the protestors, but since the protestors may fail, it cannot afford to alienate Mubarak...

The problem that the Obama administration now confronts is precisely that it has not been a cornerstone of American policy toward Egypt to stand up for the rights of the Egyptian people. It has preferred cronyism with the regime occasionally punctuated by some stirring remarks. What we are witnessing, in the confusion and the dread of the administration, are the consequences of its demotion of democratization as one of the central purposes of American foreign policy, particularly toward the Muslim world. There were two reasons for the new liberal diffidence about human rights. The first was the Bush doctrine, the second was the Obama doctrine. The wholesale repudiation of Bush’s foreign policy included the rejection of anything resembling his “freedom agenda,” which looked mainly like an excuse for war. But whatever one’s views of the Iraq war, it really does not seem too much to ask of American liberals that they think a little less crudely about democratization—not only about its moral significance but also about its strategic significance. One of the early lessons of the rebellion against Mubarak is that American support for democratic dissidents is indeed a strategic matter, and that the absence of such American support can lead to a strategic disaster. Such are the wages of realism. It is a common error that prudence is thought about the short-term; the proper temporal horizon for prudential thinking is distant and long. Realism does not equip one for an adequate appreciation of the historical force of the democratic longing. In this sense, realism is singularly unrealistic. It seems smart only as long as the dictators remain undisturbed by their people, and then suddenly it seems incredibly stupid.

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Musing about the meaning of Palileaks

If they are authentic documents...

Who leaked them and why?

Ironically, Israelis and Palestinians (at least Palestinian officials) are united in thinking 

a) these documents were selected for publication in order to undercut their side's credibility

b) leaking proceedings from sensitive negotiations like this wholly undermines--and is meant to undermine--those who seek to forge peace

Good coverage with multiple interviews from Public Radio International's The World. "The Palestine Papers," Jan. 24, 2011.

A persuasive piece about "what it means" in what of course is an event still unfolding.

Robert Danin, "NastyLeaks." Foreign Policy. Jan. 24, 2011.

Jeffrey Goldberg, "Al-Jazeera Equals Israel." The Atlantic. Jan. 24, 2011.

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Hezbollah and the art of Hobbesian persuasion

"Opposition has a gun to my head," Yediot Aharanot. January 15, 2011

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Enabling cultural suicide -- Lee Smith

Lee Smith, "Assisted Suicide." Tablet Magazine. Jan. 12, 2011.

A very powerful piece from Lee Smith about the complicity of the Western press in the "New Orientalism," so to speak.


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