Egypt's Spring Revolution (2011-2013)

[Dayuhan]

Stability at the expense of the liberty of others IS the wrong side of history. During the Cold War we could rationalize such manipulations of the governance of others as part of our containment strategy.

That rationale is long gone, yet we have done little to empower the reestablishment of self-determination and peaceful evolution of governmental reforms to bring these populaces a greater sense of participation and legitimacy of their governments.


If we approach the populaces properly we will achieve the same effect in the Middle East that the Brits achieved in Malaya (not talking the military tactics they applied prior to making the political fixes that addressed the concerns of the pop.) The Brits had co-opted legitimacy and exerted controls over governance. They ultimately removed those controls; and when the remnants of the insurgents filtered back in they found that the populace no longer needed them, as the populace had "won". Essentially both the Brits and the Insurgents were out, and the populace was in.

In Malaya the Brits were the government. They could relinquish control because they had control. They were in a position to empower. The US in the ME today is not in that position. We do not govern, nor have we any control to relinquish. Our influence in most cases is not sufficient to force governments to change or to produce more than a bit of very nominal cosmetic reform.

We cannot "reestablish self determination" in places where it has never existed. We cannot relinquish control that we do not have. Our capacity to "empower" populaces in other countries is exceedingly limited. For the most part all we can do is talk and encourage, and even that is often as badly received by populaces as it is by governments. We often fail to realize that even populaces who dislike their governments often react very badly when the US lectures those governments on democracy and human rights. It is not seen as standing up for the little guy, it's seen as self-interested imposition and disrespect for the nation and the culture.


Moderate, reasonable reforms will go a long ways toward avoiding violence and chaos.

Absolutely true, but we can't reform governments in other countries. They aren't "ours".



This is the opportunity unfolding in the Middle East. Arab heads of government are pissed at the US. They accuse the US of not being loyal. Loyalty is a two-way street, and besides, is our loyalty to some King or "President"? Or is our loyalty to some nation? I argue it is the latter, and when those leaders tarnish their positions by leveraging their trust in US support to them personally to act with impunity toward their own people they deserve what they get.


There is an opportunity, yes, but the extent to which it is our opportunity is very limited. We need to accept that our influence is not what it once was, and that very few of these governments are dependent on us or feel any need to listen to what we say.

Certainly we should not be "loyal" to the despots, but trying to leap in and actively oppose them, or to impose ourselves as uninvited and unwanted champion of the populace, is not going to get us anywhere. We can certainly advise a despot that we think they are steering their ship onto the rocks and that we think a course correction is urgently needed, but we cannot and should not try to take over the helm. We can also make it clear that we are not going to go down with the ship, and if they lose control we are not going to stay with them.


The Wild Card is AQ, who sees their rationale for existence slipping away from them. The timing could be right to execute more violence in an effort to once again get Western leaders and populaces to overreact and confuse popular quests for liberty as something much scarier and darker.


The sooner we get this cleaned up the better. This will disempower AQ. When AQ comes to these populaces looking for support, much like those Malay insurgents, they too will find that the populace has won, and that they are no longer needed.

AQ's rationale for existence is foreign military intervention in Muslim lands. Of course they would have been ecstatic if we'd intervened to keep Mubarak in power, but as long as we are engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan AQ's rationale for existence will continue. AQ will also continue to gain support within these populaces... maybe not support against their own governments, but they weren't getting that very effectively even under the old order. Even if Egypt and Saudi Arabia became full democracies without a hint of US intervention, AQ would draw support as long as the US or another foreign power was engaged in military intervention in Muslim land. Money will still flow: donations to subsidize a faraway jihad feel good. Fighters would still be recruited: religion and testosterone make a potent cocktail, and "expel the infidel from the land of the faithful" is a narrative that works. It is the only narrative that has ever really worked for AQ.

[CrowBat]

There are no lasting friendships in diplomacy, only lasting interests. Not all interests last. i don't think the US ever saw Saddam as a "friend"...Well, on one hand....if we go into the details of the US-Saddam relationship, the situation is even worse, since this relationship started with him on the "Company's" pay-list. So, if we discuss this relationship that precisely, and suppose that there are no lasting friendships in diplomacy, then we also ought to conclude that there are very much lasting friendships in "intelligence" (even if this is limited to paid assassinations).

On the other hand: would you use the same analogy about lasting friendships in the case US - KSA?


Politicians and diplomats lie a lot; it's their job.Would you like to say that all the US "special friendships", are lies?


Conferences don't prove or disprove anything. Lots of perspectives out there, few of them amenable to "proof" one way or the other.Yes, I'm sorry I do not recall who was it specifically that said so in his presentation on that conference. I do recall that the statement in question found a wide agreement, though.


Not a lot of difference there. The war probably did fasten the Iranian regime in power, but the US didn't initiate the war and couldn't have stopped it.Sorry, but I never said the US "initiated the war": I implied they were informed in time about Saddam's intentions (I would like somebody to tell me that the Saudis are not informing their "business partners" in the US when somebody tells them he's going to invade one of their neighbours) - yet did nothing at all to stop him.

You say "they couldn't have stopped it", to which I can only conclude we're back to the topic of the quality of US influence in the Middle East. And here I meanwhile must observe: if the situation is as you present it, the US has no and is not attempting to influence whoever or whatsoever; its diplomacy is entirely concentrating on innocent commerce; there are no special "relationships" (neither of diplomatic nor of personal nature) and especially no connections to local despots based on any kind of common interests against the "subjects" of these same despots and even less so against other governments that refuse to have their foreign- and domestic affairs dictated by the DC (which is impossible any way, since DC is never dictating anybody how to behave)....

...right. And can we get serious now?


I'm sure Saddam sold this idea to his generals and many others; that doesn't mean he believed it himself. Many Iraqi generals believed to the last that Saddam had WMD.Once again, Ken described this in a very nice fashion. I do not ask you to agree with that, but you'll at least have to accept the fact that the people in the Middle East - and in this case: people who used to have leading positions in Iraq - see the situation differently than you do.


All of which could be achieved, without contention, under a number of fuel processing deals that have already been rejected....which is the standard US line, obviously based on not even listening to what the Iranians (those who have the say) say. Then, from their standpoint - regardless if from those closely associated with the government, working as IRGC officers, but also Artesh officers, and regardless if pro or contra their government - there is no chance of anything of that kind - since all such proposals start with conditions. Is their standpoint that unless somebody starts to treat them as an equal partner, they are not ready to any kind of concessions, really that "strange" or at least as "unusual" as to be completely "in-no-way-understandable" to the USA?


The Iranian government could stop supporting Hezbollah, accept the fuel processing deals on offer, and drop the ridiculous anti-US and anti-Israel rhetoric without compromising its interests in any way.This is also what the US government is "explaining to Iran" (via the media) since years, and the same idea that is not functioning because it is ignoring Iranian interests and standpoints.

You can't expect the Iranians to even think about not providing US$100 Million or so to Hezbollah every year, while the US is providing 400 Million to various Iranian oppositional groups (particularly those renown as "terrorists" in the IRI) and who knows how many Billions to various other of their enemies (again: I'm just telling you what they say, not argumenting pro or contra).

In fact, don't you find it rather surprising they are ready to negotiate at all, considering they have to deal with an administration that is - from their standpoint - involved in state-sponsored terrorism against their country?


The advantages would be very substantial: there would no longer be any justification for sanctions, and the neighbors across the Gulf have demonstrated rather well that oil-producing countries that get on with the west do rather better than those who choose confrontation.Why do the oil-producing countries have to get on with the West, first of all?

Would you like to say that if they don't (get on with the West), they "automatically" turn into US enemies?


We work with governments who are willing to work with us, and governments with interests similar to ours. Alliances are made by common interests, not similar systems of government... always been that way.OK, very nice.

Now, before I come to my next question, let me first observe that I am aware of the fact that a large part of "academic" West (I'll not even try to discuss the Western politicians) has immense problems of understanding alone how the IRI functions as a state, not to talk about how the government there functions. And, obviously, this is a topic that could easily "gulp" 10-15 threads each of which would be three times as large as this one, only in order to properly explain. So, let me try to (roughly) summarize the situation there as a "rule of consensus in a chaos of self-governing".

Anyway, the point I would like to hear from you about is this: at the turn of the centuries (note: the following did not happen some 50 years ago, but within the last seven, eight years) there was a relatively moderate admin in Tehran (the same figures are now organizing protests against the government), which dismantled a large part of the IRGC apparatus and then proved more than willing to cooperate with the Bush admin in Afghanistan and Iraq (for a summary of relevant developments see, for example, "Immortal", by Steven R. Ward). The very same Bush admin first exploited this situation, then dropped the IRI admin like a hot rock and at the first opportunity began openly antagonizing it. Quite "surprisingly", during the next elections in the IRI, the IRGC returned to power in full force and is meanwhile mightier than ever before. What happened ever since is more than well-known.

While I'll always be the first to observe that this reverse at the top of the IRI was primarily related to an internal power struggle going on already since the lat 1980s, I can't but add that this development was directly influenced by the behaviour of the Bush admin too - i.e. this "business only, nothing personal" policy - and this because not only a few voices emerged in Tehran concluding, "You see, we can't cooperate and even less so depend upon them" (the US). This is what I've heard with my own ears from several persons there that really can't be described as "not important".

So please be so kind and patient and explain me: if it is so as you say, and the US is interested to work with governments that are willing to work with the US, and the IRI admin of Khatami proved willing not only to work with the US, but fully support its "business" (since this was all on purely commercial basis, right?) in the neighbourhood, if there were strong and undisputable common interests, and this has always been that way, and there was no change of US admins in between (and thus there should have been no change in US foreign policy either)... then what was the logic of the Bush admin turning its policy towards an actually friendly IRI admin for 180°, at the spot, in around 2003-2004?

Was there some kind of disagreement over commercial deals?

[CrowBat]

Bob's World cited:

A contrary viewpoint I encountered from a British Muslim community observer was that AQ had been undermined by the student-trader martyr in Tunisia; his actions had had a far greater, positive impact on the Muslims in the Arab world. Compared to AQ, what had they achieved for the "man in the street"? Years of repression and humiliation etc.
You can see this on the example of Algeria in these days too.

The FIS and similar - Islamist - groups used to be very strong there, back in the late 1980s and the 1990s. Indeed so strong that when the FIS was denied the right to rule, it trusted itself to reach back upon AQ's methods (and link with it), and launch a major insurgency. Eventually, this turned out not to have found any widespread popular support with the result that - slowly but certainly - it was practically smashed and is nowadays languishing in isolated camps in the south of the country, or even outside it. In summary, they are no important political factor any more.

Anyway, because the Islamists were crushed, the protests we now see in Algiers are mainly run by the FFS of Ait Ahmed and the RCD of Said Sadi, both of whom are from the Kabyle branch of the Berbers, who, in turn are only certain never to be accepted by the majority - consisting of Arabs. That aside, there four main branches of the Berbers (Kabyle in the centre of the country, Chaoui in the east, Chenoui along the coast and M'zabi in the south), and they are opposing each other at least as much as they are opposed by the Arabs.

The only other "important" party, the PT, is composed of Arabs, "but" its leader is Louisa Hanoune - a woman: as "progressive" as Algeria actually is, but expecting the Arabs to "rise" while led by a woman is still... well, a very distant prospect.

[JMA]

If you expect any intelligence service to predict emergence phenomena, then prepare to be disappointed.

Well as your own Daniel Patrick Moynihan has articulated so well that the intelligence community has done little more than disappoint in all respects.

Where he got it wrong (IMHO) was to promote the absorption of the CIA into the State Department. That would have been catastrophic as it has now finally been confirmed (thank you Wikileaks) that the State Department is even more incompetent than the CIA (if that is possible).

I would love to hear of any list of CIA successes since their inception in 1947... should I hold my breath?


How many air wings, fleets and combat brigades do we need to face AQ?

Well, was not the Al Qaeda/Saddam connection one of the rationales for starting that war? Used a lot of impressive war machinery in that one.

Then I seem to remember the whole Afghanistan thing started because Al Qaeda was allowed safe haven there. More impressive stuff used there and lots of troops.

So there we have Iraq and Afghanistan... and how come chose to ignore that?

[Entropy]

Well as your own Daniel Patrick Moynihan has articulated so well that the intelligence community has done little more than disappoint in all respects.

Where he got it wrong (IMHO) was to promote the absorption of the CIA into the State Department. That would have been catastrophic as it has now finally been confirmed (thank you Wikileaks) that the State Department is even more incompetent than the CIA (if that is possible).

I would love to hear of any list of CIA successes since their inception in 1947... should I hold my breath?

Did anyone predict what happened in Egypt? Not that I'm aware of. Emergent phenomena cannot be predicted except through guesswork.

And yes, intelligence comes with a lot of opportunity for failure and it is (or should be) a humbling profession.

I personally have never much liked the CIA, but I won't deny them their successes. If you aren't aware of any, then I suggest you read any of Jeffrey Richelson's books on the agency and intelligence community.




Well, was not the Al Qaeda/Saddam connection one of the rationales for starting that war? Used a lot of impressive war machinery in that one.

Then I seem to remember the whole Afghanistan thing started because Al Qaeda was allowed safe haven there. More impressive stuff used there and lots of troops.

So there we have Iraq and Afghanistan... and how come chose to ignore that?

As I recall, Iraq and Afghanistan didn't exactly turn out as expected and, given the state of the USA, I doubt the American people will support similar invasions elsewhere - even if one believes such invasions are necessary and appropriate given the threat posed by AQ. Maybe it's different where you live, but here I think the idea that invading countries with large conventional forces to rout out terrorist organizations is pretty much bankrupt.

[AdamG]

This posting in it's entirety is worth reading, but this passage was particularly telling -



"A man respects people who are different. While Muslim protesters were attending Friday Prayers, Christians formed a human wall to protect them. On Sunday when Christian protesters performed Mass, Muslims stood watch to protect them. There was no slurring in the protests. People who attended were of different races, religions, and social backgrounds; black and white, Muslim and Christian, rich and poor, we stood together. If people deep down inside had a certain hatred for others due to these differences, the protests helped them replace this hatred with understanding. In the end we were all the same. We were all Egyptian, and we all wanted freedom."

http://artofmanliness.com/2011/02/11/lessons-in-manliness-from-the-egyptian-revolution/

[Marc]

Three factors that will make a difference...

1: Short-medium term management of economic subsidies

Americans think often in terms of liberty and freedom and the ability to change governance, but in much of the world desire #1 is economic opportunity and a better life. If people don't think democracy is getting them there, they are very likely to back a return to authoritarian rule. What's the point of having influence over government if government still doesn't give you what you want? Unfortunately, what people want is often low prices, high wages, plentiful jobs, low taxes, great government services, and a host of other contradictions. Economic trade-offs are often poorly understood.

One of the things that pushed Egypt over the edge was a withdrawal of subsidies, particularly on wheat. This was less about "neoliberal policies" than about reality: with the population soaring, wheat prices rising, a sagging pound and a rising trade deficit the subsidized imports were just not sustainable.

Dayuhan, I totally agree with you. Like most autocracies, Moubarak's regime was founded on the passive acquiescence of the masses generated by a patronage system that guaranteed survival and social security by subsidizing basic necessities like food. The problem was that economic growth in Egypt was insufficient to cover the cost of patronizing the fast-growing population. The recent sharp increase of food prices exacerbated the situation. Egypt is the world's largest importer of wheat: 8 million tons per year. Of these 8 million tons, 6 million tons are dedicated to the subsidy program, feeding three quarters of the population. Moubarak simply did not have the cash to sustain this system. The next governments has even less money to spend because revenues from tourism have decreased sharply.

Starting the revolution was easy. However, it's not the revolution that counts, but the day that follows it. The power vacuum will soon be filled by the best available alternative. Two organizations have a head start in this race: the Army and the Muslim Brothers. Emerging political parties need time to catch up. The international community has to provide that time by keeping Egypt's graneries well filled. In Egypt, "bread is everything" and the lack of it will quickly lead to riots, resulting in either a military regime or an Islamist government.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/2787714/Egyptians-riot-over-bread-crisis.html

[Fuchs]

The problem was that economic growth in Egypt was insufficient to cover the cost of patronizing the fast-growing population. The recent sharp increase of food prices exacerbated the situation. Egypt is the world's largest importer of wheat: 8 million tons per year. Of these 8 million tons, 6 million tons are dedicated to the subsidy program, feeding three quarters of the population. Moubarak simply did not have the cash to sustain this system.

I try to be nice, really.

a)
GDP growth was way bigger than population growth.
That's a real world fact and easily accessible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_egypt#Reform_era : Economic growth p.a. about 5%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_Egypt#Population_growth_rate : Population growth p.a. about 2%

b)
Their trade balance deficit was gross. It was also many times as large as the wheat imports (if I believe your figures - too lazy for crawling through FAO statistics now).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_egypt : USD 23 bn trade balance deficit
http://www.mongabay.com/images/commodities/charts/wheat.html : even at its peak, 8 million metric tons of wheat did only cost USD 3.5 bn. About 2/3 of this price was representative for the last few years.


A thirty-year one-man dictatorship was overdue. We need no facebook, wheat imports or other fashionable (Malthus is apparently never out of fashion!) explanations for Mubarak's demise.

[Cliff]

Gents-

Article in today's International Herald-Tribune by David Kirkpatrick and David Sanger talking about the origin of the protests in Egpt:

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20110214/ZNYT03/102143004/2050/SPORTS?Title=Dual-Uprisings-Show-Potent-New-Threats-to-Arab-States

Talks about the role of Facebook and social media in educating the youth and getting the first protests started.

Kill MiGs!

V/R,

Cliff

[jmm99]

but what do these headlines (all from today) bode ?

Robert Fisk (Independent): Is the army tightening its grip on Egypt? (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/is-the-army-tightening-its-grip-on-egypt-2213849.html)

CNN: Egypt shutters banks after new protests from employees, police (http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/02/13/egypt.new.protests/index.html)

Daily Mail: Army takes over in Egypt and orders ban on trade union strikes after old regime deposed (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1356715/Egypt-protests-Army-takes-orders-ban-trade-union-strikes.html)

and as background for the armed forces and their role in Egypt's economy, NPR (from 4 Feb), Why Egypt's Military Cares About Home Appliances (http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/02/10/133501837/why-egypts-military-cares-about-home-appliances?ft=1&f=1004):


One reason for the military's peaceful response: the unique role it plays in the Egyptian economy. The military owns "virtually every industry in the country," according to Robert Springborg (http://www.nps.edu/Academics/centers/ccc/faculty/springborg.html).

Springborg, a professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, has written several books about Egypt, he's lived in Egypt, he's consulted with the Egyptian military, and he's an expert on the various businesses it runs. Here's a list he rattled off from the top of his head:


...car assembly, we're talking of clothing, we're talking of construction of roads, highways, bridges. We're talking of pots and pans, we're talking of kitchen appliances. You know, if you buy an appliance there's a good chance that it's manufactured by the military. If you ... don't have natural gas piped into your house and you have to have a gas bottle, the gas bottle will have been manufactured by the military. Some of the foodstuffs that you will be eating will have been grown and/or processed by the military.

The reasons for this arrangement go back to the '60s and '70s, when the Egyptian military was very large as a result of the wars with Israel.

Regards

Mike

[Dayuhan]

But this:


a)
GDP growth was way bigger than population growth.
That's a real world fact and easily accessible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_egypt#Reform_era : Economic growth p.a. about 5%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_Egypt#Population_growth_rate : Population growth p.a. about 2%

has little bearing on the matter under discussion. Higher GDP does not necessarily translate into higher disposable income for the average Egyptian or higher capacity to buy food. It also doesn't necessarily translate into higher government revenues and thus higher capacity to subsidize wheat imports.

What we do see beyond doubt is that while Egypt's wheat imports fluctuate, the trend is steadily up, and while the world wheat prices fluctuate, the trend is also steadily up. That means the slice of Egypt's government revenue devoted to subsidized wheat imports has steadily increased (of course you realize that total trade deficit and government budget deficit are very different things). That means either pulling money from other parts of the budget or increasing government revenue or going deeper into debt, all of which pose difficulties of their own. Regardless of GDP and population, it's fairly clear that the cost of subsidized wheat imports to the Egyptian government had reached a level that made it impossible to avoid passing the increase on to consumers.


A thirty-year one-man dictatorship was overdue. We need no facebook, wheat imports or other fashionable (Malthus is apparently never out of fashion!) explanations for Mubarak's demise.

Undoubtedly true, but these events do have triggers, and economic events can be triggers.

Egypt's inflation rates have been very high, well outstripping average personal income: almost 12% in 2010, over 18% in 2009. That's 30% in 2 years, and that tends to piss people off. Unemployment remains high, and overall population growth is less an issue than a large demographic bulge of young people entering the job market at a time when jobs are scarce.

Throw a steep sudden increase in staple food prices in on top of that and you turn incipient trouble into actual trouble.

In any event my previous comment was less on the role of food prices in sparking the uprising than on the potential impact of food prices on transition frustration. The people will want the government to make prices drop. Of course government's capacity to do this is limited, but that's not widely understood. This needs to be considered by economic policymakers and the multilateral bodies that set conditions for the loans and other assistance that a transition government will need. Subsidy structures will need to be dismantled, but trying to eliminate them all at once is likely to have a devastating political impact on what will already be a shaky government.

[JMA]

Did anyone predict what happened in Egypt? Not that I'm aware of. Emergent phenomena cannot be predicted except through guesswork.

And yes, intelligence comes with a lot of opportunity for failure and it is (or should be) a humbling profession.

I personally have never much liked the CIA, but I won't deny them their successes. If you aren't aware of any, then I suggest you read any of Jeffrey Richelson's books on the agency and intelligence community.

What? You can't even provide one success the CIA have had? That's sad.


As I recall, Iraq and Afghanistan didn't exactly turn out as expected and, given the state of the USA, I doubt the American people will support similar invasions elsewhere - even if one believes such invasions are necessary and appropriate given the threat posed by AQ. Maybe it's different where you live, but here I think the idea that invading countries with large conventional forces to rout out terrorist organizations is pretty much bankrupt.

Well whatever you think it happened before and may well be likely to happen again.

And all this brings us back to the point that IMHO the US would be better served by cutting back on the incompetent CIA and the State department drastically than doing same to a military currently involved in two wars. The military cuts can come later.

[Dayuhan]

Well, on one hand....if we go into the details of the US-Saddam relationship, the situation is even worse, since this relationship started with him on the "Company's" pay-list. So, if we discuss this relationship that precisely, and suppose that there are no lasting friendships in diplomacy, then we also ought to conclude that there are very much lasting friendships in "intelligence" (even if this is limited to paid assassinations).

The "paid assassinations" stuff sounds very exciting in a Robert Ludlum sort of way, but I honestly don't know what you're trying to say here.


On the other hand: would you use the same analogy about lasting friendships in the case US - KSA?

Alliances last while both parties perceive them to be in their interests. There is no reason for them to last any longer or to be based on anything else.


Would you like to say that all the US "special friendships", are lies?

Certainly allies lie to each other. So do non-allies. It's part of diplomacy, and it's expected. The alliances still endure if they are in the perceived interests of both parties.


I implied they were informed in time about Saddam's intentions (I would like somebody to tell me that the Saudis are not informing their "business partners" in the US when somebody tells them he's going to invade one of their neighbours) - yet did nothing at all to stop him.

Who knew, believed, or suspected what and when they knew, believed, or suspected it are generally matters of speculation, and allegations not supported by credible citations don't really mean very much.


if the situation is as you present it, the US has no and is not attempting to influence whoever or whatsoever; its diplomacy is entirely concentrating on innocent commerce; there are no special "relationships" (neither of diplomatic nor of personal nature) and especially no connections to local despots based on any kind of common interests against the "subjects" of these same despots and even less so against other governments that refuse to have their foreign- and domestic affairs dictated by the DC (which is impossible any way, since DC is never dictating anybody how to behave)....


The US has some influence. It varies according to where, when, and with whom dealings are taking place. Sometimes it is substantial. Often it is minimal. Sometimes it is nonexistent. Efforts to exert influence are often not successful. The US is influenced as often as it influences, and manipulated as often as in manipulates (probably more often). Influence is not control.


Once again, Ken described this in a very nice fashion. I do not ask you to agree with that, but you'll at least have to accept the fact that the people in the Middle East - and in this case: people who used to have leading positions in Iraq - see the situation differently than you do.

Some see it differently, some do not. In both cases memories may be colored by self-interest. I find it perfectly plausible that Saddam told people he had US approval, but the idea that someone of his experience could orchestrate a meeting in which a diplomat could say nothing of significance and then assign significance to anything she said is outside credibility. If Saddam believed the US would tolerate an invasion, it would not have been a consequence of anything April Glaspie said during that meeting.

You might perhaps argue that Saddam misinterpreted American statements and believed he had "permission" to invade Kuwait. That can't be proven one way or another. Claiming that he actually was given permission is, as previously stated, a load of bollocks.


there is no chance of anything of that kind - since all such proposals start with conditions. Is their standpoint that unless somebody starts to treat them as an equal partner, they are not ready to any kind of concessions,

It's not just the USA, it's practically everybody, certainly everybody in the neighborhood. Nobody, anywhere, believes that the Iranian nuclear program is not weapons-oriented. Nobody in the region trusts the Iranian government with a bomb or wants to see them with one. That range and persistence of mistrust is not US-generated and cannot be separated from the choices, policies, and behaviour of the Iranian government. A rational government would accept the deals on offer, modify policy and official statements to build trust, and work from there. The existing government prefers to pursue a confrontational approach. That's their choice, for their own purposes, and the consequences of that choice are on them.


You can't expect the Iranians to even think about not providing US$100 Million or so to Hezbollah every year, while the US is providing 400 Million to various Iranian oppositional groups (particularly those renown as "terrorists" in the IRI) and who knows how many Billions to various other of their enemies

The figures require citation; $400 million seems unlikely to me. Still, when you choose confrontation, you make enemies. That has consequences. The consequences can be reversed, but only if you change your policies.


Why do the oil-producing countries have to get on with the West, first of all?

They don't have to get on with the west. It's a free choice. I just pointed out that those who have chosen to get on with the west (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE) have gotten on rather better than those that have chosen hysterical confrontation (Iran, Libya, Saddam's Iraq).

"Getting on with the west" is really pretty easy. You don't have to change your form of government, embrace western ways, compromise your own interests. It's not all that easy to turn the US, the west, or the neighbors into outright enemies, but if you really try you can do it. It's generally not in the interests of a nation, though it is sometimes in the interests of a regime.


Now, before I come to my next question, let me first observe that I am aware of the fact that a large part of "academic" West (I'll not even try to discuss the Western politicians) has immense problems of understanding alone how the IRI functions as a state, not to talk about how the government there functions. And, obviously, this is a topic that could easily "gulp" 10-15 threads each of which would be three times as large as this one, only in order to properly explain. So, let me try to (roughly) summarize the situation there as a "rule of consensus in a chaos of self-governing"...

While I'll always be the first to observe that this reverse at the top of the IRI was primarily related to an internal power struggle going on already since the lat 1980s, I can't but add that this development was directly influenced by the behaviour of the Bush admin too - i.e. this "business only, nothing personal" policy - and this because not only a few voices emerged in Tehran concluding, "You see, we can't cooperate and even less so depend upon them" (the US). This is what I've heard with my own ears from several persons there that really can't be described as "not important".

So please be so kind and patient and explain me: if it is so as you say, and the US is interested to work with governments that are willing to work with the US, and the IRI admin of Khatami proved willing not only to work with the US, but fully support its "business" (since this was all on purely commercial basis, right?) in the neighbourhood, if there were strong and undisputable common interests, and this has always been that way, and there was no change of US admins in between (and thus there should have been no change in US foreign policy either)... then what was the logic of the Bush admin turning its policy towards an actually friendly IRI admin for 180°, at the spot, in around 2003-2004?

Was there some kind of disagreement over commercial deals?

It's really not that difficult to engineer a situation that allows you to get all wounded and resentful and proclaim "see, we can't trust them". It's usually accomplished by giving a little with one hand while the other is up to something very different, and then discussing only what the hand that gave a little is doing. Cherrypicking events that support contentions is easy to do: torture history enough and it will tell you whatever you want to hear.

Not saying that the US bears no responsibility for the state of its relations with Iran, but Iran doesn't just have problems with the US... and any time you're not getting along with anybody, looking at your own behaviour is a good place to start. At root, Iran's isolation and the general suspicion of the government's motives and plans trace back to their own choices, statements, and actions.

Thank you for your offer to Explain Everything; omniscience must be terribly reassuring. When it comes to "what I've heard with my own ears from several persons there that really can't be described as "not important", I have to comment that name-dropping is rarely convincing or impressive, especially when it's nameless. I also get the feeling that my own statements are being deliberately misinterpreted.

I'm done with this one, have the last word...

[Fuchs]

@Dayuhan:

I responded to this


The problem was that economic growth in Egypt was insufficient to cover the cost of patronizing the fast-growing population.

5 % > 2 % => economic growth was not insufficient.

Export growth was probably insufficient, income distribution was probably insufficient - but neither of those is the same as economic growth.

My reply had thus a bearing on the matter under discussion because I corrected a contribution to said discussion that I consider to be wrong.

[Dayuhan]

@Dayuhan:

I responded to this



5 % > 2 % => economic growth was not insufficient.

Export growth was probably insufficient, income distribution was probably insufficient - but neither of those is the same as economic growth.

My reply had thus a bearing on the matter under discussion because I corrected a contribution to said discussion that I consider to be wrong.

Ok granted... I didn't read the post responded to thoroughly enough, and it was inaccurate as phrased. I suspect the deficiency was more a lack of precision than a lack of substance.

While economic growth per se may not have been a major factor, government's inability to sustain the massive wheat subsidy certainly was, and the widespread perception of an entitlement to cheap bread is going to be a significant issue that subsequent governments will have to address.

[Ken White]

Some see it differently, some do not. In both cases memories may be colored by self-interest. I find it perfectly plausible that Saddam told people he had US approval, but the idea that someone of his experience could orchestrate a meeting in which a diplomat could say nothing of significance and then assign significance to anything she said is outside credibility.It may be outside the credibility of you and I, even of most in the west. It is not outside the credibility of many in the ME.
If Saddam believed the US would tolerate an invasion, it would not have been a consequence of anything April Glaspie said during that meeting.Nor is Glaspie the point other than the fact that an Arabist who doesn't understand Arab customs is somewhat of a waste and that's the factor which caused me to intrude on your conversation... :rolleyes:
...Claiming that he actually was given permission is, as previously stated, a load of bollocks.While that may be true to you and to most in the west, it is not to most in the ME. However, you can of course ignore that and them. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure most western governments should not do so else they'll likely make the same sorts mistakes in the area. And that is not a load of bollocks... ;)

Nothing the US did led Saddam to attack Kuwait, however, a lot of things the US did not do out of ignorance and arrogance aided and abetted the launching of that attack.

[Marc]

5 % > 2 % => economic growth was not insufficient.

Export growth was probably insufficient, income distribution was probably insufficient - but neither of those is the same as economic growth.

My reply had thus a bearing on the matter under discussion because I corrected a contribution to said discussion that I consider to be wrong.

@Fuchs, I guess my post was too short to be clear.

In my post I stated: "The problem was that economic growth in Egypt was insufficient to cover the cost of patronizing the fast-growing population."

As you said, economic growth in Egypt was about 5% and population growth about 2%. However, 2% growth in population does not mean that the cost of patronizing the population increases by 2%. Egypt uses subsidies to keep the bread price low. Roughly speaking, the cost of maintaining these subsidies depends on the amount of bread a person eats (unchanged), multiplied by the cost of wheat (rising) and multiplied by the number of people who depend on subsidized bread (rising at a higher rate than population growth). The reason why the percentage of people who depend on subsidized bread rises is that when the price of unsubsidized bread increases, more people will buy subsidized rather than unsubsidized bread.

In summary, the rising costs of patronizing the population was CAUSED by population growth, but it increased at a much HIGHER RATE than population growth.

[Dayuhan]

Nor is Glaspie the point other than the fact that an Arabist who doesn't understand Arab customs is somewhat of a waste and that's the factor which caused me to intrude on your conversation...

True enough... but Glaspie could have been Bernard Lewis and Lawrence of Arabia rolled into one and it wouldn't have mattered. She wasn't making policy, she was only communicating it. In the absence of any authorized communication she couldn't have said anything other than what she said. If she had been an Arabist she might have given other advice to DC, but since it would almost certainly have been ignored, it wouldn't matter much. At best she could have told DC that she believed the threat of invasion was serious and that it could be aborted by a threat of forceful response. How DC might have responded is not of course knowable.



While that may be true to you and to most in the west, it is not to most in the ME. However, you can of course ignore that and them. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure most western governments should not do so else they'll likely make the same sorts mistakes in the area. And that is not a load of bollocks... ;)

Known policies combined with the metronomic predictability of diplomatic templates make it very easy to engineer conditions in which statements will be made that can later be deliberately turned into something they are not. That's not misinterpretation, that's a con... in this case a very successful one. Saddam set up a situation in which statements would be made that could later be sold as something they were not... I see no reason to assume that was coincidence.

It's true that the US walked into it, but the methods and conventions of diplomacy are inherently vulnerable to this kind of manipulation. I can't think of any easy or simple way to change that, certainly not without all kinds of potential for equally difficult problems.


Nothing the US did led Saddam to attack Kuwait, however, a lot of things the US did not do out of ignorance and arrogance aided and abetted the launching of that attack.

Certainly true, but a good deal more evident with hindsight than at the time. It's also not certain that the road not taken would have led to another place: as always, that's speculative.

The comment that I made at the start referred to the idea that the US "gave permission" knowingly and intentionally in pursuit of some devious purpose.

[CrowBat]

The "paid assassinations" stuff sounds very exciting in a Robert Ludlum sort of way, but I honestly don't know what you're trying to say here.- That there was a "special relationship" between Saddam and the CIA since the late 1950s, as can be read - for example - in Regime Change: How the CIA put Saddam's Party in Power (http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/217.html), and then here (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2849.htm), here (http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north170.html), here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Iraq) etc.


Alliances last while both parties perceive them to be in their interests. There is no reason for them to last any longer or to be based on anything else.No doubt, but no answer to my question, which was if you would use the same analogy about "no lasting friendships in diplomacy, only lasting interests" - for the relationship between the US and the KSA?


Certainly allies lie to each other. So do non-allies. It's part of diplomacy, and it's expected. The alliances still endure if they are in the perceived interests of both parties.Again, I asked a very specific question: would you like to say that all the US "special friendships", are lies?

Explanations like yours make me wonder about your standpoint regarding another, very similar, though more recent affair: how would you describe Emir of Kuwait's decision to introduce constitutional monarchy in his country, after this was liberated - by a US-led coalition (pure accident, of course) - in 1991? An absolute monarch woke up one Friday morning and said, "Ah, I feel like introducing a parliament today"? Or "could it be" the US played a role in that affair (too)? Perhaps you would also kindly explain what kind of influence is required in order to impose such a decision upon an absolute ruler of any country? A "little bit or influence", or perhaps some "dictate" after all?


Who knew, believed, or suspected what and when they knew, believed, or suspected it are generally matters of speculation, and allegations not supported by credible citations don't really mean very much.Please, don't twist my words. I did not say "believed" or "suspected": Saddam's visit to the Saudi King in September 1980 and the topics discussed during that meeting have been widely reported, back then and several times ever since. Only somebody who never heard about this would come to the idea to explain this for "believed" or "suspected".


The US has some influence. It varies according to where, when, and with whom dealings are taking place. <snip>... Influence is not control.The quantity might varry (in terms of manner in which the "influence" was exercised, particularly finances and people involved), but the quality not. Successive US administrations have exercised strong influence, and were often directly involved, upon/in almost every important development in the Middle East ever since the WWII. The US has not only "some" influence, and discussing "influence" in relation to "control" is actually pointless, at best a lame excuse: the US influence is usually crucial for the developments at hand, regardless if these are related to provision of support that saved the rule of al-Sauds or establishment of Israel in spite of Arab resistance in the 1940s; Op Ajax in Iran of 1953 and several coup attempts in Iraq and Syria of the 1960s; forcing the British, French and the Israelis to abandon their aggression on Egypt in 1956, etc., etc., etc.

The US involvement in all these and plenty of other events was no "accident", not based on "some" influence and even less so "only" on some sort of "(innocent) commercial interest" but on a complex system of "special relationships" between the US establishment and various local "factors" (persons, groups, organisations etc.) - and it definitely shaped the Middle East as we know it today. Again; I'm not "blaming" the USA: any other power in the same position would do exactly the same. But, this does not mean the USA are "not doing it".

For all these reasons, it's next to pointless in insisting the US have no influence upon Mubarak (or the Egyptian military) in recent developments in Egypt.

They have and this is a matter of fact. I might have a problem in properly summarizing this process; I definitely left out plenty of other examples; and it would surely take me awfully long to provide "appropriate" citations (particularly those you might like and/or accept) for everything I said above. But this is not making my conclusion less truth.


Some see it differently, some do not. In both cases memories may be colored by self-interest. I find it perfectly plausible that Saddam told people he had US approval, but the idea that someone of his experience could orchestrate a meeting in which a diplomat could say nothing of significance and then assign significance to anything she said is outside credibility. If Saddam believed the US would tolerate an invasion, it would not have been a consequence of anything April Glaspie said during that meeting.

You might perhaps argue that Saddam misinterpreted American statements and believed he had "permission" to invade Kuwait. That can't be proven one way or another. Claiming that he actually was given permission is, as previously stated, a load of bollocks.I am not supposing (like you do), and I do not argue about misinterpretations: I am telling you what the Iraqis that played a role in this affair told me.

BTW, don't you think it's at least "weird" you complain that I "know, believe or suspect" in one instance only to do exactly the same a moment later?


It's not just the USA, it's practically everybody, certainly everybody in the neighborhood. Nobody, anywhere, believes that the Iranian nuclear program is not weapons-oriented....We can now also enter discussions about the Iranian nuclear program, and I'd then probably surprise you with my assessment that they not only have several (disassembled) nukes but also with evidence of their doctrine for such weapons. However, this is not the point.

The point is that you do the same like successive US administrations and prefer to ignore the fact that the Iranians a) attempted to cooperate with the US in recent times, b) have offered negotiations on several opportunities, yet did not receive any kind of serious, dependable answers in return (only threats and conditions - all issued via the media), and c) that their standpoint is that unless somebody starts to treat them as an equal partner they are not ready to any kind of concessions.

Obviously, you are - exactly like the US administration - free to continue ignoring the Iranian standpoints. But at least you could inform yourself about the recent history of US-Iranian relations in a better fashion - in order to obtain a complete picture: insisting on anti-Iranian paroles doesn't make you right, nor can you expect that such standpoints are likely to result in any kind of change of standpoints on the other side.


The figures require citation; $400 million seems unlikely to me.I see now: there is a "deficit of information" after all... here you are:

- George W Bush 'raised $400 million for action against Iran' (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/2218623/George-W-Bush-raised-400-million-for-action-against-Iran.html)
- CIA has Distributed 400 Million Dollars Inside Iran to Evoke a Revolution (http://pakalert.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/cia-has-distributed-400-million-dollars-inside-iran-to-evoke-a-revolution/)

BTW, related projects are not only going on since 2007, but at least since 2003, and they include even provision of support to organisations labelled as "terrorist" in the USA (i.e. listed as such by the FBI):
- U.S. protects Iranian opposition group in Iraq (http://articles.cnn.com/2007-04-05/world/protected.terrorists_1_camp-ashraf-mek-terrorist-group?_s=PM:WORLD)
- U.S. Funding Armed Groups to Overthrow Iranian Government: Author (http://www.aina.org/news/20070317151234.htm)
- Scandal over US-supported Sunni insurgents in Iran (http://rt.com/usa/news/iran-sunni-insurgent-arrest/)
- U.S. Support for the Iranian Opposition (http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2634)...

Perhaps you can help me a little bit further: I am yet to find a report that any of related operations were closed, or funding ceased.


Still, when you choose confrontation, you make enemies.But how did the Iranians "chose confrontation" when they cooperated with the USA in Afghanistan and Iraq, in 2001-2004 period?


It's really not that difficult to engineer a situation that allows you to get all wounded and resentful and proclaim "see, we can't trust them".I'm sorry, but this is no answer to my question. I asked what was the logic of the Bush admin turning its policy towards an actually "friendly" IRI admin for 180°, at the spot, in around 2003-2004? How comes that the Iranians should have "engineered a situation" in that case: do their decision makers sit in the White House, Capitol or Pentagon?


Thank you for your offer to Explain Everything; omniscience must be terribly reassuring... <snip>... I also get the feeling that my own statements are being deliberately misinterpreted.This comes from the same person that declared me for a "conspiracy theorist", that can't answer even 50% of my questions but says I offered to "explain everything" - and then just a sentence or two before explaining it's your statements that are "deliberately misinterpreted"?

Interesting, no doubt.

[91bravojoe]

http://blogs.reuters.com/bernddebusmann/2011/02/14/egypt-america-and-a-blow-to-al-qaeda/

If you like backhanded swipes at Ma Clinton, it's there.

Conclusion:


So, it is reassuring to know that America’s top spy, James Clapper, sees the link between the Muslim Brotherhood gaining political space and the adverse effect that would have on al Qaeda. “With respect to what’s going on in Egypt,” he told a House Intelligence Committee hearing, “there is potentially a great opportunity here to come up with a counter-narrative to al Qaeda.

Yes, I know that Clapper's head is being called for by the usual suspects.

------------------

As to phrasing the Iranian argument in terms of their "nuclear threat", geez, isn't this The Second Time As Farce? What, no Niger purchases?

[Fuchs]

The reason why the percentage of people who depend on subsidized bread rises is that when the price of unsubsidized bread increases, more people will buy subsidized rather than unsubsidized bread.

In summary, the rising costs of patronizing the population was CAUSED by population growth, but it increased at a much HIGHER RATE than population growth.


I also showed that even at the peak of the wheat price, wheat imports were still a tiny fraction of overall imports, even a small fraction of the trade balance deficit.

The whole focus on wheat / bread is wrong.

[Dayuhan]

I also showed that even at the peak of the wheat price, wheat imports were still a tiny fraction of overall imports, even a small fraction of the trade balance deficit.

The whole focus on wheat / bread is wrong.

The percentage of overall imports is not relevant: most imports are not paid for by the government. The relevant statistic would be the percentage of government funds spent on wheat imports, and (more important) the rate at which that spending was increasing. The issue is the government's capacity to import - at government expense - wheat for subsidized distribution. This expense was unquestionably increasing, and the volatility of wheat prices must have made budgeting a nightmare: how do you budget for the purchase of 6 million tons of wheat every year when you don't know what it will cost from week to week?

30% inflation in two years, driven largely by steep increases in the price of staple foods, unquestionably played a part in pushing public anger to the breaking point. The next government will unquestionably be judged largely on its ability to reverse that trend, which it will not be able to do without a period of subsidy.

The comment I started this with was that while eliminating subsidies is good economics, doing it too quickly can generate huge disaffection at a time when a political transition is very fragile. I think it's a valid point. Prices of staples do make a difference.

[Fuchs]

You budget for purchasing wheat just like any trader in a volatile market does. That should be outright simple for a dictator.


There's furthermore no great difference between private imports and state imports. The greatest difference is that the state can use the foreign cash reserves of the central bank.

30% inflation is still something different than to lack economic growth.

[Ken White]

...How DC might have responded is not of course knowable.Umm, with ignorance and arrogance???
... I see no reason to assume that was coincidence.Nor do I. Nor do most in the ME -- it's just that their version differs radically from ours. That fact is my point in this sub thread and I wouldn't beat on it if it weren't terribly important.
It's true that the US walked into it, but the methods and conventions of diplomacy are inherently vulnerable to this kind of manipulation. I can't think of any easy or simple way to change that, certainly not without all kinds of potential for equally difficult problems.Agree to an extent but do believe a bit less arrogance -- not terribly difficult -- and erasure of much ignorance by simply listening to people who've been there and know the culture -- also not all that difficult. It can be easily changed, all that's needed is an attitude adjustment and a realization that the sun does not rise and set in the US alone...
Certainly true, but a good deal more evident with hindsight than at the time. It's also not certain that the road not taken would have led to another place: as always, that's speculative.
In reverse order. True and not so (that's my "Not really"). A number of folks with some mid eastern experience were warning of the foolishness at the time (the entire Iraqi - Saddam - Khomeini - Iran series of fiascos over 20+ years from the mid-60s forward) but they were blithely ignored as were their predecessors with respect to SE Asia in the early 60s and their successors in the post 2000 period...

There are always unknown unknowns, etc. but a lot of our problem is not such unknowns, it is willful, blind discarding of sound advice due to domestic political considerations being accorded greater precedence in decision making. It's also partly due to such appointments as Holbrook (I was not a fan of the guy who deliberately set up the almost criminal farce that was Dayton...) and Grossman as "Special Envoys" for 'Af-Pak.' No good came of the first guy and I'll be amazed if the second does better.

All of which is tied to an extent to the fact that the ME operates on a different schedule and program to the west. Failure to accommodate or account for those differences has killed a tremendous number of people. Unnecessarily...

[Marc]

I also showed that even at the peak of the wheat price, wheat imports were still a tiny fraction of overall imports, even a small fraction of the trade balance deficit.

The whole focus on wheat / bread is wrong.

Fuchs, ok, I understand what you are saying.

I think this is the right time for a compairison. Egypt's overall trade deficit is about $23 bn. The 8 million tons of wheat that Egypt imports each year represents a trade volume $3.5 bn or 7% of overall imports. According to you, this is but a tiny fraction. Therefore, it cannot be an important factor in the current Egyptian situation.

Let us take a look at these figures from another perspective. In 2010, crude oil represented 8% of US overall imports, a percentage that is comparable to the volume of wheat imports in Egypt. Is it a fair assessment to say that oil dependency is a negligible factor in US internal and external politics?

[Entropy]

What? You can't even provide one success the CIA have had? That's sad.

Of course I can, I was simply pointing you to references where you could find out for yourself. There's always google too. Here are some terms for you: U2 (not the band, that plane), Oxcart, Corona. You can search the for the CIA's role in burying the missile and bomber gaps with the Soviets. More recently, and contrary to the claims of one Daniel Patrick Moynihan, you can read this (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2751/is_n41/ai_17426424/?tag=content;col1). That should at least get you started. There are actually a lot of successes. Of course there are a lot of failures too.



Well whatever you think it happened before and may well be likely to happen again.

And all this brings us back to the point that IMHO the US would be better served by cutting back on the incompetent CIA and the State department drastically than doing same to a military currently involved in two wars. The military cuts can come later.

The CIA is only one part of the intelligence community. As a result of the 2004 intelligence reforms, it's a smaller part as several functions were taken away from it. What specifically do you think should be cut?

As for the military, we waste hundreds of billions each year. I think we could use some cuts and regardless cuts are inevitable given our government's fiscal situation.

[Fuchs]

Is it a fair assessment to say that oil dependency is a negligible factor in US internal and external politics?

U.S politics are - well, how could I phrase that without being too offensive?

The oil imports are still just a tiny share of U.S. imports and typically smaller than the U.S. trade balance deficit, of course.


You may argue that Egyptian politics were not rational and thus the wheat stuff was still important - but the same could be said for the much bigger bills that stood behind the huge rest of the trade balance deficit.


It's fashionable and simple to single out well-known themes and suspect that they played a decisive role in Egypt and/or Tunisia; Malthusian trap, facebook, twitter - convenient and simple explanations.


Convenient and simple explanations are suspicious by definition in a complex world like ours. The typical ones applied to the Egyptian revolution don't pass simple tests and thus I reject them.


@Entropy:

You can search the for the CIA's role in burying the missile and bomber gaps with the Soviets.

Would you please elaborate on this?
Those "missile gaps" were in part hoax (the one around '60), in part nonsense based on lack of logic thinking (the SS-20 scare). There was also no real bomber gap, ever - just a flimsy CONUS/Canada air defence and an almost worthless SM-1 naval air defence system.

[jmm99]

Has anyone else noticed that the Egyptian armed forces seem to have been following along with much of the advice given by Frank Kitson in Chap. 5 "The Non-Violent Phase" of his Low Intensity Operations, Subversion, Insurgency, and Peacekeeping (reprint from Hailer Publishing (http://www.hailerpublishing.com/lo_intense.html); and original in pdf (http://libcom.org/files/low-intensity%20operations.pdf)) ?

See also this piece by Eric Margolis, Egypt's Faux Revolution: Bait and Switch on the Nile (http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis227.html), which doesn't cite Kitson; but which suggests that the counter-insurgency strategy has been a "bait and switch" (which is what Kitson's Chap. 5 boils down to).

The "new" government seems to have gained something of a grace period, from Google Inc. executive Wael Ghonim (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-15/ghonim-calls-for-end-to-protests-strikes-to-bring-stability.html):


“If you get paid 70 dollars, this is not the time to ask for 100 dollars,” Ghonim said in an interview with Bloomberg Television yesterday. “If you really care about this country, it is not about you anymore. This is about restoring you know, that stability. This is about sending signals to everyone that Egypt is becoming stable and we are working on that.”

Ghonim, 30, who was released on Feb. 8 after being held by the government in secret detention for more than a week, said he met military leaders over the weekend and he believes they are “really sincere” about bringing about the change demanded by the Egyptian people.

“They realize the value of business and creating jobs,” the activist said. “We had a half an hour discussion about the challenges of how to get people back to work and how to create jobs. They are aware of the problems.”

And, although unrest still exists, the focus has shifted to the economy generally and to specific sectors:


Egypt's Transitional Government Struggles to Retain Stability (http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/02/14/egyptian-military-struggles-retain-stability/)By Leland Vittert, Published February 14, 2011, FoxNews.com

CAIRO, Egypt – As Egypt struggles to return to normal just three days after former president Hosni Mubarak resigned, hundreds of government workers went on strike Monday over wages and corruption.

The Egyptian transition government, led by the army, tried to contain a wave of protesters who defied orders not to strike. Bus drivers and ambulance workers walked off the job and a group of police protesters marched through the streets.

The instability comes as the Egyptian people are demanding to know what the next government will look like and how it will begin an economic recovery. .....
Regards

Mike

[Cliff]

U.S politics are - well, how could I phrase that without being too offensive?

The oil imports are still just a tiny share of U.S. imports and typically smaller than the U.S. trade balance deficit, of course.

You may argue that Egyptian politics were not rational and thus the wheat stuff was still important - but the same could be said for the much bigger bills that stood behind the huge rest of the trade balance deficit.

It's fashionable and simple to single out well-known themes and suspect that they played a decisive role in Egypt and/or Tunisia; Malthusian trap, facebook, twitter - convenient and simple explanations.

Convenient and simple explanations are suspicious by definition in a complex world like ours. The typical ones applied to the Egyptian revolution don't pass simple tests and thus I reject them.

OK, so much for Occam's Razor (http://www.phys.ncku.edu.tw/mirrors/physicsfaq/General/occam.html) I guess, right?

Fuchs, since you think that economic, demographic, and technology issues were not the cause, what do you think it was? If these were not catalysts, what was?

V/R,

Cliff

[Marc]

You may argue that Egyptian politics were not rational and thus the wheat stuff was still important - but the same could be said for the much bigger bills that stood behind the huge rest of the trade balance deficit.


It's fashionable and simple to single out well-known themes and suspect that they played a decisive role in Egypt and/or Tunisia; Malthusian trap, facebook, twitter - convenient and simple explanations.


Convenient and simple explanations are suspicious by definition in a complex world like ours. The typical ones applied to the Egyptian revolution don't pass simple tests and thus I reject them.

Fuchs, on the subject of convenient and simple explanations, I could not agree with you more. However, I never mentioned twitter, facebook or Malthus. On the contrary, I think that to find Malthus at work, you have to travel to Darfur, Rwanda or East Congo, not to Egypt.

However, when studying a revolution, it is obvious to analyze the issues that have to potential to mobilize large crowds. In Egypt, rising bread prices have been an incentive for social unrest on more than one occasion. This has been the case in 1977 and 2008. Actually, I do not understand why you are so adamant to reject the argument that someone's daily bread (literally) is a prime motivator for militant action. What simple tests allow you to do that?

[Fuchs]

Isn't 2/3rds of a country not remembering a time when they were free to speak their mind in public a good enough reason?

Maybe it was the contrast between the overt corruption of the Egyptian establishment and public servants on one side and the world as shown by Al Jazeera on the other side?


Food price inflation between 22 and 24% may have contributed, but only as a microeconomic issue, not as a macroecoonomic issue. The country as a whole was easily able to afford its nutrition.
A suppression of strikes and the resulting freeze of wages in combination with some other factors (insufficient effectiveness of food subsidies, for example) might be blamed if private food costs were really the issue.
I do somehow doubt that being hungry for lack of money and being a political activist with internet access fit together, though.


A usual suspect - income inequality - doesn't stand a basic test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gini_Coefficient_World_CIA_Report_2009.png) as a primary or even sole reason for the revolution. Many countries have a more appalling income distribution (including Turkey, most of both Americas and South Africa as examples).

Yet another usual suspect - unemployment and underemployment - doesn't stand a basic (superficial) test either (private sector employment grew by about 3% for several years, indicating no significantly deteriorating situation (or at least no deterioration below the state of about 2000).


Maybe - just maybe - the question should be directed at an Egyptian, not at a German. Just a thought.



Actually, I do not understand why you are so adamant to reject the argument that someone's daily bread (literally) is a prime motivator for militant action. What simple tests allow you to do that?

As a professional economist, I differentiate between microeconomics and macroeconomics.
Population growth is a macroeconomic thing.
A family patron being working poor and unable to feed his family is a microeconomic thing.
Egypt was quite fine in the macroeconomic level (except for the trade balance deficit, of course - but that was not an immediate shock because they still got credit). Economic growth was higher than population growth. Population growth - the macroeconomic property - was thus not the immediate reason behind the revolution.
Things were likely really ugly at the microeconomic level for a large share of the urban population (rural populations rarely count in sudden revolutions - and they were probably profiteering in the last years anyway).
Here you can argue about bread price inflation and stagnant wages, but that's a completely different thing than population growth and world marked wheat prices.

In other words; population growth and wheat prices are far away behind several corners, while suppression of strikes and the resulting wage stagnation coupled with food price inflation are probably just around a single corner.

[davidbfpo]

A BBC News summary, which covers the issues the new, sorry adjusted regime:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12471990


I was struck by these passages:
This trust, however wary, may be unrealistic. The Egyptian military was the backbone of the regime of Hosni Mubarak, it has its own economic interests and may not be the unified and disciplined institution that it seems from the outside.

Citing Max Rodenbeck, the Economist's chief Middle East writer and a long-term Cairo resident:
One of the many worries is that the military is so isolated from society, that it has been for so long a world unto itself. This was very useful when it had to step in to take control of the situation in a crisis. But does it have the management and communications skills and network to manage this situation?

[Surferbeetle]

Egypt’s population size is approximately 80 million persons and it has an approximate debt of 80 billion USD.

Reflections on the Revolution in Egypt (www.ft.com), By Gideon Rachman, Published: February 14 2011 21:28, Financial Times


The Egyptian revolution was driven, not just by the internet, but by many of the same forces that have sparked revolutions throughout the ages: hatred of a corrupt autocracy and its secret police; the frustrations of a rising middle class; the desperation of the poor.


This is a country where 44 per cent of the population is illiterate or semi-literate and where 40 per cent live on less than $2 a day. Low wages, rising food prices and high youth unemployment mean that there are plenty of frustrated people, whose voices will now be heard in a freer political climate. The government is already running a big budget deficit, so has few resources to buy off the discontented.

Egypt faces bleak outlook on debt (www.ft.com), by Robin Wigglesworth, Published: February 9 2011 16:21 | Last updated: February 9 2011 16:21, Financial Times


Egypt’s political upheaval sent the yield on the government’s 5.75 per cent bond due in April 2020 to a record of 7.2 per cent on January 31, when Egyptian credit-default swaps – a kind of bond default insurance – soared to 450 basis points. The yield on Egypt’s 2020 bond has since eased to about 6.3 per cent, and the cost of Egyptian CDSs has dropped to 345 basis points, according to Markit, a data provider.

Egypt Unrest Hits Projects (http://enr.construction.com/), by Debra K. Rubin and Gary J. Tulacz, with Peter Reina, Jenna McKnight, Scott Lewis, and Tom Sawyer, Engineering News-Record, February 14, 2011


A look at major projects in Egypt

Al Dabaa nuclear powerplant, Est. cost 4 billion USD, Egyptian and Austrailian firms involved


Cairo Metro transit line No. 3, Est. cost 3 billion USD, French and Egyptian firms involved


Nile Corniche mixed use development, Est. cost 1 billion USD, Dubai and Egyptian firms involved


Grand Egyptian Museum, Est. cost 800 million USD, US, UK, and Egyptian firms involved


Mall of Egypt, Est. cost 770 million USD, US and Egyptian firms involved


Credit Default Swaps (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_default_swap)


In its simplest form, a credit default swap is a bilateral contract between the buyer and seller of protection. The CDS will refer to a "reference entity" or "reference obligor", usually a corporation or government. The reference entity is not a party to the contract. The protection buyer makes quarterly premium payments—the "spread"—to the protection seller. If the reference entity defaults, the protection seller pays the buyer the par value of the bond in exchange for physical delivery of the bond, although settlement may also be by cash or auction.[1][2] A default is referred to as a "credit event" and includes such events as failure to pay, restructuring and bankruptcy.[2] Most CDSs are in the $10–$20 million range with maturities between one and 10 years.[3]

[Entropy]

Would you please elaborate on this?
Those "missile gaps" were in part hoax (the one around '60), in part nonsense based on lack of logic thinking (the SS-20 scare). There was also no real bomber gap, ever - just a flimsy CONUS/Canada air defence and an almost worthless SM-1 naval air defence system.

The missile and bomber "gaps" were ultimately the result of a lack of information on Soviet capabilities. Until the U-2 and later the Corona program, there was little hard evidence for the numbers and production capabilities of Soviet bombers and later ICBMs. In this environment of information ambiguity, some within the US government took the Soviets at their word and came up with worst-case estimates of Soviet capabilities. Of course, politics was a big part of the picture too, as Senator's Symington and Kennedy used the supposed "gap" as a political issue against Eisenhower. In short, what began as incorrect assessments based on very limited information changed over time into what were clearly false claims as new information became available.

Although CIA estimates were lower than those from the USAF and others, they too were not accurate until intelligence from the U2 and Corona (both CIA programs at the time) began to provide some real data on Soviet capabilities. CIA estimates were changed based on the new information and, in hindsight, proved to be very accurate.

[Dayuhan]

Isn't 2/3rds of a country not remembering a time when they were free to speak their mind in public a good enough reason?

If despotism alone were enough to generate revolution there would be a lot fewer despots in the world.

In an urban environment with a large number of economically marginal residents the price of food is always a key issue, and it's been a major concern for despots for a long time: one recalls the Roman emperors placating the masses with bread and circuses, and Marie Antoinette's infamous "let them eat cake".

Micro is what it's all about: urban insurrections involve a very small percentage of the population. Overall employment rates mean less than the ability to absorb young people coming into the labor force, and GDP growth has little impact on the ability of poor people to put food in their stomachs or the ability of the government to supply cheap food.

Cairo had bread riots when wheat prices spiked in 2008, but the time wasn't yet ripe for expansion to full revolt. This time around it was different. Wheat prices spiked in 2008 and 2011; Cairo had rioting in the streets in 2008 and threw out a government in 2011... no relationship?

Of course resentment toward dictatorship is an underlying cause, but specific economic conditions play a major part in translating that general resentment into action. National unemployment may have been up, but it wasn't up among the mass of young urban males who compose the Twitterless footsoldiers of the revolution. Bread prices made a difference, and they will be a factor in the effort to produce a stable transition.

[Marc]

If despotism alone were enough to generate revolution there would be a lot fewer despots in the world.

Dayuhan, there are indeed a number of factors influencing the origin, outcome, and consequences of a revolution. For a good analysis on these factors, written "in tempore non suspecto", I can recommend David B. Ottaway's "Egypt at a tipping point."

http://www.google.be/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CCwQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wilsoncenter.org%2Ftopics%2Fp ubs%2FEgypt%2520at%2520the%2520Tipping%2520Point.p df&ei=kWVbTcObNI6AhQeEqby4DQ&usg=AFQjCNFgwHG9Iw7WPxiBsAuh3xr0pOPQag

[Rex Brynen]

Cairo had bread riots when wheat prices spiked in 2008, but the time wasn't yet ripe for expansion to full revolt. This time around it was different. Wheat prices spiked in 2008 and 2011; Cairo had rioting in the streets in 2008 and threw out a government in 2011... no relationship?

Bread "scuffles" would be a more accurate description of what happened in 2008--riots implies far more substantial and widespread protests than actually occurred.

Certainly the increase in food prices played a role, although in Egypt those prices increases were typically smaller than in many other countries because of subsidies. Youth unemployment was important too too, although again Egypt was not the worst country for this, nor had it grown much worse lately. Years of authoritarian regime played a role--although as you correctly note, that in itself is an inadequate explanation for revolt. In the Egyptian case, however, the deliberalization of parliamentary politics and a sense of an impending engineered hand-off to power to Gamal Mubarak exacerbated this, heightening discontent with the regime in general and (in the latter case) creating cracks within the Army. The creative use of ICTs certainly played a role.

Critically, Tunisia played a vital role by entirely changing people's perceptions of political opportunity structures. A very similar regime had just been overthrown through popular protest. The mukhabarat and other organs of state power had been shown to be less fearsome than had been previously believed.

I was just finishing up a book on the prospects for Arab democratization in December, when all of this started to unfold. While much needs to be rewritten (grrrrr), I'm quite pleased with what was a central argument of that manuscript: that what the Arab world needed was a "catalytic event" that would alter perceptions of authoritarian power and set in motion democratic demonstration effects... precisely of the sort we now see.

[Surferbeetle]

State Owned Enterprises (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-owned_corporation)


A government-owned corporation, state-owned enterprise, state enterprise, government business enterprise, or parastatal is a legal entity created by a government to undertake commercial activities on behalf of an owner government. Their legal status varies from being a part of government into stock companies with a state as a regular stockholder. There is no standard definition of a government-owned corporation (GOC) or state-owned enterprise (SOE), although the two terms can be used interchangeably. The defining characteristics are that they have a distinct legal form and they are established to operate in commercial affairs. While they may also have public policy objectives, GOCs should be differentiated from other forms of government agencies or state entities established to pursue purely non-financial objectives that have no need or goal of satisfying the shareholders with return on their investment through price increase or dividends.[citation needed]

US Examples:


Fannie Mae (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Mae)



Freddy Mac (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_Mac)



Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Deposit_Insurance_Corporation)


Egypt Generals Running Child Care Means Profit Motive (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-15/egypt-generals-running-day-care-adds-profit-motive-to-political-transition.html), By Cam Simpson and Mariam Fam - Feb 15, 2011 3:00 PM MT, Bloomberg News


As much as one-third of Egypt’s economy is under military control, said Joshua Stacher, an Egyptian-military expert and assistant professor at Kent State University in Ohio whose work has been published in five academic journals. Revenues from military companies are a state secret, along with the armed- forces budget, he said.


It isn’t uncommon for governments and militaries to own or run their own defense-related industries and arms makers. In Singapore and Israel, for example, nationalized production of fighting hardware has been seen as a way to protect national security by avoiding dependence on foreign producers.

What sets apart the Egyptian military, the Arab world’s largest, is that its companies also offer an array of products or services in the domestic consumer economy -- and without civilian oversight.


Military companies play a significant role in consumer food production, said Springborg, the Naval Postgraduate School professor.

Because the Egyptian military wanted to be self-sufficient in meeting the dietary needs of personnel, it runs “chicken farms, dairy farms, horticultural operations. And it of course has its own bakeries,” he said.

The military’s “business interests are very large,” said Bassma Kodmani, executive director of the Paris-based Arab Reform Initiative and a senior adviser at the French National Research Council. Those businesses, though, help build the nation and help keep capital within its borders.

“The army is not seen as corrupt,” she told a group of reporters in Paris last week. “It might seem strange to people in the west, but in Egypt it’s not considered shocking that the army builds highways or new housing projects.”

Treuhandanstalt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treuhand)


The Treuhandanstalt (German: Trust agency) was the agency that privatized the East German enterprises, Volkseigener Betrieb (VEBs), owned as public property. Created by the Volkskammer on June 17, 1990, it oversaw the restructuring and selling of about 8,500 firms with initially over 4 million employees. At that time it was the world's largest industrial enterprise, controlling everything from steel works to the Babelsberg Studios.

Paul Brinkley's War, Pacifying Iraq with the Weapons of Capitalism (http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,620509,00.html), by Ullrich Fichtner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ullrich_Fichtner), 04/22/2009, Speigel Online International


Paul Brinkley is the head of a special American task force that aims to bring lasting peace to Iraq using the tools of capitalism. He represents a new approach to waging war, where the economic experts come in with the ground troops.

US Troubled Asset Relief Program (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program)


The Troubled Asset Relief Program, commonly referred to as TARP, is a program of the United States government to purchase assets and equity from financial institutions to strengthen its financial sector which was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on October 3, 2008. It was a component of the government's measures in 2008 to address the subprime mortgage crisis.
Originally expected to cost the U.S. taxpayers as much as $300 billion,[1] by 16 December, 2010 the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated the total cost would be $25 billion,[2] although Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner argued that the final cost would be still lower. [3] This is significantly less than the taxpayers' cost of the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s. The cost of that crisis amounted to 3.2% of GDP during the Reagan/Bush era, while the GDP percentage of the current crisis' cost is estimated at less than 1%.[4] While it was once feared the government would be holding companies like GM, AIG and Citigroup for several years, those companies are preparing to buy back the Treasury's stake and emerge from TARP within a year.[5] Of the $245 billion invested in U.S. banks, over $169 billion has been paid back, including $13.7 billion in dividends, interest and other income, along with $4 billion in warrant proceeds as of April 2010. AIG is considered "on track" to pay back $51 billion from divestitures of two units and another $32 billion in securities.[4] In March 2010, GM repaid more than $2 billion to the U.S. and Canadian governments and on April 21 GM announced the entire loan portion of the U.S. and Canadian governments' investments had been paid back in full, with interest, for a total of $8.1 billion.[6] This was, however, subject to contention because it was noted that the automaker had only paid back its outstanding debt, while the much larger portion of the governments' investment would continue to be tied up in the company's stock.[7]


Citigroup (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citigroup)


Citigroup strikes deal to repay TARP (http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/14/news/companies/citigroup_tarp/index.htm), By David Ellis, CNNMoney.com staff writer, Last Updated: December 14, 2009: 10:15 AM ET


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Citigroup said Monday it has struck a deal with the government to return $20 billion in bailout money to taxpayers.

The New York City-based lender said it would raise the money through a combination of stock and debt, the bulk of which would come from a $17 billion common stock offering.

[Marc]

I'm quite pleased with what was a central argument of that manuscript: that what the Arab world needed was a "catalytic event" that would alter perceptions of authoritarian power and set in motion democratic demonstration effects... precisely of the sort we now see.

Rex Brynen,

In my view, there is too much focus on the revolution itself. Starting the revolution was the easy part. However, it's not the revolution that counts, but the day that follows it. As Mr Fukuyama rightly observed, democracy is not a kind of default condition to which societies revert after the disappearance of an autocratic regime. The only tangible result we currently have is a power vacuum. The power vacuum will soon be filled by the best available alternative. Two organizations have a head start in this race: the Army and the Muslim Brothers. Emerging democratic political parties need time to catch up. The international community has to provide that time by keeping Egypt's graneries well filled. In Egypt, "bread is everything" and the lack of it will quickly lead to riots, resulting in either a military regime or an Islamist government.

For democratic, secular parties to develop, the issue of food security has to be kept out of the debate. If necessary, international organizations have to step in to maintain food subsidies at their current level. However, even this does not guarantee a smooth transition towards democracy. What will the Egyptian political landscape look like six months from now? Three main actors will determine the outcome: secular groups, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Army. According to me, it is useful to analyze their plan A, their worst case scenario, and their plan B.

Plan A of the secular groups is to unite around a democratic project and lead Egypt towards freedom, security, and prosperity. Their worst case scenario is to be marginalized or oppressed by either a military autocrat or an Islamist regime. Their plan B is a power sharing arrangement between themselves and the Muslim Brotherhood to marginalize the regular army.

Plan A of the Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamic republic. However, the Muslim Brothers are pragmatic enough to realize this is not within reach at the moment. Such a project would require a popular Islamic army (like the Pasdaran in Iran) to balance the power of the regular army. At the moment, this is simply beyond their reach. Their worst case scenario is the emergence of a military autocrat like Nasser who removes them from the political scene. Their plan B is a power sharing arrangement between themselves and secular groups to marginalize the army.

Plan A of the Army is to found a military regime. However, the generals are not blind to the fact that this is precisely what the revolution was all about. At the moment, the generals are simply unable to put the genie back in the bottle. Their worst case scenario is the loss of all their priviliges as the prime political and economic power in Egypt. Their plan B is to bide their time and foster disagreements between the Muslim Brotherhood and secular groups and within secular groups themselves. Political instability will put the army in the role of arbitrator, a steppingstone towards a monopoly on political power.

I guess that, at the moment, all actors will opt for their Plan B. This will result in a system that is much more democratic than Moubarak's regime. However, it will be very fragile. Every actor will look for the first opportunity to move to Plan A and every actor will fear the worst case scenario is just around the corner.

[Dayuhan]

Bread "scuffles" would be a more accurate description of what happened in 2008--riots implies far more substantial and widespread protests than actually occurred.

They were widely called riots at the time, though that might be considered overstatement. 7 dead is a fair scuffle, though.


Certainly the increase in food prices played a role, although in Egypt those prices increases were typically smaller than in many other countries because of subsidies. Youth unemployment was important too too, although again Egypt was not the worst country for this, nor had it grown much worse lately. Years of authoritarian regime played a role--although as you correctly note, that in itself is an inadequate explanation for revolt. In the Egyptian case, however, the deliberalization of parliamentary politics and a sense of an impending engineered hand-off to power to Gamal Mubarak exacerbated this, heightening discontent with the regime in general and (in the latter case) creating cracks within the Army. The creative use of ICTs certainly played a role.

Critically, Tunisia played a vital role by entirely changing people's perceptions of political opportunity structures. A very similar regime had just been overthrown through popular protest. The mukhabarat and other organs of state power had been shown to be less fearsome than had been previously believed.

Certainly Tunisia provided the spark, equally certainly economic conditions played a part in building the volatility that the spark ignited.

The whole bread conversation got pulled off track... I didn't originally cite it because it was "the cause", but because I see it as a significant factor in the aftermath, simply because it's a place where immediate policy can have an immediate impact. Tunisia may have been a major contributor to igniting Egypt, but it won't be a major concern for a new government, unless of course the military decides to hold onto power. Food prices and unemployment will be major concerns going forward: the populace doesn't just want freedom, it wants jobs and cheap bread.

All this matters for a specific reason. Given Egypt's enormous debt, government deficit, and trade balance, IMF assistance and loan restructuring will probably be needed. The IMF and other creditors typically insist on terminating subsidies as a condition for assistance. This is good economics and it is necessary in the long term, but politically it could be a real problem. Egyptians have been addicted to that subsidy for a long time, and if they are forced to go cold turkey things could get ugly. I'm hoping the US and EU will use their influence to push for a gradual withdrawal of subsidies rather than an abrupt termination. A major shock early on could badly destabilize what's likely to be a very fragile transition government, creating conditions that could generate a radical takeover or a military coup, which would in turn create conditions that Islamic radicals could and would exploit.

This article from 2008 gives a little rundown on events then, and a hint of the dimensions of the subsidy...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/2787714/Egyptians-riot-over-bread-crisis.html


A 100 kilogram sack of subsidised flour is worth about $3.14. The same sack costs $377 on the black market.

When a subsidy of a staple need is that large, removing it in one swoop is going to cause all kinds of trouble, something that the beady-eyed economists in the IMF back office may not realize. Yes, it has to go, but I'd suggest taking it slow and easy... not that anyone cares what I suggest!

[Steve the Planner]

n an urban environment with a large number of economically marginal residents the price of food is always a key issue, and it's been a major concern for despots for a long time: one recalls the Roman emperors placating the masses with bread and circuses, and Marie Antoinette's infamous "let them eat cake".

Micro is what it's all about: urban insurrections involve a very small percentage of the population. Overall employment rates mean less than the ability to absorb young people coming into the labor force, and GDP growth has little impact on the ability of poor people to put food in their stomachs or the ability of the government to supply cheap food.

Food security and affordability are a major driver in all CENTCOM areas, and interplays with drought/weather patterns and urbanization/rural abandonment.

Urban systems are just plain complicated.

Lately, I have been fascinated with the structure of governments in these areas, from North Africa to Afghanistan.

All have governance systems built on the original Persian satraps, later appearing as Greece, then Roman provinces, all arranged in top down hierarchies from empire/nation, down to provinces, and in turn, down to districts and subdistricts, all inferior sub-entities under the empire/nation.

It's interesting to me that the later rulers/occupiers/dictators all kep[t the structure, assuring the subservience of sub-national government entities to the empire/nation.

Not that "form" must dictate result, any more than geography or climate does, it is a substantial influence.

Older systems of City-States (cities, towns and the regions associated with them) pre-dated the empire/nation satraps/provinces) and provided formats for numerous alternative and changeable affiliations within a framework that, in reality, was a lot closer to "democracy." No doubt, local rulers could be as bad as any, but they faced many obstacles to deep insanity, not to mention loss of local support, loss of revenues from trade, and loss of people (voting by feet).

I wonder how much the actual top-down structure of these empire/nation's governance systems will continue to minimize emergence of local and representative governance, whether in Iran, Iraq, or Egypt?

I have long suspected that, once we were gone, Iraqis would (and are) developing alternate systems of cities and regions that will, in the end, break the "eternal" mold of conquerors' governance systems.

What was one of their first big constitutional steps in Iraq? Article 123 that provides for regions and alternative systems and structures.

Absent structural changes, will most Egyptian aspirations be limited? Still under a system biased towards centralized controls, as our "provinces" plan for Iraq was?

[Surferbeetle]

Catherine Ashton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Ashton) discussed a potential role for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Bank_for_Reconstruction_and_Development) in the stabilization of Egypt during a recent op-ed in the Financial Times.

The Country Assessment from the ERBD's 2010 Transition Report (http://www.ebrd.com/pages/research/publications/flagships/transition.shtml), regarding Turkey (http://www.ebrd.com/pages/research/publications/flagships/transition/turkey.shtml), was interesting:


In 2009 a total of 106 privatisation deals were completed, including 52 small-scale hydropower plants, electricity distribution companies in 13 regions and infrastructure. Tenders were announced or completed for another eight distribution companies between November 2009 and August 2010. Privatisation also progressed in the transport sector, with two ports sold this year: Samsun and Bandirma. Further sales of state-owned ports, toll motorways and bridges are envisaged in the privatisation portfolio for 2010-11. In total, privatisation revenues amounted to US$ 2.3 billion in 2009 (0.4 per cent of GDP compared with a target of 0.5 per cent) and US$ 941 million for the period of January to July 2010 (the target for a year as a whole is 1.0 per cent of GDP). Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in 2009, which contracted by more than half compared with the previous year, were mainly directed at the electricity, gas and water supply sectors, in line with the government’s 2009-10 privatisation programme.

Efforts are under way to diversify Turkey’s energy sources. In May 2010 the government signed an agreement with Russia, estimated at US$ 20 billion, for a Russian firm to build and own a majority stake in Turkey’s first nuclear power plant. Another agreement valued at US$ 1 billion was signed with Iran to construct a new gas export pipeline from Iran via Turkey to Europe, with construction expected to take three years. Lastly, important progress has been made on the Nabucco pipeline, with a memorandum of understanding signed by Turkey and Azerbaijan in June 2010 to develop trade in natural gas.

[jcustis]

PBS material on the making of the upheaval:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/revolution-in-cairo/?utm_campaign=viewpage&utm_medium=toparea&utm_source=toparea

[Surferbeetle]

Then candidate Sarkozy's position on Francafrique in The Economist, Dec 13th 2006, The glory days are passing, France debates the need to move beyond its traditional spheres of influence (http://www.economist.com/node/8417979)


Could all this change under a new president? Whoever is elected may well order a full defence review, which would have to look long and hard at Africa. For his part, Mr Sarkozy, with his tough immigration policy, has a hard-nosed approach. In a bold speech in Benin earlier this year he declared that it was time to stop looking at the foreign presence in Africa as a zero-sum game of influence. France, he said, needed a more transparent, less paternalistic relationship with Africa. “Relations between modern states must not depend only on the quality of personal links between heads of state,” he added, in a thinly disguised jibe at Mr Chirac and the phenomenon known as Francafrique, “but on a frank and objective dialogue.”

As for the Middle East, both Mr Sarkozy and Ms Royal want to warm up relations with Israel, suggesting that under either France may temper its Arabist instincts. Israel knows this. Two days before meeting Mr Sarkozy in Paris, Ms Livni dined with Ms Royal in Jerusalem. To Israel's delight, Ms Royal has stuck by her unorthodox line that Iran should be stopped from enriching uranium even for civilian use. France has usually argued that its influence in the region depends on its credibility with Arab friends. The next president may put that doctrine to the test.

From the Economist, No winds of change, Despite Nicolas Sarkozy's rhetoric, France's new Africa policy is a lot like the old one (http://www.economist.com/node/16266978), Jun 1st 2010


In some ways Mr Sarkozy has tried to turn the page on what is known as françafrique: the backroom network of personal, business and political links, fed by petro-dollars and backed by left and right, that has traditionally characterised French Africa policy. He has updated old defence agreements. He has reoriented France’s military presence on the continent, often seen locally as a sign of post-colonial paternalism, towards the Horn of Africa. Last year Mr Sarkozy opened a new base in Abu Dhabi, and this year he decided to scale back the one in Senegal.


Yet old habits die hard. Mr Sarkozy may no longer have installed at the Elysée Palace a “Monsieur Afrique”, as Charles de Gaulle called his special Africa fixer, Jacques Foccart. But informal contacts still count. Two years ago, Jean-Marie Bockel, Mr Sarkozy’s overseas-aid minister, lost his job not long after deploring the “weight of bad habits, the preservation of individual interests, the defence of certain inherited rentier situations” in françafrique. According to Robert Bourgi, a lawyer to Omar Bongo—a former president of Gabon, who died last year—Mr Bockel went on the instructions of Mr Bongo.

Foreign Policy, Le Scandal, The Arab world's revolutions have exposed the moral bankruptcy of France's foreign policy (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/25/le_scandal), BY ERIC PAPE | FEBRUARY 25, 2011


Two months into 2011, the transformation of North Africa has exposed a slew of moral failings in French policy in the Arab world, and it has raised a flurry of questions about Alliot-Marie's ethics, judgment, and veracity. Political observers and even government ministers are already debating who might take her place, perhaps in the coming days. The French diplomatic corps is increasingly turning on the president as his Middle East policy continues to disintegrate.

[davidbfpo]

Oddly there has been little coverage of the 'new' Egypt and the recent referendum had barely a mention - I expect all the reporters are in Libya - so this IISS Strategic Comment is welcome.

Link:http://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-comments/past-issues/volume-17-2011/march/egyptians-choose-order-over-further-political-upheaval/

Penultimate paragraph:
Egypt continues to suffer from aftershocks from the revolution, including episodic violence and economic disruptions. By supporting the army's plans, Egyptians have made clear their preference for order and a strong state. The army is not by nature inclined towards radical change. However, as it continues to oversee the transition, it will need to demonstrate creativity as it seeks to protect its institutional position while not standing in the way of change.

I do wonder how such a nation can do without an effective and legitimate police. There has been mention of traffic police being back on the streets.

[outletclock]

From The Monkey Cage (www.themonkeycage.org)

http://www.themonkeycage.org/2011/03/cracking_down.html#more

BLUF:


The argument I made is that urban social networks can be powerful underpinnings for mobilization, and that the onset of insurgency hinges in crucial ways on how states react to this urban mobilization. State strategies and policies, driven by the interests of regimes and security forces, are more important in shaping what happens to urban uprisings than the raw stock of government capacity and material power. The fate of rebellions, given surging social mobilization, rests on fundamentally political decisions about whether to unleash extreme violence on urban protesters and insurgents.

Regards
OC

[AdamG]

Meanwhile, from Page B3 of your local fish-wrapper...


Three months after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, a surging crime wave in post-revolutionary Egypt has emerged as a serious threat to its promised transition to democracy. Businessmen, politicians and human rights activists say they fear that the mounting disorder — from sectarian strife to soccer riots — is hampering a desperately needed economic recovery or, worse, inviting a new authoritarian crackdown.

At least five attempted jailbreaks have been reported in Cairo in the past two weeks, at least three of them successful. Other similar attempts take place “every day,” a senior Interior Ministry official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/world/middleeast/13egypt.html



AMONG THE MORE heartening aspects of the peaceful revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak was the way it brought together people from across Egypt’s social and religious spectrum. Muslims joined hands, literally and figuratively, with members of the country’s large Coptic Christian minority and stood together for democracy.

So one of the most disheartening events since Mr. Mubarak’s downfall was the sectarian violence in Cairo over the weekend, in which 13 people, six Muslims and seven Coptic Christians, died. Security personnel apparently did little to stop the mayhem, which began when Muslim men advanced on a Coptic church and armed Christians gathered to defend it. It was an episode disturbingly similar to many others over the past decades in which Egyptian Christians came under attack and the Mubarak regime did little or nothing to prevent or punish the perpetrators.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-threat-posed-by-religious-violence-in-egypt/2011/05/11/AFPu8fsG_story.html

[AdamG]

CAIRO, Egypt — Just days after the departure of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11, the nation’s new, self-appointed military leaders pledged, within six months, a swift transition to civilian rule.

Crowds of the same protesters that demanded Mubarak’s ouster cheered as their army said it would steer the nation toward a “free, democratic system.” Seven months later, however, many Egyptians are finding that little has changed.

As the so-called Supreme Council of the Armed Forces increasingly cements, and in some cases flaunts, its firm grip on power, the revolution that inspired a region is beginning to look more like an old-fashioned military coup.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/egypt/110926/was-egypts-revolution-just-military-coup

And if so, who is behind these shennanigans?


CAIRO: A fresh attack overnight on a pipeline delivering gas from Egypt to Israel left one person injured, witnesses and Egyptian security sources said Tuesday.

At least three gunmen in a van opened fire on a gas installation before an explosion hit the pipeline near the town of al-Arish in the north of the Sinai peninsula, witnesses said.

It was the sixth such attack on the pipeline, which carries gas through the Sinai and on to Jordan and Israel, since Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak was toppled in February.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/1155743/1/.html

Thread for reference : http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?p=115715#post115715

[nicolae]

"Some experts believe that Egypt’s military advisors simply may not know anything other than the exertion of power through brute force. The current leaders running the country, after all, also ruled during Mubarak's three decades in office." Therefore, invariably, the military must remain in their barracks to squander public money in all their maneuvers, except politics.

[AdamG]

Alarmed by an increasing sense of insecurity, a growing number of Egyptians in northern Sinai are stockpiling and arming themselves with heavy weapons coming in from Libya. The arms are easy to come by since the revolution in Egypt and subsequent rebellion in Libya.

http://www.npr.org/2011/10/13/141303842/libyan-guns-pour-into-egypt-sinai-residents-arm-themselves

Fun fact : going price for a KPV is $15k.


EL ARISH, Egypt — Large caches of weapons from Libya are making their way across the Egyptian border and flooding black markets in Egypt’s already unstable Sinai Peninsula, according to current and former Egyptian military officials and arms traders in the Sinai.

Egyptian security officials have intercepted surface-to-air missiles, most of them shoulder-launched, on the road to Sinai and in the smuggling tunnels connecting Egypt to the Gaza Strip since Moammar Gaddafi fell from power in Libya in August, a military official in Cairo said. Arms traders said the weapons available on Sinai’s clandestine market include rockets and antiaircraft guns.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/smuggled-libyan-weapons-flood-into-egypt/2011/10/12/gIQA2YQufL_story.html

[Dayuhan]

http://news.yahoo.com/protesters-reject-concessions-egypts-military-213902113.html


Egypt's military ruler promised Tuesday to speed up a presidential election to the first half of 2012 and said the armed forces were prepared to hold a referendum on immediately shifting power to civilians — concessions swiftly rejected by tens of thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square, who chanted, "Leave! Leave!"

The latest standoff plunged the country deeper into crisis less than a week before parliamentary elections, the first since the ouster nine months ago of longtime authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak.

This was of course inevitable, as various factions jockey for power in the post-Mubarak era. I certainly hope nobody is contemplating intervention, but it will be worth watching how the situation plays out. Transitions out of dictatorship are complicated and very challenging, and we've a fair number to observe these days.

[Bob's World]

I think the Egyptian military liked the status they enjoyed under Mubarak far more than the one they inherited (and that we pushed for in demanding that Mubarak step down).

They don't want to be in charge, but they don't want to end up in a position worse than what they once enjoyed.

As Dayuhan points out, these things are complicated. When dictators fall it is almost always far more the end of the beginning, rather than the beginning of the end.

[Dayuhan]

The danger I see for the US is that if the Muslim Brotherhood gains a substantial slice of the Parliament (they probably will) some elements of the military might wave that as a red flag and try to coax the US into supporting continued military dominance as "the only alternative" to what will be styled as "terrorist rule" or "rule by supporters of and sympathizers with AQ".

I hope we don't fall for it. I'd much rather see the Brothers in Parliament then out on the streets, excluded from power and organizing a rebellion against a tenuous military regime with no shadow of legitimacy.

[Bob's World]

Agreed. Any solution, no matter how bad in our eyes, that the majority of Egyptians want and recognize, is better than any siltation, no matter how great we think it is, if not so viewed by the Egyptian people.

This is a low trust environment, as is often the case. As a transitional mechanism, the people (and the US) trust their military. Clearly for the people this trust is melting as this transition lingers on. The US Constitution was designed to create a mechanism that diverse people could trust in when they had nothing else that they could. So to the quota system in Lebanon that ensures that no single interest group grows too powerful. Egypt needs a new trust mechanism that makes sense to them. Not us. That should be the 50 meter target.

As an aside, the current Egyptian Defense Attache in Washington is an old friend who I worked and lived with for months during the first Gulf War. I will get to see him a gain in a couple weeks for the first time since the end of the ground war, where parted and went our separate ways. I look forward to catching up and discussing such things with him. What I learned then, was that how the US and how Egyptians see things are startlingly different. We need to respect that difference.

[Dayuhan]

Egypt needs a new trust mechanism that makes sense to them. Not us. That should be the 50 meter target.

Agreed... but I'd add that this mechanism will not spring full-blown onto the scene. It will evolve, and the process of its evolution is likely to be messy and frustrating. There may be times when we are tempted to try and manipulate or direct that process. I hope we'll resist that temptation, because if we don't we're likely (IMO as always) to set it back or derail it completely.

[davidbfpo]

One of the best comments I've seen on the developing situation in Egypt as we return here in the UK to 'live' media coverage of Tahrir Square and sometimes tiny film clips from others cities than Cairo - oh yes from Australian Lowy Institute too:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2011/11/23/Egyptian-uprising-Redux-or-reflux.aspx

Nor has this aspect, with my emphasis been covered:
Last Friday the Brotherhood and other Islamist groups took to the streets, ostensibly to protest the SCAF's moves to impose a set of supra-constitutional principles that would limit civilian control of the military and enshrine the latter's ability to intervene in politics. But they quickly lost control of the protest to the second and more vehement source of opposition to the SCAF: namely, the amorphous revolutionary youth who were at the forefront of the 25 January uprising and whose patience with the SCAF's transitional rule has been running out quickly ever since.

I noted in the coverage the return of large numbers of riot police and sometimes the front-line part played by the military police - with the same old tactics.

[davidbfpo]

A London-based RUSI analyst adds:
This week, Egypt exploded for one simple reason: its army crossed the line. The Egyptian military, buoyed by its apparent role as saviour of the revolution, judged that it could manipulate the country’s democratic transition to keep its privileges intact. It was wrong...

How about this:
In short, SCAF, led by the increasingly mistrusted Field Marshal Tantawi, wants to create a political model resembling the Turkey of the 1980s or Pakistan of today – an eviscerated democracy with no control over its national security policy, weighed down by a bloated and self-serving military-industrial apparatus.

On the US stance:
Meanwhile, the United States has responded with a staggeringly facile policy. It calls or "restraint on all sides", as if blame for the crisis can be shared around equally.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8916150/Egypts-army-is-hijacking-the-revolution.html

[Steve the Planner]

David:

Your last two comments, INMO, accurately reflect the problems and their scope.

The underlying issue is demographic/economic: Huge wells of young people, reasonably well-educated and informationally connected confronting a staid old despot/military structure that just does not function to address the challenges of the masses, or their aspirations (basically, a job, a little bit of freedom, and a some self-worth).

The Arab Spring, as a beginning, is a challenge for large-population Arab countries to find new societal structures for the future. A huge challenge, including to move beyond the many external myths of desert and tribe. Islam flourished in the past as a large, complex, wisdom-right,urban, and international trading empire, so religion is not the limitation.

From here, the endless press coverage of who is in the seat of power this week (or just behind it pulling strings), and whether military or proto-civilian is a diversion.

[davidbfpo]

From The Guardian and with a strong dose of drama in the language used and assessment of it's value:
But although future historians looking back at this period will have ample primary source material available – from a mountain of ballot papers to the hundreds of hours of footage covering rallies in Tahrir Square – their most important asset may prove to be six-and-a-half minutes of jerky video, shot by Bahgat from the heart of the violence.

The film, which consists of a series of clips made over several days at the height of the unrest, directly contradicts many of the claims made by the ministry of interior regarding the type of weaponry deployed by its troops and its insistence that only "reasonable force" has been used to confront protesters.

Better than anything produced by more conventional media outlets, the footage captures the dramatic reality of Cairo's recent clashes. It is also one of the most intense recordings of guerrilla warfare ever produced and has rapidly become a viral sensation, clocking up over 100,000 hits on YouTube.

Link to article:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/02/egyptian-cameraman-tahrir-square-clashes

The YouTube link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9JmBTotCWQ

There is an assessment of the revolution that will linger IMHO with the 'guardians':
Meanwhile, a police gunman who was caught on camera apparently targeting a protester's eye – prompting cheerful congratulations from his colleagues – has turned himself in after revolutionaries pasted "Wanted" pictures of him across the capital.

[Ken White]

It is also one of the most intense recordings of guerrilla warfare ever produced and has rapidly become a viral sensation, clocking up over 100,000 hits on YouTube.He and I have wildly different ideas of what might constitute "intense."

Obviously poorly trained and shotgun armed police could never mount much more than reasonable force or a semblance thereof. That lad really needs to get out more... :wry:

[davidbfpo]

An IISS Strategic Comment, that includes:
The Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), won over 36% of the vote.......

The real surprise, however, came from the hardline Salafist Nour party, which won 24% of the vote. Long absent from formal politics but focused on preaching their puritanical interpretation of Islam, the Salafis at first seemed fragmented. But this weakness was overcome by considerable resources, good organisation and relentless identity-based campaigning. Pious but so far politically inactive Egyptians came out in support of the Salafis. Many conservative Egyptians traditionally attracted to the Brotherhood probably shifted their votes to the Salafis despite significant political and doctrinal differences between the two groups...

The main liberal coalition, known as the Egyptian Bloc, came third with only 13% in the first round. Together with smaller groups, secular parties gained a meagre fifth of the vote.

Link:http://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-comments/past-issues/volume-17-2011/december/egypts-fragile-transition-to-democracy/

[tequila]

An Egyptian army officer's diary (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/28/egyptian-military-officers-diary?CMP=twt_gu)


...
After Mubarak fell and the rule of Scaf (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) began, the top brass moved quickly to secure the loyalty of all mid-level and junior officers. Whenever a big Friday street demonstration or rally in Tahrir Square took place we would all receive a bonus of between 250 and 500 Egyptian pounds (£26-52), whether or not we had anything to do with policing the protests.

It's ridiculous; at the height of the unrest reserve officer salaries doubled and everyone was getting huge bonuses all the time (an average of 2,400 pounds – £254 – for me in January and February). Most full-time officers didn't really care what was happening politically on the streets, they were just happy with the extra money. Occasionally though you'd hear guilty jokes about how we were the only people who were benefiting from the revolution and the Egyptian people had been screwed over ...

That was especially obvious during the Maspero events [a protest by Coptic Christians (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/nov/01/christians-arab-street-islam) and their supporters on 9 October which was attacked by the armed forces, leaving 27 dead]. The media, army and interior ministry have always worked hand in hand for their personal goals, and in this instance they worked to escalate the fitna [an Arabic word denoting chaos and division] between Muslims and Christians, and there was a great deal of ignorance and confusion within the ranks. The Christian minority are seen by many – inside the army and outside – as less important, so they were an easy target. You have to bear in mind that for the most part, officers only watch mainstream Egyptian television and so they never see the YouTube videos showing the darker side of Scaf. They're in denial.

But as the months went on, despite this ignorance and the generous bonus system, dissent against [Egypt's commander-in-chief and current head of Scaf, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein] Tantawi has grown. Most of the mid-level officers now think of him as Mubarak's right-hand man, and they hate the fact that Scaf's violence has tarnished the army's image in the eyes of the public. Many still disapprove of the current protests because they feel it's not the right time, and also because they're resentful that others can go and demonstrate on the streets when they themselves do not have such freedom. But that attitude is beginning to change, especially as independent TV channels have been airing video clips of the recent violence and the brutality of the security forces is being openly discussed by people like [prominent media personalities] Yosri Fouda (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/hardtalk/9629273.stm) and Ibrahim Eissa (http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/1182.cfm). More and more mid-level officers are turning against Scaf, and against Tantawi."

[Dayuhan]

I'm no expert on Egypt, but this looks to me like bad news:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/06/14/international/i085250D77.DTL&type=politics


Egypt court dissolves Islamist-led parliament

Judges appointed by Hosni Mubarak dissolved the Islamist-dominated parliament Thursday and ruled his former prime minister eligible for the presidential runoff election this weekend — setting the stage for the military and remnants of the old regime to stay in power.

The politically charged rulings dealt a heavy blow to the fundamentalist Islamic Brotherhood, with one senior member calling the decisions a "full-fledged coup," and the group vowed to rally the public against Ahmed Shafiq, the last prime minister to serve under Mubarak.

[davidbfpo]

As SWC readers will know we have watched and commented upon the twists and turns of Pakistani decision-making for a long time; not once has Pakistan been likened to Egypt.

Shashank Joshi, from RUSI, has done this op-ed piece, which opens with:
The revolution has been cancelled. Everyone go home. It was all a big misunderstanding.

That is the message of Egypt’s military junta who, having hijacked their country’s political future, are turning it into a new Pakistan: a self-destructive and stagnating military dictatorship, limping along in sporadic democratic spurts. It is a squalid and tragic outcome for a country that should have been leading a political renaissance of the Arab world.

He ends with:
There is a warning here for outsiders, too. The United States bears some responsibility for feeding the military monster in Pakistan, over the years in which it preferred to funnel cash and weapons to the army in return for short-term co-operation.

Today, Washington should make a different choice in Egypt. It should tell the generals that the billions of dollars of American aid they receive every year, and the cutting-edge tanks and jets, will be conditional on a swift, meaningful and irreversible handover to elected civilians. That won’t fix everything, but it might buy time for a political process to take hold. The junta will respond by threatening to tear up the peace treaty with Israel, but this bluff has grown old. It should be ignored.

Ultimately, it is for Egyptians to decide whether they take to the streets once more, and risk further and perhaps futile bloodshed, or accommodate to military tutelage

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/9341650/Army-misrule-is-turning-Egypt-into-Pakistan.html

The hopes of an 'Arab Spring' leading to a better future for the people living there have dulled, in other places are being extinguished and largely for reasons of state have the West has looked away.

For a more detailed examination of the scene in Egypt try:http://www.opendemocracy.net/andrea-teti-gennaro-gervasio/egypt%E2%80%99s-presidential-run-off-legal-limbo-and-transition-to-nowhere

I noted the point that the generals are the "old guard", anxious to retain their power and wealth. So much so they could actually unite the opposition around democracy, human rights and ejecting the generals - or more fitting "back to barracks".

[ganulv]

The hopes of an 'Arab Spring' leading to a better future for the people living there have dulled, in other places are being extinguished and largely for reasons of state have the West has looked away.

The prologue (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/431/see-no-evil?act=0) to an edition of This American Life (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/431/see-no-evil) from last spring is apropos.

[tequila]

The military appears to be betting that it can pull a Pakistan and essentially strip all meaningful power (http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2012/0619/In-Egypt-the-army-wins.-Again.-video)away from the presidency and the legislature.

In return, the Brotherhood has returned to Tahrir (http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/45527/Egypt/Politics-/Egypt-Brotherhood-organises-mass-protests-Tuesday-.aspx). One wonders if the people will be behind them, and for how long. But then again, who would have bet on the people getting this far?

The Obama Administration appears to be willing (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/opinion/the-betrayal-of-egypts-revolution.html?pagewanted=print)to let SCAF gut what remains of Egypt's revolution. I suppose the experience of Pakistan hasn't taught them much - or perhaps they simply want to avoid a major Middle East crisis ahead of elections? I don't think events are going to wait for them, though.

[Dayuhan]

The hopes of an 'Arab Spring' leading to a better future for the people living there have dulled, in other places are being extinguished and largely for reasons of state have the West has looked away.

The initial "Arab Spring" was never going to be more than the first act of a long-running drama. It may yet have kicked off movement toward a better future, but it's going to take some time and some mess to get there. It was never likely that there was going to be a direct transition from dictatorship to the elusive better future.

The West may well be looking away, but I'm not convinced that's a bad thing. Not much the West can or should do to influence the events playing out; it's something Egyptians need to work out for themselves.

Trying to force the Brothers out of power is IMO a bad idea, safer to have Islamists or Communists in Parliament than out on the streets, but MO means exactly nothing...

[tequila]

The West may well be looking away, but I'm not convinced that's a bad thing. Not much the West can or should do to influence the events playing out; it's something Egyptians need to work out for themselves.

The West (well, the US) is not going to be able to avert its eyes and be seen as neutral - not when we subsidize the Egyptian military to the tune of $2 billion per year.

The fate of that $2 billion should be in question now, IMO.

[Dayuhan]

The fate of that $2 billion should be in question now, IMO.

Completely agree, but don't think for a minute that the generals will hand over power just because we move our money elsewhere, even if we do. First they'll take the line that we need them to contain Islamic extremism. If that doesn't work, they'll make their money elsewhere. Not that hard to do when you're running a country.

The US pays Egypt to not fight Israel, not to move toward democracy. We may choose to renegotiate that deal, but the other party has choices too.

[ganulv]

[T]hey'll take the line that we need them to contain Islamic extremism.

Excellent job they’ve done on that score thus far (http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/grapeshot/entries/2010/09/06/qa_with_lawrence_wright_author.html). :rolleyes:

[davidbfpo]

Londonstani who has experience of both Egypt and Pakistan comments:
..the main difference between Pakistan and Egypt right now is that Egyptians have found a public voice and a confidence to say what it is they expect from their leaders. And, this new-found expression is being tentatively exercised on a daily basis. Pakistanis, on the other hand, have little faith in the political system or their collective ability to change things for the better through the systems that presently exist. Despite talk of the lawyers marches a few years ago, in Pakistan there really is no such thing as "popular" dissent. Public protest in Pakistan only reaches significant levels when it is backed by an established political force.

In Egypt, political actors have learnt to fear "the people". In Pakistan they fear particular political parties, the military, families that run madrassa networks or media bosses.

Link:http://www.londonstani.com/blog/2012/6/18/egypts-pakistani-future.html

He also points to Juan Cole's commentary:http://www.juancole.com/2012/06/egypt-fundamentalist-president-junta.html

One passage as a taster:
What the Egyptian officer corps seems not to know is that the legitimacy and authority deriving from the ballot box will over time trump the military, no matter how positive people’s feeling are toward the officers.

[tequila]

Completely agree, but don't think for a minute that the generals will hand over power just because we move our money elsewhere, even if we do. First they'll take the line that we need them to contain Islamic extremism. If that doesn't work, they'll make their money elsewhere. Not that hard to do when you're running a country.

The US pays Egypt to not fight Israel, not to move toward democracy. We may choose to renegotiate that deal, but the other party has choices too.

Oh, I agree that the Egyptian military will not relent - I do not see any reason why we need to subsidize them while they crush the democracy movement, however. The money has many better purposes and makes the U.S. look terrible for paying it.

I see no reason why we should subsidize an Israeli-Egyptian peace any longer, either. The generals will not fight Israel because it is in their best interests to maintain the cold peace, not because we pay them.

[Dayuhan]

Oh, I agree that the Egyptian military will not relent - I do not see any reason why we need to subsidize them while they crush the democracy movement, however. The money has many better purposes and makes the U.S. look terrible for paying it.

I see no reason why we should subsidize an Israeli-Egyptian peace any longer, either. The generals will not fight Israel because it is in their best interests to maintain the cold peace, not because we pay them.

Agree on all counts, and IMO both the aid to Egypt and the annual $3 billion+ FMF to Israel should well have been moved elsewhere a long time ago (though of course the FMF to Israel is as much aid to the US defense industry as it is aid to Israel).

It will be interesting to see how the US approaches the issue. There will be those who proclaim that we have to support the generals because they are the only ones keeping the Islamists out of power. My guess is that supporting the generals is the best way to bring a really radical Islamist presence into absolute power, but we shall see...

[Fuchs]

There will be those who proclaim that we have to support the generals because they are the only ones keeping the Islamists out of power.

At times, it's thoroughly confusing that the United States are still allied with Turkey... ;)

[davidbfpo]

Ganulv,

That was a good catch:
Excellent job they’ve done on that score thus far.

Lawrence Wright author of 'The Looming Tower' is always worth reading.

I fully accept that the Egyptian internal security methods have been brutal, so acting as a catalyst for the conversion from Islamist to Jihadist. This must be balanced by the complicated discussion and eventual negotiation between the state - via the internal security agencies - and the GIA, which led to them renouncing the Jihad.

It was quite bizarre to listen to a former GIA activist explain he'd been released on strict conditions before 'The Arab Spring', one condition being not to play an active role in politics. So when the protests began he could not be involved and had to wait till a new agreement was reached (a researcher plans a book on this intriguing aspect).

Secondly, Ayman al-Zawahiri when he left Egypt was only able to take maybe two dozen supporters from the tens of thousands of militants. The rest stayed at home, many of them in the full knowledge that Egyptian internal security would be watching one day.


As an aside now - the impact of imprisonment, whether following a trial, is an important issue that often is neglected for years and then officialdom has to catch up - an issue IIRC we have touched upon elsewhere.

[davidbfpo]

Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi moves to grant himself broad powers over the judiciary, sparking mass rallies across Egypt....Egypt’s Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, propelled to power by the Muslim Brotherhood in June has survived 150 days as the most powerful man in Egypt and now seems to be breaking his promise to be a president for all Egyptians.....In fact, with this opportunistic move to claim vast executive powers he has pitted himself against the people of his country and is, more accurately, the Guardian of the Evolution.

Link:http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/press-releases/quilliam-insight-the-nature-of-power-in-egypt/

[davidbfpo]

A rare article looking at this relationship by Robert Springborg, a NPS professor:http://www.egyptindependent.com/opinion/view-officers-club

Taster:
In sum, Morsy and his colleagues in the Brotherhood are putting their newly established relationship with the military to a real test. Presumably, their assumption is that they can count on the loyalty of senior military personnel out of shared Islamist thinking, combined with solicitousness of the military’s institutional interests.

But this assumption could be incorrect. Four months may not be long enough for the new military leadership to have cohered into a like-minded group dedicated to the preservation of the Morsy government, to say nothing of establishing the networks of loyalty and control down into the army.

And while that government has demonstrated extreme sensitivity to the military’s institutional interests, its grab for power threatens the very nation and its unity that the military sees as its primary role in defending.

[davidbfpo]

A good article by a London-based Syrian journalist and this passage is all you need to know, if economical with your time:
Amidst these claims and counter-claims, in Egypt what appears to matter is not so much changing the rules of power than the affiliations of those who have it—and who therefore enjoys its spoils. It is a zero-sum game where enemies must be crushed and power sought and accumulated for its own sake.

Link:http://syriaintransition.com/2012/11/30/my-latest-article-for-the-majalla-so-long-renaissance/

From my very limited perspective it is interesting that the MB in Tunisia is acting in a different manner; their leaders spent decades abroad, notably in the UK and those in Egypt were at home, under the dictatorship and often in jail. Becoming a democrat in power appears to be harder in Egypt.

Yes I acknowledge there is an argument that the MB is not a true believer in democracy.

[davidbfpo]

Omar Ashour weighs in with a commentary:
The new Constitutional Declaration, the Revolution Protection Law, and the new presidential decrees have several aims:
To remove the public prosecutor, a Mubarak-era holdover who failed to convict dozens of that regime’s officials who had been charged with corruption and/or abuse of power;
To protect the remaining elected and indirectly elected institutions (all of which have an Islamist majority) from dissolution by Constitutional Court judges (mostly Mubarak-era holdovers);
To bring about retrials of Mubarak’s security generals;
To compensate and provide pensions for the victims of repression during and after the revolution.

While most Egyptians may support Morsi’s aims, a dramatic expansion of presidential power in order to attain them was, for many, a step too far.

He concludes:
he security sector may, it seems, emerge from this crisis as the only winner. It will enforce the rule of law, but only for a price. That price will be reflected in the constitution, as well as in the unwritten rules of Egypt’s new politics. This constitutes a much more serious and lasting threat to Egypt’s democratization than do Morsi’s temporary decrees.


Link:http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/mohamed-morsi-s-power-grab-and-egyptian-democracy-by-omar-ashour#eTOD1rYkGVARAKXr.99

[davidbfpo]

The last two paragraphs from an article on Alexandria, Egypt's second city, which is well worth reading for its depth and insight:
One of several concerns for me over the past two years has been the appropriation of religion and thrusting it onto a dangerous identity based politics trajectory in the city of Alexandria. I cannot help but make a personal contrast. As a child, my uncle, a Muslim Imam at a local mosque, would often take me with him on routine runs, in the Alexandrian suburb of Camb Shezar (Camp Caesar), to assist an old widowed Christian lady, and in contrast with the conventional discourse adopted by “TV celebrity sheikhs,” I had never heard him use the word infidel, demonize others, or even raise his voice. To me, what he humbly did and does until this day is a revolutionary act in the face of an encroaching reactionary Islamist conservatism that continues to inflame the toxic mixture of religion and politics. Not only is this trend severely harming the social fabric of the coastal city, but also it is sending disturbing signals throughout the country.

It is often said the one who controls Tahrir, controls Cairo, and controls Egypt. Yet it can also be said the one who wins the ongoing “Battle of Alexandria” is handed the baton, like a Maestro, to wave and direct the tempo, rhythm, nuances, and dynamics of Egypt’s political orchestra that plays to an 83-million strong theatre—all yearning for a happier ending.

Link:http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/9311/sons-of-beaches_how-alexandrias-ideological-battle

[davidbfpo]

An IISS Strategic Comment on Egypt's precarious position; it ends:
Despite recent unrest and disillusion with the new order, a second revolution remains unlikely. There is a risk, however, of a continued erosion of the state's authority as a result of ineffective governance and sporadic violence.

Link:http://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-comments/past-issues/volume-19-2013/february/egypt-a-country-on-edge/

[davidbfpo]

Hat tip to Red Rat for this pessimistic report:http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-07/egypt-investment-collapses-as-violence-sparks-lawless-vigilantes.html