Egypt's Spring Revolution (2011-2013)

[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/worl...-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-...ion-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".