Egypt's Spring Revolution (2011-2013)

[Fuchs]

I took your "ME" as "Arabs" because it makes no sense to discuss 9/11 and Iran together.

The Munich assassinations were about Arabs and Israel, not about the U.S. - this cannot seriously be counted as ME-born provocation against the U.S..

You still did not explain which Arab/ME actions of around '71 pointed the beginning of provocations against the U.S..
This is central to your earlier idea that the U.S. did not respond appropriately to provocations for three decades. No provocations = no lacking response.

Even worse, the whole idea that the U.S. was too soft/dovish towards ME powers/extremists/whatever seems to be clearly unhistorical to me.

------

About Egypt: Foreign agents may play a great role, but considering the possibility that a dictator might use rumours about this for his political survival, I'm for skipping unproven theories and for not adding rumours to the mix.

Most if not all intelligence services are apparently (see 20th century history) rather ineffective at inciting popular revolts anyway. They have much "better" track records with sponsoring extremists or military coups.

[Ken White]

I took your "ME" as "Arabs" because it makes no sense to discuss 9/11 and Iran together.

If one does not realize the linkage and pervasive influence of the Persian Empires (plural) throughout the area on mores and attitudes, I can understand that. OTOH, if one is aware of that, the linkage is obvious. As I said, the Persians have been out in front of the Arabs for centuries...

They had as much if not more influence on the ME and eastern North Africa than did Islam and far more than did the Ottomans.

The Munich assassinations were about Arabs and Israel, not about the U.S. - this cannot seriously be counted as ME-born provocation against the U.S.

In order; Of course they were, True - I didn't say it was.

However, it was the first big transnational terrorist attack against the West and emanating from the ME. It was a harbinger of things to come and it was extremely important because the west got a wakeup call and except for the formation of GSG 9, mostly ignored it...

That is true of the US, Nixon wisely said let's take a look, we did, saw what was going to happen -- and did nothing. Mostly because of domestic politics (It seems de rigueur in the US for a new Administration to disavow ANYTHING the previous Admin did...). We sat on our hands and let a problem develop when we could have taken diplomatic and economic steps to forestall or defuse the problem. Contrary to what you seem to believe, every comment that inadequate action was taken does not entail attack or a military response -- those are usually, IMO, ill advised. However, I do believe that if they are necessary, as they occasionally are, they should be effective. I'd even go a step further and say that if such measures are employed, necessary or not, they should be effective and not just futile swats. Those can result in doing more harm than good (witness most of the past 30 years...[from today]).

You still did not explain which Arab/ME actions of around '71 pointed the beginning of provocations against the U.S.

Sorry, thought it would be obvious. Apparently not. This is 2011, just barely. Thirty years ago would make it 1981 and Reagan would have been recently inaugurated and the Hostages released. I should have been more precise and instead of saying 30 years (meaning a not stated 'from today' and as a rough or approximate figure) should have written "since 4 November 1979..."

This is central to your earlier idea that the U.S. did not respond appropriately to provocations for three decades. No provocations = no lacking response.

Try recomputing with that 1979 start date, see if that works, don't forget to count the Embassy bombings (all of them), attacks on the World Trade Center (all of them), the Barracks bombings (all of them), the aircraft hijackings and bombings (all of them) and I think you'll come up with a fair total over the first 22 of that 30 plus years. Not quite one major attack a year but not far off, either.

Throw in the ship attacks plus Viet Nam and Somalia -- which you may not deem important in this context but of which many in the ME and Asia are well aware and often cite, not least including Bin Laden and Zawahiri, the Egyptian and Abu Yahya al-Libi -- the Libyan AQ strategist. .

As an aside, you seem to accord the 2001 attacks far more importance than I do. While extracting a higher body count and having great symbolic effect, it was just another attack IMO, just one more (or three or four more, depending upon how one counts) atop all the others over the [from 2001] previous 22 years (and that's a figure I've used often on this board...).

Even worse, the whole idea that the U.S. was too soft/dovish towards ME powers/extremists/whatever seems to be clearly unhistorical to me.

If one paid attention -- and few outside the US had or have any reason to do so -- one might come to a different conclusion. I did, do and have...

Most if not all intelligence services are apparently (see 20th century history) rather ineffective at inciting popular revolts anyway. They have much "better" track records with sponsoring extremists or military coups.

True. So we can agree on that.

Also on Egypt -- that first comment of mine above -- "linkage and pervasive influence of the Persian Empires (plural) throughout the area on mores and attitudes" -- applies to Egypt as well...

[Fuchs]

Come on, if you argue with the Persian empire, I can argue with the Roman Empire, Alexander's successor states (Greek), the Byzantine (effectively Greek again) Empire and - this blows a 2,300 y.o. empire to pieces - the Ottoman Empire, which controlled the region for centuries well into the 20th century (Turks).

You overstate the influence of Persians/Iran in the Arab world badly.
They're a different crowd and the actions of some people in Tehran in '79 had as much to do with later AQ-style terrorism as did the attack on the Embassy in Saigon.


Moreover, you're moving goalposts. You CANNOT have meant 1979 with your 30 years statement without having written nonsense.

(...)That lack of decisiveness arguably led to halfhearted measures -- easier to attain or perform -- in response to 30 years of provocations from the ME;(...)

You were clearly writing about 30 years with only halfhearted measures. This could impossibly include the last nine years. It would at most have been 22 years (79-01) of half-hearted measures, not 30.

Furthermore, the bombardment of Libya in 1986 with 60 dead cannot seriously be considered half-hearted. A full war would have been disproportionate and unnecessary.


I still don't buy this revisionist view that the U.S. was overly passive and Arabs/ME/Muslims/whatever were the provoking party.
At most, the history of the post-WW2 relationship between the U.S. and the Arab world could be called troublesome and full of minor offenses/skirmishing from both sides (with the biggest offenses being the invasion of Iraq, decades of support for Israel and 9/11 - in this order).

[Pete]

The Iranian Embassy hostage siege in London in May 1980 happened shortly after the seizure of U.S. embassy personnel in Tehran in 1979.

[Ken White]

Come on, if you argue with the Persian empire, I can argue with the Roman Empire, Alexander's successor states (Greek), the Byzantine (effectively Greek again) Empire and - this blows a 2,300 y.o. empire to pieces - the Ottoman Empire, which controlled the region for centuries well into the 20th century (Turks).

All those had an effect, I just think the Persians had more and a more enduring effect. The length of time since the Persian Empires -- there was more than the one shown on that map -- made the total effect more pervasive; they were around far longer than any of the others you cite. (LINK).

You overstate the influence of Persians/Iran in the Arab world badly.

My having lived there and seen Ta'arof at work in most of the ME nations and Afghanistan says you're far from correct.

Moreover, you're moving goalposts. You CANNOT have meant 1979 with your 30 years statement without having written nonsense.

I beg your pardon?

Go back and read the thread. Note these:

My Post 105: "Some compare current events to 1979. Not a good match. 1986 is a better correlation."

My Post 117: "I have long ( going on 31 years...) contended that Carter's abysmal handling of the Tehran Embassy seizure, Reagan's foolish foray into Lebanon and the mishandling of that whole episode, Bush 41s failure to topple Saddam in 91 and Clinton's tail wagging (that's a celebrity buzz - pop culture reference not a veiled innuendo) led to the attacks in the US in 2001 (and others worldwide before that time)..."

My Post 128: "That lack of decisiveness arguably led to halfhearted measures -- easier to attain or perform -- in response to 30 years of provocations from the ME; not from Muslims -- though most were that -- from the ME."

That last is the one to which you responded.

You were clearly writing about 30 years with only halfhearted measures. This could impossibly include the last nine years. It would at most have been 22 years (79-01) of half-hearted measures, not 30.

That is correct and is pretty much what I wrote in My Post 135 just above. So what are we arguing about? More correctly, what are you arguing about?

As for the last nine years, whether there have been provocations or attempted attacks from the ME or not is not fully known, certainly there have been no big or very successful such. That's really academic -- it's the thought that counts...

Furthermore, the bombardment of Libya in 1986 with 60 dead cannot seriously be considered half-hearted.

You may not consider it half hearted, I certainly do. I've been in units that lost more people killed in less time.

A full war would have been disproportionate and unnecessary.

Agreed, IMO the bombing operation was not necessary but Reagan didn't ask me...

I still don't buy this revisionist view that the U.S. was overly passive and Arabs/ME/Muslims/whatever were the provoking party.

Not a problem, I'm not selling.

You can call it revisionist but its a view I've held for almost all that 30 years, certainly for the last 27 years, since the second Beirut Embassy bombing. As I said, I've been paying attention, you had no need to do so.

At most, the history of the post-WW2 relationship between the U.S. and the Arab world could be called troublesome and full of minor offenses/skirmishing from both sides...

I agree and nothing I've said implies otherwise.

... (with the biggest offenses being the invasion of Iraq, decades of support for Israel and 9/11 - in this order).

I do not agree with either of those but I can understand that you and many in the world would think that. Both IMO have a basis in fact but both are biased -- as is my view, just in a different direction. Iraq was an over reaction to rectify the false impression given by 22 years of placatory response, premature departure, inaction and halfway measures. It worked fairly well even though the execution was flawed.

The real truth is probably somewhere between your view and mine. In any event, this is way off the thread to which I once again suggest we return and take this off thread discussion into PMs if you have more to say. I really do not. We should be able to differ without boring others...

[jmm99]

Foreign Affairs Coverage of the Crisis in Egypt and the Middle East - Summary: A collection of continuing Foreign Affairs coverage of the crisis in Egypt and the Middle East (most recent posted this week):

The Muslim Brotherhood After Mubarak: What the Brotherhood Is and How it Will Shape the Future
Carrie Rosefsky Wickham
February 3, 2011
Portraying the Muslim Brotherhood as eager and able to seize power and impose its version of sharia on an unwilling citizenry is a caricature that exaggerates certain features of the Brotherhood and underestimates the extent to which the group has changed over time.

The U.S.-Egyptian Breakup: Washington's Options in Cairo
Steven A. Cook
February 2, 2011
With the political era of Hosni Mubarak coming to an end, is the strategic relationship between Cairo and Washington similarly finished? The Obama administration must scale back its ambitions to affect change in Cairo.

Israel's Neighborhood Watch: Egypt's Upheaval Means that Palestine Must Wait
Yossi Klein Halevi
February 1, 2011
With Hezbollah calling the shots in Lebanon and Islamists poised to gain power in Egypt, Israel sees itself as almost completely encircled by Iranian allies or proxies. Where does this leave the future of a sovereign Palestine state?

Letter From Cairo: The People's Military in Egypt?
Eric Trager
January 30, 2011
As protests continue in Egypt, both sides -- the protesters in the streets and the Mubarak regime -- are wondering exactly which side the Egyptian military is supporting. Does the army hold the key to the country's political endgame?

The Psychology of Food Riots: When Do Price Spikes Lead to Unrest?
Evan Fraser and Andrew Rimas
January 30, 2011
The connection among rising prices, hunger, and violent civic unrest seems intuitively logical. But there was more to Tunisia's food protests than the logic of the pocketbook. The psychological element -- a sense of injustice that arises between seeing food prices rise and pouring a Molotov cocktail -- is more important.

Letter From Beirut: Crime and Punishment in the Levant: Lebanon’s False Choice Between Stability and Justice
Michael Young
January 26, 2011
In bringing down its government last week, did Lebanon just witness a coup d’etat or did it narrowly dodge civil war? Either way, Damascus, Tehran, and Washington are all watching.

Morning in Tunisia: The Frustrations of the Arab World Boil Over
Michele Penner Angrist
January 16, 2011
Last week's mass protests in Tunisia were less a symptom of economic malaise than of a society fed up with its broken dictatorship. Should the other autocratic regimes in the Middle East and North Africa be afraid?

Is El Baradei Egypt's Hero? Mohamed El Baradei and the Chance for Reform (broken link)
Steven A. Cook
March 26, 2010
The return of Mohamed El Baradei to Egypt has raised questions about the country's political system and the rule of President Hosni Mubarak. Is reform possible, and if so, is El Baradei the man to lead it?

Back to the Bazaar
Martin Indyk
January/February 2002
The United States has an opportunity to set new terms for its alliances in the Middle East. The bargain struck with Egypt and Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War seemed successful for a decade, but now the United States is facing the consequences: Washington backed Cairo's and Riyadh's authoritarian regimes, and they begat al Qaeda. The Bush administration should heed the lesson.

Cheers

Mike

[Dayuhan]

Foreign Affairs Coverage of the Crisis in Egypt and the Middle East - Summary: A collection of continuing Foreign Affairs coverage of the crisis in Egypt and the Middle East (most recent posted this week):

Interesting reading. The contrast between the piece on the Muslim Brotherhood and the rather hysterical "Israel's neighborhood Watch" piece is particularly interesting. Overall the chorus of panic and recrimination emanating from Israel is getting pretty deafening, example here...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...70U53720110131

Israel shocked by Obama's "betrayal" of Mubarak

If Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak is toppled, Israel will lose one of its very few friends in a hostile neighborhood and President Barack Obama will bear a large share of the blame, Israeli pundits said on Monday.

Political commentators expressed shock at how the United States as well as its major European allies appeared to be ready to dump a staunch strategic ally of three decades, simply to conform to the current ideology of political correctness...

...To win popular Arab opinion, Obama was risking America's status as a superpower and reliable ally.

"Throughout Asia, Africa and South America, leaders are now looking at what is going on between Washington and Cairo. Everyone grasps the message: "America's word is worthless ... America has lost it."

One has to wonder what exactly they want the US to do to preserve the hollow shell of Mubarak's rule. There seems to be a general reluctance to admit that Mubarak is probably going down no matter what the US does. Rats may leave sinking ships, but who in his right mind stays on a sinking ship?

Seems to me an excellent opportunity for the US to demonstrate that we do not necessarily hold our interests to be identical to those of Israel.

For the US, the story of 1953 Iran is an important one to understand when looking at Egypt today.

It may be even more important to understand that story when looking at Egypt tomorrow, or in the near future, as a new Egyptian government emerges. There will doubtless be all manner of panic over presumed Islamist influence, and all manner of calls for the CIA to do the dirty and bring back a tidy reliable dictatorship. This temptation will, I think, be best avoided.

The message the US needs to deliver, IMO, lies not in what we do to resolve Egypt's current crisis but in how we deal with what emerges after. Time for us to show, not say, that we are able and willing to deal with a government that puts Egypt's interests ahead of ours. Certainly there will be friction, but the way we choose to manage that friction will speak volumes, and have a lasting impact.

[Cole]

One has to wonder what exactly they want the US to do to preserve the hollow shell of Mubarak's rule. There seems to be a general reluctance to admit that Mubarak is probably going down no matter what the US does. Rats may leave sinking ships, but who in his right mind stays on a sinking ship?

Seems to me an excellent opportunity for the US to demonstrate that we do not necessarily hold our interests to be identical to those of Israel.

Ever hear the old joke about two men coming upon a Grizzly bear and the one says, "Run," and takes off to which the other says "you can't outrun a bear." The first replies, "That maybe true but I only gotta out run you." In this case Iran is the bear. Wouldn't you prefer both the U.S. and Israel to have a better hunting rifle and Israel to be the first target of the bear?

Second analogy: If your ship is sinking in water that will cause hypothermia and death in 10 minutes and a rescue ship (election) is 15 minutes away and you have nothing resembling a life raft now, do you jump now?

And you certainly don't need someone from the rescue ship telling you over the radio to jump now...or your young sailors who have no clue what hypothermia (or running a country) involves.

[CrowBat]

Continuing my attempt to understand Ken's flow of thoughts....

Try recomputing with that 1979 start date, see if that works, don't forget to count the Embassy bombings (all of them), attacks on the World Trade Center (all of them), the Barracks bombings (all of them), the aircraft hijackings and bombings (all of them) and I think you'll come up with a fair total over the first 22 of that 30 plus years. Not quite one major attack a year but not far off, either.

Throw in the ship attacks plus Viet Nam and Somalia -- which you may not deem important in this context but of which many in the ME and Asia are well aware and often cite, not least including Bin Laden and Zawahiri, the Egyptian and Abu Yahya al-Libi -- the Libyan AQ strategist.

<snip>

....its a view I've held for almost all that 30 years, certainly for the last 27 years, since the second Beirut Embassy bombing. As I said, I've been paying attention, you had no need to do so.

I think I understand your standpoint now, but have a strong feeling you're throwing quite a lot of unrelated events on the same pile, while ignoring the US involvement in many of them. At least you blame wrong people for attacks on the USA. I also don't agree with the premise of the US - generally - acting "lamely", or being provoked.

If you like, consider me a "Devil's advocate". I don't mind, since it happens often and I got used to that. My point is: as much as I can understand your standpoint, so I can understand the standpoint of those you say "provoke" the USA.

For example: the Iranians see themselves as provoked by the USA, time and again, and again, and again. Op Ajax in 1953 and installation of the Shah was just the start, some of them "insist" on it, others don't even care about these events, but some much newer ones. See; Israeli invasion of Lebanon which (as they see it) and the resulting oppression of the Shi'a in the south of that country - couldn't have been undertaken without US support; assassination of their charge d'affairs in Lebanon by (what they see as) an US ally (Lebanese Christians), and which was a signal for the onset of an "undeclared war" against the IRI; US support for Iraq that brutally invaded them and actually enabled Khomeini to firmly entrench himself in power in Tehran - but also led to the development of the IRGC as the major military, political and economic power in the IRI -; wholehearted support of Wahhabism on at least two sides of the IRI (in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) since the 1980s (I'll not involved various "Stans" to this consideration now); US treachery after Iranians supported them so much in Afghanistan in 2001-2002, and then in Iraq, in 2003; clandestine US operations to steer troubles between ethnic minorities etc. As you can see, their list appears even longer than the one you could offer as argumentation that the Persians are "provoking" the Great Satan...

Now, you are relating various terrorist attacks against the USA with the IRI, and see these are a result of "soft" actions of various US admins. But, why don't you "connect the dots"? Who are the crucial theoreticians of the AQ, and who were not only the 19 idiots from 9/11, but also those who bombed embassies in places like Nairobi? Who are the MBs the Israelis are so in panic about? Persians - or Egyptians and Saudis?

In what way are - for example - Islamists from Egypt that turned so extreme they are not accepted even by their own "brothers" (from the Brotherhood), related to the Persians?

Sorry, not the least.

Furthermore, if you continue connecting these dots...and to bring us back to the actual topic of this thread: don't you find it at least "curious" that the people that run the AQ and became involved in actions against the US, emerged after Mubarak came to power, and since the USA began delivering extensive military aid to Egypt? Prior to that the MBs did not care the least about Washington. If you study them more closely, you find out that their motivation has nothing to do with the Iranian Shi'a, but with the Saudi Wahhabists. They turned against the USA after the US troops "violated the holy soil" of Saudi Arabia, in 1990. They were trained by the ISI in Pakistan in projects financed 50:50 by the USA and the Saudis, and ignored by the US while spreading their ideas from Marocco and Nigeria, via India to the Philippines.

You also mentioned Somalia: as of 1981-1983, Somalia was a recipient of the US military aid, as a counter to the "reactionary and pro-Soviet government" in another former US ally - Ethiopia: I strongly doubt anybody in the DC ever came to the idea to study how comes Mengistu "turned" Marxist-Leninist (literaly) over the night. At the same, the US at least ignored provision of military aid provided by various Arab regimes to the Islamists in Eritrea...only to, 20 years later, find itself having to support Ethiopia against Islamists in Eritrea and in Somalia... Now, do you think Ethiopia or Somalia ever "provoked" the USA, or any US admin to have been "soft" to them too?

[Dayuhan]

Shortly after writing this:

a post-Mubarak Egypt does not have to be an Islamist nightmare or an Iranian clone. Of course the Israelis, and a few others, will wave that threat at us in an effort to persuade us to try to shape the new Egypt to their liking, but that would be an effort well worth resisting.

I browse around and note Sarah Palin saying this:

...information needs to be gathered and understood as to who it will be that fills now the void in the government. Is it going to be the Muslim Brotherhood? We should not stand for that...

Somebody really ought to remind her, and perhaps a few other people, that the US does not have veto power over who rules Egypt.

[slapout9]

Keyfaya is Arab for enough! this is a link to the RAND corporation study on the usage of social media and youth groups to cause regime change. Still reading the paper but there are some very strong parallels as to what is happening in Egypt......coincendence?????


http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG778.pdf

[CrowBat]

....I browse around and note Sarah Palin saying this:
Somebody really ought to remind her, and perhaps a few other people, that the US does not have veto power over who rules Egypt.

Down to the bottom, brutal reality is that "Sarah Palin" has more to say about the future Egyptian president, than 79.999.996 Egyptians.

Bob,
Ken,
thanks for understanding my points (and that inspite of my usual Sunday-morning-sloppy-typing ).

One plea from me, if you don't mind: don't get my "prose" as an accusation or putting the blame on the US for "everything". I very well understand the machinery of the US politics, at home and abroad. The same with many of the countries we're talking about. So, that was a simple counting of historical facts, thinking about what you write, and trying to make you think about what I write. My experience is that I always "only" learn from such exchanges.

Few (this time relevant, I hope) observations for the time being:

Egypt is important. Culturally and physically, it sits at the fulcrum point between Mediterranean Arabs and Arabian Peninsula Arabs; between West and East. It is an ancient culture and a true nation; as is Iran...

If one can trust recent reports from Cairo and Zagreb (Croatia), Egypt might become even more important, since the Croatian company INA might have found two huge gas fields somewhere between Marsa Matruh and el-Alamein (yes, "that" el-Alamein). Some three weeks ago the (meanwhile former) Egyptian energy minister went as far as to state that Egypt might become one of major gas producers world-wide. For what it's worth: Minister: Egypt can be one of main gas producers.

What many in the world fail to realize is that the US government reinvents itself at 2, 4, 6 and /or 8 year intervals due to our political process. That is no excuse...

Trust me, it's even less of an "excuse" considering the fact that in regards of ME, all the administrations since Nixon - without any exceptions - are sticking to the policy developed and introduced by Kissinger: Israel is dictating the US foreign policy in the Middle East, irrespectivelly - often regardless - of the price the USA pay for that.

That's the essence - also that of what's currently going on in Egypt. Stay tunned, the "Super Bowl match" between the teams of "Egyptian Opposition" led by coaches Obama and Clinton on one side, vs. "Mubarak", led by coaches Netanyahu and AIPAC on the other, is going to be continued "right after this"....