Hope and Change in Egypt; Naiveté and Wishful Thinking in the West
Much of the mass media seems to be saying, to paraphrase John Lennon and Yoko Ono, “All we are saying is give the Muslim Brotherhood a chance.”
There are three arguments supporting this policy that are worth discussing in large part because the Muslim Brotherhood’s advocates don’t have any others.
The first, which one hears everywhere, is that the Muslim Brotherhood is full of factions that are moderate and hip young people who want real democracy. If this were true, it should be easy to prove. Here are some of the ways to do that:
Who are the leaders of these factions? What is their composition? Where have they put forward alternative positions? What posts do they hold in the movement? Was there a battle among factions on choosing the Brotherhood’s parliamentary or presidential candidates? How have they reinterpreted in a more liberal way Sharia law? Do their opponents in Egypt recognize the existence of these factions? Do those who defected from the Brotherhood say that the movement they formerly thought to be irredeemably radical has changed?
At the same time, the Brotherhood’s leadership continues to come up, without contradiction in the ranks, with the most extreme, intolerant, and bloodthirsty positions. Even if it were to be established that other factions exist, one would have to show that these factions had some chance of directing policy.
And the young hip people in Turkey’s old fogey Islamist movement have now been running the country for almost a decade, carrying out the work of fundamental transformation in that once secular polity toward being an Islamist state. They are far from finished.
It used to be that public debates depended on the ability of those arguing for a given thesis to provide proof. Now they are conducted by one side simply censoring out the other. Apparently on the question of Muslim Brotherhood moderation, the science is settled.
Incidentally, in countering my view on this point, the BBC interviewer kept referring to a New Statesman article on the Brotherhood which he said showed the group was becoming moderate. Not to my surprise, the author was Fawaz Gerges, a propagandist for the Islamists who has done zero research on the subject.
A second argument, expressed, for example, by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, is that we must “hope” for the best. There’s nothing wrong with hoping for the best but that’s not the most effective type of national strategy. In this case, “hope” means doing nothing, saying nothing, and thinking nothing. And we should also remember that hope in the Palestinian Authority’s moderation even as it forms a partnership with Hamas and refuses to negotiate with Israel.
So the problems with hope are: it can paralyze action including efforts to shape the situation; it comes too late, after the new dictators are already in power; and it quickly goes over into being wishful thinking.
It’s also nice if there’s some evidence for having a belief that things will turn out all right. The poet Emily Dickinson wrote that “hope is the thing with feathers.” So is cowardice.
Dickinson wrote of hope:
I’ve heard it in the chilliest land,/And on the strangest sea;/Yet, never, in extremity,/It asked a crumb of me.
Precisely, hope requires you to do nothing. No need for action, confrontation, responsibility, or risk. And some cannot distinguish between the call of that little bird and that of the Sirens, who lured the ships (of state?) onto the rocks where all aboard perished.
Mr. Rubin, why don’t you think that the responsibilities of governance coupled with Egypt’s economic and military weakness won’t compel the leaders of the Brotherhood to either change lest they reduce the government of Egypt itself to irrelevance?
This is precisely the same argument employed by a number of naive German conservatives to encourage handing over power to Adolph Hitler in 1933. How did that work out? Islamic extremists could care less about increasing the living standards of the typical Egyptian. They want power to declare war on the alleged enemies of Allah.
One: It’s not about improving living standards. It’s about avoiding mass starvation. That tends to change people’s minds.
Two: in 1933 it was the Nazis and Communists battling in the streets. Today it’s the Brotherhood and the democrats – and the democrats claim the leading rule in the Revolution.
The M-B delivers or else be defeated on the streets. I don’t think they can build a mullahcracy in Egypt.
The threat of mass starvation ” tends to change people’s minds”? It certainly did not during the eras of Stalin and Mao. Islamic radicals have exhibited very little concern regarding the desperate needs of the masses.
“…and the democrats claim the leading rule in the Revolution.”
Do you have any polling data to indicating that the Democrats rule the Revolution?
The MB and secularists aren’t fighting each other in the streets: they just are voting differently.
A leader of a political party was written about today thusly: “’This is the real test for Islamists, because people need tangible solutions, not religious slogans,’ Hagras said, adding that the victory represents a limited mandate, not an absolute one giving Islamists the right to change the identity of the state or interfere with people’s lifestyles.”
So, if the Islamists are going to total 50% in parliament, who’s the other half, why don’t they matter equally? Is the glass half empty or half full?
That’s not 50% per the current (and partial) results, it’s an absolute majority if we include the even more Islamists Salafis. An absolute majority will probably also exist in the chamber which is ___writing the new constitution___. Once that happens, I’m sure lots of tricks can be found to exclude other parties or maybe even abolish elections (and of course, for imposing Sharia). The new Islamist democracy may even have a nice motto: “One man, One vote, One time”.
Alarmist? I hope I am. That would be better for the world than me being a realist…
The other half (which as Y points out will probably be less than half) of the
Parliament will include parties which may make deals and support the Islamists
and the liberal democrats who are split into different small parties. Even if all the liberals join together they wont have enough strength to block the Islamists.
By the way, I am impressed with the level of the debate here. This issue is important to me so I hope the discussion will continue on this level.
May I direct your attention to Iran where the democrats brought down the Shah, and the Mullas formed the government! A more recent ISLAMIC example.
Islamists don’t care about starving people. They care about power. The MB will just blame the Jooooooos and send them all on a little jihadi over the border to thin the herd, then blame the deaths on the mean Joooooos.
Radicalism doesn’t necessarily contradict functionality. The Ottoman theocracy existed for centuries and was a superpower. Iran has been a functioning state for the last 30 years, albeit not a great place to live in. You can force a certain dress code by law, execute gays and forbid women and infidels from doing all sorts of things, and still be able to collect the garbage.
If the MB behaves like the Taliban, then the loss of tourism and foreign aid is certain. But the MB isn’t as extreme as the Taliban to begin with (blowing up the pyramids or spilling acid on women’s faces because they dared to go out to work to feed their children), and also will not necessarily go for *immediate* full implementation of its interpretation of sharia, but opt for a gradual model, like the Turkish Islamists, and for certain compromises as to not deter tourism. Even Hamas didn’t go for an *immidiate* full implementation of sharia, though Hamas is waaaay less sophisticated than the Turkish AKP. You can, for instance, ban alcohol, but turn a blind eye when it’s sold in tourist spots, while cracking on it in other places, or force the hijab only on Muslim women and only on citizens, so tourists aren’t affected by it.
The Turkish gradual transformation model has been a great success. You don’t immidiately implement sharia law. First you gradually take over the edcuation, religious institutions and the media, and use them to instill your views and agenda. You don’t immediately go to war against Israel, but allow weapon and terrorists to flow into Gaza and the Sinai under the pretext that you don’t have full control of it, and then manufacture crises with Israel, so you’ll have an excuse for hostile actions. You don’t ban alcohol, at least in tourist spots, but gradually introduce various limitations on sales of alcohol. And so on. And the West is full of dupes eager to believe the Bros are moderate, so they’ll very happily swallow it and promote the Bros’ moderate image in their countries. So instead of going from A to B in 5 minutes, you go from A to B in ten years. That will be even more true if the elected president won’t be the Islamist candidate.
And if or when the West evetually turnes against you, you still have the options of China and Russia that really don’t care if you execute apostates, plus all the other states that do exceute apostates just like you.
The sprawling Ottoman Empire controlled great trade routes and Iran has oil. Egypt has the Suez, not on the same level.
As for sharia, I don’t understand this view of Egypt implementing sharia. Here is a quote from Article 2 of the Egyptian Constitution: “the principles of the Islamic sharīah are the principle source of Egyptian legislation.” It’s been in place for decades already.
As for the MB having compassion for people starving, in the 1992 earthquake and the case of a ferry sinking, the MB arrived and gave food and aid before the gov’t did. The MB got elected because of this not because they are seen as “more Islam” by a country already heavily conservative when it comes to religion. I’ll paraphrase Bernard Lewis again, Muslims are already Muslims.
SOL 2
What makes you think that power mad Moslem Brotherhood Islamists will have anymore compassion for the starving people of Egypt than has the communist regime of N. Korea which let up to 1.5 million of its people starve to death, with possibly 1 million more soon to follow?
or else engage in a foreign or civil war which they may well lose?
What you’re missing is that in this case, losing a war is not at all problematic for the Egyptian MB, and may well actually be a feature.
Look at it from their perspective: First, they can’t solve the country’s problems. Second, they will for now share power with the still too-secular, too-infidel connected Army. Third, world opinion may come to hate them and may not give any aid due to their Islamism.
Fighting a war, even and especially if they lose, solves all these issues.
First, it gives the country an external enemy to worry about and blame for all economic ills. Second, they can blame the Army for the defeat, and use the excuse to purge it. Third, they’ll blame all their extremism on Israel, which is enough of an excuse for some brain-dead Leftists and for not cutting aid entirely.
Now, yeah, losing a war would be slightly painful – Egypt may perhaps lose some land due to the war (or may not if enough intl. pressure is laid on Israel), but Israel won’t be able to overthrow the MB, and anyway, the loss would be temporary. Once Egypt is fully converted to “proper” Islam (a conversion which would be helped by a war), Allah will be on side and they will be unbeatable (MB perspective).
In short, the prospect of losing a war may not actually be a detriment at all for the MB.
Egyptian tanks and jets are American; they can’t fight a war unless America approves it – who’s going to refit and resupply them? The biggest fear should be Egypt building an army that is Chinese/Russian made.
My argument was actually that losing a war isn’t as anywhere as bad for the MB as some may think, so they may wish it nonetheless (which will kill lots of innocents from all sides).
Your reply is ergo irrelevant.
Nonetheless, you overestimate the dependency. Theocratic Iran managed to fight the eight year Iran-Iraq war with (some) American equipment. Yes, it’s a serious problem which will hamper their efforts, but it’s not an insurmountable problem:
Ammo is plentiful and standard. They can pitch for spare parts from other Arab/Muslim states which are using American equipment (Saudi, Jordan, Pakistan), American stores in Egypt (which exist, though not anywhere as much as in, say, Israel), and cannibalization. Besides, modern wars are usually short anyway.
Egypt does not need ‘appoval’ to start a war. Against whom, Israel?
The Egyptian military is not going to do anything like that so long as Israel maintains a strong defense, at least not in the short run. Meantime economy and other aspects of life need to go on.
Y and Spindok, ignoring a thing isn’t an argument. The Egyptian army cannot fight a war when their resupply and refit of ammunition and jets and tanks would depend in large part on America as it did on the Soviet Union in the 1973 War. You don’t address this issue because it gets in the way of your cuddly obsession with war being a threat to Israel, it’s not. I have the car keys.
Best look at some photos of the tanks in Tahrir – they are American.
You’re living in a dream world if you think the Egyptian army can resupply itself with the brutal speed necessary, (see 1973) using an ad hoc method from S. Arabia, (American ally) Pakistan, far away across American/Israeli controlled space, Jordan (same). Look up “operations” and “logistics” and get yourself a map.
These issues are not irrelevant and they ARE an insurmountable problem. Egypt cannot attack Israel – end of story.
Mary: I’m obsessed? I’m not the one responding to _all_ of Rubin’s articles. (Coincidentally, with the same viewpoint every time, and never learning anything from the article or comments. Oh, and the personal attacks are also typical).
As far as dependency goes, I suspect you’ve never served in a military in your life, and have no idea what is and is not possible for it (e.g. you mention speed, but forget that parts can be stocked in advance, etc.). As I said, it’s a problem, not an insurmountable one. Mind you, Egypt will definitely lose regardless – but that’s because the quality of both equipment and manpower is inferior. That won’t help the people on both sides which will die.
P.S. You’re still ignoring my point that losing a war isn’t necessarily a bad deal for the MB, and may in fact help them take over from the army. Which is another problem with your comments about the region – you’re just not cynical enough.
I’m IN Egypt, who’s going to learn what from whom? I need to read articles by people outside of Egypt to know what’s going on outside my window?
And parts can be stocked in advance but not planes and tanks. Rather than chiding me for my lack of acumen in regard to things military, you yourself need a course in war.
I’m not ignoring your point about the MB and war: it’s pure speculation based on nothing. It’s not a question of being cynical enough: how in the world can a U.S. supplied army go to war with an American ally – it can’t.
Have you considered that upper-class-Cairo-neighbourhood you’re probably in is not a good guide for all of Egypt? No wonder you were surprised by the election results…
Anyhow, yes, an American supplied army can survive for a while without US support. Saddam thought Iran couldn’t survive a war after the revolution and losing American support, and he ended up fighting an eight year long war (most of it on the defensive). After all, tanks and airplanes could be gotten elsewhere.
Now, would Egypt win? Nope, but for other reasons than American decisions. Would that expected loss deter MB? Quite possibly not. It probably has more to gain from a war.
From what I understand, the American Abrams tanks which Egypt uses are made under license in Egypt. They have always had a limited arms industry. Spare parts for their tanks will be no problem. The aircraft on the other hand present a different problem as they are the same that Israel employs in their airforce.
Again, this is not a question of replacing tank treads or barrels, but of entire tanks. I urge you to simply read a history of the 1973 War and note the respective roles of the U.S. and Soviet Union in regard to resupply during that conflict. Then, contrast that situation with a hypothetical war in the Sinai now. The Soviet Union is gone. America is in its place in terms of Egypt. American cannot stop Egypt from using its army to attack Israel, but it can withhold supply and refit. In effect, an attack against Israel by the Egyptian army would be suicide.
Egypt doesn’t have to necessarily go to a conventional war against Israel. Iran and Syria are in war with Israel for decades even though Iran never sent a regular army and Syria haven’t done that since 1973. What they do is fund, arm and train terrorists organizations. And don’t think this is a minor thing. If you haven’t lived in times where there are a couple of terrorist attacks a week, or there are rocket attacks several times a day, you don’t know the effect it can have on a country, its functioning, its economy, the health of its people (both in direct casualties, and in psychological terms. When you have a substantial part of the adults and 100% of the children of an entire city suffering from symptoms of post-trauamtic stress in varying degrees of severity due to living under constant rocket attacks for a decade the entire city is sick).
The MB may or may not send the Egyptian army. The likelihood of that will grow if other Muslim states join the war to form a large Islamic front against Israel, just like the nationalist Arabs joined together for attacks. What’s very highly probable is that they will allow the flow of weapon and terrorists to both Gaza and the Sinai. Then they will have the option of deniability. They will say that they try to stop them, and parheps even arrest of few for show, but they’ll claim the situation in Egypt is still unstable and they can’t have full control on the borders, the infiltration of terrorists, and smuggling of weapons – this is a very common MO in the Middle East. This way they will continue getting Western aid for the starving population, as well as possibly money from other Muslim states and various Muslim “charities” and organizations. This will be a win-win situation for them, eat the cake and keep it whole. And of course, every time Israel reacts Isarel will be the one to get the ineternational condemnation and possible sanctions, and the Brotherhood’s Egypt will get even more sympathy, aid and donations.
Now the MB can send an army? You people are really out in orbit.
What a train wreck. And so predictable.
I would like to hear Mr. Rubin’s opinions on why Egyptians are choosing more authoritarianism after soundly rejecting it only a few months ago. Is there any hope at all?
DD
When did the majority of Egyptians reject authoritarianism in the recent past? Was I asleep while this occurred? You seem to be confusing a handful of “elites” with the majority of people living in the county. These childishly immature folks greatly exaggerated their influence. Too much was also made regarding the protests in Cairo that probably never numbered more than 200,000 individuals—-out of a total national population of some 80 million citizens!
#OccupyCairo?
It appears that way too many Egyptians have bought into the Islamist notion that Islam is the answer for Egypt. That Egypt is suffering economically and otherwise because it’s not sufficiently Islamic and has incurred the wrath of God. The MB will set things right with Allah by Islamizing the country, turning it into the Islamic Republic On The Nile. Then Egypt will prosper and lead the Sunni world back to glory defeating Israel, America and the West and restoring the caliphate.
I recall reading the serious suggestion that a Google executive in Egypt would be a strong candidate for PM. Staggering – just staggering in its delusion…
If it was only 200,000 individuals in Cairo Mubarak would still be President. It came to millions all told in Suez, Cairo and Alexandria.
And every time I hear the phrase “so predictable” I laugh because such people are consistently unable to delineate the exact mechanisms by which their “predictions” will come to pass. Lame and uninformed guesses based on reading blogs and newspaper accounts is what such “powers” amount to.
The vast majority of such fortune-tellers couldn’t tell you what a Salafi is to save their lives without Wiki.
“…millions all told in Suez, Cairo and Alexandria.”
I doubt very much if the grand total even hit even a million—and that is a very small percentage of Egypt’s roughly eighty million population. Those people living in the boonies who barely earn enough to stay alive probably did not even know about these protests. They are also the ones who may starve to death in the near future.
Are you saying then that both people who said the Islamists are weak and those who said they are strong had the same degree of knlwoedge and/or understanding, and the latter were correct just by chance? That there was absolutely no way to estimate if the Islamists are weak or strong?
But this is not a lottery. Many Western correspondents seem to have drawn their impression from the composition of the people they saw demonstrating in Tahrir sqaure and what they said. And there were relatively many liberals and leftist there. But if the parliament is decided by an election then one should look at the composition and views of the entire Egyptian population and not just of the people in the demonstrations in the big cities. For that purpose polls can be of service. Not just polls about the election or the parties, but also polls that survey the general views in Egypt regarding the principles of Islamism and democracy. For instance, if a majority of Egyptian Muslims believe that a global caliphate is the best form of government, that sharia should be a main source for legistlation, if many believe sharia should be the only source, if a majority believes that apostates should get the death penalty, and other principles that are part of the Islamist program, then it’s reasonable to infer from it that the Islamists are strong, it’s unreasonable to infer from it that they are weak. Of course, it doesn’t mean that all those people will vote for Islamists. People have complex opinions and interests. They may vote for other parties based on other issues, like the economy or foreign policy. Or they may not vote for the Islamists because they object to other parts in their program or because they fear the economic consequences. So based on these kind of polls (not election polls, just cultural polls) one can’t predict the Islamists will win an overwhelming majority, but considering the fact that several important Islamist stands are very popular it isn’t reasonable to predict they will be unpopular in the election just because their views might be under-represented in the demonstrations.
Of course, if there are actual election polls before the election, then those are a better indication. Indeed, polls are sometimes wrong, but usually are not entirely off the mark. I mean, if a poll predicts 40% for a party and in reality it gets 33% or 47% then the poll is a complete failure, but it still gives you some relatively narrow range of between 30% and 50%, and not a range of anywhere between 0% and 100%. If you have a poll that predicts 40% it’s unreasonable to predict 5% or 80%.
These are just examples of types of data that are useful to have before trying to predict how strong some movement is, not necessarily what people here used. And they don’t guarantee success, but we’re talking about probabilties and how often one gets things right or wrong. So maybe when people say it was predictable, it’s not based only on ignorance and prejudice, maybe they had some good reasons to expect the Islmaists will have a pretty strong perfomance, so maybe it was not by mere chance that they were closer to the truth than those who said they’re weak.
Well who ARE you going to draw your impressions from: tens of thousands of people risking their lives attacking the gov’t or some guy sitting on a donkey in Assiut?
And yes, there may be ways to know the strength of Islamists in Egypt but try doing a poll here. Even the Egyptians were at sea on this one although many are now saying it was predictable. Every one is a fortune teller. And that gets to the heart of this predicting game: other than an ego booster, of what use is it? You think knowing in advance Islamists would have 2/3 of Parliament would have enabled any one in the world to do anything about it? It wouldn’t have changed a thing.
People love burying people or putting them on pedestals because simply trying to tell what’s happening based on facts of the moment is boring. The want an “The End” before The End.
The few polls in Egypt gave not a clue to the MB doing so well, especially the Salafis. As for the composition of Tahrir Square’s protesters, people make them out to be Islamists or secularists according to the point they want to get across at the time. In fact, they don’t have a clue as to who was there on what days or how many. People see what they want to see from 5,000 miles away: Jew haters, secularists, Israel obsessed, slathering Islamists, deluded commies, Facebook morons, whatever.
I don’t have a problem with the idea of a thing being predictable but people who claim such powers in regard to Egypt are often long of the predicting and short on the mechanisms by which their predictions will come to pass other than the grossest generalities. With only 2 sides to this issue, they have a 50/50 chance of being right even if they’re 5 years old.
Most people I talked to had no idea how strong the MB and Salafis were or how they’d do at the polls and nor did I. My thing is people who say the MB will take over ala Iran and attack Israel which reek of an almost wilful ignorance. There would be fighting in the streets and in Egypt you cannot use live fire on the populace as they do in a closed society like Syria and especially Iran – in effect, few outsiders care but there are 50,000 Americans alone living in Egypt and tons of Europeans as witnesses.
In the case of Egypt all forces here are well aware of the consequences of using massive live fire on civilians; they would end up out of power and in an ICC courtroom in the Hague. However this plays out, the likelihood is that it will not be by sheer violence but by other means.
What I don’t get is how people on the outside see elections as something other than elections. Obviously there is a commitment, at least right now, to do things as peacefully as possible. I regret the lack of comment on all the things that have NOT happened such as terrorist attacks in Cairo or Alex, kidnapping and killing Westerners, etc. And people are forgetting that these elections don’t mean a thing as long as the army has the final say and they do and they are dependent at this point for their existence on American aid.
There’s a hell of a lot more going on in Egypt than is being commented on and anyone who says any of it was easily predictable is crazy because this story is nowhere near played out and won’t be for years.
The Egyptian and Syrian reality and facts are very simple and very ugly, and they are going to get uglier. The question is not who to blame or why, but rather how will the West relate to an Arab Islamist world? Remember that the democratic West has it’s own very serious economic problems right now, as well as a very pacifistic and isolationist way of thinking. The Middle East and Iran have been largely put on hold in Western capitals, and barring some hugely and strategically provocative Iranian move in the Persian Gulf, like mining the Straits of Hormuz, or a new and bellicose Egypt under the Islamists, the West is going to let Middle East events sort themselves out on their own. And the West might just as well because there is almost nothing that outsiders can now do to influence events there.
“Remember that the democratic West has it’s own very serious economic problems right now, as well as a very pacifistic and isolationist way of thinking. ”
Once in a while I read talkbacks at places like washington post, etc. Today, pretty much every writer was calling people like us writing here “Zionistas,” people who “love war,” AIPAC controlling the USA, and all the usual calumnies. At the same time, Americans are being fed the line that Egypt (and friends in Tunisia, etc.) are undergoing a democratic transformation. I’d say don’t underestimate 1. the determination of the American public not to know what’s happening; 2. the degree of ignorance about the world; 3. the fear of the economic future for individuals; 4.the capacity to blame Israel and American Jews (probably spearheaded by American Jews) for whatever; 5. the inability to use deductive reasoning in assessing reality; 6. the determination to imagine that the values of people in various societies; e.g., Egypt right now, are identical to American mainstream values (i.e., “everyone just wants a better life for their children” bs).
I read the talkbacks in at least ten European newspapers (British, French, German, Italian) related to events in the middle east. Every point you make is true also over there. The opinion-building media (left-wing/proletarian/mainstream) has already created the preconditions for a new shoah and continue supporting the killing of Jews by proxy.
Don’t worry, the West will just keep printing money and giving it to failed nations. As long as they have even the carcass of a middle class to finance their social engineering and love of failure in the Third World why not?
I see the leopard, I see the spots.
I hope they change.
Hope and change. It’s a notion that is serving the world well. Europe is enthralled with it. Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal…basking in the throes of Hope and Change success.
American unemployment is riding high on hope and change.
Totalitarians, dictators, despots, fascists and every other oppressive regime…sold this same lottery ticket as the “best way” out of desperation. Hope and change. Leftists and other totalitarians love to sell hope and change. The last vestiges of desperation, the last gasp at freedom and liberty…sold out to the very people least likely to give it to you. Predators…smelling fear and uncertainty…prey upon those who only have hope left…and want their lives to change.
They will indeed get change. Leftists and despots love to give it to them. Nice and hard.
All you really need to know about the Muslim Brotherhood is that Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s No. 2 man under bin Laden and now probably its leader, was a big part of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Sure, these guys are going to be real “liberal” and “pro-Western” thinkers. Any bets on how fast Egypt turns into a theocracy like Iran? I give it a year on the outside. The only thing standing in the way of the Muslim Brotherhood taking over the whole country is the army. But soon even the army will be marginalized as the civilian government under the Muslim Brotherhood purges any of the pro-western people out of the army’s leadership. How do I know this will happen? Because it has already happened in Turkey. Then, after that happens, the Muslim Brotherhood will take over forever and the army will be converted into a version of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. I guess Obama and Clinton didn’t see this coming after they threw Mubarak under the bus. Liberals rarely do.
Another nuanced comment full of buzzwords straight out of a stereotype factory. Why people seem so committed to making authoritative and assertive comments about a country they clearly know very little about other than to assuage a massive ego is beyond me.
Egypt is not Turkey; they have entirely different cultures and histories.
“Egypt is not Turkey; they have entirely different cultures and histories”
your comments are not only “stereotypes” they are also meaningless and indigent
Indigent? Who are you: Mr. Spock?
Egypt and Turkey are two separate countries and that is not a rumour or weird stereotype. One can no more project the future of one using the other than you can using a panther and a kitty cat.
Egypt has Muslim brothers, Turkey has Fethullah Gulen who sits in Pennsylvania . Yes we have a different history, different cultures but Islamists come from the same roots. Mr. Rubin is one of the very rare voices from west who tells the truth about Turkey´s transformation.
Islam is their lottery ticket, a tax on the stupid.
I see no mention yet of the fact the Muslim Brotherhood was much better organized than the secular and democratic parties. They had their political side ready to go with one purpose in mind. While the secular and the democrats were and are still arguing over what they want and how to go about it, the MB was out campaigning. They had their people out, giving out food and supplies while they talked up how great they were. The other parties stayed mostly in the bigger towns and the regular people out in the smaller villages had no idea who they were or what they represented. They just knew who was there to help when things were going badly and that is how they voted.
Who do you think trained the MB? Yeah, you got it: the Democrats. You really think Obama and Hilary did not see this coming.
I would not be surprised if in 2008 they began setting the ground work for Arab spring.
Obama a wolf in sheep clothing. Didn’t Grimm have a fairy tale about this?
Yeah, I know: to Obama this is a fairy tale. When will it strike midnight for the rest of us.
You’re one of the few who DOESN’T see it because in most circles it’s all that’s talked about.
Everyone seems to be ignoring the 800 lb. gorilla in the room. Don’t write off the military’s role in shaping Egypt. Don’t forget that the former leadership including Nassar, Sadat and Mubarak were able to reign only with the consent of the Generals from whose ranks they sprang. The army is the benefactor of enormous wealth and privlage as is the military in Syria, and Iran. Do you seriously think they are going to voluntarily relinquish everything they have worked to amass just because a bunch of bearded rowdies tells them to? I predict there will be much more bloodshed once the army is told that now they are subservient to the mullahs.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head: I don’t know about the bloodshed though – everyone is worried about being hauled into courts either inside their own countries or in The Hague.
Obama knew better.
He deliberately downplayed the Islamic threat to promote it.
As a faithful mole, he is implementing the Comintern strategy of promoting Islam to destroy the West.
Then the communist powers will exploit the eternal strife within Islam to help it decay and disappear, in a pogrom that in scope and scale will make the shoah look like a garden party.
When this Arab Spring with the Muslim Brotherhood first started rearing its ugly head – I read reports of UAW-CIO funds being sent to bolster the Brotherhood coffers – can’t find the articles now – in my desire to associate the giant US unions with world class troublemakers – was I dreaming about Communist funding for a Muslim cause?
I could imagine some kind of alliance between America’s public unions and the Muslim Brotherhood, particularly groups like SEIU and its former leader, Andy Stern. Andy, good buddy of Barack and one of the most frequent WH visitors, is a tried and true statist totalitarian.
Muslim Brotherhood adherents (though they try to pretend otherwise) would be kindred spirits.
Who couldn’t have foretold that the Muslim Brotherhood would come to the fore in the aftermath of the so called Arab spring ?
And that the protesters in Tahrir Sq. (the ones with a true thirst for democratic governance, the ones not assaulting/raping female western journalists) would be as much fodder in Egypt’s new world order as they were in the previous old world order under Mubarak ?
Maybe moreso.
There it is again: “foretold.” You can’t even predict who’s going to be the GOP candidate for prez or whether they’ll beat Obama. If you can’t do that, how can you predict anything in Egypt?
What, pray tell, would Mr. Rubin have us do? Perhaps we should have continued to support Mubarek? Perhaps we should now intervene in Egypt’s domestic affairs? Declare was on Islam? Mr. Rubin is long on complaints, pretty darn short on solutions.
Cultural evolution occurs at glacial speed. The backward Islamic cultures have resisted change for a very long time, but with the Arab Spring we begin so see them breaking the freeze. In Egypt we see a case in point, having just overwhelmingly elected Islamic representatives; Egyptians will now learn why separation of Mosque and State is so important. It is a lesson they, like all Islamic nations must learn, and I am hopeful they can learn it in 20 or 30 years.
This just proves what I say that “Cultures evolve with glacial speed” and they generally need to learn the hard way, in that “the burnt hand teaches best”.
Mary Goround -
Read it again sister – “Who couldn’t have foretold that the Muslim Brotherhood would come to the fore in the aftermath of the so called Arab spring”?
That implies that half a brain could tell what was coming – and it did – no wee gee board needed.
Besides are the Unions so desperate that they think ‘snuggling up’ to a bunch of Islamo terrorists is going to increase the Union coffers – more brilliance!
People can “foretell” things all they want: with nothing on the line, nothing to lose and no explanations other than pure cynicism and disdain for Muslims and Arabs, it amounts to semantic gibberish and a stopped clock that’s right twice a day.
If my cat put’s a paw on the name of one of two NFL teams and that teams wins, lacking an explanation for that “analysis”, it’s so much nonsense however “correct” the cat was.
And so it is with kitties in America, thousands of miles from Egypt, who put their keyboard down on the “winning hand.” That is not analysis: it’s parroting something they read somewhere with no job, reputation or money on the line if they’re wrong not to mention an utter lack or sourcing.
Oh look, Egypt; it’s the next Iran. Subtle. I’d rather read a nuanced argument that’s half wrong than reading such tripe day after day; at least I’d learn something about the issues and players involved and have half a chance of coming to my own conclusions.
I had one commenter who told me I was a liar and wasn’t in Egypt and he bet 50 dollars I couldn’t spot Egypt on a map. When I sent photos of the protests, he just kept being a jerk. That’s because he had nothing on the line and no respect for people who do. Excuse me if I’m abrasive to people sitting safe in another country who want me to respect uninformed opinions while having no respect for people who risk all. The last thing you’ll hear from them is I was wrong. Suffice it to say that if all fortune tellers could be held accountable, I’d be rich.
This story isn’t over and it will have twists and turns the cognoscenti will ignore and crow over as it suits their egos.
@Mary Gerund
your name appears in the Encyclopedia Britannica under “self-intoxicated with one’s ego”, you remind me of my fish -he is always telling me: “I am a fish, I know everything about fish”
My name appears under “I’m here and you’re not so stop lecturing me about a place you can’t see even with a telescope.”
By the way Fred there’s a piece by V.D. Hanson up right now about “honesty over comfort.” You might want to check it out before you go all teary-eyed with the politically correct “kill the messenger” approach.
Rpbert D. Kaplan in his book “The Ends of the Earth- A Journey to the Frontiers of Anarchy”, published 1996. writes:
The Ikhwan el Muslimin (Moslem Brothethood) was founded in 1929 by Hassan el-Banna, and quickly adopted terrorism as a tactic…. The Moslem Brotherhood’s numbers are uncounted, its popularity unpolled since it is officially proscribed as a political party. If truly free elections were ever held in Egypt, the Moslem Brotherhood would probably obtain the most votes.
Mary – I foretell a failing state mired in poverty and corruption. You don’t need a crystal ball just an understanding of Egypt’s history, culture and economy.
Well, I don’t disagree with that. You can apply that to the entire Third World without knowing anything other than the name of a country; it’s not a nuanced argument that requires a lot of understanding. Egypt is screwed; there’s little doubt about it. They are the opposite of the term “exceptionalism”, have a sorry religion around their necks and have 85 million people trying to live in a giant sandbox with a river running through it.
Past that, some of these characterizations are off the rails. The MB are idiots; there’s no doubt about that either. But name me three members of the MB in the last 3 years that has harmed the West as much as Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, President Obama and Chris Dodd. With friends like these you don’t need enemies. They should be put on the imaginary boat with “The Man Without A Country.”
Barack Obama had no problem handing Libya to al Qaeda, Egypt to the Muslim Brotherhood and Iraq to Iran, while doing nothing to prevent Iran from helping Syria kill thousands of its own people. None of that is important. Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon, a dismal economy and high unemployment don’t worry him; it’s all George Bush’s fault–now off to Hawaii, Bali, and Australia. Policy, Barack Obama has no policies, except doing whatever is necessary to be re-elected.
Neither Egypt not Israel had approval, political backing, nor garuntee of resupply from major powers before ’67 nor ’73. Our expert on the ground, Mary, assures us that such things never happen.
Egypt is in no position now to launch a big war. They can let loose the Hamas dogs of war but at their own peril because Hamas cannot be controlled from the outside. From the point of view of Israel defense must be based on a probability of attack in both near and long term. Always though defense is based on certainty of attack.
Friend, all you have to do is read histories of attrition and resupply during the 1973 War. That’s pretty simple.
Nope and Strange deja vu on the world stage this time… again, again, again