Egypt’s Elections: Titanic of Western Interests, Meet Iceberg of Islamist Revolutionary Zeal
Egypt will hold its presidential election on May 23-24, with a possible run-off on June 16-17. It is impossible at this point to predict what’s going to happen, but I can make a good guess. Eight weeks from now Egypt, will be led by either a radical anti-American Islamist who wants to wipe Israel off the map or by a radical anti-American nationalist who just hates Israel passionately.
Let’s review the background and then analyze the likely events to come.
Since Egypt’s revolution began a year ago, five propositions have monopolized the Western debate and coverage, all of which were wrong:
–That Egypt was going to become a real democratic state in which human rights and civil liberties would be respected.
–That this state would be dominated by moderate and modernist secular groups.
–That the Muslim Brotherhood is moderate and a bulwark against the really radical Islamists.
–That the army is simultaneously the main enemy of democracy in Egypt that should be opposed and yet also the force that would keep Egypt stable and pro-Western.
–That the new Egypt would remain an ally of the United States and at peace with Israel.
Only the second has been reluctantly dropped by governments and mass media. All the others are still in place today! Indeed, the Muslim Brotherhood has become the substitute moderate democratic hope. This blindness ignores all the daily evidence to the contrary.
The “moderate democratic” forces up until now have defined the military as their main enemy. Perhaps they still do so. But they also woke up to realize that a constitution written by a parliamentary committee containing a vast majority of Islamists wouldn’t be a great thing for them. So they followed the classical Arab mistake of boycotting the constitution-writing process, thus ensuring that the Islamists will have even more power.
Two Islamist candidates — the Brotherhood’s Khairat al-Shater and the Salafists’ Hazem Salah Abu Ismail — and one secularist — Omar Suleiman — have been disqualified. The Brotherhood simply substituted Muhammad Mursi, leader of its Freedom and Justice Party, for al-Shater, who returned to his job as deputy head of the Brotherhood. Mursi told a news conference, “We intend to make the Palestinian issue our main issue.”
The other main candidate is the radical nationalist Amr Moussa. His stances have varied depending on whether he thought he could hope for the Brotherhood’s backing. Since his main rival is the Brotherhood-backed Mursi, Amr Moussa is in a relatively anti-Islamist phase. And that’s not to say that Moussa, albeit the lesser of two evils, is any great prize, though he is certainly preferable.
There are now a total of 23 candidates, though it is possible there will be a few more before registration closes April 26. Aside from Mursi and Moussa, they include two other Islamists, three moderates, and a leftist.
In all of this, there is a hugely important point that’s been generally missed: Unlike the Brotherhood, the radical Salafists have not yet produced an alternative candidate. A lot of its members are endorsing Mursi. Now the Salafist al-Nour party has genuine differences with the Brotherhood, though more over timing and the desire for power than anything substantive. Still, al-Nour may be splitting over the party’s support for Mursi. But if the dissidents don’t have a candidate at all, who will the 25 percent of al-Nour’s supporters in the parliamentary ballot support?
In theory, then, Mursi can depend on 75 percent of the electorate — the Brotherhood and al-Nour voters — based on the parliamentary vote! He won’t get that many because a lot of those who voted for Islamists may want some balance in the government or just happen to like Moussa, whose anti-Western, anti-American, and anti-Israel credentials are strong.
Still, will enough voters switch to Moussa to tilt the balance? Moreover, in a run-off between Mursi and Moussa, the former should be able to depend on stronger support from any al-Nour supporters who are ambiguous about how they will vote in the first round.
So nobody can predict the victor. Still, overall, one might better assume that Egypt is going to have an Islamist president and parliament just eight weeks from now, to be followed by an Islamist constitution.
One compelling theory is that the Titanic crew was blinded by a night mirage on the horizon which covered up the iceberg. Oddly enough, many are blinded by the mirages maintained by our smug captains.
The metaphor of the Titanic is apt, but used in a far too limited capacity. It isn’t just the menace of Egypt, but the entirety of Islam towards which our civilization is careening. Trillions have flown into the offers of Islam over the last century — all of it looted from the Western industrials with their willing connivance. To what ends do the Muslms put that loot? Birth more babies for Islam, wage more Jihad, build more mosques, terrorize mor “imfidels”, embark on the latest phase of violent world conquest, wage genocide against dissenters.
There will be no “winning their hearts and minds”. Their will be no accommodation between Islam Uber Alles and all the rest of us. The carcasse of a dying Islam at he beginning of the 20th century is now replaced with a rejuvenated Frankenstein monster at the beginning of the 21st. The Muslims have never had more power, more wealth, or more opportunity to wage Jihad to destroy the planet through Islam Uber Alles. With oil consistently above $80-100 bbl, a tsunami of cash guarantees that what we have seen over the last several decades will be dwarfed by what havoc Muslims wreak in the next few.
And yet it’s more important to continue retailing the lie that somehow “moderates” might make a difference, that we must help them, that Islam can somehow alter it’s monstrous trajectory if we just do more, that Muslims are deserving of shelter in the West. Lies, lies, lies. But it’s still not polite to suggest that 25,000,000-30,000,000 newly arrived and massively breeding Muslims in Europe pose a mortal threat. It’s not polite to suggest that those 20-30 million, joined by many millions more in the USA, Canada, and Australia, are just like a cancer eating us from within. No – we’d rather cling to faulty syllogisms; (people proposing the essentialness of reversing immigration trends of Muslims into the West are no different than Nazis, for example), and false narratives; “Islam is a religion of peace”(tm) or “moderate Muslim”, Islam vs. Islamism, etc.
The extremists are more than willing to severely damage Egypt’s economy. The cancellation of the natural gas pipeline has most assuredly increased the country’s unemployment totals. We unfortunately can take it for granted that things will much worse. Both the secular and religious radicals hold free market economics in contempt. The already poor will have an increasingly difficult time to get enough to eat. Mass starvation may be right around the corner.
No, things like natural gas are quite disconnected from employment elsewhere in the economy. For instance, Khodadad Farmanfarmaian analysed the connection between Iranian oil and the rest of the Iranian economy in the 1950s, and found it was essentially isolated. The damage from Egypt cutting natural gas exports would only flow through to Egyptian employment if there were an effective government system boosting employment that drew on funds provided by natural gas exports, i.e. supplying the missing connection – but there isn’t.
Most observers do not fully recognize the pull to moderate Moslems of Islamism as the ‘old time religion’. Even if they wouldn’t be a ‘suicide bomber’ themselves, they respect and admire those who will. Just as this attitude allowed Khomeini to easily take over the Iranian revolution originally led by librals, so to it should have been easily predicted that the the Moslem Brotherhood would take advantage and dominate the Egyptian government, Barry Rubin did,but Tom Friedman never understood, nor have most of the other ‘main stream’ commentators
I also clearly saw the high likelihood that secular and religious extremists would take over Egypt’s government—and my overall knowledge of the country is superficial at best. The vast majority of revolutions are doomed to fail. This is especially true of nations that have high illiteracy rates, and next to zilch valuing of individual rights and the rule of law. The United States was a rare exception. This is because an estimated 90% of the men and 65% of the women were literate. Many were formally and informally well educated in political and legal philosophy. These virtuous and highly intelligent people also formed a republic and not a democracy. True democracies inevitably turn tyrannical.
“The United States [at the time of the Revolution]was a rare exception. … an estimated 90% of the men and 65% of the women were literate.”
How could those estimates be believed?
1) There were no teacher’s unions then.
2) The primary motivation for learning to read was to study the Bible.
3) There weren’t an awful lot of schools. The schools were mostly one room jobs. So most kids were home-schooled.
4) Public libraries had just barely been invented, and even those few were in one city, Philadelphia.
Are you trying to tell us people did things in those days which violated today’s sacred beliefs?
People in Egypt may be starving, but the Moslem Brotherhood will keep
the rest of the population busy hating Israel. This will satisfy Europe,
and maybe bring in some some money. So Israel can expect constant provocations
in Sinai, and the European hypocrites advising Israel to practice
restraint. The way to stop this charade will be for Israel to test a
nuclear weapon and to point to Egypt, how vulnerable they are. The MB may
be extremists, but they are not suicidal.Of course the European Elites
will go absolutely berserk, but Israel must ignore them.
Within a few years a new understanding will be established.
litvac120
Here is the REAL laugh in all of this. After the Muslim Brotherhood takes over we will STILL be paying ‘em bazillions of US taxpayer dollars! I say cut it all off now & send it to Isreal!
“Eight weeks from now Egypt, will be led by either a radical anti-American Islamist who wants to wipe Israel off the map or by a radical anti-American nationalist who just hates Israel passionately.”
And our “brilliant” president, our borderline insane vice president who was supposed to be an “expert” in foreign policy, and our bitter man-hating Secretary of State who knows about as much about diplomacy as I do about life on Venus, none of them saw any of this coming when they threw Mubarak under the bus? I really get scared when I think about who is guiding this nation, especially when it comes to foreign policy. The only hope I have to cling to is that come November these people will have to start looking for a new job. Because, if we get four more years of this, we really are doomed (and the Iranians and most of the Muslim fundamentalists like the Muslim Brotherhood know it). And let’s not even talk about what the Chinese are going to do to us and the few allies we have left in the Pacific.
One more reason to praise the IDF, to live the IDF, and to thank the brave soldiers of the IDF. We love you.
Okay, the MB takes over, they continue with the hate talk. They cut the pipeline and stop the sale of gas to Israel costing them probably thousands of jobs and the people starve. We cut off aid to Egypt causing more to starve. So, the MB, of course blame the Jews. The starving people demand something be done. The Government has no money to do anything so then what? Why attack Israel of course. If they win they get the spoils if they lose, well, tens of thousands of their starving people get killed off in the war and they probably will get foreign aid to help them recover from their defeat. The people that are left get fed, the MB yells about how unfair the Jews have treated them. They start using the money given them for food to rebuild their army. The people again start to feel the pinch and the starvation begins again. The MB blames the Jews and the West. The aid gets cut off…….
How would a good Marxist manage this type conflict?
I say that what we have is self-limiting folly. Egypt can’t feed its people and relies on charity to survive. The situation will only get worse.
Israel likes to act afraid, but Egypt has only one shot and if they fail, then it will not be a replay of 73 when the Soviets saved their bacon (can I say that), but rather, Egypt has no protectors now.
People forget that Islam is a success gospel, and if you lose that is a sign that Allah is not your friend. The more anyone props them up the worse the result.
I hope the MB carries the day, it will be interesting to see what happens.
Thank you for this report Mr Rubin….Professor i bought a book from “the Church of the Apostles, ” by our beloved pastor Michael Youssef, ….He has just had this small book printed, and i bought two, one to pass on…..Pastor Youssef is a native born Egyptian, and has a very large ministry to the peoples of N. Africa, all over the ME, Asia…Millions hear his message in their own language….I as a Christian have been wanting to send this extra copy to a Jewish Person of influence, such as you and several other Men and women of influence, concerning Egypt, and the ME, and Israel…Where can i send this book, called “Blindsided” by M. Youssef, from Atlanta Ga…..I will also spend my own money and send you more of these copies if you would see that The most Imfluencial Jewish people would read them….Thank You Sir….Jimi Belton……
Ps…You may ask, why would i want to send to Jewish and not anyone else, well a Jewish man Mr. S. once commented of PJM that the Jewish is not into converting to Judism, so maybe Jewish People should help get the movie “The Jesus Movie’ and hope and pray that these people of Isamuel, would see it and be converted to Christianity….Well that is our Calling, to convert the Lost to Christ, so maybe What Pastor Youssef is doing is greater than this movie….I do not want a cent of anyone`s money….Thank you again….JBK
My Pastor M. Youssef was invited into CNN headquarters here in Alt’ Ga., and since he would not say on TV what that sick bunch, [CNN] wanted him to say, and he insisted on saying exactly what was going to happen to His beloved Egypt, CNN was not going to allow any FACTS to be presented, Afterall Facts has no place on CNN or the rest of MSM….well it is now happening as Pastor said it would…He also tells of many Muslem Egyptians making a band of human shield s to protect Christian Copts….Now we know that there was not a report of that happening any place on any MSM….His Book is called ” Blindsided” ….and has been in print only for a few days….Pastor Youssef is Minister to “The Church of the Apostles” Atlanta, Ga….and a tv minister to Millions….