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Rubin Reports

Who Rules Egypt? The Battle Begins

July 2nd, 2012 - 7:36 am

Another such situation: economic issues. Al-Mursi’s spokesman says he will put the emphasis on making Egypt into a strong economy. Since this is impossible, al-Mursi is more likely to follow a populist approach: big promises, phony jobs, strong subsidies to keep consumer goods cheap. All of that spells more debt. And foreigners will be asked to pay the bills.

Lenin once reportedly said that he would get the capitalists to sell him the rope with which to hang them. But Egypt is a far clearer case of such a situation. Will the dhimmis finance the consolidation of the Muslim Brotherhood’s power in Egypt? It sure looks like that will happen, though they probably will be cheap about it.

Never forget that since any economic program in Egypt is doomed to fail, the ultimate outcome will probably be a government having to decide between repression at home, hysterical hatred and foreign adventures abroad, or both.

Moreover, Egypt is already throwing away hundreds of millions of dollars from natural gas sales to Israel. Indeed, five former high-ranking officials have been sentenced to imprisonment of between three and fifteen years for signing a deal to discount the prices to Egypt. They were also fined $2.3 billion — which of course they don’t have — an amount that is triple the alleged losses to Egypt caused by the discounting.

There is plenty of corruption in Egypt, but they are not being accused of pocketing the money — rather, they are accused of negotiating a contract whose terms were dictated by market conditions. Will this discourage Westerners from making business deals that might also turn into alleged criminal acts when political conditions require that? Shafiq also has left the country ahead of corruption charges. He might well have been corrupt. But remember, corruption charges can be used by the Brotherhood to destroy the opposition systematically (coupled with charges of being Zionist and American stooges, bad Muslims, or not Muslims at all).

Al-Mursi also called — in a victory speech notable by its expressed wish to get along with everyone — for the freeing of Omar Abd al-Rahman, the mastermind of the first World Trade Center attack currently being held in a U.S. prison. Abd al-Rahman historically was associated with the Salafists, not the Brotherhood. Still, Americans are likely to miss the intimation that the first attack on the World Trade Center was a good thing, whatever one thinks of the second aerial assault.

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