Endgame for Egypt
Robert Musil’s Der Mann Ohne Eigenschaften (“The Man Without Qualities”), one of the great novels of the past century, is a portrait of the Austrian elite early in 1914. The readers know that their silly world will come to a terrible end a few months later with the outbreak of war, but the protagonists do not. Musil published a first volume and spent the rest of his life trying to write a second, without success, for it is the sort of story that has no end except for the abyss.
Arab politics today has a Musil-like quality of unreality, for the conclusion will be the collapse of the Egyptian state. The misnamed “Arab Spring,” really a convulsion of a dying society, began with food shortages. Egypt imports half its caloric consumption, 45% of its people are illiterate, its university graduates are unemployable, its $10 billion a year tourism industry is shuttered for the duration, and its foreign exchange reserves are gradually disappearing. In August, the central bank’s reported reserves fell below what the bank calls the “danger level” of six months’ import coverage, or $25 billion, from $36 billion in February, although I suspect that even this number is bloated by $5 to $10 billion of Algerian and Saudi loans and trade credits. Despite reports in the press that food price inflation in Egypt has slowed, Arab-language Egyptian media report that the prices of some staples, like rice and sugar, have risen by 50% or more since March. The military government is distributing bread and propane (the main cooking fuel).
Egypt turned down a proposed loan from the International Monetary Fund earlier this year because the military government could not accept the conditionality attached to IMF money. The Gulf States and the West may keep Egypt on life support, which would leave a large proportion of Egyptians in a limbo of extreme destitution. The fiscal collapse of Southern Europe (and severe problems elsewhere) makes this an inopportune time to come to the West with a begging bowl. As for the Gulf States: they are not even meeting their commitments to the Palestine Authority, and can’t be expected to carry a $15 to $20 billion annual financing requirement for Egypt.
It does not compute. Western economists can concoct all the economic recovery plans in the world, but a country that can’t teach half its people to read, and can’t produce employable university graduates, and can’t feed itself, is going to go down the drain. Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak kept Egypt under control by keeping most of its people poor, ignorant, and on the farm, and by warehousing its youth in state-run diploma mills. After sixty years of such abuse, Egypt simply can’t get there from here.
The result, I predict, will be a humanitarian catastrophe that makes Somalia look like a picnic. It’s not surprising that the Egyptian mob might attack the Israeli embassy. The Egyptian street has nothing to do but rise up against perceived oppressors, because nothing good awaits them; and the desperation that will follow the collapse of the Arab “Spring” threatens every Middle Eastern regime, such that the rulers have to try to get out in front of the rage. But what will they actually do? The Egyptian military is hanging onto power by its fingernails. If it attacks Israel, it will lose, and generals will be hanged from lamp posts. The Syrian military is too busy killing protesters to attack Israel, or to assist Hezbollah in a confrontation with Israel.
What we are likely to witness during the next two years will be repellent, even horrifying — but not necessarily dangerous.
This strikes me as both realistic, and the most depressing analysis I’ve read in a long time. Is there really no hope for Egypt?
I agree, Diana. Food shortages were the kindling that helped set the fire last spring, and that situation has not improved. Elsewhere, I’ve read that the Muslim Brotherhood hasn’t fully taken the reins in part because they don’t want to inherit the mess and be responsible for fixing it, but they are happy to meddle from the sidelines and interfere with whomever is brave enough to try.
Without any real leadership, tourism will not revive and what few other industries are there will falter. Egypt wanted change, and they got it. OUt of the frying pan and into the fire.
Meanwhile, we literally burn food.
yes we burn it.
it require one gallon of diesel fuel to produce one gallon of ethanol. that is actually a bigger loss then one might think ..since ethanol has less energy per gallon and it is subsidized by tax dollars.
imagine the waste and ..it goes on and on. supported by both democrats and republicans on a wide margin.
it is US economic policies and the printing of money that started the problems in developed countries by increasing the cost of all commodities in lock-step with the devaluing of the US dollar. I think we have reached the point that the obama administration is willfully destroying the economies of the entire world.
That’s a really good point, General. Some say food inflation is also the means by which the US is manipulating China. Food is a powerful weapon, and one of which we have an enormous stockpile. But we play this game at our own peril.
Not to mention the TIME we burn…
Staring at a thousand acre cornfield all season, whispering “grow…grow….”
As opposed to standing at a single well-head that, if you’re not careful,might gush all over the place, making an enormous mess visable from SPACE, because it flows out faster than we can sometimes control.
Fuel from corn (or any bio source) is about as efficient as fuel from Honey Bees, or fuel from Cows Milk.
Try to capture the “excess energy” generated by all the sewing maidens individually threading needles by hand.
Yeah, THATS a good idea too.
General P. Malaise – If you are right (about 1 gal. of diesel for 1 gal. of ethanol) this whole ethanol thing is really nonsense. That’s because not only does a gallon of diesel have to be used, there a whole host of other resources such as labor, land and capital have to be used to produce the corn for the ethanol. What a gigantic waste of money.
…don’t worry windmills are no better. a windmill will not produce the power in electricity that was required to build it.
they were meant to have a life of 25 years but the gearboxes are failing in 2 to 3 years. To replace a gearbox is roughly $300,000.00
…windmills must be backed up with other forms of power production (unless they are in a grid that can handle their unstable production) usually a gas fired plant which idles away taking up the slack in wind power production.
solar panels don’t fair much better. to use solar panels (not counting cost of the panels or maintenance of the panels) produce electricity that at today’s rates are about four times more expensive.
I do think there is a place for this technology but not as a replacement for nuclear, coal or hydro or petroleum power plants.
like man caused global warming there are powerful lobbies and ideologues who have a disdain for facts.
Yep, he’s right. Backed up by none other than the National Geographic, which has run the numbers and is not a huge fan of biofuels. In fact, it seems the only biofuel that can actually pay for itself is made from sugarcane waste in Brazil, and even then only marginally.
Jack, I believe General P.Malaise is correct in principal but a little mistaken about the number. I think it actually takes closer to two gallons of petroleum to produce one gallon of ethanol.
Brazil ran an ethanol boondoggle and it predictably crashed. We did it back in the seventies and it was a failure. All of the chemists, geologists and engineers know that ethanol as a fuel is a monstrous waste and there is no excuse for resurrecting the program. It’s sole purpose is for politicians to steal money from the taxpayer and buy votes with it.
The whole ‘energy crisis’ is manufactured.
Brotherhood Islamists are sitting on the sidelines afraid to take power because of the mess? Surely not the most faithful and fanatical of them; those who are supremely sure that the answer to saving Egypt is Islam. They will gladly take control, impose Islamic law, and wait for Allah’s blessing staying the course to catastrophe.
Yes, the Muslim Brotherhood already has things under their control, as far as who is going to take power.
The Muslim Brotherhood have everything under control in the US as well.
Why depressing? Tragic, yes, but for us it is no occasion to be depressed.
Come now, I am no bleeding heart, but if you don’t want to keep seeing our brave men and women dying in some hell hole then we need to see improvements overseas. For too long we have played the `He’s a dictator, but he’s our SOB.` That has gotten us nothing but Noriega, Iamadinnerjacket, and Castro. Nor has the playing the reset button worked either. But somewhere in the middle is a qualified route that gets us out of being the world’s cop and the people of these lands can see a light at the end of the tunnel.
But Egypt going islamic in a big way is not the answer either.
Amen
I don’t know. It seems to me that they have been living in a state of delusion for too long. Sometimes the only way to snap out of that is to experience utter abject humiliation. And since it will be self-inflicted, they cannot plausibly blame Israel or the US. Maybe they will then try real reforms. And if they don’t, well then, at a certain point you forfeit claims to being inheritors of a great civilization and the world sees you as just the most recent in a long line of fuck-ups. Maybe THAT will be their come-to-jesus moment
” they cannot plausibly blame Israel or the US.”
HA-HA-HA… That’s a good one, Gazzer!
It is true that ”they cannot plausibly blame Israel or the US.” That said, the truth isn’t going to stop them from blaming the evil Jews and Zionists, Israel, and the US.
Truth only affects the rational, sane being.
There is a middle ground between supporting the tyrants and attempting a reset to…what? The only way to let the people of the world see a light at the end of the tunnel is to show the light that our founding documents lit. We must return to supporting OUR OWN principles. If we refused any taxpayer funded support, aid, and visas to any country that couldn’t support the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment we be able to color in the countries and people opposed to freedom. Draw a bright line and let those on the other side deal with their choices. I don’t see any reason why we should see free Americans dying to support sharia in any hole in hell. It seems less credible to be paying for it.
Depressing as well as tragic, because in addition to all the human misery (please remember that most people are innocent bystanders), chaos in Egypt will provide a playground for terrorists. Already we are building a high tech fence against terrorist infiltration along our long border with Egypt. If things get really bad we might have to retake the Sinai, and that means war.
Maybe if Sadat hadn’t been assassinated Egypt would have grown into a more functional country. (??) But that is like saying if my Aunt had balls she’d be my Uncle.
Returning the Sinai to Egypt was a terrible idea.
Returning anything to Muslim control is always and everywhere a bad idea.
Perhaps the egyptians should hand out sweets on the streets as the palistinian’s do when the infidel suffers.
There can be no spring in cultures with one season.
james wilson – excellent!!
+1
Great line!
In that economy of words, you’ve gotten to central tumor out of which all this pathology emenates.
Copyright and sell that one.
It might have been possible to reach some sort of better place if the “revolution” had been managed in a way that kept the tourists coming. But Obama had no chance of that.
For a whole host of reasons, liberals – especially leftist liberals, have three rules:
1) Treat your friends (Egypt) like crap.
2) Tread non-aligned countries (Libya) sort of good or sort of like crap depending on which way the wind happens to be blowing.
3) Treat your enemies (Iran, Syria) with as much dignity as you can muster. Only oppose them under the most extreme of circumstances.
Why would they do this? The reasons probably overlap, but the main reason is that liberals see America’s capitalistic society as inherently unjust. Therefor, those who oppose us must be virtuous. Its the old “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” routine. Except that the enemy is us. So the enemy of us is our friend.
Cowardice.
You want a reason? I’ll give you the MAIN reason.
Barak Hussein Obama supports the expansionist agenda of Islam every chance he gets, both abroad and at home.
He is a traitor, not only in the US Constitutional definition of the term, but also to what’s left of the civilized world.
correct
“if the ‘revolution’ had been managed”? For many things, there must be a common ray threading through “the people” and their daily activities. Our American Revolution had this. Gangland figures and Moslems also, have it but, to the reverse; and for the same reason, the wild Egyptian “revolution” could not have been any different, . . . and than to realize the dire prospect as presented, no better thing appears as possible, . . .
Unfortunately the graying flower children in the White House who helped foment the Arab Spring (Wow dude is that like the summer of love?) will see fit to borrow a few billion more Chinese dollars to save the masses of Egyptians yearning for democracy.
Although I do worry, as any sane person does, about unsustainable debt being piled up, I sometimes wonder….
WTF if we never pay back China?
Who else CAN they sell their cheap crap to?
Yeah, they are making “higher end” products NOW, but the billions came from Dollar Store and Walmart “under 20 bucks” items we dont feel like making here.
Really, if we just say “thanks…ummm…I figured it was a gift, right?” what recourse do they have?
The answer to your last question is warfare. China expects to defeat America (as soon as it perceives us weak enough)and use our natural wealth for the benefit of its own people. What of us, the people it defeated? We shall be slaves.
I live in China and have for almost a decade. This culture is extremely confident, proud and nationalistic. Also organized, militaristic and with no regard whatsoever to consequences. What would they do? Beats me, but it wouldn’t be good. Don’t spit into the wind.
I believe if Walmart could no longer sell cheap “stuff” from China, America has enough cheap “stuff” from China in our garages and storage units to last us ten years. You would see an entirely new garage sale economy rise up and sell used cheap “stuff” from China. How many plastic bins, lamps, radios etc. does one need anyway?
Then, what of China?
We need to stay faaaaar away from this mess. It’s way too late to improve things and not in our interests to risk blood or treasure to help those who hate us.
…as far away as obama giving money to the muslim brotherhood. your money I should add.
Interestingly, the “enemy to the north” is already taking action along those lines.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/09/13/international/i085254D86.DTL
And they have good experience already with physical barriers keeping the barbarians out.
Juvenal on Egypt:
sed iam serpentum maior concordia. parcit
cognatis maculis similis fera.
(Sat. XV, 159-60)
[But now there is more amity among serpents;
wild beasts are merciful to similarly spotted kin.
I believe the greater danger is the use of Egypt as a springboard and staging area for radical Islam and it’s constant terror threat against Israel and the west. Egypt is the birthplace of the modern radical Islam movement and with the constraints removed we can only expect the worse. On the other hand, the military is really the only force that can intervene but that would require a coup and a return to strong arm government. How likely is that?
David …I don’t think you are just getting to this conclusion now. I would have bet money on it after the first protests, before obama told Mubarak to step down.
The problem isnt that Egypt is a mess. The problem is that Egypt is the top performer in that part of the world, which should give you significant pause. Egypt, for all its faults and failures, is the best they can do.
Whatever problems you see in North Africa and the Levant are 10 times worse in the Sahel.
Expect the Med to be awash with those trying to flee. If not for the Sinai, both Gaza and Israel would have many trying to over run their borders.
This is the beginning of a situation predicted nearly two years ago by some sage:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KJ20Ak03.html
David – Re: your related article in today’s AT (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MI13Ak01.html), I would be most grateful if you would post a 30 Years War and Richelieu reading list.
Side note regarding Kurdish demographics: I had lunch with a Peshmerga (Kurdish militia and quasi-official KRG army ) colonel at his compound north of Kirkuk in 2007. His proudest boast (he did a lot of boasting) was that he had 13 sons, all of whom were attending or had graduated from the Peshmerga military academy.
Good point.
Dangerously minimized in America is this programmed adolescent male indoctrination and motivation taking place quietly in these Islamic madrassas attached to mosques. They’re known in Northern Virginia to have produced “name” terrorists. They seem to be under the protection created by Islamic “Lawfare”.
I can’t comment on the subtle variations of the Peshmerga-style; the point to emphazize is that all of their (Islamist) male-educational efforts point towards eliminating the infidel, however concieved, and these are really the present day equivalent of the former “Red” cells of the Cold War.
Subversive infiltration is apparently belittled and denied here in America by the Liberals under the banner of “civil liberties” and the shrieks of the ACLU and the CAIR. We dismiss this penetration at our peril…..but no one in the popular media seems to write about it.
Remember our internment of the Japanese in 1942 by the Executive Order of that paragon of Liberalism, Franklin Roosevelt, confirmed by the Supreme Court later? That Court allegedy “packed” by Franklin Roosevelt? That’s conveniently minimized by todays Liberals. It happened too long ago.
The point I want to emphasize is that there are similarities to our wartime efforts during the early days of WWII and throughout the forty-plus years of the Cold War, but somehow a similar sense of urgency is being denied today in our current war against Islamist Terror. We don’t even mention “Islam” and “Terror” in the same written thought. No mention made at the ceremonies on 9/11. Nothing at all.
Education and indoctrination of youth are key, but we belittle our Islamic enemy’s efforts in madrassas right here under our noses. We’re going to suffocate under a blanket of stupid political correctness.
We need adult education in Islamic theory and penetration. Where is it?
Thanks for your friendly comment, but I must clarify that the Kurdish militia (Peshmerga) are very far from Islamists. A simple label for them would be Kurdish nationalists with a socialist tinge. If you want to bore down a bit deeper, in the Iraqi KRG, the Peshmerga are sponsored by two political parties based on ethnicity, PUK and KDP. The most accurate “-ist” label to define the Iraqi Kurdish political parties maybe corrupt crony-capitalist.
The so called “Arab Spring” was never about democracy or dictatorial regimes, it was always about the issue of high food prices, lack employment, and vast numbers of young Arabs who could see the riches and wealth of the West on TV and The Internet and yet knew that they could never have these things.
Egypt of course is a special case, the largest and most powerful Arab country, which could no longer afford to feed it’s people, had no jobs or future to offer them, and could only promise more poverty, ignorance, and violence.
The Egyptian military is no longer a reliable guarantor of Egyptian stability, it is a conscript force which will never stand up against it’s own people.
The Egyptian debt is enormous and growing, indeed, the Mubarak cronies whose fortunes rose and fell with his, have done their best to remove their ill gotten wealth from Egypt thus exacerbating an already desperate fiscal situation.
The question for me as an Israeli is how the frustration and anger of the Egyptian public will express itself. The usual Arab answer is to make war against Israel, but even that cannot put food on the Egyptian table nor can it create one single job.
Somalia might appear to be a summer picnic when Egypt finally falls apart.
No, but it’ll help them forget that there’s no food on the table.
Ken, I have heard several pretty reputable Egyptian scholars say that the so called “Arab Spring” in actuality a military coup. Do you think there is truth to that? It seems plausible to me based on what has transpired. I don’t think it is the intent of the military to hold power long term, but I do think that it will be between military leaders and the Muslim Brotherhood to choose a new leader who will do what they want.
Egypt and Gaza in Wonderland: The Egyptians stormed the Israeli embassy in Cairo to protest the “treatment” of arab muslim Gazans by Israeli Jews.
Incredibly, Jewish Israel controls only three of the four borders of Gaza. The southern border of Gaza is entirely controlled…by Egypt! Arab muslim Egypt could liberate arab muslim Gaza from the Israeli Jews in an instant by throwing open its border with Gaza.
And get this: Jewish Israel supplies muslim arab Gaza with its water, electricity, and fuel. And in return, arab muslim Gaza shows its gratitude by shooting unguided missiles into Jewish Israel, praying that the missiles kill Jews.
But in the name of politically correct Jew-hatred, the Israeli Jews have somehow become the “bad guys” for “the crime” of wanting to live as free men in their ancestral homeland.
Jews as eternal “bad guys”. What a coincidence. Who’d of thunk it?
On the one hand, I tell myself, “This couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch”. Standing aside as weapons flow into Gaza, allowing multiple attacks on the pipeline supplying gas to Israel, allowing the Sinai to be used by terrorists to attack Israel – then bellowing for an “apology” when some of their own are killed in the crossfire – then allowing the near lynching of Israeli guards in their embassy.
On the other hand, if Egypt falls into chaos there could be a stream of refugees (and more terrorists) streaming across the Sinai toward … Israel. And the border is not secured.
No, I don’t expect rich Persian Gulf potentates to bail out Egypt. And forget the US. We’re broke, and there’s little support in Congress for funding countries working contrary to US interests.
They are all working against our interest. Even the Japanese are looking to sweeten relations with China.
Thank you Hope and Change
One cannot cross Sinai by other means than going/driving along the roads, since it is not passable otherwise, so controlling it is not that hard, just few hyndsred solders with order to fire when they have to.
As the original Spengler wrote, “Optimism is cowardice.”
Quarantine is the approach that is in the West’s best interest. We can’t restructure their societies into something successful for them, at least with our resources and our morality. We did make a huge attempt in Iraq with some postive results, at least temporarily.
Unfortunately, I see more and more overt Muslims in the public places in the US. This doesn’t bod well for domestic tranquillity. Who let them in?
Quarantine is the sole alternative to eventual mass slaughter on our shores. But how long it will take to get mass recognition of that fact is as yet undetermined.
Who let them in? They let themselves in! Unfortunately, the visa sections in our embassies in places like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are not staffed by corn-fed American boys from Iowa. They’re staffed with local…Muslims!
While many Muslims are fine people and will do their best to fit in, the fundamental religous differences will eventually lead to tension.
When Spengler first mentioned the Thirty Years War and the Dutch Republic, I was half way through a history of the concurrent English Civil War. The differences between Laud’s High Anglicism and the Roundheads’ puritanism were trivial compared to our Judeo-Christian/secular society and Islam.
“Unfortunately, I see more and more overt Muslims in the public places in the US. This doesn’t bod well for domestic tranquillity. Who let them in?”
Try the 1965 Immigration Reform Act, sponsorsed by Ted Kennedy. It legislates preference to immigrant applications from 3rd world countries and raised the approvals from 20,000 a month to 80,000 a month. Plus sweeteners like “family reunification”.
Egypt is getting a taste of her 7th century glory days, but this time around they’re packing their camels with WMDs. Welcome to the new world order.
Yes, which rather makes me wonder about the last three words of Mr. Goldman’s last sentence: “What we are likely to witness during the next two years will be repellent, even horrifying–but not necessarily dangerous.”
Was that snark? Did I understand the article?
Yup, go with the flow, give the buggers enough democratic rope and they’ll happily hang themselves with it. Unfortunately, the preferred opiate of the indigenous Egyptian masses happens to be Islam. So after the British departed and left Egypt to its king, first came the generals by a coup, and now it’s the Muslim Brotherhood by cultural default. So after the springtime cleaning in Egypt, the country may even produce an Islamic version of France’s Bonaparte to quell the hungry masses, perhaps he’ll even be a Kurd, like the historical Saladin?
Mubarak could have done an Ataturk decades ago, but as all despots know it is hard to tyrannize truly educated people. So now we will witness Egypt turn into a tribal hellhole, most likely multiple strongmen will have their regions of control.
The only thing we should export to Egypt should be guns and ammunition. Perhaps even corn whiskey and PCP.
Something tells me I am going to be sorry I did not visit the great remnants of Pharonic culture when I had the chance.
Quite. I seem to recall certain buddhas in Afghanistan.
Don’t worry. The more conservative elements have advocated for encasing the Pyramids and Sphinx in wax, as they represent a “rotten culture.” So maybe they’ll be there later, if/when the current crop of fanatics moves on.
Why are clueless politicians (Joe Biden) calling for an Arab Spring for this nation? Seems to me this nation is already in a tail spin, can he possibly make it worse? Better not to ask.
No comments made by Joe Biden should be regarded as anything except comic relief.
Don’t worry, they will blame us for their misery.
And the lefties in here will find the way to do the same.
But is very very sad indeed.
Mr. Goldman,
What if the poor and desperate will be mobilized against Israel or other Western targets? The Muslim Brotherhood is strong enough to survive the coming chaos, and while Syria will not attack Israel, for the Iranians it will be a golden opportunity.
The second act of the Muslim tragedy is upon us?
Mr Goldman – combining your recent essays, one burning question arouses for me: Don’t you fear, that Egypt will be turned from a country of illerate farmers and lazy civil servants into a giant barrack for mercenaries, ready to join any attack on American outposts, European citizens and Israeli cities?
In your recent AsiaTimes essay, you compared the Middle East to Central Europe during the Thirty Years War. In this time, because of the misery and violence every German male over 10 years was a potential recruit for one of the marauding armies and factions fighting. With Egypt comprising 80 Mio citizens and most of them pretty young, hungry and very angry, and wealthy Islamists in the Gulf states and elsewhere, there is an greater threat for the West than the Egypt or Syrian armies, I believe.
Windthorst wrote, ” Don’t you fear, that Egypt will be turned from a country of illerate farmers and lazy civil servants into a giant barrack for mercenaries, ready to join any attack on American outposts, European citizens and Israeli cities?”
David knows well that war serves the purpose of limiting human use of diminishing terrestrial resources. Fewer people following a war reduces pressure on the environment to provide for the left-over inhabitants. This understanding is what makes “peace” advocates into murderers of fetuses, purveyors of contraception to sixth-graders, and bashers of the family system that nurtures the young. It also makes peace advocates liars both to themselves and to others. They work furiously for eugenics but decry “Social Darwinism.” In the end, their support of eugenics is inside out, upside-down and backwards. The people they have convinced most successfully to avoid having children are the ones who could theoretically save the world through innovation if they put their minds to it. However, supporting the welfare system is tantamount to fixing intelligence at a level below that needed to care for oneself and the family that one has sired. Thus, support of a system that encourages single motherhood is the equivalent of producing both the casus belli for a war of survival and the cannon fodder to fuel it.
The proper predication for the fate of Egypt, then, is war with Israel with the semi-conscious aim of its leaders of reducing the population so Egypt can live within its means. The use by dictators who search out external enemies to justify failing systems is just a corollary of the one additional step of supporting a war that they are destined to lose. Like Jihad, ordinary war is a means of removing pressure from leaders at their wits end of knowing what to do to hold on to their power and privilege.
There is hope for Egypt. It is called British trusteeship. The inhabitants of British Egypt and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan had it better off than current day Egyptians. Egypt is clearly not ready for self rule
This is an interesting read in retrospect
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2005/08/the_seven_phase.php
While things are not all going to their plan, some countries are more or less at step 3-4. I think the smarter al-qaeda realize that direct military confrontation with the US in Iraq and Afg is a loser, but there are whole countries with armies and resources up for grabs now. It’s a much easier life to be an elected member of the government with official immunity and lots of money to finance terrorism than to fight US marines.
Watch very close. Many of the human control techniques used in Egypt are being implemented here in the US. Educ., imports, and unemployment. Not to mention the need to borrow borrow borrow.
Is there any way to avoid this in the short term? No.
Is there anyway for North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula to recover after whetever denoumont, to avoid repeating – or ensuring forever – these levels of poverty and stagnation? Sure – outlaw Islam. There is not ONE SINGLE Muslim nation that can feed or educate its people – FACT. EVERY Muslim nation has huge fertility.. and not one thing for those children to do but riot and wage war against non-Muslim neighbors.
The West is being existentially dumb in playing-at multiculti nonsense. There is no there, there. There is nothing in Islam that can adapt to or survive peaceably in the 21st Century. Doesn’t matter if you like it – that’s the way it is.
What will occur once this Arab Winter has truly, irreversiblly spread across N Africa? They’ll attack Israel. Why? No logical reason – Muslims there have more rights than in any Arab country, Israel has taken the same land in which Muslims insist on remaining poor… and made themselves wealthy. But will the Muslims LEARN from the Israelis? Of course not – they’ll attack them instead. And the result of that attack will not, as the columnist seems to believe, leave anyone standing to be hung from lampposts. Israel ONLY will be able to survive a massive pan-Arab onslaught by using her nuclear arsenal. It WILL be an existential fight for the Jews.
Ironically the sane Palestinians will come out the best of any of these non oil based Muslim scoieties due to their proximity to Israel’s advanced economy. Perhaps the Palestinians become primary defenders against the starving, invading hords from Egypt. It certainly would be in there best interest…not that that has been a primary determinent of their behavior to date.
phil g – You are assuming a modicum of rationality. Bad assumption when it comes to Muslims.
There are sane Palestinians: they live in the U.S., and are mostly Christians.
All the smart Palestinians got out years ago.
“Western economists can concoct all the economic recovery plans in the world, but a country that can’t teach half its people to read, and can’t produce employable university graduates, and can’t feed itself, is going to go down the drain.”
Egypt is beginning to sound like us. Not right now, but if Obama gets a second term, that WILL be us.
‘The Arithmetic of the Border’ needs to be recalculated,
with men replaced by droids; American Trusteeship could
be imposed by remote control at less cost than letting Egypt
first go to Hell and then send an army of devils to attack us.
But don’t you understand that Islam is superior? Maybe if they kill off all the Christians and Jews things will get better. Won’t Allah provide?
If Iran can successfully deploy nuclear weapons all the other analysis goes out the window.
“The Egyptian military is hanging onto power by its fingernails.”
Uh…those fingernails control virtually ALL the guns in Egypt! I don’t see them losing their grip, no matter how bad it gets with the masses, anytime soon. They will continue to let the angry and disaffected foment their anger at Israel (a common practice of Arab dictators)and we will continue to see foreign embassies attacked and burned (nee: American, even European) but the whole mess will just simmer under the lid of the military leadership.
I do not seeing them attacking Israel and risking their own necks.
I do not see a “counter” rebel force rising up against them, a la Libya.
A powerful general and ANOTHER military dictator? Probably…maybe.
THE Most Powerful Military in the entire north Africa continent is Egypt, and WE helped them get that way, and continue to help them.
It may be a bad thing “eventually”, but for now, it’s the only thing holding back the dam from breaking and flooding…but it’s a pretty damn BIG CORK!!!
The “Military” does not control all the guns in Egypt. The trouble “The Military” has is that the PFCs have the guns, the sergeants have the artillery pieces. The Generals are in control today. If the PFCs and Lts turn on those Generals, Egypt will descend into anarchy. Then the Mullahs will take control and we’ll see a larger, less literate and starving Iran.
I can hardly wait. The only good news is that this crowd over there cannot maintain any weapons system more complicated than a stone, which is why the Kalashnikov is the favored battle carbine of the illiterate. The battle rifles of Israel have an advantage of probably two hundred yards in accurate fire. I won’t even discuss Israel’s more sophisicated weapon systems. Assuming Israel’s leadership has the stones to actually use their superior weaponry then when the masses of Egypt and Palestine attack, it won’t last long.
The Israelis use the accurate M-16, as well as the Galil, which is essentially a Kalashnikov chambered for NATO 5.56 mm rather than the larger 7.62 mm cartridge. Marksmanship never has been an important part of Israeli doctrine.
Sadat and Mubarak screwed the pooch by not hiring the “Chicago boys” to help craft economic policy like Soeharto did. In many ways, Indonesia was worse of a mess than Egypt is today when Soeharto inherited Soekarno’s mess in the late 1960′s. Soeharto had many flaws and was quite corrupt. However, he at least had the sense to promote economic development of Indonesia and hired the “Chicago boys” to help him do it.
Why in the world did Soetoro disdain knowledge learned by Soeharto and Soekarno? It could have been easier for him, stemming from Chicago. No?
Hello from Germany,
I think in this context that “characteristics” is a better translation for “Eigenschaften” than “qualities”.
Mag wohl sein, aber so steht’s geschrieben in der englischen Ausgabe.
Those same Egyptians who busted down the Israeli Embassy wall a few days ago will be begging for food in front of it in about 8 months.
“What we are likely to witness during the next two years will be repellent, even horrifying–but not necessarily dangerous.”
I must disagree, Spengler. The combination of increasingly desperate economic straits for 80 million people, with genocidal, insatiable, irrational Jew-hatred is an explosive cocktail that will eventually drive the Egyptians to war with Israel, if for no other reason than their hatred is so sick, so total, so psychotic, that they will not give a damn about those consequences.
The end result will be hundreds of thousands of dead and vaporized Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai; and given how sick the Egyptian society will be by that point, far from stopping them, it might drive them into an even more crazed genocidal rage, and even more attacks, with MILLIONS marching on Israel, forcing Israel to even nuke the major cities and the Aswan Dam, effectively wiping out Egypt for good.
So it will be a catastrophe that makes Somalia look like a picnic, but not for the reasons you envision.
Ergodan’s Turkey is also in terrible financial straights. Plus, their Kurdish population is exploding. The odd lesson I just got out of the Cairo mess is that it Bibi Netanyahu and Obama to work together. To extract 6 security guards that were locked in a vault. (And, it turned out, it was not so easy to find the combination; because the Ambassador left. And, had it in his pocket.)
Israel extracted 80 people. It also landed two jets at Cairo’s airport to pick everyone up. Of the 80 or more people, on six were rescued by the Egyptian commandos. And, only AFTER Obama got involved. As soon as all of the Israelis were extracted the NEWS WENT DEAD. How come?
CNN also had another female journalist “almost raped.” But a security car came and picked her up.
And, since the Mideast is UNSTABLE, now, what happens if Saudi Arabia gets attacked? Or the streets in Amman blow up against the King of Jordan?
What’s going on in Libya, still?
How come Obama decided to help Bibi Netanyahu? Withe the news going silent, will there be a bill presented to Israel for services? REALLY?
What happens if a 3rd party candidate (on the order of Ross Perot), shows up to race against Obama and whomever the GOP puts up? Are there American senators out there worried, now, about their own re-elections?
These articles, by the way, have been eye-opening. And, excellent! The reason the Internet really provides the stories that are NOT in our headlines.
Every Muslim nation on this planet is in turmoil. There is nothing we can do to help, they don’t want to change, nor receive infidel assistance. We should pull our diplomats from these countries and stay completely out of their business.
Just dont call it begnine neglect. That would be racist.
Egypt can solve all of its problems, it believes, if it kills all the Israelis, teaming up with Turkey. Erdogan is in Cairo on Friday to achieve just that. Of course, Israelis have nukes, which both Cairo and Ankara forget. Even when (not if) Obama sides with Egypt, Israel has many cards to play. Will Bibi nuke Cairo, Alexandria, and Ankara to save Israel?
Yes.
After that, perhaps Egypt will invade Italy or Greece. Neither one has nukes, will have the US protect it, or could fight its way out of a paper bag. Egyptians can eat easily if they just kill Greeks or Italians, and take their food, property, land, etc. So expect them sooner or later to do it.
Without the Pax Americana, any nation wanting defense against hungry failed peoples must nuke up. And use them. Simple as that.
Famine weakens people, to the point of not being able to war, especially modern war. Revolutions can either be quashed, or turned around to war (remember Napoleon?). Modern war is a new phenomenon, however, and technology savvy people can defend against a mob. Israel did this in 1948, 1967, 1973, and only in Lebanon did it get bogged down, since the enemy was also technologically savvy.
So why speak of war? The real question is food. The Palestinians will receive Israeli aid, so they won’t starve. They might need to swallow pride, but will survive. Given two years and the willingness to work with Israeli desert agrotech, Jordan/Falasteen will feed itself. Syria might have a problem if their peasants rebel. Egypt has the Nile, but Aswan is preventing the silt from renewing the earth, so they will need to choose between electric power and food. Egypt is another place where Israeli desert agrotech could save their existance. Just one lil’ problem: how do you overcome hate and frustration over a failed belief system as deeply entrenched as modern Islam? It needs to evolve, but how? Rather: but by how large a stream of Arab blood, self spilled?
And what about the atomic bomb? What are the odds that starving, crumbling, dissolving, collapsing, ragged, wretched Egypt will build a nuclear weapon?
Oh, about 100%. Nations that cannot afford bread can ALWAYS afford bombs.
The true reason NATO intervened in Libya was to save Italy, Greece, Malta et al from being swamped by refugees from Khaddafi’s misrule. A collapse in Egypt might not directly threaten the US, but it will be a disaster for southern Europe. Even worse, the Muslim population may turn on the Christian Copts.
Would the West intervene to prevent genocide?
David Goldman is modest about his learning. The link “began with food shortages” goes to his insightful February article. The Tatler article above is a sampler from a larger reflection that commenter #11 has already linked. “Israel as the Dutch Republic in the Thirty Years War”. Several comments here discuss Egypt taking up arms against Israel but this option will fail, David writes. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MI13Ak01.html
“After sixty years of such abuse, Egypt simply can’t get there from here.”
Do much vacationing in Maine, Mr. Goldman?
Mr. Goldman
You write that what will befall Egypt will probably not be dangerous to the U.S.
Although al Qaeda has always been highly suspected of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, as Lawrence Freedman points out in his book *A Choice of Enemies* the Saudis and Pakistan are the most suspicious sponsors or co-conspirators.
It is plausible that the Saudis and Pakis wanted the U.S. to intervene as a mercenary force in the Mid East to repel Iranian expansion. As Egypt is already desperate and will only get more so, is it not possible that Egyptians may become easy recruits to foment terrorism elsewhere, even in the U.S., to get more food aid? The message would be “if you don’t send food we will terrorize you.” (Goldman’s Rule 99 – desperate people do desperate things). Or would most of the Egyptian desperation be turned inward?
The insights from Mr Goldman are balanced, well – informed and brave. The future indeed seems bleak. Eventually the dying corpse will send out its members. The eruption from Egypt will presumably do into Southern Europe, because those countries are close and because the Government’s do not have the strength to resist. Bye Bye Rome. Bye Bye Athens.
“…warehousing its youth in state run diploma mills.” Hmmm. Sounds familiar…
And in their mother’s basement where they live of mommy-guilt for her spoiled, useless child and the generosity of Comrade Obama using other people’s money to keep the little parasites on their parent’s insurance until middle age.
where is James May now, hiding under a rock? come out and keep defending the failed revolution everybody else saw it coming.
Ditto for William Kristol
While I do like the longer articles, as here, the shorter ones can be nice for somewhat different reasons: this one introduces us to a literary work, and I like to see “silly” used one-in-a-while, and though perhaps, not so strong a usage as might have been, there it is.
I like the paragraph which ties to the previous thought, and beginning with: “It does not compute, then, half-way through: “down the drain”, and then: “The result, I predict”. This article appears in rythmns which facilitate the cogency and common sense use of facts and logic.
Not like Somalia: more people more urban, but worse.
Nasser really got it going by using import substitution to provide mass employment, allowing the old economy to die, that is based on exports: Miles Copeland pere refers.
External aid has resulted in a huge population increase about doubling since the Yom Kippur War. Thus the old model is not sustainable, and the only way to feed people is from the charity of others. Even if the West puts money into it, there will be a die-off at some point.
I too doubt that there is anything to fear: the place now more than ever lacks the resources to do anything. Further, without really good behavior, the government cannot get the money to survive: urban populations have the veto power. Feed them or you are gone.
When this began my father asked me what I thought the outcome of this spring would be, blood I said, oceans of blood, I stand by that. The MB will be there to distribute food and water to the street when needed. They will have power. They unequivocally call for the destruction of Israel.Some say not but they are simply ostriches with their heads in the sand. They know Obama is their window of opportunity. They know now that window will likely close in 2012. They are not stupid.
Israels’s military is of course superior. Germany’s was too in op Barborossa, but the Russians kept coming. 1 gun, 3 men. The 1st man shot, the 2nd got the gun. The Islamists could overwhelm Israel and kill every Jew there armed with kitchen knives. They will just keep coming on their road to paradise. Even a nuke can only kill 50,000 in the field, at most. Probably less.
Israel, if attacked by Egypt, could do it a great big favour by blowing up the Aswan Dam. Those of us that remember the past are aware that the annual flooding of the Nile brought fertile silt downstream. Egypt used to feed the Roman Empire. With the Aswan Dam gone and the normal silt-bringing flooding of the Nile, Egypt could feed itself.
Back during the Iraqi monarchy, serious thought was given to rebuilding the ancient irrigation system that was fed by the Tigris and Euphrates. Alas, the monaechy was overthrown and the subsequent dicators had other ideas about spending the oil revenue.
The point I make is that the Arab world has enormous agricultural potential if they would only remember the past. Alas, the past in question is pre-Islamic.
Re 33. Dave 2
“I don’t see them losing their grip, no matter how bad it gets with the masses, anytime soon. They will continue to let the angry and disaffected foment their anger at Israel (a common practice of Arab dictators)and we will continue to see foreign embassies attacked and burned (nee: American, even European) but the whole mess will just simmer under the lid of the military leadership.”
This is true with respect to the high level officers who fought in 67 and 73 and have been trained in the US. However, most of the enlisted and junior officers are the new generation that was taught 73 was a proud victory for Egypt, and conditioned from childhood to hate Israel and Jews. Many of them are sympathetic to (or members of) the Muslim Brotherhood.
As the Brotherhood gains political power you can rest assured they will get their people into important positions within the army, economy, and media. Gradually they will replace the conservative old guard with the radical new generation.
It is also likely that individual members of the Egyptian army will engage in aggression against Israel – like how Lebanese soldiers sympathetic to Hizbullah suddenly shot Israelis over the border. A few islamist Egyptians on the border could start something, and there would be irresistible pressure from the public and officers in the army to attack. Likelihood of this scenario increases as the Egyptian economy goes down the toilet and the public starts asking the Brotherhood do more than subsidize bread and propane.
Obama and Clinton have now made an argument for not toppling dictators, religious discrimination. They said, according to the Washington Post, that by toppling murderous, oppressive, deviant dictators like Kaddafi and Mubarak, the people will be introduced to religious intolerance.; a claim that I find absolutely baseless and pure propaganda. It is also an excuse to not get involved in Syria, Lebanon, or Yemen while there is Iranian supported slaughter going on daily.
http://msmignoresit.blogspot.com/2011/09/threats-to-religious-freedom-in-post.html
David, excellent analysis. Best yet. And . . .
“…control by keeping most of its people poor, ignorant, and on the farm, and by warehousing its youth in state-run diploma mills …”
That fits a lot of Latin countries as well, and except for the ‘farm’, it fits the New Nited States of Soviet America as well.
That the “change” in Egypt was minimal was clear when the Army stayed out of the fray and always in control. The apparently absolute ruler is named Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak but thought the name changes but the control was always through more than one officer of the military.
That remains.
This was an excellent article on the awful details of what supposedly was the number one, primo, success story of the Arab Spring.
As for comparing the military control of Egypt with that of the USA, it is unfair as the USA has a much more intricate and corrupt political system of pretense of honorable Republicrats and Democans who when in power “catch” the only miscreants of the prior ruling group. Our military barely objects (they did but softly and carefully) when a president removes so many troops as to turn ten years of fight into one year of flight. It hurts all the commanders but none will take more action than a few solid words that the media will not well report.
As to the politicians, it is a farce as they protect the corrupt officials and prevent prosecution.
I have a list that need investigation and prosecution (and yes long-term incarceration for corrupt acts in breach of fiduciary duties) in just one small sector of our government. It will never happen here as our American façade is impenetrable except those who want to see, who want to hear and who are willing to speak (out)!!
“Robert Musil’s Der Mann Ohne Eigenschaften (“The Man Without Qualities”), one of the great novels of the past century…”
Why, oh why did you have to start with that? The rest of your post makes sense, but golly that was a crappy book. Along with Buddenbrooks, Love in the Time of Cholera, and One Hundred Years of Solitude (plus some stupid book about a Volcano Lover by Susan Sontag) it makes the very short list of “books I would rather poke my eyes out with a sharp stick than have to read again”.
Well, everyone has their literary allergies. I can’t stand Proust. I read Musil in German, and found him riveting. There are lot of writers who sound brilliant in German–Hegel comes to mind–who are unreadable in English. But the current English translation was well reviewed.
“… its university graduates are unemployable…”
“…and can’t produce employable university graduates…”
Mr. Goldman, these statements are interesting. Is this really true? Can you provide links to more on this topic, or perhaps write an article on this subject.
If the Arab world can’t educate itself, its never going to progress.
James S,
The World Bank’s report from 2008 offers a good overview of the current situation in the NME.
PDF here: http://goo.gl/6VFm9
It’s pretty dismal.
You might also look at the world rankings of universities.
If I remember right, until recently there were no Arab universities in the top 300.
Now, some Saudi universities place in the 250s.
To sit for the econ exam in most universities in the Arab world,
one must only memorize ten or twelve books.
Same for other disciplines.
I’ve a friend who finished her
English degree at Aleppo University. She’d not be able to order a cup of tea
in London — though she can recite 100 lines each from Hamlet and the Fairie Queen.
She was a remarkable student, though. Given the nature of the exams,
most students in the humanities will never actually read a primary source.
The biggest problem for most students is innocence of languages other than Arabic.
Few textbooks or primary sources are available in translation.
Those that are are often decades out of date.
For many students in Damascus or Cairo, the biggest problem is finding enough food.
Almost as poor as the students are the instructors — not surprisingly,
corruption is thus widespread.
In my experience, there will always be some students who are very hardworking.
Put them down in a university in Europe or the U.S., and they thrive.
As for the majority, I’d not trust them in a position of responsibility –
no more than I’d trust the average holder of an associate degree
from a third-tier community college.
God help you if you need to hire qualified engineers.
John
Interesting inside, sir. Before the Arab Spring, Damascus was somehow known for being a good place for learning Arabic there.
“In my experience, there will always be some students who are very hardworking.
Put them down in a university in Europe or the U.S., and they thrive.”
True – In my university, electrical engineering, Germany, there are some Tunisians and among the Top15 of my semester, they made up almost the half of the group (other half Germans and Aussiedler) and are even usually better performing than Eastern Europeans and Asians, although the Arabs field here a relative small group compared to the latter mentioned.
Armed Egyptian mobs will attack Israel. Israel will retaliate, drive the rabble back and take the Sinai. This time Israel will keep the Sinai. Forever.
Mr. Goldman:
I enjoy your articles – so much so, that they raise general questions I would like to ask and comments I would like to make that are inspired by, but not necessarily related to, a specific article. I also would like to raise new subjects on which you might want to comment.
Could you supply an email address or special comment area, where people could write directly you to you as opposed to posting a comment at the end of an article?