Egypt Meltdown Update
The Obama administration asked Congress for an emergency $450 million cash infusion for Egypt last week, but congressional Republicans won’t permit it. The New York Times reported Sept. 28:
An influential Republican lawmaker, Representative Kay Granger of Texas, immediately announced that she would use her position as chairwoman of the House appropriations subcommittee overseeing foreign aid to block the distribution of the money. She said the American relationship with Egypt “has never been under more scrutiny” than it is in the wake of the election of President Mohamed Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Morsi does not seem to have done himself much good in the Congress by allowing Islamist mobs to vandalize the American embassy in Cairo.
Turkey announced a $2 billion package for Egypt last month, but none of that money will be spent on urgent imports. From my Sept. 29 report in Asia Times Online,
Egypt announced that Turkey had promised $2 billion in aid, but Turkish press accounts doubt that Egypt will spend any of that money in the near future; $1 billion is reserved to finance the operations of Turkish firms in Egypt, which does nothing for Egypt’s urgent import requirements. The other $1 billion, the Turkish newspaper Star wrote on September 15, is just an advance on the prospective $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Turkey still owes the IMF $5 billion from its borrowing after the 2008 crisis, so it will expect repayment out of the IMF money – if the IMF loan ever comes through. In the meantime, the $1 billion will sit in the central banks’ display window and won’t be spent.
And the Saudis, who were supposed to bail Egypt out, just offered a $235 million loan, a tip to add insult to injury. The Saudi monarchy hates the Muslim Brotherhood, the only entity that might overthrow it.
Returning to my Sept. 14 question — is Egypt ungovernable? — the answer is looking more affirmative every day.
How dangerous will Egypt’s death throws be?
Is North Korea ungovernable? Was Cambodia?
I all depends on the level of human suffering a government is willing to visit upon its subjects. Mass starvation and unmerciful persecution are par for the course in totalitarian states. Egypt under the MB is moving toward such totalitarianism.
Curiously, under the extreme pressure of starvation and persecution, populations become fiercely dependent on the totalitarian government, leading to a fanatical jingoism and identification with the source of suffering. We’ve seen this time and again in totalitarianisms in the developing world. As long as the people are continually ground on the twin stones of starvation and persecution, they remain fanatically loyal to the totalitarian state. Remove the pressure and it falls apart.
Expect Egypt to spurn the IMF loan ad instead wrap itself in the mantle of Islam vs the West. Under the MB, it will choose to starve and persecute its people rather than compromise with the West. Why? Because compromise means sharing power. That’s not in their playbook.
It is not only the level of violence the government is willing to visit on its people. It matter how much violence it is able to visit to the people and how much violence it can use without destroying itself.
Pol Pot’s Cambodia visited a lot of violence on its people, but it was of no use against Viet tanks.
which tanks came only after Cambodia started trying to spread its particular brand of socialist brotherly love to Vietnam. The Vietnamese weren’t too happy with that and eventually had enough and decided to return the favour, replacing the Cambodian government with one more like their own.
That’s unlikely to happen in Egypt, which has only Israel at its borders capable of doing more than harass a few sandflies on its territory. And Israel has never been one to launch a campaign to bring to the fall a regime in a neighbouring country (and I seriously doubt they could, given the logistics involved, pull it off in Egypt or indeed any country on their borders).
Maine’s Michael asks a salient question-how dangerous will their death throes be? VERY.
In fact, not only will it be very dangerous for its immediate neighbors, but for the US in the long-term. In the immediate term, the Muslim Mafia Prez is busy planning war against Israel. Yes, he is.
Just as a foretaste – (this is an issue most rational Israelis keep close tabs on via the news, and this blogger does the same…speaking with people ‘working on the ground’ too on a regular basis – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/10/02/when-sinai-islamists-prep-for-war-under-the-sanction-of-egypts-islamist-prez-under-the-noses-of-israels-leadership-what-can-go-wrong-adina-kutnicki/
For the record, quite a few Commanders on the ground are duly alarmed by Bibi’s moves, making ‘allowances’ for Morsi’s bellicose behavior. What’s up with that? And, the IDF is FULLY capable of smacking them down. They did it in 1973, and that was when they were caught napping at the wheel. They are now in tip top shape.
Adina, I agree. Were it not for Iran’s nukes I would say Israel is in less existential danger than ever. In 1973, Syria and Egypt were ruled by Pan-Arab socialist military dictators who were being armed and advised by the Soviet Union. They presided over modern, fairly professional armies that were trained and motivated. Now look at them.
Syria no longer even exists as a polity. It is in the process of destroying itself. No matter who eventually takes over–if any one entity ever does–Syria will never again be a regional “power”.
Egypt, as we are repeatedly told, is about to run out of money and food. The Muslim Brotherhood is in the process of doing to the Egyptian military what the Ayatollahs did to the Shah’s military. I predict that in a matter of months the Egyptian army will be thoroughly purged and demoralized. It would sure be nice to connect with a source that knows it intimately but I am sure it would completely collapse if we withdrew support and trainers/technicians. Not to mention the little factoid that Generals and Colonels of an army like Egypts tend to be utterly incompetent as they spend their time playing politics and tending to their many business interests rather than studying the Art of War. Fighting a war tends to get in the way of profiteering. Furthermore, I would guess the officers are in full panic mode and trying frantically to stuff their pockets as fast as possible while they still can. No, Egypt is in no shape to invade Israel, and soon it will cease to have a military worthy of the name.
Lord only knows what we’re going to be seeing in the coming months. The Republican Congress is finding sufficient spine to block Obama’s cash infusions, the Euros simply don’t have the money and the Gulf sheiks are damned if they’re going to fund their sworn enemies. In any case, the MB’s swaggering braggadoccio is winning them no friends. If there is anything to fear from Egypt, it will be boatloads of refugees fleeing famine. Maybe in their desperation they’ll invade Libya but they won’t anywhere attacking Israel. Islamists once shook the world but they can’t do modern warfare.
Hezbollah is soon going to find itself with no friends. The last thing Hanan Nasrallah wants now (loud chest-beating aside) is to take on Israel again. I’m wondering what his bottom-line looks like nowadays. Does anyone really think his Maginot Line is fully manned and stocked up at the moment?
Egypt is dangerous as the platform for the Muslim Brotherhood to fan out throughout the Sunni world. If the problem is contained to Egypt, the answer is, “not very.”
David, is Libya now under the MB’s sphere of influence? I ask because wouldn’t it make sense to look at that whole region as under their sway? This would mean they have access to Egypt’s military and Libya’s oil. I wonder how this fits into their plans. For example, while they may struggle to get external financing if we look at Egypt in their current state, would they be able to use oil via Libya to fund their operation? This, plus control over the Suez. Also, if you think about it, if the MB had a pact with Iran, what would stop a. An attack on Israel, and b. dual pronged attack into Saudi Arabia (Iran via Iraq)?
I know part b. maybe a little far fetched, but if Obama was President, would he pull a Bush I?
Excellent analysis. The ongoing economic malaise in both Egypt and Syria is the real story of the Arab Spring. A recent transcript from the London School of Economics on Syria’s economic spiral, as well as the dwindling of their foreign currency reserves, can be seen on Joshua Landis’s website. Only time will tell what this will mean for war and peace.
I personally hope the Iranians give the Egyptians and the Syrians the dollars they need. The U.S should let the Iranians give their large foreign currency reserves to the starving Egyptians and Syrians so that their war fighting capabilities in the event of a strike against them will be diminished. In a war, cash is king, as the Iranians won’t be selling their crude oil during a conflict. The Iranian currency is already in free fall and will be weakened further if they give away their dollars.
Iran’s monetary reserves are indeed very large: 110 billion$ as of 2011.
However, little or even none of them are held in US dollars, following decision to “decouple Iran from the US banking system”
The largest part seems to be held in euros, and a quite significant part in gold: 500 to 900 tons according to sources. For comparison, total gold in reserves of all central banks worldwide is circa 30,000 tons.
Check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Bank_of_the_Islamic_Republic_of_Iran#Foreign_reserves
If in fact Egypt’s monthly short fall is $2B, then they could burn through Iran’s total monetary reserves in less than a year. Middle East oil money has thus far masked the inability of totalitarian theocracies to provide the basic necessities of a (somewhat) modern life. Like the semi-socialist EU, they must collectively awaken to the reality that only personal and market freedom enable societies to thrive and survive long term. Hopefully our own misguided detour into socialism is about to end.
“Dear Leader”‘s analysis notwithstanding, it strikes me that Egypt’s sorry state is entirely new in history. Prior to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, all the Arab lands were just as they had been for centuries. Nomads, villages, tribes and clans none of which had deep connections with the world outside themselves.
It was only when the European empires carved up the Arab world that they were wrenched into modernity, and witnessed for the first time the assumptions nation-states operate under. As they weaned away from direct rulership by Europe, no Arab lands (Lebanon excepted–but then that was a Catholic population) tried “democracy” or a republican form of government, much less a federal system. As “nations” they all settled into various flavors of tyrannical dictatorships.
That is, Arab peoples did not develop their polities organically into nation-states. It does not come naturally for them, and if those of them sitting upon oceans of petroleum did not have oil to sell, I’d venture we’d already know what Egypt will look like in the coming months, because there’d already be lots of examples.
What I’m getting at is this: Islam is wholly incompatible with modernity. The more “islamic” a collection of Arabs decides to be, the less possible will it be that they can collectively function as a nation. The idea that “Arab nationalism” will result seems to me unlikely. Arabs remain tribal people. It is only by force of strong overlords that those countries were held together this long–but these tended to be secularists who cut deals with the West, allowing them some semblance of modern functionality. That’s all going away. We’re now in uncharted waters.
Spengler wrote an ATO column a while back called “When the Cat’s Away, the Mice Slaughter Each Other.” I’m afraid he’s right.
Well, you hit it on the head; the Arab tribal culture is simply incompatible with representative democracy.
When the British pulled out of Egypt (and other Arab states), they left parliamentary systems in place in Egypt. Within few years a coup d’etat ended that western ideal.
The muslim religion was invented by an Arab and naturally it conformed to the Arab tribal culture extant 900 years ago.
Tribal cultures worship first, their own tribe and as for the rest of the tribes, well, they can go to hell. Unless of course they are forced to reach a sort of detente with another tribe or two to secure their own power. The idea of a representative democracy, for them, is a joke.
Arab leaders (dictators) use religion as a ploy, as propaganda, to entrench/enrich themselves.
Assad of Syria, Nasser of Egypt, etc. are/were about as religious as the British scientist/author Dawkins of “The God Illusion” fame. And frankly, what the muslim brotherhood seeks to impose on their fellow citizens is really very similar to what Stalin or Lenin or Kim Jong or Mao imposed in their lands. The only difference is that the leftist dictators set themselves up, and the STATE as GOD, whereas the muslim brotherhood PRETENDS that they are carrying out the wishes of Muhammed. The MB is simply employing a different con.
It is all BS.
Yea, they have their masses of useful idiots who fall for the scam but the guys at the top are more than willing to seek out and view pornography, drink booze and find themselves many whores to entertain them. It is a total scam, a ruse, just as the Soviet Union was a “workers paradise” where everyone was equal. Yea right.
The idiot who now runs the show in Egypt is outwardly a religious fanatic who will have to use brute force, murder, coercion, etc. to impose his fanatical “religious” worldview on Egypt. But he simply, like all the other MB leaders is a religious fraud and most likely spends hours on youtube watching XXX movies while scarfing down his scotch and whiskey – prepared by the prostitutes he has hired.
If you think I am wrong, recall the XXX videos discovered in OBLs Paki hideout and also the 911 Arab scum who spent their time at strip joints here in the USA.
Yea, it was just part of the sacrifices they had to make for jihad.
Like all dictators, these guys know how to press the hot-buttons of the masses and raise the emotions of the masses into action. (President Obama is pretty good at this too). They will find enough idiots to take the bait as did the wacko who presently runs the show in Iran. There are always more then enough useful idiots and they will totally destroy Egypt as did that wacko who runs Iran.
As far as I am concerned, the USA should get the hell out of Egypt right now, kick out their ambassadors out of the USA, and let them self destruct. Even the idea that the US taxpayer should send those camel f’ers one god^^n penny is simply beyond comprehension. We have sent them billions and billions over the years – money from US taxpayers !!! – for what.
Let them go to h^^l. And yes, just provide Israel the weapons they need (anything and everything ) and let the Israelis take care of themselves.
Egypt used to sell gas to Israel. It recently decided that it was no longer interested in filthy Zionist money and breached the contract. If they are now short of cash to import food, well then, let them eat that gas.
Isn’t that a bit of making propaganda lemonade out of lemons because they couldn’t keep the pipeline open in the face of sabotage?
They could keep the pipelines open – and Israel feeling more secure – by inviting the IDF to patrol (or jointly patrol with the Egyptian army) the pipelines.
You’re really not getting it. The Egyptian Govt now is dead against Israel, and they turn 2 blind eyes on the terrorists en route to our border. Now you’re suggesting Egypt should invite Israel to patrol their pipeline. You must live in a total lala-land. We in Israel are on the way to complete a fence all along the Egyptian border, in our Negev Desert (bordering the Sinai Desert). Your suggestion, after all you could read and see from the current Egyptian new dictatorship is really bordering infantilism.
I read it more as that technically they could, which is true. You’re quite correct though that morally/politically they can’t as it would go against everything they stand for (and IMO, if offered, were I the Israeli government, I’d declie the offer from the current Egyptian junta as it’s likely to be bogus and an easy way to kill Jews and blame the damage to the pipeline on the ineptness of the IDF crews).
A huge natural gas field was recently discovered just off the Israeli coast. Once the wells come online, Israel will be a net exporter. Egypt and its other neighbors will be going to them hat in hand saying “Brother, can you spare a million cubic feet?”
Then maybe we can stop sending Israel billions of our tax dollars every year.
The Arab Spring was finally spawned by relentlessly rising food prices, fueled (no pun) by extraordinary demand from Asia. The Muslim world for the most part is unable to feed itself given the dramatic growth of its population since WW2. That trend is now going into reverse. We have not seen even the beginning of the ugliness that has been unleashed. To the extent there has ever been peace in this large region with few geographical features of defining character other than desert, it has been when there has been rule by an overlord from the margin. There is none on the horizon. We will witness a descent into tribal and ethnic slaughter over the next several decades that is unprecedented in modern history. In the shortrun, I expect Israel to expand north, south and east – in the next five years — but in the longer run I do not see how Israel can survive in a region where mass murder will be commonplace. At some point by midcentury biological warfare is going to be upon us. While the Iranians muse loudly about another Shoah, the great challenge for the Jewish people in the relatively near future is, how do you move safely 10 million people and several hundred nukes to Montana?
Israel have no need to move to Montana.
If the MENA collapse in tribal fights of epic proportions and starvation, Israel just need to make clear that any and all attacks to it will be answered without proportionality.
No tribe mess with someone much bigger and nastier than them.
It would be interesting to see Israel sever every land connection with Gaza and the West Bank and allow the Arabs and Egypt to feed and support the Palestinians.
In case of diffuse warfare, the border controls disappear and Gazans would flood in Egypt and West Bankers travel est the Jordan. Without food people is forced to move somewhere else.
Montana is not for sale, we’re not giving it to you and you can’t take it.
Jonathan Rubinstein, I think you are asking the wrong question “How do you move 10 million people to Montana?”, I think the question you should be asking if Obama is reelected should be “How do you move 6 million American Jews to Israel?”
Egypt is well on the way to be allied with Iran. I expect other African countries which will fall in this evil camp, and to be specific I think of Ethiopia. Just wait a couple a month a see the news. For the geographically ignorant (sorry for my cynicism) please consult a world map and understand where strategic points are located.
Unfortunately neither the USA leaders nor the Europeans are good chess players, (if ever they play) and if they would, their strategy would have been different since decades. International politics have nothing to do with a poker play.
The West today is weak and unstable, and it has been noticed. I fear the West will have to suffer what they fear most.
I’m virtually certain the importers don’t depend on the Egyptian central bank for letters of credit; most of them are internationals based in Europe or the US (Bunge, Cargill … I dunno, maybe Louis-Dreyfus). Probably the real situation here is the fact that the importers are asking for more up-front, due to volatility in the grain/oil/beans markets. Certainly, those markets have been bonkers in recent years. Thus, this situation would arise no matter who is in charge of Egypt. I believe they’re the largest grain importer in the world. Algeria seems like they’re even more screwed.
I guess I could be wrong; maybe Mubarek nationalized the grain elevators. Either way, you will probably see a lot of poor countries going bonkers as long as volatility remains high in the aggies.
You can thank the Federal Reserve and it’s policy of ZIRP and printing money to infinity for the volitility in agriculture prices.
Vola in corn and wheat have been pretty high in the past as well, mostly from surprises in the crop reports. Early 70s were as bad as now. 1986 and 1993 also had bad spikes. If you denominate it in gold; pretty much the same answer. Try it and see.
“Egypt’s economy appears to be running on fumes. Public health clinics are out of vaccines for infants, importers are running out of stockpiles of basic food items, and the government is $3 billion in the hole to oil suppliers in the midst of a paralyzing fuel shortage.”
Don’t worry, stupid Infidels like us will bail the muslim throwbacks out.
Mohammedan morals consist in prostrate like bowing 5 times a day in the general direction of some black stone in Mecca that is suppose to have fallen down from their moon-god, Allah, and attending mosque regularly at the appointed weekly time, and in breaking the ten commandments all the balance of the week. It comes natural to them to lie and cheat and kill and enslave in the first place, and then they go on and improve on that nature until they arrive at perfection. I never did dislike anyone as much as those Muslims and especially the Arabs, and most especially the so called “Palestinians”, and when Israel is pushed to war with them again, I hope America and England and France and Russia will not find it good breeding nor good judgment to interfere.
I believe the moon god cited is actually a moon goddess, which I think adds an element of humour to the whole worship the stone thing.
Forget the economy, the Egyptian army needs to extend the range of a missile system.
Now that’s important.
http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/military-working-extend-range-missile-system-says-defense-minister
The MB has a reserve of capital – the same capital that the Bolsheviks had: The belongings of any minority they happen to decide is an enemy of the State (perhaps the Copts) and slave labor. Of course, it could be that Morsi and his gang really thought the Koran somehow had all the answers to garbage disposal, corruption, crime, foreign exchange, education etc. If that is the case, right now they may be like a deer in the headlights – frozen – with no idea of how to get from A to B in setting up their perfect Shariah state and the clock ticking away. If that is the case, and I suspect it is the case, then look to see them go after that reserve.
well said
There can never be civility in a nation that does not embrace reason. PERIOD.
Bad news, Egypt will now think seriously about a [futile] war against Israel.
That is Egypt’s wet dream! They won’t risk a full war with Israel; a barking dog isn’t biting. On the contrary, by being allied with Iran more and more, the Egyptians are risking being attacked by an international coalition. (in the future this could well be possible) The only logical war for Egypt is to attack Libya and grab their oil, since Egypt painfully lacks it. (Libya ca. 6.5 million people, Egypt 80 million and counting)
Many people including Mr. Goldman have discussed Egypt taking Libya and its oil. I doubt they would risk a conventional military invasion but maybe a Moslem Brotherhood underground terror campaign and eventual coup to seize the state. Libya is up for grabs and the MB is an internationalist type organization.
No, good news, now Israel can hammer them with support from the West if they attack and secure their southern border. Along the way they can also tune up Gaza. Wait, and suffer the consequences down the road.
We should not give Egypt one thin dime. Nothing. We have our own “president” saying that Egypt is neither an ally or an enemy, so until they prove to us that they really are an ally, why give them anything? Why would we given them money that could just fall into the hands of terrorists controlled by the salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood? If we still gave Egypt money AFTER our own embassy was attacked in Cairo, all the Egyptians would do would laugh at us for being so stupid. Nope, save the cash and let the Egyptians figure out how to live with their grand Islamic revolution. Seems like they hate us infidels, so let them figure out how to keep their own Islamic “republic” above water. Let the radical Islamists figure it out, or ask Allah for help. Seems like the radical Islamists have a direct line to Allah, so make them use it.
It seems to me that the next step is to use their remaining military muscle to overtake Libya, restore “order” and steal their oil. Who would object?
What you describe here seems to be a serious case of self-righteous indignation. Once committed to an unworkable plan, the continued action is to continue to reinvest in the vision-thing. This becomes a degenerative spiral that can only be accelerated downward. “It is better to rule in hell that to serve in paradise.” The remaining benefit for the doomed is to take as many others along with the fallacy. Quarantine is the cure for the neighborhood.
Thank you, JED……your word “quarantine” just caught my eye….it’s my favorite “app” for our Muslim Problem.
…..”Quarantine is the cure for the neighborhood.”
Wasn’t it about two months ago that news reports were saying Egypt would run out of money in about two months? Now here we are again, Egypt runs out of money in about 2-3-6 months and can’t feed their people. So in three or four months will we get news reports that Egypt will run out of money in about two months?
Will we see Sally Struthers on the evening news showing pictures of starving Egyptian children as she pleads for money, food, and another US Military humanitarian intervention?
Just like the Post Office. Every 6 months there is a story that the PO will be out of cash shortly. I think Geithner moves some money around to keep the PO funded.
Don’t expect for a hot minute that the Western charity/NGO mafia is going to dare set foot in Egypt. Way too dangerous. Someone said there are 90,000 Americans in Egypt. If so, we should concentrate on getting them out.
Whatever happens inside Egypt and these other “springing emergent” Muslim artificial nations we Americans should……
……after all these years of supporting the World with our Marshall Plans and USAID Programs seemingly ad infinitum, and witnessing the gradual petering out of these same programs, at least General Marshall knew his Plan was for the attempted restoration of what had been pre-Nazi civilized Western Europe,along with the surprisingly successful administration of a flattened Japan under General MacArthur…..
…….avoid all of these literally pending entanglements with these gradually emergent and simultaneously deteriorating African- and Asian-Muslim countries.
They will, without an iota of gratitude as we know it, turn upon us at the first opportunity.
These two gratifying exceptions of reviving Western Europe and culturally polar-opposite Japan should never be cited as precedents for America supporting Muslims, any Muslims anywhere, who have never given up their attempted all-Muslim infiltration and subversion and penetration of our America for the end result of establishing their sharia-law upon us…. ……who….remember…..grew out of Magna Carta.
What more evident shocking comparison is there than that between the Magna Carta and the Koran? The cultures emergent and currently represented by those are simply irreconcilable.
The Muslims themselves repeatedly remind us of this…..so, why do we support our sworn enemy…Islam…..with the likes of USAID?
So, let the Muslim meltdown be alleviated, where possible, only among the warring factions within Islam itself……at present we’re cultivating their problems to become our problems.
“Is Egypt ungovernable?”
No. Mubarak governed it.
Is it governable by the Brotherhood? Sure. The Taliban governed Afghanistan.
Whatever evolves there, it will be necessary to govern the Egyptian people *tightly* because Egypt is a nation that cannot feed itself. Egyptians are wholly reliant on their own government and on the governments of outside nations.
Fortunately, most Egyptians are Muslim, so they are well-aqainted with prostrating themselves and following the dictates of their masters. Also, being Muslim, they are a very excitable people. They perform especially well in state-run displays of anti-Jew, anti-American, anti-West, anti-whatever hatred.
So, yes, Egypt is about as governable nation as one could ever hope to see.
Septimius Severus AD193 to AD211, advice to his heirs (Caracalla & Geta):
“Enrich the soldiers, nothing else matters.” The leaders of Egypt may follow Severus’s advice.
We are ungovernable. i hope Egypt proves to be so, as well, and in the same sense.
Well, with the Iranians rioting and the Gippos always running our of food two months down the track (Who do they think they are, Greeks?) our young president has a chance to redeem himself for dumping the Green revolution and the Hoser under the trolly back in his salad days. Land o’ Goshen, Miss Martha, do you think he has learned anything?
maybe the MB can get the populous to riot in favor of their dear uncle sugar. hear the chant “we love your money(jizya)” let them govern.
#5 – “At some point by midcentury biological warfare is going to be upon us. While the Iranians muse loudly about another Shoah, the great challenge for the Jewish people in the relatively near future is, how do you move safely 10 million people and several hundred nukes to Montana?”
The scary thing is that the long term prospects of bio-weapon capabilities may be so horrible that this almost seem plausible. I doubt that even a big geographic buffer will be permit a sufficient defense.
Biowarfare is not just plausible, it is probable (actually certain IMO), but there is work being done on defenses that do not rely on a specific reaction like a vaccination, but on recognizing the general characteristics of viruses and bacteria.
The buffer will not be geographic, but technological, and not everyone will qualify for its application.
The consequences are so dire that the world will have to get a lot deeper in the doo-doo before we start fighting our way out, but we will.
Interesting times on the way, but not for a while yet.
The so-called “Arab Spring” began with economic matters in Tunesia and then spread. In Egypt three was certainly a secular/democratic element, now surpressed by the Brotherhood. In several articles in PJ Media and elsewhere you have been describing the break down of the Egyptian economy and a pecarious impoverishment of the Egyptian populace . Question: Do you think that another ECONOMICAL (and perahaps democratically clothed) revolutionary situation is developing–>one that could lead to the Brotherhood being thrown out as was the Mubarak machine?
Egypt was governable and there is collective memory of that. Are you really asking if it has reached a point of no return by the logic of Islam (defeat the infidels or die)? Your question is far reaching beyond Egypt if so. Does Islamist rule inevitably descend into chaos? That would appear so as it is a religion with a self destruct auto-set, explained by its command to subjugate. There can be no end to the totalitarian state other than annihilation. Totalitarianism is cannibalistic. When Christianity attempted subjugation of the New World in the 16th century, whole populations were slaughtered. The Church saw its power collapse in Europe not long after and the long recede to secularity continues. This may be such a turning point for Islam as it tuns to chaos and cannibalizes itself. This could take only a generation given the forces at work. You raise a scenario of an end game in the Mid East that requires the US to withdraw as quickly as it can develop energy independence. May God and three carrier groups help Israel if your vision is as I extrapolate it.
Time to invade Libya?
The United States needs to stop funding Islamic terrorism via foreign aid.
Cut the jidza to ZERO and let them starve.
The sub-title to this article is, “Is Egypt Ungovernable?” The short answer is “Yes.”
Trotsky allegedly said – “You might not be interested in history but history is interested in you.” Nowhere is this more true than in the Middle East. The institutions of governance (and in particular western-style governance such as it is) in this area have practically no roots. Thep problem appears to be cultural. For over seven hundred hears this part of the world was largely under the dominion of the Ottoman Caliphate. Neither the Ottomans nor any of the branches of Islam experienced the type of cultural revolutions brought about successively by the western Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. All of these events had, among other things, the effect of creating governing institutions, a sense of personal freedom and a defined separation of secular and religious dominance.
The “Ottoman Centuries” (to use the title of th great book by Lord Kinross) preserved this area of the world and the Muslim faith like a fly in amber for nearly a millenium. It’s fashionable today to blame middle eastern violence on the effects of the post-World War I settlment that divided up the Ottoman Empire into artificial states. However I believe that is too easy. We are dealing with a culture that would be perfectly comfortable besieging Vienna as in 1529. Why do we expect something else?
So what are the chances that Egypt–starving, crumbling, collapsing Egypt–will now start to build nuclear weapons? I’d say, roughly, 100%.
The saudis have the right idea when it comes to dealing with the muslim brotherhood. At this point the brotherhood is the greater of the two very distinct evils. Anyway,the egyptian government will blame Israel for any and all problems. That is all it knows how to do. But even the egyptians will gradually figure out that islam is not the answer and that hunger is an effective motivator to remove the genocidal sociopaths currently in power.
I hope you are right. I enjoy and agree with David Goldman and many commenters here.
But I am also still surprised when many Egyptians to know English tolerably well, and when they use internet and social media. It was reported that even Egypt gave it’s children some rudimentary education, in Mubarak’s time.
How will the technically possible, hard to stop, interconnectedness with the outside world, so absolutely absent in previous dictatorships, work out in the future? Influence from the West did in the end change Eastern Europe. The full Democratic constitutional system is the stronger system I hope.
And the composition of Egypt’s population will be changing with less of a youth bulb and with more adults and elderlies. How will THAT work out?
I don’t think we should be giving any of those middle eastern countries one red cent. Let them help each other. Let China help them. Give me one reason we should be throwing any money/jizya away to these hostile, ungrateful people.
When Israel goes after Iran’s nuclear targets, will Egypt attack Israel?
I doubt it. They would get crushed. But they might ship Libyan surplus missiles to Hamas in Gaza.
The fellah in Egypt does not need much. There will always be just enough for a little bread and hashish. It is the MB that needs much. They have a very large appetite and what will be interesting will be their reaction when they realize they are not building the new Islamic man and that they cannot re-establish the glorious days of 9th century Baghdad. And that all they are sitting on is a large garbage dump which is smelling worse by the day. Their rage will be interesting.
What comes after Qaddafi or any of the other dictators won’t be any better, more likely worse.