The CFR’s Steven Cook Misrepresents Me
Steven Cook, the Council on Foreign Relations’ main expert on Egypt, posted an inaccurate and unprincipled attack on me today at the CNN “Global Public Square” blog.
“An objective observer,” Dr. Cook writes of Egypt’s present crisis, “might come to the reasonable conclusion that Egypt needs help and that the international community should do what it can to help pull Egyptians back from the brink. That is certainly the view of most analysts from across the political spectrum, yet in one corner of the commentariat [namely mine], they are actually hoping for Egypt to fail.”
On the contrary: I believe that the foreign policy establishment (including Dr. Cook) is engaged in a hapless and counterproductive effort to save the unsalvageable. That is my assessment as a specialist in country risk with thirty years’ experience, including a stint as Bank of America’s global head of bond research. I never wrote that an Egyptian collapse was desirable, only that it was inevitable. I might be wrong, but this week’s events in Egypt surely do not make me look wrong.
Dr. Cook refers specifically to my Jan. 22 essay, “Denial still is a river in Egypt,” in which I argue that Egypt’s economic collapse has made the largest Arab state ungovernable. He denounces as “a-historic revisionism” my “claim that economic collapse was the reason for the uprising.” Revisionism? I have been arguing since February 2011 that the global spike in food prices undermined Egypt, which imports half its food. I wrote back then:
Even Islamists have to eat. It is unclear whether President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt will survive, or whether his nationalist regime will be replaced by an Islamist, democratic, or authoritarian state. What is certain is that it will be a failed state. Amid the speculation about the shape of Arab politics to come, a handful of observers, for example economist Nourel Roubini, have pointed to the obvious: Wheat prices have almost doubled in the past year.
Since then I have chronicled the unfolding economic and political breakdown in Egypt in more than two dozen essays. And here is what Egypt’s leading daily al-Ahram wrote yesterday:
On 25 and 28 January 2011, thousands chanted “Bread” on streets across Egypt, highlighting the economic nature of the uprising. The chant represented the people’s aspirations for a fairer economic system, protesting high inflation rates, low wages and the unavailability of daily rations. It is no coincidence that bread was the first word of the revolution’s main slogan (“Bread, freedom, dignity”), as it is a daily staple for millions of people, making Egypt the largest per capita wheat consumer and importer.
Egypt’s Defense Minister Gen. Abdul al-Sisi warned this morning that state failure was a possibility:
The continuation of the struggle between political forces and their disagreement over the administration of the country may lead to the collapse of the state and threaten the future of upcoming generations.
That is precisely what I warned about two years ago. Dr. Cook ignores my early and accurate forecast of the present crisis. Just at the point where Egypt’s most influential newspaper and its defense minister echo my longstanding analysis, Dr. Cook wants to change the subject. He accuses me of holding absurd views that I never expressed:
What we have here is nothing more than a crude lament that the United States did not give Mubarak a so-called “green light” to crack down two years ago. This is revealing for what Spengler/Goldman does not know about Egypt, its history, and the causes of Hosni Mubarak’s fall, but everyone is a Middle East expert these days. Even if President Obama had signaled that there would be no penalty for an Egyptian version of Tiananmen, it would not have been forthcoming.
In fact, I wrote just the opposite, namely that Egypt would become a failed state whether or not Mubarak hung on. As a practical matter, I think that the United States made a mistake by issuing a peremptory order that “Mubarak must go,” in February of 2011. Mubarak was a longstanding American ally and the United States should have eased the transition as a matter of loyalty. Never did I suggest that a Mubarak crackdown on the protesters would have solved the problem.





Whats wrong with wanting to see the enemies of civilization burn to the ground? I’m looking forward to it myself!
Turn your back away and keep walking.
Just getting the Sodom and Gemorah reference! But Im STILL gonna look!
I know the Ethics of the Fathers preaches:
“Rejoice not in your enemies death”
Good thing Im not religious! :D))
“I will sing unto the Lord for he is MOST triumphant; the horse and rider drowning in the sea!”
Actually, Mishnah in Avot is a direct quote from King Solomon in Proverbs, and it includes the next line, which gives the reason – lest God disapprove and change his mind.
But I doubt it applies here. What we do have to worry about is that the collaps of Egypt may cause war with us over here in Israel, Heaven forbid.
Ever think of that?
Whats wrong with wanting to see the enemies of civilization burn to the ground? I’m looking forward to it myself!
Well, the first to be murdered will be about 10,000,000 Copts and other assorted Christians in Egypt.
Which kinda sucks if you care about Western Civilization.
On the other hand, it’s pedal-to-the-metal if you’re an eastern Mediterranean fiat-electron mongering legalist who views the Christians of Dar al Islam as his natural competitors in the mercantilizing and rent-extraction bidnesses of the eastern and southern Mediterannean.
So if you look at it from that point of view, then suddenly the Obama Administration’s support of the Arab Spring makes sense.
“the first to be murdered will be about 10,000,000 Copts and other assorted Christians in Egypt.
Which kinda sucks if you care about Western Civilization.”
Oh yeah, that sucks. So so so so sad!..hey well whadayaknow? Im already over it! hahah!
Somehow I dont think of the Christians in Egypt as a pillar of Western Civlization. Actually Western Civilization can do with some culling of the herds! I think Egypt is as good a place as any to start.
Actually Copts are only marginally better than their Islamic neighbors in terms of their primitivity. “Wor unto the wicked; woe unto his neighbor” And maybe even worse in their anti-semitism! They just have a little more money because they have less support from the system.
But really, I could care less! These people are ALL the enemies of civilization.
Funny story, I got an email from my (self hating Muslim) Egyptian friend who went back to Egypt during break from his Uni. He sent me an email asking if there was some way Israel could bomb the country and kill half the population! Stupid thing to say in an email when you are STILL in Egypt. But still probably true!
Burn baby burn…
Rgyptian Inferno
Burn baby burn
Actually a poster down below mentioned the Copts would be a worthy immigrant community here in the USA. Good point! We could cherry pick the best and bring them here. The rest..”Ich hub em en drert”
More vicious anti-semites in the US? The Mexicans (one poll showed half of Mexican immigrants were anti-semitic) aren’t enough?
Not that the US should deny them entry; the principle is too important.
So whats new? The Council on Foreign Relations, CFR, has alway misrepresented everything to everyone.Deceit is their modus operandi and Pinocchio is their poster boy. The USA, led by, excuse the expression, Obama, helped the Islamic Jihadists take over Egypt, and most of the Mid-east in the past year. The “Arab Spring” is really the “Islamic Jihadist Spring”. Islam, an international criminal conspiracy to overthrow the governments of the world by whatever means, is only a tool used by the CFR to quash US military might. Once the CFR snakes feel they can crawl out of their holes, they will deal with their moslem pals in a genocidal manner. Only white satanists and a small serf class will survive, with about 85% of the globe’s population terminated with prejudice. They will flush their Obama puppet, and his minions, along with the fools who now serve them, into abandoned septic tanks, so they can be with their own kind. Their plan is for a feudal state,(the World), with modern technology. And they will get it done unless we wise up and stop them.Expropriation of their properties might be a fair start. We will also need someone new to pull the Obamapuppet’s strings and mouth his words for him. Any volunteers?
Meanwhile David is thinking; “Well, somebody has to be that guy. Glad it’s not me”…..’>………..
In my line of work, I routinely come across Stanford and Ivy League educated people who remain 100% convinced that the uprising was caused by twitter. Nothing more, nothing less.
Well, maybe Facebook helped.
Mention things like basic economics, grain, etc., and you are rewarded with the kind of blank stare that only a twenty-something know-it-all can give to a clueless, befuddled, globe-trotting dinosaur like me. (I’m in my 40s.)
Thank you, you made me laugh. Over the years I have hired and fired a fair number of Ivy and West Coast educated self styled elites. I was always amazed that they considered ‘thought’ the ability to parrot a 30 something professor, whose ideas were relayed to them by a TA with no understanding of the content or application of whatever lesson it was. Their dismissal was always based on a total inability to actually think.
My experience was generally negative and I soon avoided recruiting from there; though frequently forced by higher ups to dip into that pool.
I was always equally dismayed by their inability to communicate. Business and technical writings are not exercises in literature and rewarded with smiley faces, the reward for a good cogent letter or well laid out report is the impact it has on the issue at hand.
Yet they demanded, and frequently got, inordinate salaries.
(full disclosure… I am an engineer fortunate enough to have attended a top 5, non ivy school that taught writing for the working professional with a vengeance with neither a formal English department or degree program.)
I was equally disappointed with the legal talent offered… not necessarily bad lawyers but not worth the money…
Rant off
Michael – you are quite correct. I am also an Engineer – graduated in Glasgow, Scotland – and have spent the last 16 years in the field of technical documentation. I also, at some point, taught “English/Writing for the Engineering Technologist” at one of our (Canadian) community colleges.
In my experience, the ability to create a logically structured technical document parallels the ability to think rationally. Unfortunately the field of technical documentation has a fundamentally low status in the various technical arenas.
“Ivy League” institutions? Don’t make me laugh. All based on good PR, again, this is my experience.
As for “Dr.” Cook; well the world is full of those with “Debased Doctorates” and many of them, like Cook, have few real solutions to problems, despite their intellectual and elitist pretensions. So they resort to ad hominem attacks as well as out-and-out lying. Just take a look at the field of “Climate Science” and you’ll see what I mean.
Ultimately many of the problems we have now, in identifying problem situations and finding solutions – are simply the results of emotionalism. But that’s another topic for some other time…
The Ivy league exits to credetialize, not educate. The upper class is not interested in education. They want people whose thoughts, and thought content, can be depended on. To impose rationality on this process is a mistake.
They get the big salaries, because of who they are, not for what they know.
“The ‘foreign policy establishment’ told us that the Arab Spring was the dawn of a glorious new era of democracy in that part of the world.”
Read: The Council of Foreign Relations
Everything comes full circle…
I read your pieces on Egypt’s economy and you did not advocate for their downfall. Ad hominem attacks are all these people have, to attempt to have a genuine conversation with them is futile.
Let. It. Burn.
Cook illustrates the aggressive, self-aggrandizing mentality of the “good folks.”
if you don’t take his position of “wanting to help” then you must be a bad person, malevolent, noxious, mean-spirited.
if this were about a conflict situation that you didn’t think could be solved peacefully, you’d be a war-monger.
The fact that I am a bad, malevolent, noxious and mean-spirited person has nothing to do with the accuracy of my economic analysis.
Such character features do explain you joy. I am happy too.
YOU arent the bad person! The bad person is the guy who wants to see this fanatical, anti-semetic, misogynistic, homophobic, corrupt regime of miscreants stay in power as the people of that god forsaken pile of $hit country continue to rot in their collective cesspool of a society!
I forgot, its only ok to want the evil American regime to burn to the ground!
Let it burn already!
I’ve already made clear that I do not want Egypt to fail. The best for the West as well as Israel would be status quo: the cold peace. As to whether I want the foreign policy establishment to fail — well, I didn’t set out to make them fail, but I don’t think anyone should begrudge me a degree of innocent merriment at the establishment’s misery.
Certainly I will not begrudge you a little innocent merriment.
Historian Robert Conquest’s “The Great Terror” was almost universally derided by academics (who even then were nearly all liberals and leftists). When in the 1980′s his publisher suggested a revised edition and asked if he would like a new title, he is reported to have replied “I told you so, you f*cking fools”.
innocent merriment?
Shouldn’t that, in this case, be schadenfreude?
“Steven Cook, the Council on Foreign Relations’ main expert on Egypt…”
Say no more…this guy gets paid to write this garbage, using facts and reason with him or his ilk is a waste of time and breath.
♫Mine object all sublime
I shall achieve in time ♫
To let the punishment fit the crime The punishment fit the crime;♪
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent ♪
A source of innocent merriment!
Of innocent merriment! ♪ ♫
They’re not just failing in foreign policy, David. Apparently one needn’t be crazy old Lindbergh M.D. from Texas without the airplane to offend our best and brightest nowadays.
Why not wish Egypt to fail? Why would we want an antisemitic, anti-American people to succeed? If I were convinced the Egyptian people were people of genuine good will, who wished only good things for my family and my country, then perhaps I would want them to prosper. But I have seen no indication of that. And now they are ruled by an Islamic party of a Leninist type with international ambitions. Of course I want them to fail and fail miserably. I would have wanted Nazi Germany to fail in the 1930s. I would have wanted Nazi Germany to literally starve. Without failure what hope is there for any reform?
you’re too kind to yourself.
and here I thought Jane Austen fans were going to take Spengler down for dissing her novels last week. Fortunately for Spengler, Austenians would never do anything physically violent for such blasphemy.
As to the attack from Cook being posted at CNN GPS?
Not a coincidence.
Most of the ‘foreign policy punditry’ never seems to think there is any connection between the economy and public protests, and even allegedly well-read people think the newest protests in Egypt is another sign of democracy taking root.
does the fact that Mr. Cook is
“Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations”
mean that this is oil money talking? Why should anyone take note?
Here is more on Hasib J. Sabbagh.
http://www.aub.edu.lb/doctorates/recipients/2003/Pages/hassib-profile.aspx
Hmm…
What could possibly go wrong, since Mr. Sabbagh’s list of eminent endorsers includes President Jimmy Carter?
Not to say that Mr. Sabbagh isn’t an admirable fellow overall. However, his biographers like to note that Mr. Sabbagh rose up from the squalor of his origins as a “Palestinian refugee”, in 1948.
Putting aside whether there is such a thing as “Palestinians” today, in 1948 the term “Palestinians” referred universally to the Jewish population in Mandate Palestine: not the local Arabs… And indeed, if you follow that link (above), you’ll see that Mr. Sabbagh’s family had a successful business in Haifa with Jewish partners, and given that,I would guess that they weren’t forcibly run out of town –destitute and at gunpoint– at the time of the “Nakhba”.
Good Call! This shows that Spengler must be striking a nerve!
A cynic would say American foreign policy, and D.C.’s leading think tanks (including, sadly, many on the so-called Right, and I fear soon the Cato Institute as well) have become wholly owned subsidiaries of foreign powers.
I used to think there was an active and organized anti-Russia lobby. Now I think it’s just a well organized Qatari/Saudi/UAE lobby quietly taking over the Saban Center at Brookings while pretending that organization is still a staunchly pro-Israel one. Even the old Korea/Taiwan lobby with its longstanding money presence funding the foreign policy Right can’t hold a candle to the GCCs. Deripaska and the pro-Russia lobbying in D.C. that actually has taken place are microscopic in comparison.
Hence in a recent Twitter exchange with one of the Saban heavies, I recently asked him how a supposedly pro-Israel think tank in D.C. would tap dance out of the Al-Nusra Front shelling the Golan Heights once Assad was overthrown. The heavy replied, “Supposedly?” and played dumb. Follow the money. No wonder when Sen. Rand Paul returns from a trip to Israel and publically tells his former colleague Sen. Kerry that he fears a jihadist takeover of Syria will have bad consequences for Israel’s security, the only thing the Twitterati minions can trot out is, “There goes crazy old Ron’s kid, saying crazy talk like that the Al-Nusra Front might wage jihad against Israel once they overthrow Assad. Nonsense! Syria will be a secular/moderate Muslim paradise for Christians, Druze and Kurds.”
David of course with his sources has probably heard rumblings about this trend for years, dating back to the whole Dubai ports thing in the mid-2000s that had Congress riled up while the Qataris and Emiris bought up far more important assets — like Congress. For now Israel and the GCC might have a common enemy in Iran. But what happens once the common baddie is out of the picture or hobbled? Why then the forces Israel thought it could at least turn into the enemy of its enemies will turn on her. Which is what the globalzis who despise Israel — including those who happen to have been born Jewish but collaborated with the Nazis, like George Soros, will have wanted all along. You think Valerie Jarrett DOESN’T know a Muslim Brotherhood takeover will eventually turn Israel’s neighborhood into a very nasty, nasty place? They’re counting on it while gladly taking gullible pro-Israel dupe and Jewish Democratic donors in the meantime. Sorta like Adolf planning Barbarossa and the pending genocide of the untermenschen while fretting over Stalin’s latest trainload of oil in 1940.
Systematic error due to inclinations, ideology, personality type, or personal or political gain is still systematic error. Once a policy wonk sets goals and methods for dealing with a crisis, his prejudgments are clear. Let us be honest for a moment. The reason that Egypt as a failed state is unimaginable is because as things head down hill, people scramble to escape. A country of 80 million people making for the border is what is too difficult to imagine and deal with. Much of foreign aid is designed to keep foreigners where they are for whatever reason smart people can think of. As with Syria at this moment, refugees are becoming a world burden.
Egypt is a failed state because the CIA propped up Mubarak because he greedily licked the anus of the American corporate plutocracy. Democracy had to be crushed because the impoverished masses just wouldn’t agree with greedy billionaires on Wall Street about the direction their country should take. The corporate plutocrats now must do all that they can to crush the legitimate aspirations of the Egyptian people for fear such an example would bring to workers everywhere who aspire to take control of their own lives from the greedy corporate overlords.
I assume the above is humour. No one could possible think such nonsense, I hope.
Gotta be.
And yet there are still people who think this way, and they have tremendous power.
Which border? Israel’s? (Thank Heaven Bibi finished the illegal-immigration wall in the South, but I think we’ve been so demonized that I doubt they will come.) Gaza? Libya? Sudan?
You refused to accept his received wisdom so you had to be punished. You confused and alarmed him with a cogent argument when only certain facts (his) are permitted. He then had to rush to the ramparts to prevent an actual debate from developing before it caused people to think and re-evaluate the situation.
I think Dr. Cook must have meant to say “previsionism”! At any rate, I hope someone has some second thoughts before we send those F-16s. $22 Billion is good money thrown after worse. Hope we don’t send it either. I would send bread to the Copts and let them distribute it to their neighbors.This might be a good object lesson for some of the extemist Islamic hotheads.
It may be slightly off topic, but one imagines that our ethanol policy and food price supports don’t help make food more affordable to poor people, regardless of where they live.
If we stopped making corn into ethanol tomorrow, the main result would be that pork becomes cheaper in China.
The Egyptian economy is so screwed up that Chinese farmers can and will pay more for grain to feed their pigs than Egyptians can afford to pay to feed themselves. The problem is not American farm or energy policy. The problem is the government regulated crony system in Egypt.
And tortillas become affordable in Central America!
I have read a convincing argument that NAFTA, which opened up the Mexican market to cheap American maize, played a major role in the destruction of the Mexican rural economy. Thus forcing millions of low-skilled Mexicans to come to the US, a country which they generally don’t like. Very few people come here because they wish to be Americans, they come for the money with plans to return home. I live close to the border and have had several conversations on the subject with ‘illegals’.
It’s easier to list that which the foreign policy “elite”, whether Ivy-trained or not, got wrong than that which they got right, because the former list is so much longer. The same holds for the myriad, and often Arab-funded, “Middle East Studies” departments.
I first studied International Politics at McGill in Montreal; though well regarded it’s not “Ivy”. But there too the elites got things wrong. I studied with a Professor who got the usual calls from the media for commentary during the October War of ’73, but he got things wrong too. As part of the course, we were to gather into country teams for an evening “simulation”. I was intrigued by developments in Iran and persuaded a few fellow students to form an Iran team. The Prof publicly suggested that Iran wasn’t that “significant”, so my friends pulled out and I became the one-man Iran team. (I visited Iran in ’76 and confirmed that it was *very* significant.)
Let’s stipulate that you do not want Egypt to fail and get that canard out of the way. Now, given that you claim (rightly, I believe) that its failure is inevitable whether wished for or not, what is the best route to that failure, and what is the best aftermath? Sudden, catastrophic collapse followed my misery, war and slaughter? A gradual slide into even deeper impoverishment? If the status quo cannot me maintained, then the best we can hope for is to confine Egypt’s implosion in a manner that is least harmful to the civilised world (especially Israel). What to do? I, personally, would be unmoved by any outcome if it did not spill beyond Egypt’s borders; you make your bed and then you lie on it. Vote for Islamists and get barbarism and economic disaster. Tant pis.
A semi-failed Egypt is the worst of all possible outcomes. Then its government can’t control Egyptian territory, so expect terrorist training camps and staging areas everywhere that’s convenient. On the other hand, the state is still “officially” present, so it’s much more awkward to take punitive and destructive military action against the jihadis. Think of a new Pakistan located right next to Israel.
On the other hand, if the Egyptian government collapses completely like the governments of Yemen and Somalia, then the local terrorists become fair game for anyone who cares enough — so outside jihadis have no real incentive to set up shop.
When the only option is “Go To Hell!” then I would think it best to bring on the collapse as hard and quickly as possible so we can get around to the grim business of cleaning up the mess sooner rather than later. And, yes, some pretty strong guarding of borders and seaways will be needed by the “international community” (read Israel and the USA with the EU and UN giving their begrudging condescension).
Mr.Goldman
The fact that you are correct only makes them angrier. They know that they screwed up in their cheerleading the Arab Spring, their attributing the whole thing to social media and their predictions for how it would all work out.
Nobody likes to learn that their world view was just wrong. Some people just accept reality with better grace than others.
No-one ever forgives you for being right.
Except for that rare bird: the one who wants to know and understand what is really going on. “Once you can sincerely say: ‘I don’t know’ then it becomes possible to get at the truth” (Robert A. Heinlein)
What is unforgivable is being right, that they are still wrong, and that condition is likely to persist.
What the CFR fears is exactly what is happening in Egypt. A ‘de-evolution’ from a traditional nation state to a more republican form of government. Yes, it will be an islamic-glavored form of republicanism, but it will be a republic, in the end.
The PTB, however, do not like such changes. Change is disruptive and often violent. Bad for business, that.
“The End of the Nation State: The Rise of Regional Economies” by Kenichi Ohmae offers some insight, although the traditional journals often disagre with this pov. When combined with such works as, “Winter is Coming” by Jim Goulding, and “The Fourth Turning” by Strauss and Howe and two papers by Miller, Butler and Joubert, “The Rise and Fall of Civilizations” and “12,000 Years of Elliot Waves,” we can gain some insight into what is coming our way, globally and as a traditional nation state. Additional references and resources can be found by googling ‘A reader’s resources on systemic collapse.’
What I think will eventually replace the traditional nation state are smaller, loosely confederated republics.
It is a process that will take the better part of a generation or two, and we’ve just entered the beginning of that process. The first step of that process is going to be…messy.
From today’s Wall Street Journal: “The continuation of the conflict between the different political forces and their differences over how the country should be run could lead to the collapse of the state and threaten future generations,” Defense Minister Abdel Fattah El Sissi, who is also commander of the armed forces, said in a speech to cadets that was widely reported in the Egyptian media.
Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323375204578271471356575386.html?mod=rss_most_viewed_day_europe?mod=WSJEurope_article_forsub
Somebody should tell Dr. Cook that some Egyptians are getting nervous too.
Mr. Goldman,
I’ve read many of your columns both before and after your nom de plume was exposed. For me you have always been a cold, clear-eyed realist who laid out a very likely scenario of coming events. You haven’t always been right–obviously no one is–but you’ve always been justified by logic and fact.
I didn’t see you gloating over an Egyptian failure. I saw you as merely depicting a chain of extremely probable events that would inexorably lead to that outcome. That is what you get paid to do and you do it well. This case is no exception. Partisans may not particularly care for the tone of voice in which the scoreboard’s results are read, but that is just a quibble. The announcer’s voice doesn’t change the score.
Morsi is in Germany hoping for some table scraps while a good part of his country is currently under martial law. I do not think too many German investors are going to jump at the opportunity.
Exactly how is the international community going to “pull Egyptians back from the brink.” The Egyptians, not just the government, but the population are swarming to the brink like lemmings. I dont see how the “international community” can force 80 million people to act sensibly.
Meanwhile while the US looks increasingly inept all over the Middle East and North Africa other players have had to take up the slack. The French are looking splendid in Mali without our help cleaning up a mess we dithered about for a year now.
In Syria while we spouted empty threats about the chemical weapons it looks like the Israelis took action yesterday with an airstrike at the Syria/Lebanon border. The ever practical Israelis are stocking up on gas masks and emergency kits.
“The French are looking splendid in Mali without our help …”
Three cheers for the French, but it’s not too hard for a first world military to race armored columns with air cover around a desert to occupy key points such as Timbuktu.
The challenge will come after the French regular forces withdraw and Malian and African troops with French advisers are left to provide security and perhaps fight a COIN war. They will have an advantage in comparison with our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan in that there is not an adjacent hostile country willing and able to provide protected sanctuaries to insurgents.
“The French are looking splendid in Mali without our help …”
Three cheers for the French, but it’s not too hard for a first world military to race armored columns with air cover around a desert to occupy key points such as Timbuktu.
The challenge will come after the French regular forces withdraw and Malian and African troops with French advisers are left to fight a COIN war. They will have an advantage in comparison with our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan in that there is not an adjacent hostile country willing and able to provide protected sanctuaries to insurgents.
Per my comment on the Turks MarcH, perhaps I stated it too harshly. No one is saying an Allawite rump state can survive much outside of its borders and the Christian areas in Syria under sustained KSA/Qatari-backed terrorist and insurgent assault. And how well the Turks would do against a Syrian army fighting on Syria’s home turf is a matter of pure speculation, as the Turkish military might not even obey orders to wage an aggressive invasion of Syria proper…and Erdogan knowing this won’t give the stupid order.
Keep in mind the same conceit that afflicts many a lefty commenting online about how dumb the bitter clingers are with their talk that they can resist a tyrannical federal government here in the U.S. backed by the full might of the American military, drones, airpower etc. What’s this ‘we’ kemosabe? Who’s to say large swathes of the U.S. military if ordered to fight their friends and neighbors wouldn’t defect to the ‘patriot’ side and turn the guns on those giving the illegal and unconstitutional orders? Who’s to say airbases or drone bases wouldn’t be overrun by the patriots should they obtain heavy weapons/mortars from suddenly loose federal arsenals should America ever have a civil war?
Similarly, I think the Turkish army while highly competent and professional would be badly afflicted with morale and loyalty issues, no matter how many more senior commanders Erdogan purges, should the Islamist government order it to launch a full-blown invasion of Syria proper. That was the full extent of my remarks, also adding that the Turks who would obey such stupid orders would suffer casulties in the hundreds to low thousands before they made it to Damascus. Recall MarcH that we’ve only seen Russia commit a tiny fraction of its forces to Syria…we haven’t seen a full blown proxy war yet because Moscow doesn’t want to commit to that. And yet even the amount of Russian hardware shipped to Syria thus far has apparently proven to be a deterrent against Libya-style NATO direct intervention. Neither Obama, nor Cameron nor the French president wants to lose pilots to Russian-provided air defense systems should NATO start bombing Syria.
AND with that said even the supply of dumbass jihadis willing to go to Syria, and in the Saudis mind, kill two birds with the same Kalashnikov by getting themselves killed fighting Assad rather than the House of Saud is FINITE.
Mr. X – Almost missed you up here.
I do agree that Russia is a wild card in Syria, although I don’t see them surging any significant number of troops into Syria, giving a large number of troops logistics support, or pushing any troops deployed to Syria beyond coastal bases.
My reading of OS on the Syrian Army indicates that is made up of a minority of units loyal to Assad, which he shuffles around to various hotspots, and large group of questionable loyalties and enthusiasm (there have been a fair number of stores about defections), perhaps useful for garrisoning and convoying during the civil war. Daniel Pipes, in a recent interview in the American Spectator, forecasts that Assad will eventually be ground down.
I can’t think of a single historical case of the Syrian Army making a respectable showing against a conventional military, especially a Western trained military, except for the occasional lucky shot.
Who says that Americans who might shoot at U.S. military bases are “patriots”, Kemosabe?
“Who says that Americans who might shoot at U.S. military bases are “patriots”, Kemosabe?”
Out of respect to your service MarcH, notwithstanding that it appears it came with a certain amount of ‘you’d better not like Ron Paul’ indocrination I’ve noticed among many in the officer corps as opposed to the enlisted men from whom Paul drew considerable donations in the primaries before Romney pulled away…
I will wrap up our discussion and avoid further posts on this thread after one question. The President of the United States has just asserted to over ten U.S. Senators that he has the legal right to kill Americans with drones anywhere in the world…and I’m not certain whether that asserted executive power includes ‘the homeland’ (and no, you don’t have to take the hated ‘Paulbots’ or ‘Ronulans’ word for it, it’s here at the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/world/middleeast/with-brennan-pick-a-light-on-drone-strikes-hazards.html?_r=0)
So, in the event that drones are being armed with Hellfire missiles to kill Americans on American soil, would you sir consider those inside the wire at future domestic drone hubs such as Little Rock or Grand Forks (both of which just happen to be close to large pockets of Mountain West and Southern ‘bitter clingers’) — would you consider those personnel to be ‘oath keepers’ or ‘oath breakers’ if they’re facilitating the extrajudicial killings of fellow Americans? That should answer your question.
I’ll be happy to solve the legal problem with drones. If American citizens are engaged in terrorist activities overseas against American interests, tell me where they are, and I’ll strangle them for you.
The German magazine “Spiegel” reported yesterday that Mursi visited Germany in the hope that Germany would cancel a 240 million Euro dept and to participate in development projects in Egypt. He received neither.
We are? I still have my gas mask – you order it from the privatized post office – in the “boidem”, and I still not allowed to open the package to see how to use it.
Why is Egypt our problem? It isn’t. It’s the Gulf Arab’s problem. Let them write the check. Or the 57 Islamic States can write the check. We don’t need to borrow money to just to lend it to ingrates who will never repay it.
Hahaha. You’re funny people. I have no dog in this hunt so I can say with clear eyes that Mr. Goldman barely hides his contempt for Egypt nor his glee at its discomfiture. Whether he has good reason to do so in another issue but the dislike is clearly there.
To whatever extent Egypt has problems, they are magnified and exaggerated routinely by Mr. Goldman. I seem to recall an article predicting starvation and the collapse of Egypt.
There is no doubt Egypt’s problems are varied and many, but saying that is like shooting fish in a barrel; Egypt is an easy target.
But what is not discussed by Mr. Goldman are the people, perhaps half the population more or less, who are opposed to Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamized Constitution who have been out on the streets fighting, and dying, for days now. A smaller percentage of Egyptian voters voted for Morsi for President than we did for Obama, and Obama won by the skin of his teeth.
Egypt is an easy target because they basically have over 80 million people trying to live off a river; you can’t do that. The second reason Egypt is an easy target is because they are, by Western standards, an unsophisticated and even backward culture.
Egypt’s real crime in Mr. Goldman’s eyes is that they are Muslims and they have a thing about Israel and I can’t begrudge Mr. Goldman that. However to suggest that Mr. Goldman is reporting dispassionately about Egypt is an argument that holds no water whatsoever.
My impression of Conservatives is that they tell the pragmatic truth, even to friends. A comments section full of fanboys doesn’t rise to that. Trust me when I say I commiserate with Israel compared to madmen like Hamas and dullards like the Muslim Brotherhood, but there is no need to exaggerate what is righteous nor gloat and pretend not to. Mr. Goldman doesn’t like Egypt. No need for him to use that exact phrase, it’s obvious on the face of it. I don’t blame him. I wish the Egyptian people would kick the salafis and MB back into mosques where they belong. Does Mr. Goldman wish the same for the religious in Israel, or is this a matter or particulars and not principle?
The West is in a difficult position: they should censure the MB for their Nazi-like ideology instead of pretending to some kind of legitimacy, but by that same measure, to abandon Egypt is to put them in whose arms?
For someone who claims to an expertise in Egypt, I am surprised at the continued lack of nuance when it comes to arming Egypt. If the U.S. arms Egypt, they can’t really use that army, can they. If China or Russia or someone else does, and Egypt becomes united around being abandoned by the West, they will still have some kind of an army, and even worse economic problems trying to fund one, the difference being it is one they can use – against Israel.
People forget that America’s great depression didn’t just go away, we manufactured our way out of it, by arming ourselves for war. Withhold money and arms from Egypt and they might do the same thing, with Gulf money from both Sunni and Shite who gloat over Israel’s discomfiture every bit as much as Mr. Goldman does Egypt’s.
Continue to engage Egypt and yes, the MB is unfortunately legitimized but worse could happen, namely that Egypt rallies around an MB that says, “See? We told you so.” Anti-Morsi forces in Egypt look to the West, not the Gulf.
They say if you don’t have something good to say about someone, don’t say anything. When Egypt pitches and every call is a strike, credibility is out the window.
Let’s create a new definition for a clever man in this situation: a man who creates friendship between Israel and Egypt. Now that would be clever, and hard, not easy, easy like shooting fish in a barrel. Anyone can use 100,000 words over a number of years to say these people are morons and will fail. Of course Egypt will fail. But that is a matter of too many people, the same problem many Third World countries have that is bringing them close to collapse. Tell me how Egypt might succeed, and what you’ll do to help. How about European money to remove WWII land mines to bring back to life the farms now given over to desert, money then paid back with produce over years. How about training Egypt’s cheap labor force to build German TVs and microwaves like Turkey did. Who is your fellow man exactly?
“Egypt’s real crime in Mr. Goldman’s eyes is that they are Muslims and they have a thing about Israel …”
“A thing” is a rather vague way to describe the phenomenon, especially since you had the leisure to write several more detailed paras about other things, even a discussion of the U.S. depression of the 1930s.
How about describing Egypt as “a society where vicious anti-Semitic and aggression-towards-Israel memes are common in the media and required for ambitious politicians”?
The comments section here is anti-Muslim and aggressive towards Egypt. I don’t know how many times I’ve read a PJM commenter call for dropping nukes on Mecca, Cairo or Tehran.
Are you suggesting America is better because such viewpoints are not mainstream, not common in the media in America, or are you saying you’d be as bad as Egypt if they were?
Hahahahah.
I’m partly joking. I’ve no love for MB fronts in America that use our own Constitution and political correctness against us, or the liberal dolts who enable such ventures. The UK is a laugh riot the way they bend over to not offend Muslims. But if you’re going to be better, be better.
The emerging democracies and the desire for such in the middle east will be good in the long run, Islamist or no. It is far harder for a parliament to wage war than a single madman like Nasser or Hussein.
Israel has won its battles. The countries which once threatened them are in disarray. Look at Syria, look at Jordan, still cowed from ’67 and with a king who probably has a short shelf life. Iraq has no dictator. Lebanon fights itself more than Israel. Egypt now has an army it can’t use and no dictator to direct it if they could. Gaza is fenced off, the West Bank is fenced off.
Now is not the time to crow, but to seed future friendships. Discredit the Islamists, the MB, the Saudis, the Mullahs in Iran. Build bridges with the people in those countries who don’t particularly care for growing a beard and veiling their women. There are lots of them.
What you don’t see is sometimes as important as what you do. During the 18 day uprising in Egypt that took down Mubarak, there was a notable absence of Islamist rhetoric and anti-Jewish/Semitic sentiment.
What would you rather have, a failed Egypt where 80 million people have nothing to do but huddle around resentments, or a healthy one where people see the value of freedoms and allowing diverse investment and new ideas? Egyptians are not anti-Western generally speaking, though they are conservative and look with a weather eye at gay marriage and Western laws which are little better than a suicide compact when it comes to immigration.
It is the MB which is anti-Western, though they sidle up to Western gov’ts, hoping no one will notice their absurd rhetoric. But Morsi is elected. We should try and wrap our minds around that fact and stop acting like the MB has taken over Egypt; they haven’t. Many people in Egypt despise Morsi; they should be talked to. Isolate the cancer, not the body.
Israel has won its battles. The countries which once threatened them are in disarray. ….
yes, and once more the 7th Cavalry with dollars and arms comes to the rescue of those in disarray!
Keep the grinder turning; at some stage it will be too much for the Israelis.
Fail Burton wrote: “The comments section here is anti-Muslim …”
I would agree that there are some commenters who display bigoted and ignorant POVs w/respect to Muslims and Islamic society (just as there is a large and well funded establishment have which pushes the Armstrong/Esposito line). So what? That’s the point of public debate. I don’t expect you to remember previous comments by me, but I frequently condemn such comments at PJM and cite Daniel Pipes on the competition between Radical, Traditional and Moderate versions of Islam, as well as the reality (as described by our host) of dysfunctional societies throughout the Muslim world.
I would not presume to make a long term forecast for the Muslim world, but in the short term I don’t see much future for moderate Islam in Egypt and note that anti-Christian/Jewish/Israel/US memes seem to be common among politically successful Egyptian movements (I’ve also seen the occasional news story about Muslim Egyptian prosecutors and attorneys coming to the aid of Copts and I honor them for their bravery and integrity).
Regarding your comment about supporting moderate Muslims, how do/did you feel about bombing Iran’s WMD facilities, aiding the Iranian activists of 2009 and fighting for a moderate/traditional arrangement in Iraq? Success in such areas would, IMHO, have greatly strengthened moderates in Iran, perhaps enough to overthrow the mullahs and decisively discredit radical Islam.
It is not just the media and politicians. These are commonly held beliefs in Egyptian culture. It is also not, as Fail Burton and many westerners assume a problem with Israel per se. It is outright Jew hatred of the sort that would make Goebbels blush.
If it were just an abberation about Jews it would not be such a problem for Egypt but anti-semitism is just one visible component of a conspiracy minded paranoia that seems to be a part of the national culture and is what is breaking apart the country now.
It was reported today that certain Egyptian media have been claiming that 7,000 Hamas fighters have infiltrated from Gaza and are helping Morsi supporters in the riots. The counter conspiracy claim is that these are false rumors spread by Copts. Hamas denies the whole thing. It also was reported that one of Morsi’s top advisors who is responsible for choosing media said in a recent interview that the Holocaust is a myth invented by America. This is not some Kabob vendor on the street. This stuff comes straight from the most educated and successful strata of Egyptian society.
So if anybody wants to invest in that lunatic asylum go ahead. Nobody is stopping anyone from investing in Egypt and nobody is responsible for it’s failures but the Egyptians themselves.
Nobody taught Israel how to grow food in the desert or Turkey how to create a modern economy. They did those things by themselves. There is no special knowlege that anyone is holding back on the Egyptians. There is no oppression or colonial power holding them back. There are those WWII landmines though.
How do you know what are commonly held beliefs in Egyptian culture? Have you ever been there?
Nice to know your solution is enmity between Israel and Muslims until the sun coughs and dies. Clever.
I could easily pick out things of American culture and say that’s America. Doesn’t work like that. We have a racist for a President. I didn’t vote for him so don’t blame me or millions of others for that.
Demonizing cultures en masse is the flip side of anti-Semitism. Once again I ask, what is more important, the principle or the particulars? “Reasoning that all Muslims hate Jews is like saying all Jews are greedy bankers, or wish they were.
No, I am not anti Muslim at all.
I have never faulted the religion as the problem. I am no more against Islam than any other religion. I have mine, you have yours, whatever. I know and work with many Muslims. I have not been to Egypt. At this point I would not feel safe there with my American passport and jewish name with Israeli stamps on it. That is a problem we are not addressing.
Egypt is sinking. You can be as hopeful as you like but this is fact now.
Now the hot commodity in Tahrir square is blackout face masks.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/27/egypt-trapped-terrified-tahrir
Black Bloc; they don’t like Morsi. Ismailia, where the MB was founded, recently had MB offices torched, and the city is under a one month dusk to dawn curfew, which they ignore. The MB isn’t having their own way; not at all.
Any attempt by foreign (western) investors or governments to help Egypt must fail. Why? Because there are forces in Egypt who simply can not allow the success of any endeavor that comes from the west. So they must be sabotaged and they will. To believe that the Salafists will allow anyone to demonstrate the superiority of western economy/technology inside Egypt and do nothing is naive.
Turkey has a literacy rate of 99%. Egypt claims a literacy rate of 72% but the more widely accepted estimate is 55%. Turkish universities produce first-rate engineers; Egyptian universities are diploma mills. There are plenty of competent Egyptian engineers (including Mohammed Mursi) but the vast majority are trained overseas. The Egyptian workforce is pretty useless for manufacturing.
I know. They can be trained. You’re talking about a place as expensive as Cairo where I can take a taxi for a medium distance, 3, 4 km., for 75 cents. The subway is 17 cents. Imagine how cheap the countryside is. The army already manufactures its own crappy TVs and furniture. Train ‘em to do it right.
Turkey also has a thriving multi-billion dollar trade both tourist and agribiznis with Russia, to the point that they felt compelled to finally allow an Orthodox Church to be built in the historic cradle of Byzantine Christianity (most of St. Paul’s epistles were addressed to churches in western to southwestern Asia Minor as was the Book of Revelation)…but only in Antalya for the Russian tourists. The Turks however are clever enough not to push their luck too hard in Syria by sending in direct ground troops lest the Russian-equipped Syrian army send many of them home in body bags.
Syrian troops route the Turkish Army?
Are you basing your prediction on the glorious victories of the Syrian Army in ’48, ’67, ’73 or ’82? The Turkish Army may not be the IDF but they train with NATO and have a reputation as good soldiers.
I’m basing my opinion MarcH on the Turks being good soldiers but not being ready to have their tanks shredded by the latest Russian anti tank rockets and getting the crap blown out of their convoys by IEDs, Syrian army regulars with spetsnaz ‘mercenary’ advisors and Kurdish volunteers who’d love to get back at the Turks.
I see so much damn bowing down to the Turks all over the Right web, including their military, perhaps because the military truly represents the most secular or pro-American part of the society. It doesn’t matter. Even Erdogan is not stupid enough to send them directly beyond ten miles into Syria and watch hundreds come home in body bags. And for a second rate military power MarcH, the Russians made short work of the U.S. Marine trained and taxpayer subsidized Georgian army in 2008, which broke and ran rather than fight for anything but Tblisi proper. And that was at a stage when the Russians hardly had a numerical advantage (all propaganda to the contrary) AND the Georgian air defense systems were arguably outperforming the Russians own poorly funded systems. At the end of the day it didn’t matter because the Georgians weren’t willing to fight and die in place for the Tie Eater and I suspect the Turkish army would beat a quick retreat if an exasperated Erdogan finally orders them to invade Syria.
Dear Mr. X,
Syrian Army waging a “spetznaz” insurgent campaign against the Turkish Army in Syria? I’d say it’s the Syrian Army that has a little insurgent problem of its own to worry about.
As for Russian instructors, the Syrians have demonstrated a couple of times that they don’t live up to their Russian instructors.
IMHO, in a Turkish invasion scenario (I expect the Turks would require some KSA funding), the The Alawite Syrians would be fortunate to hold on to a coastal mini-state.
Hа здоровье!
Inevitable or desirable seems like such a quibble. In the immortal words of Hillary, Cook’s role model: What difference does it make? Failed is failed.
So what is happening in Egypt is a catastrophe on a scale unknown since Cambodia in 1975. We can’t stop it, nor can we direct events “from the rear.” The best we can manage is shipments of grain, at market prices, not subsidized by us. If the Saudis, or the Omanis want to purchase the grain shipments, then fine. But no more than that. Cut off all foreign aid not directly involving food. If the regime collapses from within, let the muslims clean up their own mess. And try to find refuge for the Copts somewhere in the region. The Copts might become a worthy immigrant community in this country.
The MB will never allow any improvement that can be credited to the west
“The Copts might become a worthy immigrant community in this country.”
GREAT point actually! Maybe once the Copts get away from the animals they call neighbors, they will join civilization. Works well even for Muslim Arabs who come here. Ironically, this is the only country in the world where Arab Muslims are wealthier and more educated than your average white guy!
I hate to sound like Whiskey or somebody like that, but I’ll just say it. What are the Mexicans going to say when millions of Copts come into this country or several hundred thousand wind up in Mexico? “Oh they demand amnesty after coming in illegally, blast us with their Arabic music all day, replace our taquerias with kebab stands, and practice some sort of weird Christianity that doesn’t include so many Virgin Mary or Santa Muerte curtains”.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist taking my shot at the advocates for soft Reconquista aka the Republican Party Suicide Pact of 2013. Not that I’d be opposed to — under better economic conditions — assimulating those ‘undocumented’ already here if they spoke English, had a job or were in school, and didn’t commit crimes. But that means Mexico in its elites eternal chutzpah gets to complain about how many of their own criminals we’re deporting back to them when the law abiding and competent naturalize. It’s just that whenever anyone says ‘Path to Citizenship’, I somehow never think that they have illegal Ukrainians or Romanians in mind.
I see two ways to go if we are going to sell them anything. First we could sell them all the F-16s and tanks they could possibly desire and then watch them brag about their very impressive piles of scrap metal. I say scrap metal because they would probably spend so much on equipment they would not be able to afford fuel to run them. Problem with that is they would probably sell them off to their neighbors for food and we would be facing them in countries that can afford fuel.
Second would be to refuse to sell them anything except food stuffs. They would hate us and claim we were trying to leave them defenseless but at least they would survive at least until their neighbors figured out they couldn’t defend themselves. Then we could intervene and have our own people over there in our own tanks and planes and they would still hate us.
I guess a third alternative would be to not sell them anything, not send them any relief moneys, just let them sink. Maybe the people would finally get it right with the next revolution and we could have a possible new friend in that neck of the woods.
I see a parallel her between Mr Goldman’s statement on Egypt and Mark Steyn’s writings on demographic change in the west. Both were/are ridiculed and declared racists by the collective wisdom of academia and state. 10 years later everyone is talking about demographics and lowest low fertility rates (without crediting Mr Steyn) and now we seen Mr Goldman’s thesis unfolding albeit slowly in Egypt.
As for Mr Burton’s desire to see investment in Egypt to prevent the collapse of the economy, one question, why invest in a place and government that is openly advocating the destruction of your country, it’s mores ,it’s values and the very freedoms that permitted success in the first place?
Ben Wattenberg at AEI was first out with the demographics story, in his 1987 book The Birth Dearth.
It is interesting to see that the comments on the CNN site are overwhelmingly in support of you, Dr. Goldman, including mine. Whether you’re right or wrong, time will tell, but it is tendentious to accuse you of “actually hoping” for Egypt to fail. Good luck. Keep calling ‘em as you see ‘em.
Thanks, but it’s plain Mr. Goldman. I never finished the dissertation.
Once again we see the elevation of emotions and sentiments properly held over rational assessment. This is the leftist game.
So Spengler doesn’t “hope” for the best for the Egyptian people? It doesn’t really matter in this analysis. I see no one harboring a desire for the genocidal death of innocent Egyptians by starvation. I do see people recommending tough love actions.
But Mr. Goldman then comes back and accepts the validity of the good emotion paradigm in his defence – “I’ve already made clear that I do not want Egypt to fail.”
As a tactical move, the Oprahs of the world need their lip service and accommodation. As Goldman notes, we can’t let that get in the way of the truth.
If Dr. Cook was serious about accurately depicting the so-called Arab Spring, he should be spending his time disabusing CNN’s many “experts”, including their resident plagiarist, that “no” it was not all about a”Facebook Revolution” staring Wael Ghonim. How many times was that crock of utter nonsense foisted upon the public? CNN has lost all credibility as a “news” network — it is simply a joke. Ditto for their GPS blog.
(cross-posting this from my comment left on the CNN website – where the comments are running enormously against ‘poor’ Mr. Cook.)
Mr. Cook has done the thinking community a wonderful service. By challenging and grossly misrepresenting the position of Mr. David Goldman (aka Spengler), he has encouraged others to find and read Mr. Goldman’s analyses. I daresay that there will be far more converts to Mr. Goldman’s line of thought than to anything Mr. Cook has written. Well done, sir!
This question persists, in my mind: Egypt lives next door to a rich, comparatively underpopulated country whose recently-toppled government has left it ambiguously-governed at best. Meanwhile, the one thing Egypt has in abundance is cannon-fodder. As Egypt grows more desperate, does Libya grow more vulnerable?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-05/guest-post-investors-beware-egypt%E2%80%99s-revolution-not-over
Spengler, your contention is now mainstream. ^^^^^
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Mike Walsh…
Your supposition has been mooted for over a year at PJM.
Everyone sees it.
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The question is: Is Qatar over playing its hand?
It’s financing Salafists — and the MB — all over the MENA.
Expect blow-back.