Game over: The chance for democracy in Egypt is lost

[Ghost Dog]

Foreign Policy, Robert Springborg, Wednesday, February 2, 2011 - 4:23 PM

While much of American media has termed the events unfolding in Egypt today as "clashes between pro-government and opposition groups," this is not in fact what's happening on the street. The so-called "pro-government" forces are actually Mubarak's cleverly orchestrated goon squads dressed up as pro-Mubarak demonstrators to attack the protesters in Midan Tahrir, with the Army appearing to be a neutral force. The opposition, largely cognizant of the dirty game being played against it, nevertheless has had little choice but to call for protection against the regime's thugs by the regime itself, i.e., the military. And so Mubarak begins to show us just how clever and experienced he truly is. The game is, thus, more or less over.

The threat to the military's control of the Egyptian political system is passing. Millions of demonstrators in the street have not broken the chain of command over which President Mubarak presides. Paradoxically the popular uprising has even ensured that the presidential succession will not only be engineered by the military, but that an officer will succeed Mubarak. The only possible civilian candidate, Gamal Mubarak, has been chased into exile, thereby clearing the path for the new vice president, Gen. Omar Suleiman. The military high command, which under no circumstances would submit to rule by civilians rooted in a representative system, can now breathe much more easily than a few days ago. It can neutralize any further political pressure from below by organizing Hosni Mubarak's exile, but that may well be unnecessary.

The president and the military, have, in sum, outsmarted the opposition and, for that matter, the Obama administration. They skillfully retained the acceptability and even popularity of the Army, while instilling widespread fear and anxiety in the population and an accompanying longing for a return to normalcy. When it became clear last week that the Ministry of Interior's crowd-control forces were adding to rather than containing the popular upsurge, they were suddenly and mysteriously removed from the street. Simultaneously, by releasing a symbolic few prisoners from jail; by having plainclothes Ministry of Interior thugs engage in some vandalism and looting (probably including that in the Egyptian National Museum); and by extensively portraying on government television an alleged widespread breakdown of law and order, the regime cleverly elicited the population's desire for security. While some of that desire was filled by vigilante action, it remained clear that the military was looked to as the real protector of personal security and the nation as a whole. Army units in the streets were under clear orders to show their sympathy with the people.

In the meantime the regime used the opportunity to place the military in more direct control of the government while projecting an image of business as usual. In addition to securing the presidential succession to Gen. Omar Suleiman, retired general and presidential confidant Ahmed Shafiq was sworn in as prime minister, along with a new cabinet, in all due televised pomp and ceremony. Gamal's unpopular crony businessmen supporters were jettisoned from the cabinet, with their replacements being political nonentities. Mubarak himself pledged that the new government would focus on providing material security to the people.

/Article continues... http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/02/02/game_over_the_chance_for_democracy_in_egypt_is_lost

[LAGC]

1. Wow, and we thought Obama knew how to play chess.

Mubarak is one smart cookie. Autocratic military rule in Egypt, all successors hand-picked by Mubarak... oh, what could have been...

[Ghost Dog]

2. On the other hand, though (from the comments to the article):

GAHGEER

6:59 PM ET February 2, 2011

Ture but

It's not over yet. Friday's protest should be the last one - unless of course they shut down mosques and churches too.



OUTSPEAKER

11:38 PM ETFebr uary 2, 2011

Game over

The elephant in the room in this article is the military -- did we not witness a number of signals that they may well be divided within themselves? That orders to fully crack down and impose order for 8 months may not be fully implemented by the soldiers? At best, this will lead to an internal coup or realization that no other scenario than Obama's "transition" can avoid a period of strife akin to civil war or guerilla war.

Also not mentioned is Obama's apparent willingness to leave realpolitik behind when it comes to playing a role in a historic pro-democracy uprising. I don't doubt that he's been trying to convince Israel that continuing to support Mubarak (or a simlilar replacement from the military) will not provide long term security. Any overt support for Mubarak, or sign of internal meddling, would only help ensure that the inevitable new Egyptian regime starts off with a less than sympathetic position on Israel.

The economic aspects are certainly a concern, but they point to the new reality of the region where such issues will soon overshadow the Palestinian situation. Friedman is right in today's Times to point out to Israel that they are best to quickly settle the Palestinian issue now, before it can come back as a contentious issue with the new govt (and newly empowered population) of Egypt.

Last Friday was the "Day of Rage", this Friday is being planned as the "Day of Farewell", obviously tonight the Egyptian military appears to be ready to go all Tianenmen on the protesters, but if Friday's protests are averted, they will only serve to give birth to a civil war or guerilla war that will oust Mubarak with a lot more disruption to the region than if he just left power on his own.


/More at link...

[Hannah Bell]

3. interesting.

[Democat]

4. Blame Obama!

After all, he's the president of Egypt so whatever happens there is his fault.

[defendandprotect]

6. US has been financing Mubarak and the weapons which make it possible for him to hold power ...

Consider where we are here in America, then with our MIC --

Change, revolution -- ? If you're facing a MIC it becomes impossible.

Robert Fisk on DemocracyNow! just described the Obama administration

on this "gutless" and "cowardly" -- and what he meant was in supporting

a democratic uprising. What does that tell you about Obama regime's

own declarations about democracy?

When the fate of the world is decided by violence and weapons we are

doomed!

[Ghost Dog]

5. Very informative reply to the above: It's not over until it's over...

It's not over until it's over...

This article is highly problematic on two fronts. First, it offers a monolithic and overly simplistic understanding of the military. I urge all readers of this article to take the time to read an excellent piece by Paul Amar that details the different factions of the military and the internal power struggles that will no doubt play a part in determining the outcome of this phenomenal movement. I provide the link here:
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/516/why-mubarak-is-out

Second, though some might argue that academic work is "objective" and outside of questions of morality and solidarity, I beg to differ. This article came out at the moment when the movement turned dark, when people on the streets in Egypt were being attacked and terrorized by government hired thugs, when their morale may have been temporarily down, and when cracks began to deepen in people's unity. An article such as this may serve to demoralize people. And moreover, this revolution is not being played by a rulebook, according to certain modeling and patterns of history. A new history is being made. Let us remember, that it's not over until it's over. And this is not over by any stretch of the imagination.

The analysis provided by the linked article is very informative and recommended reading. A couple of introductory paragraphs:

Many international media commentators – and some academic and political analysts – are having a hard time understanding the complexity of forces driving and responding to these momentous events. This confusion is driven by the binary “good guys versus bad guys” lenses most use to view this uprising. Such perspectives obscure more than they illuminate. There are three prominent binary models out there and each one carries its own baggage: (1) People versus Dictatorship: This perspective leads to liberal naïveté and confusion about the active role of military and elites in this uprising. (2) Seculars versus Islamists: This model leads to a 1980s-style call for “stability” and Islamophobic fears about the containment of the supposedly extremist “Arab street.” Or, (3) Old Guard versus Frustrated Youth: This lens imposes a 1960s-style romance on the protests but cannot begin to explain the structural and institutional dynamics driving the uprising, nor account for the key roles played by many 70-year-old Nasser-era figures.

To map out a more comprehensive view, it may be helpful to identify the moving parts within the military and police institutions of the security state and how clashes within and between these coercive institutions relate to shifting class hierarchies and capital formations. I will also weigh these factors in relation to the breadth of new non-religious social movements and the internationalist or humanitarian identity of certain figures emerging at the center of the new opposition coalition.

Western commentators, whether liberal, left or conservative, tend to see all forces of coercion in non-democratic states as the hammers of “dictatorship” or as expressions of the will of an authoritarian leader. But each police, military and security institution has its own history, culture, class-allegiances, and, often its own autonomous sources of revenue and support as well. It would take many books to lay this all out in detail; but let me make a brief attempt here. In Egypt the police forces (al-shurta) are run by the Interior Ministry which was very close to Mubarak and the Presidency and had become politically co-dependent on him. But police stations gained relative autonomy during the past decades. In certain police stations this autonomy took the form of the adoption of a militant ideology or moral mission; or some Vice Police stations have taken up drug running; or some ran protection rackets that squeezed local small businesses. The political dependability of the police, from a bottom-up perspective, is not high. Police grew to be quite self-interested and entrepreneurial on a station-by-station level. In the 1980s, the police faced the growth of “gangs,” referred to in Egyptian Arabic as baltagiya. These street organizations had asserted self-rule over Cairo’s many informal settlements and slums. Foreigners and the Egyptian bourgeoisie assumed the baltagiya to be Islamists but they were mostly utterly unideological. In the early 1990s the Interior Ministry decided “if you can’t beat them, hire them.” So the Interior Ministry and the Central Security Services started outsourcing coercion to these baltagiya, paying them well and training them to use sexualized brutality (from groping to rape) in order to punish and deter female protesters and male detainees, alike. During this period the Interior Ministry also turned the State Security Investigations (SSI) (mabahith amn al-dawla) into a monstrous threat, detaining and torturing masses of domestic political dissidents.

/Article continues... http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/516/why-mubarak-is-out

[defendandprotect]

7. What have Americans been doing to try to help this Egyptian plea for democracy?

Can we do anything?

[bemildred]

8. This guy thinks he is Nostradamus.

I think he's a tool.

[dbmk]

9. Outsmarted the Obama administration how?

First: The administration is working with intelligence that is so far beyond what this journalist possesses.

Second: Even if the strategy is as clear cut laid out in the article - what options did the administration have to prevent it or to play it when it happened? Encouraged the military to shoot on the protesters? Wiped out the military command structure before the protests began?
For them to be outsmarted means that they made one play where they could have made a better one - or missed one. There is nothing to indicate that yet. And it still remains to be seen what the outcome will be.
Pretty sure noone in the administration is under the impression that the militarys behaviour is not a calculated move at some level. So the only play is to work for and generate enough hope for actual democratic elections - well, as democratic as can be expected in such an environment - in order to make it as hard as possible for the military to just install another dictator.

[wisteria]

10. I doubted they would have ever had a true democracy, but they can still have more freedoms,

fairer elections,and a better economy.

[yellowcanine]

11. Anyone who thinks this underestimates the Egyptian people. They are smarter than this.

Kind of insulting, actually. Just because the pro democracy protesters are asking the military to protect them doesn't mean that they are going to accept rule by the military.

[snot]

12. Thank you; I missed this.