Egypt, one of the only two Arab states to sign peace with Israel, is wobbling dangerously on the brink of revolutionary change with potentially spreading fallout. This week, Israel was dismayed to find itself looking suddenly at three latently hostile fronts about to spring up around its borders: Lebanon, which has dropped into the Iranian orbit, followed by Egypt, which is heading for terra incognita, and the Gaza Strip, where the Palestinian Hamas, offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, has gained altitude as a Middle East player from the rise of its less radical parent.
Indeed Gaza's rulers, who are close to Iran, are puffing themselves up as a bridge between the Shiite Revolution of Iran and the Sunni-led revolution of Egypt.
In the five days of the Egyptian upheaval from Tuesday, Jan. 25, none of the Israeli Middle East experts and pundits interviewed in one broadcast after another pointed to the three most pertinent common factors of the regime changes overtaking Tunisia, Lebanon and Egypt – all in the space of days.
1. Not a single protester or slogan-bearer summoned up the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as a factor in the most revolutionary transformations to overtake the region's countries in half a century. The Palestinians issue was totally absent from street demonstrations and Iran's takeover of Lebanon - giving the lie to the decades-long claim by Western decision- and opinion-makers that the Israel-Palestinian conflict was the root-cause of instability in the Arab and Muslim worlds and if it were not settled, those worlds would turn against the West. The Palestinians were plainly far from the minds of this week's Arab demonstrators.
2. The force most energized by the popular uprising in Egypt week turns out to be the extremist Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood - not only in Gaza and the West Bank, but also in Jordan. Its enhanced potency makes it a menace for Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the rival Fatah, and the Hashemite throne in Amman.
Flexing his new muscles, Hammam Saeed, head of the Muslim Brotherhood of Jordan and a close ally of the Hamas's Damascus-based leader, Khaled Meshaal, said this in Amman Saturday, Jan. 29: "Egypt's unrest will spread across the Mideast and Arabs will topple leaders allied with the United States."
DEBKAfile's Middle East experts predict that however the Egyptian uprising turns out, and in whichever direction it is pushed and pulled by the United States, it will end in a new parliamentary election and a new civilian government in which the Muslim Brotherhood will be substantially represented.
This government will not abrogate the 1979 peace treaty binding Israel and Egypt for 33 years – no Cairo administration will risk losing the substantial aid package from America – but its format will change. The intimacy of day-to-day cooperation on common security and other matters may well be disappear and Israeli political, military and intelligence figures will not longer be welcome in Cairo for consultations on common concerns as they are today.
The Palestinian leader Abbas may also find the welcome mat withdrawn, unless he is willing to succumb to Hamas and cede control of the West Bank to the Palestinian extremists.
Both set s of visitors will be replaced by Hamas leaders from Damascus, Beirut and the Gaza Strip beating a path to the Egyptian capital.
3. Over the weekend, more than one high Iranian official was patting himself on the back over the way the Egyptian upheaval was turning out – especially the Al Qods Brigades commander, Qhassem Soleimani, whom DEBKAfile's exclusive sources disclose has just been promoted to Major General, the second highest rank in Iran's armed forces.
For 15 years as Al Qods chief, he has overseen all of Iran's clandestine, sabotage and subversive operations in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq, managed Hizballah's terrorist and spy cells active in West and East Africa, built up Hizballah as the leading military force on home ground in Lebanon, and developed the military prowess of the Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami in the Gaza Strip.
Soleimani feels triumphantly vindicated in his decision to build up Hamas as Hizballah No. 2 and furnish the Palestinian extremists in the Gaza Strip with the missiles and weapons systems required to make them a formidable military force.
The Al Qods Brigades chief now takes credit for Hamas's readiness for the enhanced role it has gained from the popular uprising in Egypt.
But Israel's strategic planners should be kicking themselves for failing to curb Iran's military expansion into Lebanon and the Gaza Strip before it developed. The consequence of their inaction is two new long potentially hostile borders to Israel's south.
DEBKAfile Special Report January 29, 2011, 3:49 PM (GMT+02:00)
Persistent claims were heard Saturday, Jan. 29 in various Egyptian and informed western circles that the popular uprising against president Hosni Mubarak, still going strong on its fifth day, was secretly prepared three years ago in Washington during the Bush administration.
Saturday morning, people rage across Egypt gathered steam from Mubarak's speech after midnight, in which he declined to step down. After defying the night curfew, tens of thousands of protesters, estimated at 50,000, crowded into central Cairo's Tahrir Square and began marching on the state TV building, calling on the soldiers in tanks ranged quietly around the square to oust the president. They shouted that the people and army were one.
Law and order is breaking down in Egypt's cities. In Cairo looters are roaming through shops and smoldering public buildings and seizing empty residences. Rioting inmates are confronting armed warders and getting shot in Egypt's biggest prisons. Political prisoners are escaping.
In defiance of the extended nationwide curfew, fierce clashes also erupted in Alexandria, Suez, Ismailia, Rafah and El Arish, with security forces firing live ammunition on surging protesters. By the afternoon, 100 people were dead and 2,000 injured across the country. The death toll Friday was estimated at 74 and more than a thousand wounded.
In Cairo, the hated Mahabharat security forces vanished off the main streets after failing to quell four days of protests. The military tanks and infantry units posted at strategic points in the capital have so far not fired a shot or interfered in the clashes. But the Interior Ministry's elite security force fired live ammo on demonstrators attempting to storm the building.
The London Daily Telegraph headlined a story Saturday, apparently confirming confidential US documents released by WikiLeaks, which claimed that since 2008, the American government had secretly backed leading figures behind the uprising for "regime change."
The US embassy in Cairo reportedly helped a young Egyptian dissident secretly attend a US-Sponsored summit for activists in New York. "On his return to Cairo in December 2008, the activist told US diplomats that an alliance of opposition groups had drawn up a plan to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak and Install a democratic government in 2011," the Telegraph reported.
The activist whose identity the paper is protecting is already under arrest.
DEBKAfile: If this is true, the Western observers who have concluded that the protesters have no leaders and are propelled into the streets purely by rage against the regime may not have the full story. The movement does have a leader whose identity is known to Washington and the demonstrations' ringleaders – but not to Mubarak or his security services. They show every sign of being cut off from the prevailing currents in the street. It would also explain the steadfast insistence of President Barack Obama and all his spokesmen on forcing Mubarak to do the virtually impossible, i.e. to refrain from force against the opposition movement and introduce immediate reforms by means of national dialogue. His successors would be waiting in the wings to move in when they could expect to be embraced by the opposition.
Saturday, as the violence on the streets of Egypt mounted, the Muslim Brotherhood called for the peaceful transfer of power, thereby offering a bridge to span Obama's call for national dialogue and the people's demand for change.
DEBKAfile Special Report January 29, 2011, 2:31 AM (GMT+02:00)
In his first public appearance in four days of violent protests against his rule, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said after midnight Friday, Jan. 28, he would not resign, but had asked the cabinet to step down, would form a new government Saturday and promised democratic reforms. The protests, Mubarak charged, were part of a plot to destabilize Egypt and destroy his own legitimacy. As he spoke, dozens of army tanks massed in Cairo's central Tahrir Square.
President Barack Obama then confirmed at the White House that he had called the Egyptian for the first time since the crisis erupted last Tuesday and told him he must deliver on his pledges for a better democracy and greater economic opportunities.
In his speech, Mubarak defended the hated security forces' actions against the protesters. While promising to fix the economy and provide more freedoms and jobs, he said this would come through national dialogue, not chaos. The Egyptian president said he had a duty not to let anything happen to threaten the country's peace and security or permit terrorism.
DEBKAfile: The coming hours will see how the protest movement responds to Mubarak's decision to hold on to power in defiance of their main rallying cry and how the army conducts itself as thousands of protesters defy the nationwide curfew decree. So far, they have not fired the machine guns on their tanks and the soldiers were welcomed although there were some cases of hostility.
According to some sources, tanks are surrounding the British and US embassies.
After announcing that US aid to Egypt would be reviewed in the light of "unfolding events," Obama laid down five conditions for Mubarak to stay on as president with US support:
1. Egyptian military and security forces must be restrained from violence against civilians. The US would defend the rights to freedom of assembly and speech everywhere.
2. Mubarak must deliver on his pledges of reforms for a better democracy and greater economic opportunities;
3. He must hold a dialogue with the opponents of his regime and abandon the use of force;
4. The shutdown of Internet and other services must be reversed.
Before Obama communicated with Mubarak, his administration was generally seen to have abandoned the Egyptian president as a write-off and thrown its support behind the protesters.
"The situation must be solved by the Egyptian people which deserves to have its universal rights respected," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs when asked if the administration supported its pro-Western Arab ally. President Barack Obama had not spoken to President Mubarak since the crisis began, Gibbs said, stressing that it was up to the Egyptian government to "immediately address the legitimate grievances of the Egyptian people by reforms – not violence. Military and security forces must act with restraint."
Gibbs warned that US aid to Egypt would be reviewed in the light of unfolding events.
The Egyptian president is clearly on trial in Washington as well as at home. It is not clear if he can survive both tests.
DEBKAfile Special Report January 28, 2011, 11:14 PM (GMT+02:00)
The possibility of the military taking control of the regime on the back of the popular uprising to end Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule was actively discussed Friday night, Jan. 28, after security forces failed to control anti-government riots for four days. Protesters in Cairo, Alexandria and Suez ignored the nationwide curfew imposed until 0700 Saturday and the soldiers who were called in to enforce it held their fire. Protesters overturning and burning security forces vehicles welcomed the military APCs.
The transfer of rule to the military even for an interim period would shake the entire Middle East to its foundations. The US stands to lose its senior Arab ally, whereas a new government in Cairo might modify or abandon Egypt's epic 1979 peace treaty with Israel and turn away from the close relations between the two governments.
DEBKAfile reported earlier:
Egyptian protesters tried to storm the foreign ministry in Cairo Friday night, Jan. 28 in defiance of nationwide curfew imposed on the capital, Alexandria and Suez, until 0700 hours Saturday. President Hosni Mubarak called in the army to back the security forces facing swelling numbers of protesters and enforce the curfew. Gunshots were heard near the parliament and thousands of protesters remained out in the streets. At least 10 people were killed and more than a thousand wounded in Cairo during the day. In Suez, 13 are reported dead, 75 injured.
The protesters later set fire to parliament, the national museum and the ruling National Democratic Party whose offices were later looted.
Some soldiers and policemen instead of confronting the rioters reportedly shed their uniforms and joined them.
Mubarak who has not been seen or heard since the crisis began is said to be planning to address the nation soon.
Tanks were seen on the streets of Suez with protesters climbing over them. A least two deaths and dozens of people were injured in the rising turbulence of clashes between security forces and the swelling ranks of protesters across the country. Friday was the fourth and most violent day of the anti-government demonstrations across Egypt, after they were joined by followers of the Muslim Brotherhood.
DEBKAfile's military sources report that calling in the army was President Mubarak's last resort for preserving his regime but it is not without problems. The military may possibly be relied on to impose the curfew on the cities Friday but Saturday, after it is lifted, their absolute obedience to an order to shoot demonstrators cannot be taken for granted – as was seen Friday night. The president and defense minister are not the most popular figures among the soldiers. And the officers may well calculate that both ageing leaders will not be there for long and the army would take the rap for suppressing a popular revolution by mass killings of civilians. No Egyptian commander would want to be in line for that charge.
During the day in Cairo, the protesters' ranks swelled to tens of thousands when Muslim worshippers poured out of the mosques, many heading for the Nile bridges and fighting to cross over to the government district and Tahrir (Liberation) Square on the other side. Security forces firing rubber bullets and tear gas, using water cannons and charging them with batons, injured hundreds but failed to halt the current. Youths climbed over elite security forces' armored cars trying to pull the men out of the vehicles. Two police stations were torched. The protesters called for President Hosni Mubarak, his family and his ruling elite - ""the corrupt caste" - to step down. Opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradai was placed under house arrest.
American citizens were advised to stay indoors.
In Suez, a protester died in a clash. In central Alexandria, they set fire to government buildings. Protesters were also on the streets in Suez, Ismailia, Mansoura north of Cairo and northern Sinai. The protest movement Friday was the largest thus far, greatly enlarged by orders to Muslim worshippers to take to the streets from leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, eight of whom were promptly arrested. The demonstrations appear to be better organized and focused on specific targets, primarily security and police facilities, government buildings and offices of Hosni Mubarak's ruling party.
Earlier, the authorities disrupted internet and telephone services to make it harder to organize demonstrations to no avail. Steps were also taken to impede press coverage of the outbreaks and foreign correspondents prevented from covering the ongoing events.
The White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Friday night in answer to a question that President Barack Obama has not spoken to President Mubarak at any point in the crisis. He said US aid to Egypt would be reviewed in the light of unfolding events, depending on whether the Mubarak regime immediately addressed the legitimate grievances of the Egyptian people by reforms and restrained the military and security forces from violence.
Asked if the US was helping its veteran Arab ally, Gibbs stressed: "The situation must be solved by the Egyptian people" which must be granted "its universal rights."
In Jordan, the Muslim Brotherhood there too called out its followers for anti-government demonstrations.
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