Foreign News and Analysis Since April 2005Saturday, January 29, 2011
China Confidential
RUMOR MUBARAK IN SHARM EL-SHEIKH
EGYPT: A SPECIAL STRATFOR REPORT
LIBERALS CRITICIZE OBAMA FOR NOT BEING MORE ANTI-MUBARAK AS MB MOVES TO TAKE POWER
RED ALERT: HAMAS AND MB
ISLAMISTS WILL TAKE POWER IF MUBARAK FALLS
SAUDI KING SIDES WITH MUBARAK
Friday, January 28, 2011
MUBARAK RESISTS US PRESSURE, PROMISING REFORM BUT REFUSING TO ALLOW ANARCHY
CLINTON CONDEMNS EGYPT POLICE VIOLENCE
EGYPT EXPLODES; IRAN CHEERS
Egypt on Edge as Muslim Brotherhood and Iran Plot and Plan Islamist Revolution in Tunisia's Wake
Saudis, Syria Secretly Terrified by Arab Revolt
Sunday, 30 January 2011
WILL BARADEI BECOME THE NEXT BAZARGAN?
SUDDENLY, MUBARAK IS THE NEW SHAH, AN AMERICAN ALLY
TARGETED FOR EXILE AND ASSASSINATION BY GLOBAL MOBS
The rumor: Egypt's president is hiding at his winter residence. Click here for the story.
A leading China Confidential Middle East analyst adds: Sharm is a short helicopter ride from Saudi Arabia--and exile.
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Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak remains the lifeblood of the demonstrators, who still number in the tens of thousands in downtown Cairo and in other major cities, albeit on a lesser scale. After being overwhelmed in the Jan. 28 Day of Rage protests, Egypt’s internal security forces — with the anti-riot paramilitaries of the Central Security Forces (CSF) at the forefront — were glaringly absent from the streets Jan. 29. They were replaced with rows of tanks and armored personnel carriers carrying regular army soldiers. Unlike their CSF counterparts, the demonstrators demanding Mubarak’s exit from the political scene largely welcomed the soldiers. Despite Mubarak’s refusal to step down Jan. 28, the public’s positive perception of the military, seen as the only real gateway to a post-Mubarak Egypt, remained. It is unclear how long this perception will hold, especially as Egyptians are growing frustrated with the rising level of insecurity in the country and the army’s limits in patrolling the streets.
There is more to these demonstrations than meets the eye. The media will focus on the concept of reformers staging a revolution in the name of democracy and human rights. These may well have brought numerous demonstrators into the streets, but revolutions, including this one, are made up of many more actors than the liberal voices on Facebook and Twitter.
After three decades of Mubarak rule, a window of opportunity has opened for various political forces — from the moderate to the extreme — that preferred to keep the spotlight on the liberal face of the demonstrations while they maneuver from behind. As the Iranian Revolution of 1979 taught, the ideology and composition of protesters can wind up having very little to do with the political forces that end up in power. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB) understands well the concerns the United States, Israel and others share over a political vacuum in Cairo being filled by Islamists. The MB so far is proceeding cautiously, taking care to help sustain the demonstrations by relying on the MB’s well-established social services to provide food and aid to the protesters. It simultaneously is calling for elections that would politically enable the MB. With Egypt in a state of crisis and the armed forces stepping in to manage that crisis, however, elections are nowhere near assured. What is now in question is what groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and others are considering should they fear that their historic opportunity could be slipping.
One thing that has become clear in the past several hours is a trend that STRATFOR has been following for some time in Egypt, namely, the military’s growing clout in the political affairs of the state. Former air force chief and outgoing civil aviation minister Ahmed Shafiq, who worked under Mubarak’s command in the air force (the most privileged military branch in Egypt), has been appointed prime minister and tasked with forming the new government. Outgoing Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman, who has long stood by Mubarak, is now vice president, a spot that has been vacant for the past 30 years. Meanwhile, Defense Minister Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi (who oversees the Republican Guard) and Egypt’s chief of staff of the armed forces, Lt. Gen. Sami Annan — who returned to Cairo Jan. 29 after a week of intense discussions with senior U.S. officials — are likely managing the political process behind the scenes. More political shuffles are expected, and the military appears willing for now to give Mubarak the time to arrange his political exit. Until Mubarak finally does leave, the unrest in the streets is unlikely to subside, raising the question of just how much more delay from Mubarak the armed forces will tolerate.
The important thing to remember is that the Egyptian military, since the founding of the modern republic in 1952, has been the guarantor of regime stability. Over the past several decades, the military has allowed former military commanders to form civilian institutions to take the lead in matters of political governance but never has relinquished its rights to the state.
Now that the political structure of the state is crumbling, the army must directly shoulder the responsibility of security and contain the unrest on the streets. This will not be easy, especially given the historical animosity between the military and the police in Egypt. For now, the demonstrators view the military as an ally, and therefore (whether consciously or not) are facilitating a de facto military takeover of the state. But one misfire in the demonstrations, and a bloodbath in the streets could quickly foil the military’s plans and give way to a scenario that groups like the MB quickly could exploit. Here again, we question the military’s tolerance for Mubarak as long as he is the source fueling the demonstrations.
Considerable strain is building on the only force within the country that stands between order and chaos as radical forces rise. The standing theory is that the military, as the guarantor of the state, will manage the current crisis. But the military is not a monolithic entity. It cannot shake its history, and thus cannot dismiss the threat of a colonel’s coup in this shaky transition.
The current regime is a continuation of the political order, which was established when midranking officers and commanders under the leadership of Gamal Abdel Nasser, a mere colonel in the armed forces, overthrew the British-backed monarchy in 1952. Islamist sympathizers in the junior ranks of the military assassinated his successor, Anwar Sadat, in 1981, an event that led to Mubarak’s presidency.
The history of the modern Egyptian republic haunts Egypt’s generals today. Though long suppressed, an Islamist strand exists amongst the junior ranks of Egypt’s modern military. The Egyptian military is, after all, a subset of the wider society, where there is a significant cross- section that is religiously conservative and/or Islamist. These elements are not politically active, otherwise those at the top would have purged them.
But there remains a deep-seated fear among the military elite that the historic opening could well include a cabal of colonels looking to address a long-subdued grievance against the state, particularly its foreign policy vis-à-vis the United States and Israel. The midranking officers have the benefit of having the most direct interaction — and thus the strongest links — with their military subordinates, unlike the generals who command and observe from a politically dangerous distance. With enough support behind them, midranking officers could see their superiors as one and the same as Mubarak and his regime, and could use the current state of turmoil to steer Egypt’s future.
Signs of such a coup scenario have not yet surfaced. The army is still a disciplined institution with chain of command, and many likely fear the utter chaos that would ensue should the military establishment rupture. Still, those trying to manage the crisis from the top cannot forget that they are presiding over a country with a strong precedent of junior officers leading successful coups. That precedent becomes all the more worrying when the regime itself is in a state of collapse following three decades of iron-fisted rule.
The United States, Israel and others will thus be doing what they can behind the scenes to shape the new order in Cairo, but they face limitations in trying to preserve a regional stability that has existed since 1978. The fate of Egypt lies in the ability of the military to not only manage the streets and the politicians, but also itself.
Click here for the LA Times piece, which will help to give the administration political cover to even more aggressively and openly side with the Muslim Brotherhood and its fellow travelers--in the name of democracy promotion and protecting American interests. According to this analysis, the catastrophic Carter administration's mistake was not dumping the Shah earlier! Never mind that the Islamist overthrow of Iran's modernizing monarch--a strategic U.S. ally--along with the covert U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, which began under Carter, unleashed the global Islamist monster that threatens to end our civilization.
Liberal and left-wing loons won't be happy until Obama appoints a headscarf/burqa-wearing Cabinet member.
The following is a report from a STRATFOR source in Hamas. Hamas, which formed in Gaza as an outgrowth of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB), has an interest in exaggerating its role and coordination with the MB in this crisis. The following information has not been confirmed. Nonetheless, there is a great deal of concern building in Israel and the United States in particular over the role of the MB in the demonstrations and whether a political opening will be made for the Islamist organization in Egypt.
The Egyptian police are no longer patrolling the Rafah border crossing into Gaza. Hamas armed men are entering into Egypt and are closely collaborating with the MB. The MB has fully engaged itself in the demonstrations, and they are unsatisfied with the dismissal of the Cabinet. They are insisting on a new Cabinet that does not include members of the ruling National Democratic Party.
Security forces in plainclothes are engaged in destroying public property in order to give the impression that many protesters represent a public menace. The MB is meanwhile forming people’s committees to protect public property and also to coordinate demonstrators’ activities, including supplying them with food, beverages and first aid.
Predictions and observations:
2. It will become increasingly clear that the Obama administration encouraged and emboldened the uprising withovertures to the Muslim Brotherhood that included meetings in Washington and pressuring the Egyptian government to invite Brotherhood leaders to attend Obama's historic Cairo address to "the Muslim world"--an Islamist concept that posits a global Muslim nation, united by belief in the Koran, to a degree that transcends all national, political, and ethnic differences and boundaries.
The administration and the U.S. foreign policy establishment, in general, are of the opinion that the Muslim Brotherhood has gradually moderated itself and can therefore be managed (and manipulated). In fact, the administration believes in the existence of oxymoronic "moderate" radical Islam, represented by the Brotherhood and Turkey's Islamist regime, in line with the administration's narrowing of the definition of the Islamist enemy to Al Qaeda and so-called irreconcilable elements of the Taliban.
More than nine years after 9/11, the United States aims to align itself with what it perceives as the wave of the future--right-wing political Islam. The irony of the most left-wing-ever Chief Executive working to bring about this Grand Bargain with the clerical fascist devil dovetails with the international Left's insane notion that Islam is the religion of the world's poor and oppressed masses, and thus automatically worthy of support, and, moreover, that political Islam actually has a progressive side, which can be used to bring down capitalism and "the American empire."
3. The speed with which the Obama administration has publicly turned against America's longtime ally is truly astonishing--unprecedented. In a replay of Jimmy Carter's betrayal and abandonment of Iran's Shah, Obama believes that he can jump aboard the Islamist bandwagon. Gornisht helfen! If the Brotherhood comes to power, Egypt will become a viciously anti-American, anti-Israel power, a threat, also, to Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Hence, the Saudi King's decision to speak out in support of Mubarak--in defiance of Obama.
POSTSCRIPT: Was the uprising planned three years ago, during--and by--the Bush administration, as this articlesuggests? Perhaps. Such a plot would be in line with Condoleezza Rice's crackpot concept of transformational diplomacy--which includes a dangerously nutty reverse domino theory that provided the ideological basis for the unnecessary Iraq war (and the Hamas takeover of Gaza and Turkey's Islamist tilt). The administration's anointed next Egyptian leader could be Mohamed El Baradei, who advocates sharing power with the Islamists. And he could be installed--temporarily. Ultimately, the Muslim Brotherhood will take power if Muabarak falls. Islamists (like Bolsheviks and Nazis) don't believe in sharing power any longer than is absolutely necessary to achieve absolute power.
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Related: Ex-CIA officer Michael Scheuer, who led the agency's Osama Bin Laden unit, tells The Washington Post:
"The agency's work is pretty much over, as no part of the U.S. government can do much to influence the situation, unless [Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton makes things worse by continuing to speak as if we are supporting the demonstrators.
"Ditto for Yemen....
"I would think that all of our officers across the Near East are spending a good amount of time on the streets trying to gauge the public mood and [assess] the chances of any more dominoes.
"For myself, I hope that each [CIA chief of station] and/or the ambassador are writing commentaries for Washington to disabuse them of the idea that any of this unrest is going to lead to secular democracies in the region. We are either going to get either more ruthless dictatorships or--if they fall--a year or two of chaotic governments with patinas of democracy' until the Islamists take over."
Also related:
PREPARED STATEMENT SEEMS TO SIDE WITH DEMONSTRATORS
AGAINST GOVERNMENT, CALLING FOR RESTRAINT AND REFORM
SAYS US UNDERSTANDS 'DEEP GRIEVANCES' DRIVING DEMONSTRATIONS
China Confidential said--in June 2009--that Obama's overtures to the Muslim Brotherhood were undermining Mubarak's government in ways that recalled Jimmy Carter's craven abandonment of an American ally. Click here to read the archived analysis.
Islamists are poised to take power--stage by stage, state by state--across a backward region mired in barbarism and extremism.
Predictions: (1) liberal idiots of appeasement, confusing the trappings of parliamentary democracy with real democracy, will increasingly make the case for oxymoronic, "moderate" or "progressive" Islamism, praising pro-Iran, Islamizing Turkey as a model for Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen; (2) it is only a matter of time (hours maybe) before Islamist supporters, sympathizers, and apologists blame U.S. foreign policy--meaning, traditional U.S. support for democratic Israel and for pro-Western Middle Eastern regimes--for the current crisis; (3) any attempts to draw a logical line, from the Carter administration's complicity in the overthrow of Iran's Shah--a modernizing, pro-Western monarch--to the Obama administration's emboldening of the Muslim Brotherhood and the ensuing Egyptian eruption, will be roundly condemned or completely ignored by U.S. mainstream media outlets.
Regarding Israel, the administration can be counted on to use the crisis--i.e. the threat of Islamist takeovers of Egypt and Jordan, which are formally at peace with Israel--as a club for intimidating the Jewish State into withdrawing to indefensible borders in order to make possible the creation of a Palestinian state consisting of Gaza, already under Iran-backed Islamist rule, and the disputed lands of the so-called West Bank (areas west of the Jordan river that Israel captured during its defensive war of June, 1967). In the White House and in the State Department ... and in the news rooms and editorial offices of the fawning liberal media ... there will be linkage!You can bet on that.
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End of story.
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