I understand the desire to keep things somewhat orderly in Egypt and to plan meticulously and collaboratively for free and fair September elections. Chaos doesn’t benefit anyone. But I’m not sure this is a horse we can ride. I am also a little doubtful that the momentum for reform can be continued without Mubarak’s departure from office. It looks like an effort by the elites to keep their positions while changing little beyond the face of their leadership. If this strategy works, it will have many advantages, but there is a very good chance that it won’t work. And, if it does, it could create a very sub-optimal result because caution won the day. I don’t mind prudence and caution when they are merited. I am not convinced they are merited in this particular crisis.
About The Author

BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
I’ve been following this closely on al Jazeera and other sources. The New York Times is expressing wishful thinking about what US policy is–thinking that the US continues to put its whole pile of chips on the Mubarak regime.
US desires are being kept ambiguous in order to allow negotiating room and to keep an eye on the larger regional issue – which Hillary Clinton talked about today.
In fact, US strategy, once recovered from the shock that the expected Middle East general crisis was actually here, has been pretty nuanced (which drives the journalists nuts). The model for Egyptian polity that the protesters see is Turkey. Reading between the lines, that is where the US seems to want the entire region to go — the phrase “Middle East’s 1989” continues to reappear.
The success of that depends very much on how Egypt plays out, how fast folks like Abdullah of Jordan get ahead of the curve, how Yemen plays out, and whether the Saudis and the Gulf States are smart enough to to see their turn coming. The major problem is that the US will have to wait until this all sorts out before they can address Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
In Egypt proper, what is going on is an inside-outside negotiation in which there are multiple inside actors in a coalition and outside actors independent of the inside actors putting pressure on the regime from the streets. And you have the US and the EU holding back the army (so far) from crushing the protest.
All of the opposition in Egypt sees the army as the key swing player in this. At what point does the army decide that Mubarak is more trouble than he is worth?
And the ability of the US to actually yank military aid is limited by the Egyptian military’s ability to get aid elsewhere–say China, which is very concerned about this protest–concerned enough to pretend that Egypt doesn’t exist for purposes of the internet. So the US is relying on personal relationships built up between the US military and the Egyptian military.
From a formal policy standpoint, the US government itself (President and Secretary of State) must continue to recognize an existing head of state as long as he has sovereignty, but John Kerry and John McCain have clearly communicated the US foreign policy stance (an unusual case of bipartisanship). And the President and Secretary of State have been consulting behind the scenes with all sorts of contacts in other governments (likely including China). The Ambassador to Egypt, meanwhile, has been in contact with civil society leaders (which includes the opposition) in Egypt, leaving to Frank Wisner the task of seeing where Mubarak stands in this. (Interpret Wisner’s statement today as being faithful to his friendship with Mubarak, allowing him the opportunity to recontact him.)
Where this seems to be going is to put pressure from the street on the Mubarak regime for (1) Mubarak to step down and hand all of his power to his vice president Omar Soliman; (2) Soliman uses this power under the constitution to dissolve the parliament, call for new elections, and change the eligibility for candidates to include all parties, and yes that means the Moslem Brotherhood; (3) schedule elections in the timeframe around May, creating a new regime that writes a new constitution based somewhat on the Turkish constitution; (4) have new elections under the new constitution sometime in the fall. The demands are for a term-limited executive with limited powers, a military independent of politics (here is the incentive for the military–don’t laugh, it really is; partisan political division in the military weakens its strength).
The big question is whether the opposition forces in Egypt can convince the military to make the break with Mubarak. In this, the US cannot help and any opinions one way or the other conceivably could hurt.
In this case, surface prudence and caution obscures a hard-driving practical approach.
One thing to observe is that this is fundamentally a middle class revolution. Baradei, Amr Moussa, the opposition party figures are fundamentally part of what would be the elite in most societies. A good number of folks in Tahrir Square are university-educated people who have been hard hit by the economy and by years of oppression. That said, the base of the protest seems to be much broader than was the civil rights movement and antiwar movements in the US during the 1960s. That is one reason that the US foreign policy establishment has not gone into outright panic.
This appears to be a historic opportunity to deal with a fundamental national security issue. If the Middle East does experience the equivalent of the stunning 1989-1990 year of the democratization of Eastern Europe, maintaining large military budgets will be difficult to justify. And unlike George H. W. Bush, hopefully the US will not go searching for enemies.
The choice facing Hosni Mubarak is whether he will be the Mikhail Gorbachev of the Middle East, the Nicolas Ceauscescu, or the Alexander Lukashenko. At the moment he’s playing to be Lukashenko.
re: the position of the military, it’s my understanding that it has more connection with civilians (and has, at least, not been against the demonstrators), it’s the police that has been Mubarak’s enforcement arm.
The military is conscripted. That means that the officer corps runs the risk of mutiny if they attack the people. Plus, the military has a tradition of not attacking their own people, a tradition that makes protesters chant, “the army and the people hand in hand”. And there are anectdotes that the military refused a direct order to suppress the demonstrators on Friday January 28.
The Interior ministry plainclothes police and riot police are said to be the folks who actually arrest, rough up, and torture “enemies of the state”. The rumors were that they or some prominent and wealthy National Democratic Party members financed the goon squads that attacked on Wednesday. Other reports said that the goons were not paid but were in jobs that could be threatened with firing if they did not follow orders.
thanks for clarification and details
The army is apparently also heavily involved in many industries, such as car building, clothes production, and so forth. Thus, there is a strong need by the army for order, and commercial work of various sorts.
Which corporations are army-run? If that information was easy to find out for China, it should be available for Egypt.
That is another argument for the likelihood of China backfilling US military aid if the US pulls its aid.
The White House has disowned the comment by the US Envoy to Egypt, he was chosen by CLinton, btw, about Mubarak must stay. He later claimed it was a private remark. He said during a vid conf with Germany.
Clinton needs to go ASAP. She comes out with things that to be corrected and I reall get uneasy that she will ad lib on Egypt.
Obama is doing the diplomacy in private.
One of the things that I have noticed is that critics of the US position seem to think that the US has the moral, political, economic, and political power to dramatically bring the situation in Egypt to the conclusion that the protesters want. This ignores the fact that George W. Bush essentially demonstrated that all of those vaunted powers were a sham.
The US lacks moral authority, especially after Abu Graib, the continued operation of Guantanamo, and the practice of extraordinary rendition.
The US has shown that it cannot successfully take down a regime in a nation of 25 million, let alone 86 million. And as an Iraqi diplomatically put it, regime change is best accomplished by internal political forces rather than external political forces. The US can legitimately press for Mubarak to negotiate in good faith (or Soliman or Tantawi or whoever has the power to move events) but it cannot change the regime or be seen as advocating regime change.
Therefore, the US lacks the political power to ensure regime change that it once exercised so freely.
And by overextension, the US lacks the economic power to make a convincing bribe (er, foreign aid) in order to shape policy. And the threat of withdrawing foreign aid is hollow because (1) the US budget likely will see cuts in foreign aid anyway (not a reliable source of aid) and (2) there are nations likely to outbid us for the sake of their national interests.
Those situations will continue, and it is up to the administration to negotiate forward an effective global security system that does not rely on the US (or probably any other country as well) to be the global policeman.
How about sitting down and being quiet for a while. The people are sitting in occupation. Nuance from the state department, however hard the NYTimes is pushing it, is not needed or relevant.
Nuance from the US government, whether it be the President, Secretary of State, US military, or special envoys is especially relevant from providing the political space for the continued occupation of Tahrir Square. It could mean the difference between achieving the goals of the protesters and a repeat of Tienanmen in 1989. In 1989, no one had leverage over the Chinese government and the oxymoronically named Peoples Liberation Army.
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"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
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No one talks about the tension and turmoil in Lebanon. Watch for Angela Merkel on Egypt’s unrest and reform to democracy. For Israel’s security a peace settlement with the Palestinians is of utmost importance.
47th Conference on Security Policy in Munich
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
How Egypt turns out can affect a number of other places: Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, Algeria, Morocco, Libya even. And Iran’s Green Revolution might be back on the front burner.
Before Tunisia’s revolution, there were reports of Hezbollah seeking a stable government now that it had gained substantial power in Lebanon.
At this point, Israel has painted itself into a domestic political corner with its settlement policy. They thought that removing settlers from Sinai was a problem. Removing settlers from the West Bank is going to be political hell for the Israeli government. And that is the only way they are going to avoid agreeing to the Palestinians right to return to ancestral lands. I’m not seeing an agreement in the current circumstances. The Likud government’s arrogance (specifically Bibi’s arrogance) likely will isolate Israel if the Middle East has a 1989-style transformation.
I’ve also been focused on Al Jazeera English, supplemented by various other sources, including blogs from Egypt, for a couple of weeks, and would second most of Tarheel Dem’s (as usual) excellent assessment.
However, there’s a danger to overthinking this. The Egyptian people have spoken just about as unambiguously as any people in a large, heterogeneous nation can. Mubarak must go. End of story. Moreover, replacing him with a new authoritarian figure is also not an option; the Egyptians have voiced quite clearly a demand for systemic change, not just regime change.
The US goal should and must be how to accommodate and help facilitate a Turkey-style secular democratic model, understanding that such governments won’t always end up adopting our preferred positions or priorities. However, it’s the outcome that’s in the best long-term interests of both the US and Egyptian people, and it’s by no means a guaranteed outcome. Everything else the US is doing at this point is either a misstep or (more likely) window dressing. So far I really can’t fault most of the public administration pronouncements, given the givens.
However, I’ve learned never to underestimate the capacity of US governments, of either party, to when given a choice between acting in US interests and acting in accord with Israeli government preferences, choose Jerusalem. So there’s still a good chance we could fuck it all up.
I don’t think you diss Barack Obama as Bibi did and have the US act in accord with Israeli government preferences unless you have an extraordinary amount of domestic US pressure on Obama. Not to say it can’t happen.
I think that the vision that Clinton put forth (or perhaps the Europeans put forth and Clinton talked about) amounts to a Turkey-style secular democratic model with space for political Islam. That is likely to be more secular in Egypt and more Islamic in, say, Yemen.
The Egyptian people have spoken indeed. Using the 1989 analogy, Mubarak can be Gorbachev, Ceaucescu, or Lukaschenko.
The role of Amr Moussa, the Secretary General of the Arab League is instructive here. It would not surprise me if instead of the Egyptian presidency, he saw his role as the Jean Monnet of the Arab World.
I’m still having a hard time accepting a new VP who seems to share Octomom’s name.
read about Suleiman the Magnificent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suleiman_the_Magnificent
and his Ukrainian wife Roxelana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roxelana
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"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
This is someone’s supposition, not a report. In fact, it seems that there is general support in Egypt for the Egyptian-Israeli peace deal, and it is doubtful that Egypt would go to war over the Palestinian issue (that never was Egypt’s casus belli anyway, despite the propaganda). Israel going to war against a new regime, however, is another matter; the Netanyahu government has shown itself fully capable of such a disastrous action.
And the US National Security Council is not that stupid, and they know full well who Wisner is–a close friend and counsel to the Egyptian elite (and sometimes a lobbyist for them). No doubt they were expecting to get honest answers from Mubarak. Instead they got a Wisner who valued the source of his income more than he valued his country.