The Egypt We Paid For
As I write in snow-covered Westchester, New York fires are breaking out in perhaps a half dozen National Democratic Party headquarters in Egypt. Unfortunately, most of our media and commentators are woefully ignorant of the state of Egypt. But that doesn’t stop them from picking a new leader and rewriting their constitution. Here is Jackson Diehl in today’s Washington Post:
Mubarak should step down and be replaced by a transitional government, headed by ElBaradei and including representatives of all pro-democracy forces. That government could then spend six months to a year rewriting the constitution, allowing political parties to freely organize and preparing for genuinely democratic elections. Given time to establish themselves, secular forces backed by Egypt’s growing middle class are likely to rise to the top in those elections – not the Islamists that Mubarak portrays as the only alternative.
The whole exercise is galling, considering that Mubarak has been under U.S. sponsorship for decades, and has received strong support even until the last two weeks. Does Diehl think these angry Egyptians want another U.S. crony? But it is worse than that – most of the commentary on Egypt is based on a fantasy that the opposition to Mubarak would naturally be a rights-respecting, pro-market democratic movement.
Four years ago, during some of the headiest days of Bush’s “democracy agenda”, our own State Department officials in Cairo told me that truly liberal parties in Egypt were “interesting to talk to but totally insignificant.” The idea that there is some huge reserve of middle class support for liberal democracy is an untested fantasy. Notice Diehl doesn’t bother to name any of the pro-democracy forces. Does he really believe the New Wafd Party – which has never held more than a few seats- is ready and to lead Egypt? Or does his hope lie with the National Democratic Front which began in 2007? All the elected Egyptian officials over the past two decades who can be fairly described as liberal could fit comfortably in my living room. The reason Diehl wants months for these parties to organize is that the only organized opposition force in Egypt is the Islamists, whom Mubarak has been unsuccessfully trying to appease in the past three years.
Any non-NDP government will include (or be lead by) the anti-American, anti-Israel Muslim Brotherhood, who regularly get a strong percentage of the vote in Egypt, though they are a banned party. Diehl may dream of a secular middle class, but the Brotherhood’s support comes mainly from the professional classes – doctors, lawyers, and other trade associations. The image of Muslim extremists as the poor, disenfranchised and easily-led is another self-flattering Western fantasy. This morning, reports are coming in that the Brotherhood is joining the protests and giving them a distinctively “religious” character.
This is no defense of the NDP or Mubarak. They have had an impossible needle to thread. They could choose to cede some political space to the Muslim Brotherhood and-by definition- lose legitimacy. Or they could continue to repress them and the other small opposition groups and… lose legitimacy.
The fact, rarely mentioned this past week, is that the United States sends over $800 million in direct economic aid to Egypt along with $1.3 billion a year in military aid. The guns being used to beat protestors this week were bought with American tax dollars. Foreign aid to poor countries like Egypt creates both the impression and the reality that the government is more solicitous of its Ameircan sponsor than of its own people. Foreign aid also makes governments less anxious for domestic prosperity, and Egypt’s chronically high unemployment is a sure sign of that. We send this aid to ensure a stable non-Muslim Brotherhood controlled Egypt that is friendly to the United States and Israel. If the riots and protests lead to the fall of Mubarak’s government, we’ll have neither. Egypt is more likely to turn into a base of operations for Al-Queda than it is a liberal democracy. We’ve been making payments on such a disaster since 1975.
In the meantime, prepare to hear more pundits rhapsodize about Elbaradei and the coming reign of righteousness, democracy, and prosperity in Egypt. It is the same tune we heard for Chalabi in Iraq, Karzai in Afghanistan, and free elections in Palestine.
[...] The Egypt we Paid For By Michael Brendan Dougherty, on January 28th, 2011 (cross-posted @TAC) [...]
Jackson Diehl is an idiot, so what else is new? I am waiting for Krauthammer to weigh in. It is perhaps somewhat more likely that the Egypt will become a liberal democracy than that it will someday harbor al-Qaeda, but, let’s face it, neither is going to happen. Also, the Muslim Brotherhood is neither as anti-American or anti-Israeli as it has been portrayed in the MSM through the use of selective quotations.
The real question is what is the actual US interest regarding Egypt? Suez Canal? What else? Tell Hillary to shut up and let them work it out for themselves ditto to the Lebanese and Tunisians.
My only real concern at this point is what color the new Egyptian revolution will be. Tunisia took Jasmine. I kind of like the sound of Saffron. Yes, the Saffron Revolution.
what’s happening in the streets of egypt is a far cry from Chalabi and Iraq. come on man
I’m saying that the dream of ElBaradei taking over is akin to the dream of Chalabi in Iraq. And remember, there were once images of happy Iraqis and a U.S. tank taking down a statue of Saddam.
The opposition to the NDP is made up primarily of the Muslim Brotherhood – who are organized, well-funded, and serious. And the young people in the streets who are unemployed and have just reason for hating the current regime.
[...] Brenden Dougherty, writing for The American Conservative, argues against Jackson Diehl’s assertion that “secular forces” in concert with Mohammed [...]
El Baradei will only become a Chalabi if the US embraces him. Which is why Hillary may go rogue and do so just like she did to spike the Turkey-Brazil deal last spring.
This is a genuine social revolution, nothing like Iraq. Egyptians are 90 percent Muslim, why shouldn’t the Muslim Brotherhood play a role in government? The pillars of US domination of the region are cracking. It was bound to happen sooner or later– our policy of putting Israel’s interests ahead of everyone else’s, including our own, was bound to crumble on its own absurdity sooner or later. Just happening sooner than most people thought.
We should point out that the reason the United States has been subsidizing the Mubarak dictatorship for thirty years is because Egypt made a separate peace with Israel, and left the Palestinians to fend for themselves. Sadat tried to avoid this–the record of Camp David is revealing and moving on this–but ultimately capitulated to the pressures brought on him. For his pains he was assassinated, as he might have known would happen.
[...] Michael has been making many of the same points on the main blog: Four years ago, during some of the headiest days of Bush’s “democracy agenda”, our own State [...]
I’m not saying that the MB shouldn’t play a role. If they have the support of the professional classes, then they should. But, because of our policies since 1975, this outcome will be seen as a humiliation for the United States.
There’s not much evidence that Muslim Brotherhood participation in govt would make Egypt an Al Qaeda base. The MB has been fighting a political battle against Al Qaeda and terrorism for a generation now. Al Qaeda is a really fringe movement of Muslim politics.
Of course Michael is right, it’s not going to be a liberal democracy either.
A “humiliation”! Sort of like Netanyahu inflicted on Obama?
Has anyone seen the footage of the protesters fighting the cops, and then arranging a “timeout” for afternoon prayers? It’s one of the most stunning news videos I’ve ever seen.
@Scott McConnell… where is this video? Sounds amazing, cannot find…
I saw it on Al Jazeera around 11 am, eastern time.
What this is starting to look like is the catastophic failure of U. S. middle east policy, if it keeps spreading.
Egypt is bad enough.
Surely, the U. S. wanted regional stability, not revolution. Did the U. S. do anyting specifically? Probably not, it’s the totality of the policy of many years that has finally come to roost.
This policy started before 911, but it went on steroids after 911.
It was an Israeli centric policy.
Let’s not double down on an Israeli centric policy.
there is a picture now of the cops spraying those people with a hose.
http://twitpic.com/3u6gvc
so much for the time out.
Also, if I may be so bold, how much does it matter, post all this, if Al queda does have some sort of foothold in Egypt?
Al Queda exists primarily to drive the US out of the middle east. If this new government is gonna have any legitmacy with it’s people it will too.
and who cares? we want to be driven out.
Instead of distancing ourselves from the Middle East, the Middle East appears to be is distancing itself from us. What a golden opportunity to set a new course. Paying Egypt and Israel not to fight with each other was always a sucker’s game. If Egypt’s government is more reflective of her population, at least our relations with them can begin on a realistic basis. Tunisia, Egypt, et al are in the EU sphere of influence, not ours.
If this wave of rebellion sweeps the Middle East it will present a threat to our “friends” in Tel Aviv. Will they try to get along with their chosen neighbors or will they drag us into standing athwart all the popular governments of the region. I suggest that whatever happens we will be hearing a lot more about Israel’s “dangerous neighborhood.”
I sense that the American press is for the present, sympathetic with the demonstrators. They are perceived as democratic and egalitarian, always catnip to our press corps. But being Muslim and Arab, these movements will inevitably disappoint their finer feelings.
It’s a pity that our administration lacks the realist maturity to respond to these events as an opportunity to disengage.
The Telegraph (of London) is reporting that the US State Department helped Egyptian protest organizers. It appears that the US wants to have friends in both camps. Democratism on the move.
These neocons and statist-liberals are unbelievable. They back every “secular” tyrant between America and Iran to the hilt with billions in U.S. taxpayer funds, finance the oppression and impoverishment of the Arab masses for decades on end, launch wars of aggression for Israel and to oust formerly U.S.-backed secular tyrant sock puppets like Saddam Hussein who get out of hand, and then they profess shock and dismay that Islamists — apparently some of the only Arabs with cajones enough to take on these corrupt, murderous, dictatorial statist-authoritarian regimes and make some kind of effort to alleviate the suffering of the masses of poor — become heir to any kind of democratic efforts.
I have no love for Islamists, nor do I think totalitarian religiosity is any kind of moral answer. On the other hand, these “secular” statist-liberal-capitalist that are willing to engage in devil’s bargains with murderous dictators who kill their own people by the tens of thousands all to play “the great game” (which at root is a means to maintain the post-Christian, hyper-materialistic, cushy liberal-capitalist lifestyle to which they have become accustomed) really aren’t much better.
Liberal hypocrisy and moral rot is unbelievable. That level of cynicism is truly a sickness.
For a long time, wrong-headed U.S. leaders believed that America must make it it’s business to be involved everywhere in the world, especially in the Middle East. We’ve supported dictators who support our government at the expense of their people, and then we wonder why the people become radicalized and hate us. We need a policy of non-intervention in the region.
The only thing that is sure to come out of this is that the traitors who run the West, including this country, will let a flood of these Arabs and Muslims colonize their nations.
I agree with Phil that the modern Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has taken great pains to become less threatening than its terroristic forebears. But we’re talking then about an organization that has tried to adopt the stance of a sort of “loyal opposition” against a repressive regime. In a situation of unrest and collapse, Hayek’s remark about the “worst getting on top” applies in spades.
Scott, I don’t know if you still identify as a conservative or ever identified as a student of Burke, but remember how hope kindled by l’écrasement de l’infâme is so often false.
Dougherty thinks that Egypt is poor because of US AID? Really?!
It’s not the socialist policies, cronyism, and corruption of the regime that has run Egypt for nearly 60 years? It’s not the massive population growth in poverty? And their culture has nothing to do with it. No, its the 2.3 billion in foreign aid, we gave to an country with a GDP of 217 billion.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Matthew Anderson, Walter Levin. Walter Levin said: Web: The American Conservative » The Egypt We Paid For http://bit.ly/hYG2pH [...]
[...] to Mubarak would naturally be a rights-respecting, pro-market democratic movement,” writes Michael Brendan Dougherty. But Islamists see the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia (and now Jordan) differently: it might be a [...]
“Jackson Diehl is an idiot,… I am waiting for Krauthammer to weigh in.”
Why? To get the perspective of another idiot?
Evans wrote: “Did the U. S. do anyting specifically? Probably not, it’s the totality of the policy of many years that has finally come to roost.”
I have to amend that statement.
Thomas O. Meehan wrote: “The Telegraph (of London) is reporting that the US State Department helped Egyptian protest organizers. It appears that the US wants to have friends in both camps.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8289686/Egypt-protests-Americas-secret-backing-for-rebel-leaders-behind-uprising.html
It would appear the U. S. (both political parties) has been playing both sides against the middle:
Support the dictator as long as he is politically viable, but also co-opt and groom opposition movements with NGO’s professing support for “democracy”, so that when the dictator becomes untenable and his regime falls, the opposition will already be friendly and under the influence the U. S.
This is the definition of ‘controlled’ opposition.
It’s a cynical & dangerous game meant to keep the country firmly in U. S. control — the power behind the throne.
It’s also pure EMPIRE politics.
America has over 700 military bases in over 170 countries. America covertly takes out regimes and militarily takes out regimes.
Is not this the profile & behavior of an Empire?
The cynicsm of the FOX crowd is beyond irritating. They all cheered Iraq being overthrown. just shows you how little they care for actual freedom and self determination.
Why aren’t Obama and his media mamluks not pointing out the lack of civility of the Egyptian people? How dare those people be so uncivil.
McConnell has his ripe fantasies about the Muslim Brotherhood. In principle they hate all non-Muslims. But they recognize who has more power, more money, more guns, and media hegemony. So they flatter Westerners who may share some of their prejudices, as against Israel, for instance, or against abortion. They can pretend to be conservative. They can pretend to share a Marxist-Leninist worldview, as Iran does now. They pretend to be democratic when that pretense is useful. Yet, the increasing persecution of the Coptic Christians in recent years in Egypt has much to do with the rise in MB influence. And if you believe that the MB would not team up with al-Qa`ida in the future, then you forget that AQ is an MB spinoff. If you believe that AQ & MB are opposed in principle, then maybe I can interest you in buying a bridge that connects Manhattan to Brooklyn.
Eliyahou, if The MB is a rational enough actor to show a palatable face to the hated infidels because they recognise who has the greater power, then they’ll be rational enough to know that supporting terrorism against your beloved Israel, or worse, teaming up with Al-Qaeda will invite the eradication of their nation.
At least as I have read the history of the Middle East, Egypt and Iraq were the traditional powershouses. although Turkey and Iran had a say so once in a while. Palestine was the border land between them and fought over much like Alsace Lorraine between the French and the Germans/Holy Roman Empire. Ancient Israeli, the fantasy model for modern Israel, was at best a footnote. I rather suspect that historical forces will in the fullness of time reassert themselves. In the long term our interest in Egypt is infinitely greater than out interest in Israel.
Now that the protests are hitting there peak I think things are sure to move quickly. Soon this scenario will play out here on the streets of America. There are forces at work trying to usher in the last days, Revelations, the Apocalypse… call it the Illuminati, the New World Order, or whatever you want… it is coming… hell it is already here! Step by step we will all watch as the reality around us unravels, that is unless we are lucky enough to be awake. Those of us who have our eyes open can avoid the initial blows but it will take a strong Army to fight the wars that are ahead. Be prepared, be safe, and awaken those around you, they will be next to you in the battle.
~ DJ6ual
Americans Being Evacuated from Egypt
Phone Numbers and Web Sites Available Here
http://dj6ual.viviti.com/entries/news/the-tear-gas-smoke-bombs-used-against-egyptian-protesters-were-also-used-at-g-20
Tear Gas Causes Anti American Sentiment in Egypt
US Weapons Being Used Against Egyptians
From this day forward Obama is going to have blood on his hands. Mubarak is not going to leave on his own.
Obama now has to do the right thing and make a call to the Egyptian military and say “cut Mubarak off from power.”
Is it not painfully obvious that is what has to happen? Of course standing in his way is Zionism.
Is Obama going to the right thing or the Zionist thing —- I am betting on the Zionist thing!
Raashid, Barada`i is already negotiating with the MB on a provisional govt. So he must have support in some quarters in the West, although he was disastrous at the Int’l Atomic Energy Agency. Or else Mubarak would have had him arrested when he came back to Egypt last week, calling on people to join the uprising and acting otherwise seditiously, as in pretending to form a provisional govt. But it’s not only Israel that doesn’t want the MB to take over. Most of the Arab states don’t want it either. I heard today [on France24] an Arab analyst from Abu Dhabi who was arguing that the protestors in Egypt were somewhat declining in number from previous days. He was clearly against the MB taking over and, since he was speaking from an institute in Abu Dhabi [the UAE], it seems that his govt also opposes an MB takeover of Egypt. An MB takeover could cause disruption in oil supplies through the Canal and widespread violence not only in the ME but in the eastern Mediterranean generally, affecting the security of NATO and EU members. Frank Gaffney was just on Fox warning about the MB and its capacity for deception, for dissembling, for pretending to be moderate, etc., and then using massive violence when they think that the time is ripe. Don’t imagine that they are democratic, moderate or peaceful.
Ferdi, I don’t want to spoil your illusions but the Jews were most certainly an important factor in the Roman Empire. The three Jewish wars against Rome, which I attribute to Rome’s failure to accept reasonable Jewish needs, did lead to the defeat of the Jews and the official change of Israel’s Roman name from PROVINCIA IVDAEA [Province of Judea] to “Syria Palaestina”, the first time that the name “palestine” was officially applied to the country and as a punishment for the Jews. However, those revolts also damaged Rome, as Fronto and Dio Cassius acknowledged. I suggest, Ferdi, that you go back and read over Josephus, “The Jewish War,” Tacitus, “The Histories”, and Dio Cassius, “Roman History,” as well as Fronto’s letter to the emperor. Ancient Israel was neither a fantasy nor a footnote.
Americans are seeing the failure of U.S. policy in the Middle East.
- There have been 4 oil crisis followed by 4 economic recessions since 1973.
- Oil will breach through $100 a barrel in the first half of 2011 and $120 before the end of 2012, said JP Morgan.
- 9 700 Americans have been killed and 48 000 wounded since 1973 because of the Middle East.
- The Iraq war is over, and the winner is… Iran.
- Pakistan has more nuclear weapons than India, claim US experts
- Hezbollah has up to 40,000 rockets and has ground-to-ground missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv.
- Egypt has received over $50 billion in US largesse since 1975.
- Jordan is a major beneficiary of US aid having received more than $7 billion since 1952.
- There are about 1 300 amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan.
- Approximately 250,000 of the 697,000 veterans who served in the 1991 Gulf War are afflicted with enduring chronic multi-symptom illness
- Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost $2.4 trillion dollars
According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report published in October 2007, the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost taxpayers a total of $2.4 trillion dollars by 2017
The US support of Dictators has always been a problem for US policy. We want the stability they provide but at the cost of our values. Have we learned nothing from what happened in Iran in the 70′s.
[...] current turmoil in Egypt is a primary example of this. Writes The American Conservative‘s Michael Brendan Dougherty: “The fact, rarely mentioned this past week, is that the United States sends over $800 [...]