On ElBaradei And Other Thoughts On Egypt
Reading through the comments we all seem to agree that there was a military coup in Egypt and that it was, seen from a pure democratic standpoint, illegitimate in that it did not follow the law.Now I for one have always been willing to consider illegitimate means when confronting authorities, especially right-wing neoliberal ones like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Be that through unsanctioned demonstrations, some clashes with police forces or whatever. There are projects that deserve such resistance and in some case such resistance has been successful. Legitimacy is thereby not the core question to me. Discussing legitimacy will also change nothing on the ground. The coup is done. Get over with it.
What we can do though is analyze the situation and how it came about. We can learn from it. Morsi came to power through elections with a rather small margin over the candidate of the old regime. It was obvious and foreseeable that he would be hindered in government by the old establishment. He should have recognized that from the get-go and should have acted accordingly. Unless large scale brutal force is used change in a complex society will only come in small steps.
At the beginning Morsi made peace with the army. The army in Egypt is a somewhat parallel society that has, at the higher officer ranks, lots of privileges and makes a lot of money. It is involved in all kinds of civilian businesses. That is a fact of life in Egypt and is, unless there is a real revolution, unlikely to change in the near future. Morsi considered this and when the army insisted on having its privileges written into the new constitution he agreed.
But Morsi did not really try to win the bureaucracy to his side. He did increase its wages (which is economically not sustainable) but that bribe was not enough. Over 80 years the state had been the enemy of the Brotherhood. Now the Brotherhood was supposed to lead it. There was distrust and paranoia on both sides and the first steps should have been to remove that distrust and to cooperate. Unfortunately that did not happen. Instead of elevating people from the establishment that could have helped him Morsi (or the MB) insisted on putting rather incompetent MB followers into leading bureaucratic positions.
The "renaissance" Morsi had promised for his first 100 days never got off the ground. There was no viable economic program visible and little execution. Egypt needed money and Morsi went around all possible donors and tried to get as much as possible. While doing this he sold out important foreign policy positions and did this in a rather amateurish way. That was the point that in the end pushed the army to intervene:
[R]elations between Mursi and his new generals deteriorated within months of his inauguration. Even Mursi's apparent success in brokering a ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip irked the military.The generals do have a point here. When the head of state runs around selling commitments that require military means there needs to be at least some consultation. Calling for Jihad in Syria to get money from Qatar while the Egyptian army fights such Jihdaists in the Sinai was really, really stupid."Mursi's intervention in the Gaza war made Egypt guarantee that Hamas would not carry out attacks on Israel. Which threatens Egyptian national security, because what if Hamas did? It could prompt Israel to retaliate against us," the security source said.
Mursi also talked loosely about possible Egyptian participation in a jihad (holy war) to overthrow Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, and raised the prospect of military action over a Nile River dam in Ethiopia. As a result, distrust of him grew in Egypt's high command, which saw him as recklessly risking their involvement in conflicts without properly consulting and respecting the generals.
"It reached a point where we began to be worried about putting important national security reports in front of someone we perceived as a threat to national security," the security source said.
Now some say that the army would have been incapable of taking down Morsi without foreign help. The army has run the Egyptian state for the last 60 years, Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak were all officers. In a certain sense the Egyptian army is the state. It has smart and capable officers. It has intelligence services. It has financial means. It has over the years learned how to play the amateurs leading the State Department. Many people in Eygpt were also fed up with Morsi. At least some of the public support for the coup was certainly genuine and not just paid for claqueures. Whoever thinks that the Egyptian military needed U.S. help to plan and execute this coup should explain how it was able to run the country for 60 years in the first place.
My impression is that Washington was very split over the question of a coup. It wasn't really happy with Morsi even while Morsi was not avers to U.S. policy. But it also did not want to ruin its long time neoconned/Wilsonian project of "spreading democracy". It was told of the coup plans but tried to avoid its execution. In the end, I believe, the Egyptian generals simply had enough and created the facts on the ground. Washington now has to adopt to them. The cacophony of opinions about the coup, pro and contra, coming out of Washington these days supports this view.
Today Mohammed ElBaradei was sworn in as prime minister of Egypt. In his time at the IAEA ElBaradei has shown that he is no pushover. But is he capable of being prime minister? ElBaradei has no real constituency in Egypt but that is, I believe, an advantage as he will not have to cater to any special group. Unlike Morsi he knows how to play hard core international politics and that may be valuable in getting out of the economic mess the country is in.
The problems Egypt has are manifold and huge: poverty, unemployment, lack of water, lack of arable land, lack of investment and a very uneven wealth distribution. ElBaradei will try to tackle them all. It is unlikely that he will solve any of them but he may be able to take the first steps towards a better future. It will be a job where he will get no love but a lot of criticism and hate. In a year or two, should he survive that long, he will be burned (out) and will be replaced. I admire that he is putting himself knowingly into this impossible position.
Posted by b on July 6, 2013 at 18:31 UTC | Permalink
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There's been a massive increase in the propaganda supporting the coup. I had to listen to Tony Blair on BBc Radio 4 while eating breakfast, so I turned over to the BBC World Service, and found someone else defending the coup.
I take it that the image of dictatorship-which-is-really-democracy is not being transmitted perfectly. The word 'coup' is being used a little too often in the media, and not 'ouster' or other euphemisms.
I should think we'll have more of this blast in the next few days.
Posted by: alexno | Jul 8 2013 7:50 utc | 102
99/100 I am told by other sources that some peaceful Muslim Brotherhood protesters used guns.
Look, it is too late to cry foul. The Muslim Brotherhood had one year to try to defeat the Egyptian police state, they could have struck a very strong alliance on this issue with liberal protesters, human rights organizations etc.
Instead they tried to inherit the Egyptian police state and use it against their opponents. Freedom is always the freedom of your opponent.
I know, Iranian statements on Egypt are quite funny. Some of them mime the US in calling for democracy and then insisting on resistance to Israel.
Is it true that the Muslim Brotherhood calls for civil war in Egypt as Press tv maintains?
If true, the Muslim Brotherhood is reinforcing that police state whose frightened population will now support a war on terror policy. If true, it means the Muslim Brotherhood is placing the goals of its organization - whatever they are - above the interests of Egyptians.
Posted by: somebody | Jul 8 2013 7:58 utc | 103
re propaganda - Muslim Brotherhood members should ask themselves if their leadership deserves their martyrdom for propaganda
Dina Amin Gad @DinaAminGad 3h
dear cute sweet sensitive foreign journalist, here is according to gov part of #mb 's weapons at the sit in #Egypt https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=543378479032993&set=a.184363571601154.35673.181163758587802&type=1&theater …
Retweetet von SciencePyramid
Öffnen
Adham AbdelSalam Adham AbdelSalam @AdhamNileFm 3h
TT #eyewitness @Mirna_elhelbawi: mosque is right in front of me... #MB hiding inside and absolutely no one from army attacked it #egypt
Retweetet von SciencePyramid
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SciencePyramid SciencePyramid @SciencePyramid 3h
We all suspect this deep down but too PC to openly say it: MB plans all along to tally up dead from its ranks to gain sympathy from West.
Öffnen
AhmadSarhanأحمدسرحان AhmadSarhanأحمدسرحان @Sarhan_ 3h
Brotherhood used women and children as human shield to ignite chaos. Their leaders should be arrested and tried for incitement to murder
Retweetet von SciencePyramid
Posted by: somebody | Jul 8 2013 8:12 utc | 104
Morsi's Ouster Influenced by Syria Developments - Qusayr Victor
'According to Egypt's leading journalist, Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, several Syria-linked factors contributed to Egyptian ex-President Mohamed Morsi's ouster. Those include the widening rift between ex-President Mohamed Morsi and Egyptian military commander-in-chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi due to Morsi's decision to completely cut off relations with Syria and his patronage of a conference where Wahhabi preachers declared that conducting Jihad in Syria is a duty. The other factor is related to the developments of the war in Syria, where the retake of the strategic town of Qusayr by the Syrian Army in addition to the protests in Turkey against Erdogan's government dealt a heavy blow to the Muslim Brotherhood as a regional organization.'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3qKCpTG9W4
Posted by: brian | Jul 8 2013 8:16 utc | 105
Robert Fisk asked "When is a military coup not a military coup? When it happens in Egypt, apparently."
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/when-is-coup-not-one.html
Posted by: brian | Jul 8 2013 8:23 utc | 106
brian
Pretty much its a coup when west dont support it.
somebody
So you were totally unaware that there would be violence, or did you know but still supported the coup regardless?
Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 8 2013 8:26 utc | 107
When right after the coup it wasn't clear which position the german media would support, now it's turning more and more into open support for the military and saudi salafi groups.
There's no activists or civilian protesters but "armed islamists" instead. Although some 50+ of them have been killed by now (how many army recruits in the same period?), nothing is heard of a "regime that has lost all legitimation" or that's "slaughtering its own people".
So if anything that's at least a hint at the cui bono. That does not necessarily mean that "the" or many egyptian people won't benefit, too.
(as always, i'm watching and evaluating only my (german) news coverage and not the actual situation in egypt, about which I know far too little)
Posted by: peter radiator | Jul 8 2013 8:48 utc | 108
Well, this could be a good chance to get rid of both the Army (leadership) and the MB.
They seem to pretty much deserve each other. The MB trying to force a civil war (they sound as a broken record: jihad! jihad! intifada! intifada!) and the trigger happy Army making a killing mess of any police action.
I assume that both were armed, of course one side much better armed, and prone to violence, so the best approach is to condemn both.
Posted by: ThePaper | Jul 8 2013 8:54 utc | 109
@Anon, ‘I’ see you get your rocks off on that, what martyrs don’t go both ways in your book - Where do you live again? This is rooted and a revenge attack from the Morsi Hoodies throwing a teen off roof tops spurred manic anger in Egypt. Where did we see this last, Oh, yeah Libya!
Hamada's fall — surfaced Saturday and quickly became the most talked-about footage of the political unrest in Egypt. Anti-Morsi demonstrators returned to Field Marshal Ahmed Ismail Street on Sunday chanting, "Down with the murderers of children!"
It’s tragic but it’s expected, also sectarian violence will have further impact. The Muslim Brotherhood has accused the Coptic hierarchy of being part of a conspiracy to remove their man from power, the classic, pick on a minority, since the outing of Mori, the body count is well beyond 16 just within the Coptic community. This was not the Military, but made to seem so on Aljazeera, they have been airing a one sided BH ranting with a BH spokesman, he did not talk much about the deaths, just BH’s right to be in power, revenge, continue to protest so the world can see, in fact sounds very much like the Syrian opposition, the guy could have written the script, the words flowed from his mouth- it was all political and BH, in fact he relished the fact these deaths occurred, much like Anon in her last post and grinning like a Kitty who got some cream, just displays the madness and the sickness in the ideological mayhem.
Posted by: kev | Jul 8 2013 8:57 utc | 110
42 mursi-supporters murdered by the military dictatorship.
http://presstv.com/detail/2013/07/08/312804/cairo-clashes-death-toll-rises-to-42/
Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 8 2013 9:01 utc | 111
US controlling both sides of Egypt coup: Michel Chossudovsky
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tepea42Iwhw
esp note 12.08: C says many sectios of opposition to Morsi are supported by US foundations
Posted by: brian | Jul 8 2013 9:09 utc | 112
Brian, that's Press TV. Look at their opinion columns. They're full of spectacular frauds like the Veterans Today people. I don't know why, but Press TV (in english at least) has succumbed to the sort of conspirological frenzy that I remember going through myself in 2002 to 2004 or so. It's so easy to do this: everything becomes just another example of the omnipotent reach of the puppet masters, which means there's nothing really that anyone can do. The synarchists control everything, all oppositions are fake, the 'hegelian strategy' is in full swing everywhere. I'm convinced that although of course there are people wired into the neo-liberal Western establishment, from Baradei downwards, the reason the Army staged the coup was that they damn well didn't want to become part of the global Jihadi movement. And that has put Washington in a very embarrassing position. McCain, typically, is saying that Obama has let our MB allies down shamefully by not somehow forbidding Sisi from deposing Morsi.
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Jul 8 2013 10:40 utc | 113
Posted by: Phoenix Woman | Jul 7, 2013 11:51:49 PM | 97
Since I never used the word "zionist' in my few comments I left here....
I know what you are all about
Troll
And likely one of the ones that have been filthing up my blog for months now
So you come here?
Here are all my comments filthy troll
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b "If, as you seem to insist, the U.S. was the power behind the coup please explain why."
b, seriously?
I am surprised
1.3 billion US dollars a year. military support for over 40 years now buys much loyalty in the Egyptian Army.
And the training of Egyptian Military officers in the finest US military academies and you ask if the US was the power behind the coup?
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Posted by: Penny | Jul 6, 2013 5:11:42 PM | 22
b "If, as you seem to insist, the U.S. was the power behind the coup please explain why."
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@Penny - you have a rather simplistic mechanical view on what motivates people - in this case the Egyptian army. People are more complicate than your analysis allows for.
Posted by: b | Jul 6, 2013 5:38:55 PM | 28
"simplistic mechanical view on what motivates people"
Wow!
I suppose you have it all figured out, right?
On what motivates people? Yes, that's it.
Tell me all about it....
Then while your at it, perhaps you could explain what would motivate you to be so broadly judgmental of my thoughts on any given subject
"you have a rather simplistic mechanical view on what motivates people"
Sounds like a judgement with a broad brush stroke.
Was it because I am questioning beliefs?
As opposed to rational analysis of a situation?
Don't shoot the messenger because you don't like the message
Refrain from ad hominems...
"Just two months ago, Secretary of State John Kerry approved $1.3 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Egypt – the second largest recipient of such help after Israel.
In the past, American aid to Egypt has included armored personnel carriers, helicopters, anti-aircraft missiles, surveillance systems, fighter jets and tanks, as well as training as the U.S. poured more than $70 billion in military and economic aid into Egypt since 1948.
On Wednesday, the same military ousted Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi"
And that is just the funding the US acknowledges on the books
As I mentioned here 1 billion dollars was transferred from Libya to Egypt also, just a short time ago
Which IMO is a NATO funding/under the table
Just the facts
Simplistic? Or obvious?
Posted by: Penny | Jul 6, 2013 7:09:19 PM | 35
1: a change in plans
2: The Arab Springs are indeed revamped colour revolutions
We have to always,always understand there is more then 1 plan for the elites to deal with any given situation.
Egypt, Libya, Syria. so forth and so on
There is a plan a, plan b, plan c, plan d etc
It is absurd to think the ptb's have one plan and that is it.
When the war planners plan wars they game several strategies, obviously
This is war. And the planners have several strategies on how to achieve success.
They are flexible.
The money thrown at the Egyptian military is obviously done to buy influence in the region. Influence is needed to maneuver pieces on the chess board to achieve a goal.
This should be pretty straight forward, obvious stuff to the commenters and readers here and yet...it's not and I do not understand why that is?
But, I will run a thought past you Lysander
Something I said about the power of a story
People love stories. They are wired that way.
A story holds power. And if the story has certain components in it, that people want to believe. They believe it
Some want to believe that the Egyptian people made this happen.
They didn't. They participated. They were drawn to it for good and legitimate reasons. But the strings were pulled by others..
The only way that people are going to get that which they desire is to work together outside of the corrupted system
Because a corrupt system and the global governmental NGO system is entirely corrupt is not made, wasn't created to serve the needs of the people
Hoping that is clear enough?
Posted by: Penny | Jul 7, 2013 9:06:09 AM | 82
and a quote for Toivos
Posted by: Penny | Jul 7, 2013 9:38:38 AM | 83
Not once did the word zionist get a mention
So, your intention is clear.
Along with "crest" making you one and the seem or a team of trolls?
Building a strawman to tear down
goody for you
ad hominens are all you got.
Loser
Not once did the word zionist get a mention
So, your intention is clear.
Along with "crest" making you one and the same or a team of trolls?
Building a strawman to tear down
goody for you
ad hominens are all you got.
Loser
The US pays the Egyptian Army to protect Israel's south-western approaches. But this long-standing arrangement has come into contradiction with the runaway global Jihad sponsored by the CIA and SOCOM. I believe that the latter, the runaway Jihad, has now hit the buffers, because the idea of a Jihadi Egypt is intolerable to Israel. Therefore, Obama is being forced to countermand previous findings authorising Jihadi build-ups all over the place. The Egyptian Army simply refused to become part of the Jihadi drive, which is what Morsi was pushing for, at least to the extent that he required the Army to turn a blind eye to Jihadi training, funding and dispatch. At the same time, it seems possible or even probable, now I think about it, that Sisi got on to the Israeli equivalent of the US National Security Council beforehand and said, "Is this US global Jihadi thing really OK with you? because it is going to make the Gaza border impossible to control." And the Israelis said, "You're right, good and faithful Brigader-General, thank you for asking us. Let's put a stop to it, you have our blessing to do so."
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Jul 8 2013 12:33 utc | 116
The comments to this entry are closed.
US continue to support the coup.
http://presstv.com/usdetail/312781.html
Another blowback in the making.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 8 2013 6:31 utc | 101