MideastAnalysis.com
Anchor Fergus Nicoll cited MideastAnalysis.com this morning on the BBC World Service's The World Today program. The reference came during his interview with Dr. Nadeem Shehadeh of Chatham House - approximately 3:40 into the following clip.
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Waiting Anxiously for Friday Morning 03/02/2011
It will be dawn in Cairo soon, and even from a distance of 6000 miles I am seized with a deep sense of foreboding.
When I lived in Cairo I quickly learned that an element of every trip home to the United States was answering the question: “what kind of government do they have over there?”
My stock answer to this was: “a military dictatorship, but a relatively benign one as these things go.” It was not, I’d explain, Pinochet’s Chile, Argentina under the colonels or Saddam’s Iraq – an all-encompassing terror state. The government wasn’t nice, but it did not engage in brutality on that scale.
Now, I’m not so sure. Anyone who has known Egypt over the last two decades will tell you that the country has seen an authoritarian drift over the past ten or 15 years. Max Rodenbeck wrote of this trend more than a dozen years ago in the final pages of his excellent book Cairo: The City Victorious, when he considered, with obvious disappointment, a city that had become harder-edged than the one he had known for so many years.
It retrospect it may simply be that what, until now, separated Mubarak from his more notorious dictatorial brethren is that he has managed to go nearly 30 years without having to really put his foot down.
I keep telling myself that this is not the Egypt I know. Then, however, I remind myself that in some ways, actually, it is. Way back in 1994 two journalist friends and I went to Cairo’s newly built 100,000-seat soccer stadium to watch a World Cup qualifier between Egypt and Zimbabwe. Entering the stadium we noted with some interest that it was surrounded by seven, yes seven, security fences. “Well,” one of my colleagues remarked, “now we know what they plan to do with all the fundis (i.e. Islamic fundamentalists) when the uprising comes.”
As for the nationalistic paranoia the government has unleashed against foreign journalists and human rights workers, that, too, has been a fixture of Egyptian life for decades. Foreign journalists working in Egypt (and most of the rest of the Middle East) long ago accustomed ourselves to the idea that pretty much everyone we met assumed us to be spies. Journalists and spies, after all, do many of the same things: they gather information, ask questions, cultivate confidences. Human rights activists, if anything, were worse. From a government perspective do they have any purpose at all except to embarrass the country? Looked at this way it is not hard to see how the Mubarak regime has been able today to convince its thugs that journalists and human rights workers are among the most important enemies who need to be rooted out in the name of preserving Egypt’s stability.
It may even be that Mubarak and his Vice President-cum-intelligence chief Omar Suleiman believe much of the rhetoric they have been spouting about foreign elements plotting to undermine the stability of the state. Especially since their seeming belief that nasty foreigners are out to get them dovetails nicely with what they seem to want to do: make sure that prying foreign eyes are removed from Tahrir Square and its surroundings before the final confrontation. Mubarak has never been especially good at international PR, but he is smart enough to know that a crackdown televised live around the world will be very bad for him on many, many levels.
Friday feels like an historic day, one likely to determine the balance of power and, with it, the eventual course of this uprising. The question that remains to be answered concerns the army and where its ultimate loyalties lie. I have been saying for several days that the generals around Mubarak are loyal to him, but have a deeper loyalty to the institution of the military. When they believe Mubarak has become too much of a liability, they will force him out. I still believe that, but stand corrected concerning how much latitude they have been willing to give him to solve things the old fashioned way – with the street thugs the regime has used for decades (albeit on a much smaller scale). The government clearly wants whatever happens Friday to take place without pesky reporters and cameras around to record it. Even with the violence of the last 24 hours, however, that is likely to prove far more difficult than they imagine.
What none of us on the outside can know is how the army’s own internal dynamics may factor into this. The U.S. State Department was telling journalists earlier today that in standing by as the violence swelled around them Wednesday and Thursday the army had, in effect, made a choice. On one level, that is certainly true. But it may also be that the generals around Mubarak are less than completely sure the captains and majors commanding those tanks in Tahrir Square will obey an order to crush the protests.
I suspect we will have a better sense of all these questions by the time the sun goes down tomorrow.
When I lived in Cairo I quickly learned that an element of every trip home to the United States was answering the question: “what kind of government do they have over there?”
My stock answer to this was: “a military dictatorship, but a relatively benign one as these things go.” It was not, I’d explain, Pinochet’s Chile, Argentina under the colonels or Saddam’s Iraq – an all-encompassing terror state. The government wasn’t nice, but it did not engage in brutality on that scale.
Now, I’m not so sure. Anyone who has known Egypt over the last two decades will tell you that the country has seen an authoritarian drift over the past ten or 15 years. Max Rodenbeck wrote of this trend more than a dozen years ago in the final pages of his excellent book Cairo: The City Victorious, when he considered, with obvious disappointment, a city that had become harder-edged than the one he had known for so many years.
It retrospect it may simply be that what, until now, separated Mubarak from his more notorious dictatorial brethren is that he has managed to go nearly 30 years without having to really put his foot down.
I keep telling myself that this is not the Egypt I know. Then, however, I remind myself that in some ways, actually, it is. Way back in 1994 two journalist friends and I went to Cairo’s newly built 100,000-seat soccer stadium to watch a World Cup qualifier between Egypt and Zimbabwe. Entering the stadium we noted with some interest that it was surrounded by seven, yes seven, security fences. “Well,” one of my colleagues remarked, “now we know what they plan to do with all the fundis (i.e. Islamic fundamentalists) when the uprising comes.”
As for the nationalistic paranoia the government has unleashed against foreign journalists and human rights workers, that, too, has been a fixture of Egyptian life for decades. Foreign journalists working in Egypt (and most of the rest of the Middle East) long ago accustomed ourselves to the idea that pretty much everyone we met assumed us to be spies. Journalists and spies, after all, do many of the same things: they gather information, ask questions, cultivate confidences. Human rights activists, if anything, were worse. From a government perspective do they have any purpose at all except to embarrass the country? Looked at this way it is not hard to see how the Mubarak regime has been able today to convince its thugs that journalists and human rights workers are among the most important enemies who need to be rooted out in the name of preserving Egypt’s stability.
It may even be that Mubarak and his Vice President-cum-intelligence chief Omar Suleiman believe much of the rhetoric they have been spouting about foreign elements plotting to undermine the stability of the state. Especially since their seeming belief that nasty foreigners are out to get them dovetails nicely with what they seem to want to do: make sure that prying foreign eyes are removed from Tahrir Square and its surroundings before the final confrontation. Mubarak has never been especially good at international PR, but he is smart enough to know that a crackdown televised live around the world will be very bad for him on many, many levels.
Friday feels like an historic day, one likely to determine the balance of power and, with it, the eventual course of this uprising. The question that remains to be answered concerns the army and where its ultimate loyalties lie. I have been saying for several days that the generals around Mubarak are loyal to him, but have a deeper loyalty to the institution of the military. When they believe Mubarak has become too much of a liability, they will force him out. I still believe that, but stand corrected concerning how much latitude they have been willing to give him to solve things the old fashioned way – with the street thugs the regime has used for decades (albeit on a much smaller scale). The government clearly wants whatever happens Friday to take place without pesky reporters and cameras around to record it. Even with the violence of the last 24 hours, however, that is likely to prove far more difficult than they imagine.
What none of us on the outside can know is how the army’s own internal dynamics may factor into this. The U.S. State Department was telling journalists earlier today that in standing by as the violence swelled around them Wednesday and Thursday the army had, in effect, made a choice. On one level, that is certainly true. But it may also be that the generals around Mubarak are less than completely sure the captains and majors commanding those tanks in Tahrir Square will obey an order to crush the protests.
I suspect we will have a better sense of all these questions by the time the sun goes down tomorrow.
Mubarak has just finished speaking. His remarks were more or less as predicted.
Saying "I never wanted power or prestige" he said. He continued:
"I will say in all honesty, and without looking at this particular situation, that I was not intent on standing for the next elections because I have spent enough time serving Egypt, and I am now careful to conclude my work for Egypt by presenting Egypt to the next government in a constitutional way that will protect Egypt."
The key bit may, however, have been the first part of the speech, where Mubarak charged that the protests, while legitimate in their origins, have been hijacked "by those who wanted to exploit the situation to create chaos and destroy the constitution." The message here is that Mubarak does not believe that the demonstrators in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities are truly representative of the Egyptian public.
That conclusion on his part makes his bottom line unsurprising: Mubarak intends to stay and serve out his term. He called for democratic reforms and changes to the constitution, but indicated that he plans to be the person who oversees these between now and the fall.
Will this be enough? We should have a better sense in 24 hours or so, but it is worth noting that CNN is reporting that the crowd in Tahrir, after watching the speech on a giant TV, began chanting "We're not leaving."
Saying "I never wanted power or prestige" he said. He continued:
"I will say in all honesty, and without looking at this particular situation, that I was not intent on standing for the next elections because I have spent enough time serving Egypt, and I am now careful to conclude my work for Egypt by presenting Egypt to the next government in a constitutional way that will protect Egypt."
The key bit may, however, have been the first part of the speech, where Mubarak charged that the protests, while legitimate in their origins, have been hijacked "by those who wanted to exploit the situation to create chaos and destroy the constitution." The message here is that Mubarak does not believe that the demonstrators in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities are truly representative of the Egyptian public.
That conclusion on his part makes his bottom line unsurprising: Mubarak intends to stay and serve out his term. He called for democratic reforms and changes to the constitution, but indicated that he plans to be the person who oversees these between now and the fall.
Will this be enough? We should have a better sense in 24 hours or so, but it is worth noting that CNN is reporting that the crowd in Tahrir, after watching the speech on a giant TV, began chanting "We're not leaving."
Mubarak Reportedly to Make TV Address Soon 01/02/2011
CNN, citing the Dubai-based satellite news channel Al-Arabiyya, is reporting that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will make a televised address this evening (it is currently about 930p in Cairo, so, presumably that means some time in the next 3-4 hours).
Al-Arabiyya is also reporting, according to CNN, that Mubarak will announce that he will not run for a new six-year term in the presidential election scheduled to take place this September.
There are a couple of quick things that should be said here:
First, while Al-Arabiyya has historically been one of the more reliable Arab satellite channels I would not take this as a given. There are a lot of rumors flying about, and even the best vetting system can let something through. I have no access to Al-Arabiyya and, so, no way to judge the report on my own, so I can't offer any opinion on the solidity or lack thereof of Al-Arabiyya's sourcing. (LATE UPDATE: Al-Jazeera English is also carrying the story - though without sourcing at all... which makes me think they are just picking it up from Al-Arabiyya via Reuters... i.e. a self-reinforcing loop, not independent confirmation).
Assuming, however, for the sake of argument, that this report is accurate I would not count on it changing the attitudes of many of the people out in Tahrir Square tonight. Mubarak is 82. Until last week the only political question of consequence in Egypt was whether he was going to run in September or pass the presidency on to his son Gamal. I think we can all agree that Gamal's chances of inheriting the presidency are now close to nil, but if Mubarak thinks these ever-larger crowds will be mollified by a promise to step aside in eight months I suspect he is sorely mistaken. Two weeks ago that might have looked like an act of dictatorial statesmanship. Five days ago it might have taken the steam out of the demonstrations. But based on what we are seeing now, I simply can't see how that is going to work.
It bears repeating: the generals around Mubarak are loyal to him. But they have a deeper loyalty to the institution of the military. They will keep Mubarak - one of their own - in power for as long as they can, but they will not risk the military's position as the final arbiter of Egyptian politics and power to protect Mubarak.
By publicly refusing to honor any order to fire on the demonstrators the Army has preemptively closed off many of Mubarak's options even as it has strengthened its own hand.
If Mubarak does offer to step aside this fall and that does not quiet the protests it will become much easier for the military to ease him from the public stage.
Al-Arabiyya is also reporting, according to CNN, that Mubarak will announce that he will not run for a new six-year term in the presidential election scheduled to take place this September.
There are a couple of quick things that should be said here:
First, while Al-Arabiyya has historically been one of the more reliable Arab satellite channels I would not take this as a given. There are a lot of rumors flying about, and even the best vetting system can let something through. I have no access to Al-Arabiyya and, so, no way to judge the report on my own, so I can't offer any opinion on the solidity or lack thereof of Al-Arabiyya's sourcing. (LATE UPDATE: Al-Jazeera English is also carrying the story - though without sourcing at all... which makes me think they are just picking it up from Al-Arabiyya via Reuters... i.e. a self-reinforcing loop, not independent confirmation).
Assuming, however, for the sake of argument, that this report is accurate I would not count on it changing the attitudes of many of the people out in Tahrir Square tonight. Mubarak is 82. Until last week the only political question of consequence in Egypt was whether he was going to run in September or pass the presidency on to his son Gamal. I think we can all agree that Gamal's chances of inheriting the presidency are now close to nil, but if Mubarak thinks these ever-larger crowds will be mollified by a promise to step aside in eight months I suspect he is sorely mistaken. Two weeks ago that might have looked like an act of dictatorial statesmanship. Five days ago it might have taken the steam out of the demonstrations. But based on what we are seeing now, I simply can't see how that is going to work.
It bears repeating: the generals around Mubarak are loyal to him. But they have a deeper loyalty to the institution of the military. They will keep Mubarak - one of their own - in power for as long as they can, but they will not risk the military's position as the final arbiter of Egyptian politics and power to protect Mubarak.
By publicly refusing to honor any order to fire on the demonstrators the Army has preemptively closed off many of Mubarak's options even as it has strengthened its own hand.
If Mubarak does offer to step aside this fall and that does not quiet the protests it will become much easier for the military to ease him from the public stage.
Mubarak has unveiled his new cabinet. According to AFP, the line-up was announced on state television a short time ago. Not surprisingly Defense Minister Mohammed Tantawi has kept his job, as has Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit. What is significant is how little has changed: among key posts the only people to be replaced were the interior and finance ministers.
AFP describes the outgoing interior minister, Habib Al-Adly, as "widely hated" - to which I can only say, 'so what else is new?' Over the years Egyptian interior ministers, who are in charge of the police, have proven to be pretty much interchangable. They tend to be slightly thuggish, invariably unpopular figures and almost always end their careers as scapegoats during a cabinet reshuffle. Dumping an interior minister has traditionally been a safety valve for Mubarak - there's always a sigh of relief when one goes, even though everyone knows the new guy is going to be pretty much the same as his predecessor.
Finance ministers, too, have traditionally been the people Mubarak throws out when he wants to show he is 'hearing the People's voice.' The problem, of course, is that this time the People are not complaining about an austerity program pushed by foreign donors or a new agreement with the IMF - the traditional sort of things that turn an Egyptian finance minister into the fall guy. The protesters in the streets of Cairo are complaining about the entire system of government
In an odd side note Mubarak also dumped longtime Culture Minister Farouk Hosni. If that name vaguely rings a bell it is because Hosni, last year, narrowly lost his bid to become head of UNESCO after international attention began to focus on his tendency to pander to anti-Semites in the Egyptian parliament (he famously promised to burn every Israeli book in the Egypt's libraries). I'm no fan of Farouk Hosni, but at this moment is this really where Mubarak ought to be directing his attention?
What does the new cabinet mean? At best, it indicates how profoundly divorced from reality Mubarak now is: that he fails to understand that what is happening in his country is fundamentally different from anything he has ever faced. Again, that is the best case scenario. The other - and, I fear, more likely - explanation is that Mubarak is sending a signal that he intends to dig in and fight. If so, that will be bad news for everyone.
AFP describes the outgoing interior minister, Habib Al-Adly, as "widely hated" - to which I can only say, 'so what else is new?' Over the years Egyptian interior ministers, who are in charge of the police, have proven to be pretty much interchangable. They tend to be slightly thuggish, invariably unpopular figures and almost always end their careers as scapegoats during a cabinet reshuffle. Dumping an interior minister has traditionally been a safety valve for Mubarak - there's always a sigh of relief when one goes, even though everyone knows the new guy is going to be pretty much the same as his predecessor.
Finance ministers, too, have traditionally been the people Mubarak throws out when he wants to show he is 'hearing the People's voice.' The problem, of course, is that this time the People are not complaining about an austerity program pushed by foreign donors or a new agreement with the IMF - the traditional sort of things that turn an Egyptian finance minister into the fall guy. The protesters in the streets of Cairo are complaining about the entire system of government
In an odd side note Mubarak also dumped longtime Culture Minister Farouk Hosni. If that name vaguely rings a bell it is because Hosni, last year, narrowly lost his bid to become head of UNESCO after international attention began to focus on his tendency to pander to anti-Semites in the Egyptian parliament (he famously promised to burn every Israeli book in the Egypt's libraries). I'm no fan of Farouk Hosni, but at this moment is this really where Mubarak ought to be directing his attention?
What does the new cabinet mean? At best, it indicates how profoundly divorced from reality Mubarak now is: that he fails to understand that what is happening in his country is fundamentally different from anything he has ever faced. Again, that is the best case scenario. The other - and, I fear, more likely - explanation is that Mubarak is sending a signal that he intends to dig in and fight. If so, that will be bad news for everyone.
The Conspiracy theory of the moment is that the looters and thugs terrorizing nighttime Cairo and Alexandria are agents of the regime – police and internal security men in plain clothes who are spreading terror and chaos in an effort to panic people into wanting a military crackdown to restore order.
I have long been wary of Middle Eastern conspiracy theories, but this one seems more plausible than most. For decades Mubarak has justified his heavy-handed rule by claiming that the only alternative to his regime is chaos leading, eventually, to an Iranian-style theocracy. Is it so difficult to believe that he may have decided to make Egyptians stare into the abyss before offering them the choice between the devil they know and the one they don’t? The evidence is anecdotal, but it is far more than mere rumor: neighborhood patrols are capturing would-be looters and saboteurs and discovering that some carry police or security service IDs.
That said, there are other possible explanations for what is happening. Looting, after all, may just be… looting. Cairo certainly has its share of criminals, and the withdrawal of police from the city’s streets was bound to bring out looters. Note that this theory implies only that the government is not actively abetting the breakdown of civil order – it does not mean that they aren’t hoping to take advantage of it.
The regime may be organizing the looting. It may be standing idly by and allowing it to take place. There is also, however, a third option: that the regime wants to assert control but finds itself frozen in place.
Egypt is a remarkably centralized state, one in which even relatively minor decisions get passed all the way up to a cabinet minister, or even the president. This is partly because its bureaucratic culture discourages officials from taking any action for which they might be held responsible. It is also partly because that is simply the way things have always been done – not just under Mubarak and his predecessors but under the monarchy, the British, the French, the Ottomans and, if you believe local lore, pretty much all the way back to the Pharaohs.
According to this theory the entire security apparatus, starting with the army, may be waiting for Mubarak to tell them what to do while Mubarak himself is paralyzed with indecision. When I lived in Cairo, in the 80s and 90s, American embassy officials would, in private conversation, express general satisfaction with Mubarak as an ally with a single caveat: he was not, they said, good in a fast-moving crisis.
There were two occasions during his first decade in power when such crises presented themselves: the 1985 hijacking of the cruise liner Achille Lauro (which found Mubarak caught between his American patrons and Palestinian militants who enjoyed enormous support among his people), and Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 (in which the question was how – or whether – to confront Iraq’s aggression).
On both occasions, American officials would say privately, when presented with difficult and unpopular decisions that needed to be made quickly he simply froze up. In both cases, they’d say, he eventually did more or less the right thing, but he practically had to be shoved into it.
Since then no comparable situation has really presented itself. The Mubarak regime’s war with Islamist militants unspooled over a period of years in the 90s. There were many brutal and violent moments, and there were tough decisions to make, but the situation never required minute-to-minute crisis management. The opposition Kefaya movement’s protests in 2005 and the later April 6 Movement protests (which first took shape in 2008) were nothing that ever really worried the regime. They were an annoyance, but never really threatened its stability.
Today, that is not the case. For all of the personality cult that has grown up around him in recent years, Mubarak is an inherently cautious man. Time and again he has indicated that the lesson he took away from Sadat’s final years (when the man the West still remembers as a great peacemaker was openly reviled on Cairo’s streets) and eventual assassination was that getting out ahead of public opinion carries great risks and offers mostly trouble in return.
So as the aging dictator watches the violence unfold around him he may, indeed, be the great puppet master. But it seems just as plausible to me that he is overwhelmed: too terrified to do anything, for fear that whatever choice he makes might turn out to be wrong.
The irony is that things have reached a point where neither of these scenarios offers much hope of keeping him in power. As Mohammed El-Baradei suggested in interviews today, the best favor Mubarak can now do the nation, and himself, is to depart in an orderly manner while maintaining some shred of dignity. I fear, however, that that choice, too, may be too much this for this Pharaoh who is paradoxically brutal in his methods, yet cautious to a fault.
I have long been wary of Middle Eastern conspiracy theories, but this one seems more plausible than most. For decades Mubarak has justified his heavy-handed rule by claiming that the only alternative to his regime is chaos leading, eventually, to an Iranian-style theocracy. Is it so difficult to believe that he may have decided to make Egyptians stare into the abyss before offering them the choice between the devil they know and the one they don’t? The evidence is anecdotal, but it is far more than mere rumor: neighborhood patrols are capturing would-be looters and saboteurs and discovering that some carry police or security service IDs.
That said, there are other possible explanations for what is happening. Looting, after all, may just be… looting. Cairo certainly has its share of criminals, and the withdrawal of police from the city’s streets was bound to bring out looters. Note that this theory implies only that the government is not actively abetting the breakdown of civil order – it does not mean that they aren’t hoping to take advantage of it.
The regime may be organizing the looting. It may be standing idly by and allowing it to take place. There is also, however, a third option: that the regime wants to assert control but finds itself frozen in place.
Egypt is a remarkably centralized state, one in which even relatively minor decisions get passed all the way up to a cabinet minister, or even the president. This is partly because its bureaucratic culture discourages officials from taking any action for which they might be held responsible. It is also partly because that is simply the way things have always been done – not just under Mubarak and his predecessors but under the monarchy, the British, the French, the Ottomans and, if you believe local lore, pretty much all the way back to the Pharaohs.
According to this theory the entire security apparatus, starting with the army, may be waiting for Mubarak to tell them what to do while Mubarak himself is paralyzed with indecision. When I lived in Cairo, in the 80s and 90s, American embassy officials would, in private conversation, express general satisfaction with Mubarak as an ally with a single caveat: he was not, they said, good in a fast-moving crisis.
There were two occasions during his first decade in power when such crises presented themselves: the 1985 hijacking of the cruise liner Achille Lauro (which found Mubarak caught between his American patrons and Palestinian militants who enjoyed enormous support among his people), and Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 (in which the question was how – or whether – to confront Iraq’s aggression).
On both occasions, American officials would say privately, when presented with difficult and unpopular decisions that needed to be made quickly he simply froze up. In both cases, they’d say, he eventually did more or less the right thing, but he practically had to be shoved into it.
Since then no comparable situation has really presented itself. The Mubarak regime’s war with Islamist militants unspooled over a period of years in the 90s. There were many brutal and violent moments, and there were tough decisions to make, but the situation never required minute-to-minute crisis management. The opposition Kefaya movement’s protests in 2005 and the later April 6 Movement protests (which first took shape in 2008) were nothing that ever really worried the regime. They were an annoyance, but never really threatened its stability.
Today, that is not the case. For all of the personality cult that has grown up around him in recent years, Mubarak is an inherently cautious man. Time and again he has indicated that the lesson he took away from Sadat’s final years (when the man the West still remembers as a great peacemaker was openly reviled on Cairo’s streets) and eventual assassination was that getting out ahead of public opinion carries great risks and offers mostly trouble in return.
So as the aging dictator watches the violence unfold around him he may, indeed, be the great puppet master. But it seems just as plausible to me that he is overwhelmed: too terrified to do anything, for fear that whatever choice he makes might turn out to be wrong.
The irony is that things have reached a point where neither of these scenarios offers much hope of keeping him in power. As Mohammed El-Baradei suggested in interviews today, the best favor Mubarak can now do the nation, and himself, is to depart in an orderly manner while maintaining some shred of dignity. I fear, however, that that choice, too, may be too much this for this Pharaoh who is paradoxically brutal in his methods, yet cautious to a fault.
Suleiman, a "Credible Successor"? 29/01/2011
Ben Wedeman reported on CNN a short time ago that “a source familiar with the thinking of Egypt’s ruling party” (interestingly vague bit of sourcing, that) tells him Suleiman's appointment ensures that a credible (from the military's perspective) successor is in place should Mubarak need to go. That makes sense to me.
This ties into the bigger point I've tried to make over the last two days: Egypt’s military is an independent, free-standing organization and it holds ultimate authority in the country. Mubarak, in effect, heads that organization. His peers (the generals) are loyal to him, but have a deeper loyalty to the institution. They won't abandon him lightly, but will not hesitate to do so if they believe they must.
This ties into the bigger point I've tried to make over the last two days: Egypt’s military is an independent, free-standing organization and it holds ultimate authority in the country. Mubarak, in effect, heads that organization. His peers (the generals) are loyal to him, but have a deeper loyalty to the institution. They won't abandon him lightly, but will not hesitate to do so if they believe they must.
What Omar Suleiman’s Appointment as VP Means 29/01/2011
Imagine that sometime in 2007 turmoil had gripped Washington. Tens – perhaps hundreds – of thousands of people rallied in the city packing the streets from the Capitol to the White House. Late one evening George W. Bush goes on TV, announcing that he has heard the people speak. Stability is the first priority, he says, but he acknowledges that real change is also necessary. Bush then announces that he is firing the entire cabinet. The next morning, with great fanfare, he begins the process of reform and rebuilding public trust by appointing a new chief of staff: Karl Rove.
Broadly speaking, this is what has happened in Cairo this morning. And just as the elevation of a trusted insider would not have done much to save a collapsing George W. Bush presidency in the situation I’ve just imagined, so the appointment of Omar Suleiman as Egypt’s new vice president can be seen mainly as a sign of how far removed Hosni Mubarak has become from what is happening in Cairo’s streets.
Put another way, Suleiman’s appointment is an indication that appeasing the protestors is not particularly high on Mubarak’s priority list. “Omar Suleiman in many ways is Hosni Mubarak’s comfort zone,” as Jon Alterman of CSIS aptly put it this morning on CNN.
Suleiman is Mubarak’s long-time intelligence chief. He is well-known in official Washington and among security officials and spymasters around the region. Among journalists, he is one of those shadowy, powerful figures of whom everyone has heard but whom practically no one has met. He is Egypt’s first vice president since Mubarak himself held the job back in 1981. Egypt’s constitution allows the President to appoint a Vice President, but Mubarak has always refused to do so, saying on more than one occasion that in all its history Egypt has had only one vice president who was loyal to his leader, and that VP’s name was “Mubarak”.
In a small but telling gesture, the official video of Sulieman being sworn-in that ran on Egyptian TV showed him wearing a coat and tie. When he finished taking his oath, however, he straightened up and saluted the President. Shortly thereafter it was announced that the new Prime Minister will be Ahmed Shafiq – like Mubarak himself a career Air Force officer who is now nominally a civilian (he has been serving as Minister of Civil Aviation). Sulieman and Shafiq’s appointments are both reminders that the military are Egypt’s real rulers, as they have been since Nasser and the Free Officers overthrew King Farouk in 1952. Faced with the first real threat to his power in decades, Air Vice Marshall Mubarak is surrounding himself with the only people he believes he can really trust: other senior military officers. That may be logical, from his perspective, but it indicates a worrisome degree of detachment from what is happening out in the streets.
Mubarak’s speech last night was very revealing. It indicated that he believes the uprising to be unrepresentative of society’s true attitudes (on MSNBC Chris Matthews likened it to Richard Nixon’s 1969 “silent majority” speech on Vietnam – a comparison I found surprisingly apt). It was mainly a law and order speech and, perhaps inevitably, tipped over into conspiracy-mongering. Mubarak referred to the protests as “part of a bigger plot” (he did not say by whom) to undermine Egypt’s stability, and seemed to indicate that security is his top priority. “I will not shy away from taking any decision that maintains the security of every Egyptian,” he said.
The parts of the speech that promised reform were also telling, albeit in a fairly disappointing way. Yes, he spoke of economic progress, democracy and political openness. But he did so using pretty much the same language I’ve heard him use in every speech since I first moved to Cairo in 1988. What Egyptian, listening to last night’s appearance, could honestly believe that anything is about to change?
If one were inclined to give Mubarak the benefit of the doubt just now, the most charitable thing to say would be that he apparently feels underappreciated. Don’t all those people out in the street know how hard he works for the People? There was a self-pitying bit near the beginning where he sought to remind everyone that he has given his life to public service.
Watching the pictures from Cairo and Alexandria, however, it is hard to imagine many people seeing things that way, or giving President Mubarak the benefit of the doubt just now.
Broadly speaking, this is what has happened in Cairo this morning. And just as the elevation of a trusted insider would not have done much to save a collapsing George W. Bush presidency in the situation I’ve just imagined, so the appointment of Omar Suleiman as Egypt’s new vice president can be seen mainly as a sign of how far removed Hosni Mubarak has become from what is happening in Cairo’s streets.
Put another way, Suleiman’s appointment is an indication that appeasing the protestors is not particularly high on Mubarak’s priority list. “Omar Suleiman in many ways is Hosni Mubarak’s comfort zone,” as Jon Alterman of CSIS aptly put it this morning on CNN.
Suleiman is Mubarak’s long-time intelligence chief. He is well-known in official Washington and among security officials and spymasters around the region. Among journalists, he is one of those shadowy, powerful figures of whom everyone has heard but whom practically no one has met. He is Egypt’s first vice president since Mubarak himself held the job back in 1981. Egypt’s constitution allows the President to appoint a Vice President, but Mubarak has always refused to do so, saying on more than one occasion that in all its history Egypt has had only one vice president who was loyal to his leader, and that VP’s name was “Mubarak”.
In a small but telling gesture, the official video of Sulieman being sworn-in that ran on Egyptian TV showed him wearing a coat and tie. When he finished taking his oath, however, he straightened up and saluted the President. Shortly thereafter it was announced that the new Prime Minister will be Ahmed Shafiq – like Mubarak himself a career Air Force officer who is now nominally a civilian (he has been serving as Minister of Civil Aviation). Sulieman and Shafiq’s appointments are both reminders that the military are Egypt’s real rulers, as they have been since Nasser and the Free Officers overthrew King Farouk in 1952. Faced with the first real threat to his power in decades, Air Vice Marshall Mubarak is surrounding himself with the only people he believes he can really trust: other senior military officers. That may be logical, from his perspective, but it indicates a worrisome degree of detachment from what is happening out in the streets.
Mubarak’s speech last night was very revealing. It indicated that he believes the uprising to be unrepresentative of society’s true attitudes (on MSNBC Chris Matthews likened it to Richard Nixon’s 1969 “silent majority” speech on Vietnam – a comparison I found surprisingly apt). It was mainly a law and order speech and, perhaps inevitably, tipped over into conspiracy-mongering. Mubarak referred to the protests as “part of a bigger plot” (he did not say by whom) to undermine Egypt’s stability, and seemed to indicate that security is his top priority. “I will not shy away from taking any decision that maintains the security of every Egyptian,” he said.
The parts of the speech that promised reform were also telling, albeit in a fairly disappointing way. Yes, he spoke of economic progress, democracy and political openness. But he did so using pretty much the same language I’ve heard him use in every speech since I first moved to Cairo in 1988. What Egyptian, listening to last night’s appearance, could honestly believe that anything is about to change?
If one were inclined to give Mubarak the benefit of the doubt just now, the most charitable thing to say would be that he apparently feels underappreciated. Don’t all those people out in the street know how hard he works for the People? There was a self-pitying bit near the beginning where he sought to remind everyone that he has given his life to public service.
Watching the pictures from Cairo and Alexandria, however, it is hard to imagine many people seeing things that way, or giving President Mubarak the benefit of the doubt just now.
Watching Egypt - Thoughts on the Military 28/01/2011
Events are moving very quickly in Cairo and it would be pointless to say anything definitive at this moment. Watching the uprising unfold on the streets of Cairo, Alexandria, Suez (and reportedly, away from TV cameras, in places like Minya and Asyut) it is important, I think, to put the role of the Egyptian military in context.
I have been hearing a lot of people speculate over the last few hours about the possibility of a military “take-over” in Egypt. These commentators miss a key point: the military already runs Egypt, and has done so since 1952 when the Free Officers, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, overthrew the country’s monarchy.
Under Nasser and Sadat (1952–1981) this was obvious. Army officers were the face of Nasser’s regime. This changed a bit under Sadat (particularly in the later years of his rule), but mainly in a cosmetic way. There might be more men in suits representing the country and running its ministries than had been the case under Nasser, but everyone understood that senior civilians took these leading roles only because the military found it convenient to let them do so.
Sadat himself (one of the original Free Officers) appeared publicly as a military man or a civilian according to whatever he thought the occasion required. When he was was assassinated on 6 October 1981 he was wearing his Field Marshall’s uniform as he reviewed a military parade. As the shots were fired his vice president – Hosni Mubarak – stood a few steps away wearing his own Air Vice Marshall’s uniform (i.e. head of the Air Force).
Mubarak was lightly wounded in that attack and formally became president a week later. It is to Mubarak’s credit that he has not been seen in uniform since that day on the reviewing stand, but the point is that he did not have to be. Everyone in the military knows that Mubarak is one of them.
Under Mubarak the military has retreated to the background. Civilians have long occupied all cabinet positions except the defense ministry. Technocrats run places like the electricity ministry while the foreign ministry and the internal security services are self-perpetuating bureaucracies drawn from particular strata of society (the well-educated middle class in the latter case, the old-money elite in the former).
But all of this takes place at the military’s sufferance. The military allows Mubarak to run things this way partly because they rightly see him as one of their own – and, thus, as someone who will keep the military’s interests foremost in his mind – and partly because their experience under Nasser and Sadat led Egypt’s soldiers to conclude that giving civilians nominal power within a system where they set the parameters was a far more efficient way to run things.
As a result, Egypt is not a military dictatorship in the sense that, say, Burma is today or that many Latin American countries were in the 1970s. But make no mistake, from behind the scenes it is run by its generals. They have trusted Mubarak and supported him for three decades because he is one of them. Should they decide to move him aside that will constitute an internal reshuffling, not a coup.
I have been hearing a lot of people speculate over the last few hours about the possibility of a military “take-over” in Egypt. These commentators miss a key point: the military already runs Egypt, and has done so since 1952 when the Free Officers, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, overthrew the country’s monarchy.
Under Nasser and Sadat (1952–1981) this was obvious. Army officers were the face of Nasser’s regime. This changed a bit under Sadat (particularly in the later years of his rule), but mainly in a cosmetic way. There might be more men in suits representing the country and running its ministries than had been the case under Nasser, but everyone understood that senior civilians took these leading roles only because the military found it convenient to let them do so.
Sadat himself (one of the original Free Officers) appeared publicly as a military man or a civilian according to whatever he thought the occasion required. When he was was assassinated on 6 October 1981 he was wearing his Field Marshall’s uniform as he reviewed a military parade. As the shots were fired his vice president – Hosni Mubarak – stood a few steps away wearing his own Air Vice Marshall’s uniform (i.e. head of the Air Force).
Mubarak was lightly wounded in that attack and formally became president a week later. It is to Mubarak’s credit that he has not been seen in uniform since that day on the reviewing stand, but the point is that he did not have to be. Everyone in the military knows that Mubarak is one of them.
Under Mubarak the military has retreated to the background. Civilians have long occupied all cabinet positions except the defense ministry. Technocrats run places like the electricity ministry while the foreign ministry and the internal security services are self-perpetuating bureaucracies drawn from particular strata of society (the well-educated middle class in the latter case, the old-money elite in the former).
But all of this takes place at the military’s sufferance. The military allows Mubarak to run things this way partly because they rightly see him as one of their own – and, thus, as someone who will keep the military’s interests foremost in his mind – and partly because their experience under Nasser and Sadat led Egypt’s soldiers to conclude that giving civilians nominal power within a system where they set the parameters was a far more efficient way to run things.
As a result, Egypt is not a military dictatorship in the sense that, say, Burma is today or that many Latin American countries were in the 1970s. But make no mistake, from behind the scenes it is run by its generals. They have trusted Mubarak and supported him for three decades because he is one of them. Should they decide to move him aside that will constitute an internal reshuffling, not a coup.
RIP Dr. Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid 06/07/2010
Sad news this evening of the death Monday of Dr. Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid, a professor at Cairo University whose mild deviations from Islamist orthodoxy led to a years of persecution and his eventual exile in Europe.
I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Nasr for The Washington Times in 1993. The article I wrote after that interview is attached below.
In retrospect, Dr. Nasr's persecution and the Egyptian government's collusion in it were harbingers of the path the country was headed down - a fact that most of us in the Western media did not quite grasp at the time.
I met Dr. Nasr a few more times after that interview - writing a short follow-up piece and quoting him in other articles over the next year. After leaving Egypt in October 1994 I did not see him again, though I am proud of the fact that I worked to get items about his ongoing troubles into CNN International's newscasts during the late 90s.
What I remember most from that first interview at Cairo University was how perplexed he was by what was happening, and his fears about what awaited him. He and his wife were not yet living behind locked doors with round-the-clock armed guards. Exile from Egypt was still several years in the future. But he seemed to know that these things were in the offing, and to be grimly resigned to them. It was left to his wife, Ebtehal, to express anger on behalf of both of them.
The Arab World has lost a great champion of intellectual freedom.
Rights groups eye Egypt's apostasy trial
Prof's marriage, maybe life, at stake
By Gordon Robison, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published November 4, 1993
CAIRO - In a development that many believe represents a threat to free expression, Egypt's secular court system is scheduled to receive a report today on whether a defendant in a civil suit is an apostate from Islam.
Today's trial session is the latest twist in an unprecedented divorce action brought by an Islamic lawyer who claims that Nasr Abu Zaid, a professor of Arabic at Cairo University, is an apostate.
Since Islamic law forbids marriage between a Muslim woman and a non-Muslim man, the suit demands that the court dissolve Mr. Abu Zaid's marriage to Ebtehal Younis, a professor of French at the university.
At the trial's opening session in June, Mr. Zaid's writings were referred to Al-Azhar, a Cairo-based mosque and university that is one of the Muslim world's most important centers of theology and jurisprudence. The mosque's scholars were asked to determine whether Mr. Abu Zaid has, in fact, abandoned Islamic beliefs.
The case is being watched closely by human rights groups inside and outside Egypt. In a statement this year, the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights said the suit placed Mr. Abu Zaid's life in jeopardy. Islamic Law traditionally prescribes death as the penalty for apostasy.
"Of course I'm afraid for my life," said Mr. Abu Zaid, who began receiving death threats last spring. "I am afraid of this court case."
The trouble began late last year when Mr. Abu Zaid applied for promotion to a full professorship at Cairo University, where he has taught for the past 21 years.
The procedure for such applications is for three scholars to review all of the applicant's published work in the previous five years. Their recommendation is then passed on to a committee of 13 scholars, which is usually guided by the report of the three-person subcommittee.
Mr. Abu Zaid said that two of the people reviewing his work found him "highly deserving" of promotion while the third criticized him on religious grounds. The committee backed the lone dissenter.
"I thought I was in the hands of an academic committee, not a religious committee. Whatever criticism I have made was pointed to human thinking, not sacred texts," he said.
"My whole career is to study Islamic discourse, whether classical or modern," Mr. Abu Zaid said in a recent interview.
In doing so, he said he had sought to draw a distinction between those elements of Islamic tradition, such as the Koran, that are believed by Muslims to be of divine origin and those that represent human exposition of divine revelations.
Denied promotion, in effect, because of the potential controversy surrounding his writings, Mr. Abu Zaid filed suit. He then learned preachers around Cairo were denouncing him as a heretic and an apostate.
Such denunciations are particularly sensitive in Egypt because of last year's assassination of Farag Fouda, a secularist writer who had also been branded an apostate.
Many Egyptian intellectuals have charged that criticism of Mr. Fouda by preachers amounted to an official license for his assassination by religious militants.
In an interview this week, Mr. Abu Zaid, who calls himself "a secular Muslim," said he hoped Al-Azhar would somehow avoid rendering a judgment on his piety."
If Al-Azhar does interfere, I won't take it silently. . . . Maybe a lot of things in my writing should be explained," he said. "There might be misunderstandings, and I have the right to explain this.
"I'm married to a woman I love. She is not merely my wife, She is my colleague."
Mrs. Younis said of the Islamic fundamentalists who filed the divorce suit: "They can go to hell. I will never leave him."
I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Nasr for The Washington Times in 1993. The article I wrote after that interview is attached below.
In retrospect, Dr. Nasr's persecution and the Egyptian government's collusion in it were harbingers of the path the country was headed down - a fact that most of us in the Western media did not quite grasp at the time.
I met Dr. Nasr a few more times after that interview - writing a short follow-up piece and quoting him in other articles over the next year. After leaving Egypt in October 1994 I did not see him again, though I am proud of the fact that I worked to get items about his ongoing troubles into CNN International's newscasts during the late 90s.
What I remember most from that first interview at Cairo University was how perplexed he was by what was happening, and his fears about what awaited him. He and his wife were not yet living behind locked doors with round-the-clock armed guards. Exile from Egypt was still several years in the future. But he seemed to know that these things were in the offing, and to be grimly resigned to them. It was left to his wife, Ebtehal, to express anger on behalf of both of them.
The Arab World has lost a great champion of intellectual freedom.
Rights groups eye Egypt's apostasy trial
Prof's marriage, maybe life, at stake
By Gordon Robison, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published November 4, 1993
CAIRO - In a development that many believe represents a threat to free expression, Egypt's secular court system is scheduled to receive a report today on whether a defendant in a civil suit is an apostate from Islam.
Today's trial session is the latest twist in an unprecedented divorce action brought by an Islamic lawyer who claims that Nasr Abu Zaid, a professor of Arabic at Cairo University, is an apostate.
Since Islamic law forbids marriage between a Muslim woman and a non-Muslim man, the suit demands that the court dissolve Mr. Abu Zaid's marriage to Ebtehal Younis, a professor of French at the university.
At the trial's opening session in June, Mr. Zaid's writings were referred to Al-Azhar, a Cairo-based mosque and university that is one of the Muslim world's most important centers of theology and jurisprudence. The mosque's scholars were asked to determine whether Mr. Abu Zaid has, in fact, abandoned Islamic beliefs.
The case is being watched closely by human rights groups inside and outside Egypt. In a statement this year, the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights said the suit placed Mr. Abu Zaid's life in jeopardy. Islamic Law traditionally prescribes death as the penalty for apostasy.
"Of course I'm afraid for my life," said Mr. Abu Zaid, who began receiving death threats last spring. "I am afraid of this court case."
The trouble began late last year when Mr. Abu Zaid applied for promotion to a full professorship at Cairo University, where he has taught for the past 21 years.
The procedure for such applications is for three scholars to review all of the applicant's published work in the previous five years. Their recommendation is then passed on to a committee of 13 scholars, which is usually guided by the report of the three-person subcommittee.
Mr. Abu Zaid said that two of the people reviewing his work found him "highly deserving" of promotion while the third criticized him on religious grounds. The committee backed the lone dissenter.
"I thought I was in the hands of an academic committee, not a religious committee. Whatever criticism I have made was pointed to human thinking, not sacred texts," he said.
"My whole career is to study Islamic discourse, whether classical or modern," Mr. Abu Zaid said in a recent interview.
In doing so, he said he had sought to draw a distinction between those elements of Islamic tradition, such as the Koran, that are believed by Muslims to be of divine origin and those that represent human exposition of divine revelations.
Denied promotion, in effect, because of the potential controversy surrounding his writings, Mr. Abu Zaid filed suit. He then learned preachers around Cairo were denouncing him as a heretic and an apostate.
Such denunciations are particularly sensitive in Egypt because of last year's assassination of Farag Fouda, a secularist writer who had also been branded an apostate.
Many Egyptian intellectuals have charged that criticism of Mr. Fouda by preachers amounted to an official license for his assassination by religious militants.
In an interview this week, Mr. Abu Zaid, who calls himself "a secular Muslim," said he hoped Al-Azhar would somehow avoid rendering a judgment on his piety."
If Al-Azhar does interfere, I won't take it silently. . . . Maybe a lot of things in my writing should be explained," he said. "There might be misunderstandings, and I have the right to explain this.
"I'm married to a woman I love. She is not merely my wife, She is my colleague."
Mrs. Younis said of the Islamic fundamentalists who filed the divorce suit: "They can go to hell. I will never leave him."
