Issandr El Amrani's Blog, page 82

Ahmed Benchemsi on secularists in the Arab world

✚ Ahmed Benchemsi on secularists in the Arab world 

An interesting argument from Moroccan journalist Ahmed Benchemsi regarding the plight of Arab secularists and their need to stand for their values rather than compromise. It's a fascinating question, and (as an ultra-secularist like Benchemsi) I have a lot of sympathy for what he says, but I have disagreements about the way he frames it. It's something we've briefly discussed in the past and even thought of having a podcast about.

From alarm to relief in Washington amid Egypt’s military shakeup

✚ From alarm to relief in Washington amid Egypt’s military shakeup

Karen DeYoung reporting for the Washington Post:

The Obama administration’s first reaction to Sunday’s news that Egypt’s military chiefs had been forced from office was deep alarm. The surprise announcement from Cairo seemed to signal that Washington’s worst fears about the direction of the Egyptian revolution were coming true.

Political developments in Egypt during the past year have occurred at a speed that has often overwhelmed U.S. policymakers. The one constant seemed to be the military and its longtime chief, Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi. His dismissal increased concerns about how much leverage Washington would retain as Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi consolidated power.

By early Monday, the administration had exhaled a collective, if perhaps temporary, sigh of relief. The newly named defense minister and armed forces commander, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, is well-known to U.S. officials. He had “espoused cooperation with the United States and the need for peace with neighbors,” an administration official said.

That would suggest that the administration did not know about this and was caught off-guard. Which was my intuition. It's significant because it highlights — even if Egypt remains allied to the US, as I think it will — how little control Washington has on events and how little it is "in the loop." Which means, basically, a more independent Egypt. 

Egypt power map: back to the drawing board

The above chart is something I created about 2-3 weeks ago to illustrate a still-to-be-published report. It's all changed now, and I'm going to have to restart mostly from scratch. The map was put together before the formation of the new cabinet, and I got the question of who would control the ministry of information wrong. But otherwise it stands at a fairly accurate map, I think, of how power flowed in Egypt before Morsi's August 12 decrees. And one of the striking thing looking at it is that many of the same issues remain — the cabinet now in place is still one representing a compromise between SCAF, the president, and corporate identities inside ministries and elsewhere. We still only have a cabinet with about 6-7 Muslim Brothers, at least for now (one might expect that to change once a new parliament is elected.) The big change may come in how external political forces relate to Morsi and the Brothers now that their hopes in the SCAF as a counter-balance are (again, for now) dashed.

The biggest mistake (and something I did because I did not want to overcomplicate an already complicated chart) was not detailing the splits inside SCAF, obviously, although I did highlight the separateness of the major armed forces services from military intelligence and general intelligence.

You can download a high-resolution PDF here.

Ramadan TV show stirs argument across Arab world

✚ Ramadan TV show stirs argument across Arab world

More on Omar, this Ramadan season's hit soap opera about the second caliph, from Reuters' Mahmoud Habboush:

Conservative clerics denounce the series, which is running during the region's busiest drama season, the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. Scholars see an undesirable trend in television programming; the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates has publicly refused to watch it.

But at dinner tables and on social media around the region, "Omar" is winning praise among many Muslim viewers, who admire it for tackling an important period in Islam's history. Some think it carries lessons for the Arab world, which is grappling with political change unleashed by last year's uprisings.

Salam Sarhan, a columnist at the Lebanese newspaper Diyar, said the show was part of a gradual trend for the Islamic world to re-examine its heritage more critically, and would open the door for more television and cinema productions depicting central figures in Islam.

"If anyone dared to depict these figures 20 years ago, he would have been accused of blasphemy," he wrote. "Simply put, depicting these revered figures with their mistakes, limitations, rivalries, anger, hunger and thirst will thrust Islamic societies into a new phase."

I'd previously noted the show here.

Links 13-14 August 2012

I know I recently said I would only do link dumps once a week since I introduced the new short posts, but there is so much to link to. 

Mohamed Morsi's move raises new questions for Egypt | World news | guardian.co.uk
My op-ed for the Guardian on Morsi's night of power.

Lost Egyptian pyramids appear on Google Earth


Who killed the Egyptian security guards in Sinai? | Egypt Independent
Egypt’s new military leadership - Daily News Egypt

On Accusations of Orientalism


More Khouri-bashing

Everything is Orientalist, Rami Khouri edition
Rebuke to Khouri, Syria edition

Morsi’s Ramadan Surprise - Carnegie Endowment
Nathan Brown's take.

Egypt's politics: Morsi's move | The Economist
“There are some members of the #SCAF who helped Mr Morsi do this, and they will now be beholden to him” #egypt
Morsy's corrective revolution
Steve Cook.

Transcript: Egypt: A second republic? - Empire - Al Jazeera English
Egyptian authorities ban popular history book on Middle East - Ahram Online
Pro-revolution coalition urges Morsi to fulfill his promises after wresting executive powers - Ahram Online


Morsy grooms a new rank of officers, experts say | Egypt Independent


ElBaradei hails Morsy’s military reshuffle, Sahry rules out People's Assembly revival | Egypt Independent


Lamborghini Morsi | Marc Lynch


Entretien avec Benjamin Barthe, journaliste au Monde - Acrimed
Interview with prize-winning Le Monde reporter
An Orderly Post-Assad Transition
Rami Khouri takes on the pessimists on Syria. Hope he's right.

Presidential adviser: Tantawi, Anan were surprised by removal | Egypt Independent


Egypt: Morsy Ousts Military Chiefs in Move to Regain Power | TIME.com
Quotes me.

Egyptian President Morsi's Counter Coup, Move Three | Atlantic Council
Michele Dunne.

End the Killing NOW | Rescue Rohingya
Abdel Fattah al-Sisi: New commander of the armed forces | Egypt Independent


BBC News - Egypt President Mursi explains army chief replacement


National Front for Justice and Democracy calls for Sinai march - Politics - Egypt - Ahram Online
Moroccans protest against high prices - Daily News Egypt

SCAF's long game

✚ A Brief Note about SCAF

From an interesting new blog, Accidental Occidental:

The question is why SCAF would give the “win,” at least on paper, to Morsi. It is no secret SCAF’s days were numbered if they refused to hand over power. This is their exit strategy. SCAF has appeared to castrate themselves in the press, but without losing any of their real power (drawn not from governing but from being the elephant in the room during the governing process). SCAF has feinted, and it appears to have worked. Attacks in the Sinai, power outages, and water shortages are now dropped cleanly in the Muslim Brotherhood’s lap. Any public anger is no longer directed towards the military-industrial complex, but towards the civilian government.

SCAF is playing the long game. In my opinion, they are doing it very shrewdly and very well. Juntas normally do not sacrifice battles for the war, but SCAF has appeared willing to do just that. In the end, it appears the military will stand free from any legitimate criticism and there will be no substantive change in the military-industrial complex.

I agree with this take and put it in a different way in a Guardian piece yesterday — i.e. that talk of Morsi's triumph overshadows that generals (just different generals) were still kingmakers. It might develop in a positive way (the military will stay out of most civilian business and things will overall improve in Egypt in terms of governance, human rights, etc.) but there is no reason to believe it will automatically do so.

Accidental Occidental, by the way, appears to chiefly concern itself with a critique of leftist discourse on the Middle East, from a leftist perspective. The author writes:

My contention is that “anti-colonialism” became one of the myths used by Fascist governments in the Middle East to oppresses and eradicate opposition. We on the Left went to bed with murders, crooks and thieves in the fight against colonialism and it has only led to a new fascism in the Middle East. We never considered that we would be the fascists. The purpose of this blog is to question exactly that myth.

I deeply sympathize. Timely reading in context of the current kerfuffle over Rami Khouri's accusations of Orientalism against those analysts who worry about Syria.

The Muslim Brothers' state media powergrab

✚ Bad News for the Brotherhood

Meritte Mabrouk on how Egypt's state newspaper editors were appointed, and how the process was taken ove Islamist lawmakers, in Foreign Policy:

None of the signs boded well.  The 14-member selection committee was headed by FJP member Fathy Shehab and included three other FJP members. Two of its four journalists dropped out protesting what they saw as a naked attempt by the Islamist members to force their own candidates and another seven syndicate board members dropped out of discussions with the council altogether. Magdy el-Maasarawy, a Shura Council member who resigned from the committee last month, told Egypt Independent that the original criteria, which drew heavily on what he referred to as professional skills as agreed upon by the journalists, were scrapped by the rest of the committee. Additionally, he said that the 234 candidates didn't all fulfill the criteria, most notably Abd el-Nasser Salama, appointed head of Middle East's most prominent newspaper, Al Ahram. Salama, said Maasarawy, was never at Al Ahram for the required 10 years. He'd been the Muscat bureau chief for three years before returning to Cairo in 2009 as columnist.

Gamal Fahmy, secretary general of the Journalists' Syndicate, also told Egypt Independent that he thought the majority of the new editors were weak, professionally speaking, and certainly not qualified to lead the kind of large staffs involved in these papers. Professional competence is an especially sore point; Yasser Rizk, the former editor of Al-Akhbar is generally acknowledged to have worked wonders with the ailing publication. However, he has not been supportive of the Islamists and was replaced during the shuffle.

The new editors appear to fall into three categories: the cooperative, the Islamist, and the difficult-to-categorize.

It'd be politically difficult, but most of these publications should be shut down, or at least made to adhere to a budget plan aiming at self-suffiency. They're a drain on state coffers and in many cases not very good. And if they continue to exist, there is no reason to have parliament appoint the editors — hopefully something that can be addressed in the next constitution.

What do Egypt's new top generals think of Amreeka?

Some of the military officers who have risen to prominence after the recent shuffle/purge/power grab in the senior ranks of the Egyptian military are pretty unknown. The military is an isolated institution, and only a few of its members became very public figures over the last year and a half. There have been many rumors that the new top honchos are American favorites, chiefly on the spurious ground that they have been in contact with the US in the past. The truth is we don't know much about them, or specifically how they feel about the United States. 

Wouldn't it be nice if one of these guys had written, say, a 10,000 word essay on his views of the future of US strategy in the Middle East?

Well it turns out one of them — no less than Sedky Sobhy, the new Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, the number two in the hierarchy — did just that while studying in a military school in the US, as many Egyptian officers do. And he's written a rather thoughtful essay advocating for one of my pet causes: a complete US military withdrawal from the Middle East. It's titled "THE U.S. MILITARY PRESENCE INTHE MIDDLE EAST: ISSUES AND PROSPECTS" and was carried out as part of a Masters in Strategic Studies at the US Army War College in 2005, when he was Brigadier General. It's available on a US army website. 

Here's the basic gist from his conclusion:

The future challenges and prospects ofthe U.S. military presence inthe Middle East in general and Gulf in particular are inseparable from the overall U.S. national security strategy in this region. This national security strategy cannot define the issues within the narrow geographic context of the Gulf region and its oil resources, or the narrow confines of rather outdated "containment" concepts. It is this author's opinion that the security challenges for the U.S. interests inthe Middle East and the Gulf, including Iraq, are interlinked with the ideological foundations that underpin these challenges. The solutions of security challenges inthe Gulf will not necessarily be solely found in Baghdad or in the Gulf itself. These solutions will find their ideological underpinning ifthe U.S. were to truly work for a permanent settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The U.S. can continue to pursue its current strategy in the Gulf that is largely based on its U.S. military presence and potential. This strategy will not lead to the solution of political problems that are deeply rooted in ideological, religious, and cultural causes. The U.S. and its willing partners will continue to be immersed in a long-term asymmetric military conflict without clear political and ideological goals. Truly international cooperation, and heeding the ideological, religious, and cultural concerns of the Arab and Muslim world, can successfully change the current course of events.

I don't agree with everything but I like the way he thinks. Some choice excerpts after the jump.

On US-Arab miscommunication:

There is a fundamental lack of understanding and communication between foreign policy makers in United States Administrations and the political regimes, societies and cultures in the Arab states of the Middle East. This gap in understanding and communication has been exacerbated since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack against the United States, and the subsequent U.S. military interventions inAfghanistan and Iraq. This gap can be explained by outlining certain parameters that affect commonly held United States perceptions about the Middlle East. First, United States policy makers operate in a strictly secular democratic system of government where the separation of religion(s) and the state is defined by the U.S. Constitution, and is strictly enforced. The Islamic religion is strongly interlinked to various degrees with the functioning of most Arab governments and their respective societies." Although many Arab governments operate on the basis of legal civil codes, the Islamic religion still exercises a paral- lel and strong influence on governmental institutions. Second, Arab regimes generally do not function along the lines of United States and Western conventionally accepted principles and processes of democratic governance.

On the US military footprint in the Gulf: 

Since the United States strategic goals of containing Iran are not necessarily dependent on the presence of large numbers of U.S. ground troops in the region, assuming that Iraq becomes "normal," large numbers of U.S. ground forces can still depart from the Middle East and the Gulf. Essentially, the United States military posture inthe Middle East and the Gulf can return to a state similar to that following the 1990-1991 Gulf War. For example, a United States Army mechanized or armored brigade-size force can still be based inone of the Gulf Arab monarchies friendly to the U.S., e.g., Kuwait or Bahrain, that can act as a "tripwire" in the case of Iranian military adventurism in the Gulf. However, it was this level of United States military presence in the region that invited the destabilizing ideological effects that gave rise to radical Islam and Al Qaeda terrorist activities. Thus, the focus should be on the total withdrawal of United States ground forces from the region. 

On alternative strategies to a heavy military presence for the US:

Rather, the emphasis is likely to be on small special forces units that will have the dual role of intelligence collection and counter-insurgency and counter- terrorism operations, can be supported by air and naval assets, and by larger military units with high mobility as the need arises, e.g., the operations of U.S. Special Forces and U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) assets in Afghanistan immediately following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack against the U.S. The presence and operations of such United States military units in the Middle East will not be without ideological and political risks. It is almost certain that Arab societies will view the presence and the operations of such United States military units in the Middle East with suspi- cion if not outright hostility. The lack of transparency that accompanies the presence and the operations of United States special forces formations will be viewed by the "Arab street" and the popular mass media outlets in the Middle East as potentially undermining or manipulating national democratization processes. Interestingly, such suspicions may also be based on fact. The U.S. Department of Defense is assuming a larger role in the conduct of paramilitary intel- ligence operations in foreign countries, where such operations will not be under the oversight of the U.S. Congress, and will not be coordinated with U.S. ambassadors or CIA chiefs of stations in these countries

On fundamentals of US strategy in the region:

The United States regional strategy inthe Middle East needs to be redefined since itcannot continue to simply revolve around the issues of national security for Israel and military security of the Middle Eastern oil supplies and reserves. This redefinition must include the direct constructive engagement of all actors inthe Middle East, and must be expanded to include non-state actors and groups. For example, the United States unwillingness to hold direct contacts and negotiations with the Palestinians in the 1960s and the 1970s - the Pale- stinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Yassir Arafat were viewed as "terrorists" by Washington - severely delayed the start of the Palestinian - Israeli peace process. Similarly, only recently we have seen a more significant turn in the policies of the Bush Administration policies vis-a-vis the indirect albeit important constructive engagement with the Islamic Republic of Iran while previous opportunities for direct negotiations have been lost.

On lost US socio-economic influence:

The former socioeconomic influence of the United States in the Middle East has largely been replaced by the EU. The Euro-Med Association Agreements into with Arab countries and Israel contain concrete provisions that gradually but materially influence the implementation of concrete human rights protection and economic liberalization measures more than the U.S. rhetoric for democratization in the Arab Middle East societies. Thus, it is not surprising that certain Palestinian and Israeli prominent politicians and scholars have even broached the thought of a departure from a stand-alone Palestinian state in favor of a Palestinian-Israeli federation that would seek and gain membership in the EU.

On democratization and the need for parallel economic and political liberalization, something that did not happen in the Gamal years:

A  United States restated priority for implementing peaceful democratization in the Middle East must be accompanied by solid and well funded socioeconomic initiatives that encourage parallel political and economic liberalization. More often than not, United States policy makers fail to address the issue that political liberalization threatens the economic and business interests of ruling elites in various Arab countries in the Middle East, and that these interests are often embedded in the heavy institutional involvement of the government in the domestic economies. In addition, institutional corruption in these countries is considered and readily accepted as a "cost of doing business." These institutional parameters not only fail to raise the living standards and the employment levels in these societies but also provide a solid recruiting ground for the supporters of radical Islamic movements.

On the Israel question:

Nothing defines better the ideological struggle that the United States has to overcome in the Middle East than the hostility and negative perceptions that exist in the region because of the U.S. unique and one-sided strategic relationship with Israel.

. . . 

Israel's ability to receive U.S. military assistance without any attached political conditions or constraints, poses unique challenges for the credibility of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Although the U.S. is the donor of such massive military assistance to Israel, the U.S. has not chosen to use this military assistance as a lever in order to influence Israeli policy making for the resolution of crises that threaten international peace and stability in the Middle East. 

. . .

A new United States strategy in the Middle East that will impartiallyfocus on the application of principles of justice and international law in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and other Middle East issues will go a long way in dramatically changing Arab popular perceptions about the U.S. in the region of the Middle East. For example, in the current debate centering on the potential use of the Iranian civil nuclear program for the clandestine development of nuclear weapons the United States has carefully abstained from discussing Israel's possession of a nuclear arsenal. This strategy and its concrete implementation will be a potent weapon in the war of ideas that the United States so far is waging rather unsuccessfully among the broader masses of the Muslim populations in the Middle East (the "Arab street"). The popular percep- tion that the United States truly adheres to principles of justice and international law not only will undermine the ideological base of extremist Islamic groups such as Al Qaeda, but it will also strengthen the cooperative anti-terrorist struggle that is waged by the U.S. and Arab Middle East governments. Under such circumstances, the presence of U.S. military forces inthe Middle East will become increasingly unnecessary. 

[Thanks, K.]

Egypt, Israel and Sinai: The need for triangular co-operation

✚ Egypt, Israel and Sinai: The need for triangular co-operation

One of the best analyses of the fallout from the Sinai attack I've read, from The Economist, worth a long quote:

For years Hamas has suppressed jihadists groups in Gaza, especially those espousing puritanical Salafist ideals that hark back to the time of the Prophet Muhammad. Hamas sought to prevent them from attacking hairdressers, internet cafés, Christians and other supposedly decadent influences. But it has been less eager to curb their missile attacks on Israel or to stop them infiltrating Egypt.

More recently, however, Hamas has closed the tunnel complex to slow infiltration and gun-running. If Hamas really wants to please the Egyptian government, it would arrest the 200-odd jihadists still at large in Gaza. Hisham Saidini, a jihadist preacher whom Hamas had freed soon after Ramadan started last month, defended the killing of Egypt’s soldiers on the grounds that they were protecting Jews.

Israel, too, will have to let both Egypt’s security forces and those of Hamas in Gaza control their borders more effectively. Israel may have to allow Hamas to operate in a buffer zone along Gaza’s eastern border. Egypt’s air attack on the jihadists on August 8th was the first time that air power had been deployed in anger by Egypt in Sinai since the war with Israel in 1973, and was co-ordinated with Israel in advance. The Israelis say they have had several discreet high-level talks with the Egyptians since Mr Morsi was sworn in a month ago.

The three governments also need to agree on new economic arrangements. For the past five years, the joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza that fostered smuggling through the tunnels has hugely benefited people in Sinai who are beyond the law—of any country. Opening the borders to legal traffic and trade should lessen the power of jihadists and smugglers in Sinai and Gaza, and thus strengthen the arm of the governments in Cairo and Jerusalem.

Mr Morsi seems well aware of the dilemma. Egypt’s main military academy and senior civil posts have been opened up to the Bedouin, and plans are afoot to improve the peninsula’s several hundred villages, many of which have no piped water. He had already made a point, early in his presidency, of visiting Sinai. He has also hosted Hamas leaders. Before the Sinai attack, he received Mr Haniyeh and discussed definitively lifting Gaza’s siege.

Israel may also have to consider co-operating with Hamas, its avowed enemy. After the attack on August 5th, Israel’s leaders were careful to blame global jihadists rather than Gazans or Hamas. Although Egypt has yet fully to open the crossing at Rafah, Israel has already reopened its one nearby at Kerem Shalom, for trade if not yet for people. With the influence of Islamists in Syria likely to grow in the event of Bashar Assad’s fall, Israel may have to decide whether to accommodate itself to the likes of Hamas lest a still fiercer version of Islamism comes to the fore.

The age of incompetence

✚   The age of incompetence

A quite funny take by Z on what will happen in Egypt next, based on the key insight that everyone — the army, the Muslim Brothers, secular forces — is incompetent. I like this part what what will happen to Morsi:

I expect him to benefit from the incompetence of everyone around him. While everything around him is helping him become more confident, and street support for the Muslim Brotherhood automatically is channeled to him, it is only a matter of time until he realizes that he does not have to live subdued by the organization, but that he should get the place he deserves. We make pharaohs, and we make them fast, and he won't really be any exception.

While he has, together with the Muslim Brotherhood, sidelined SCAF (apparently), he will now more single-handedly sideline the Brotherhood.

Now that would be something!