Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse in the
Middle East, (Blog: Syria, Russia and Iran – Second Cold War In The Making), a
coup broke out in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood had been slowly lining up with
the forces of darkness. The West with Israel seemed to be on the loosing side
in what was gearing up to be a new world order and then suddenly the
Brotherhood were no more. The Brotherhood’s victory in the first Egyptian
Democratic elections had been ascribed to the fact that they were the only
organized political party participating. It was generally thought that they
only had about 25% support of the Egyptians yet they won even though they were not
representative of the forces that had precipitated Mubarak’s fall.
MORSY NOT DELIVERING
The first elected Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy seemed
to be steering a more moderate path in Islamist terms but was slowly but surely
moving towards a theocracy. He was also reportedly leaning towards Iran. This
was not what all those millions that had protested in Tahir Square wanted. Both
a dictatorship and a theocracy are autocracies and why replace one totalitarian
regime with another? Morsy also was getting nowhere fast in democratizing Egypt
and the people were getting restless. The economy was not improving. But what
were their options? They had asked for democratic elections and got them. They
just did not like the results. How many times does that happen in Western
Democracies and one is saddled with the “bums” till the next election.
DEMOCRACY EGYPTIAN STYLE
What happened next was inconceivable in the history of
politics, thirty million Egyptians took to the streets and protested against
the Morsy regime. This was not what they had risked their lives over to get rid
of Mubarak. Thirty million people are one helluva lot of people. The Egyptian
population is said to be 84 million so that 30 million must represent, about as
close to as makes no difference to the number that voted in the election. Thus you
had a mass meeting of the populace that was bigger and more representative than those of the
City State democracies such as Athens. This outpouring of sentiment allowed the
military to step in and say this was not a coup but rather a response to the
will of the people.
How on earth did 30 million people all of a sudden take to
the streets? If a few hundred thousand people throng the mall in Washington it
is considered a seminal event. The organization that is needed to have affected
this has to have been humungous. It is obvious that the social media played a
big role. Also there has to be a tremendous anger and frustration amongst the
populace to once again rise up, in even greater numbers than before, to
challenge the status quo.
Now in the final analysis it does not matter what the
majority think if they have no guns to back them. Look what happened in Iran
after Ahmadinejad was elected in the last but one Iranian Presidential
election. By Ahmadinejad’s own subsequent admission he did not receive the
majority of votes and there were prolonged, street protests. The latter were
all brutally beaten and gunned down. So the broad will of the people does not
count for much unless it is backed up with guns. In Egypt the military are
independent and powerful. They stepped in when it was obvious that Mubarak no
longer had the populace’s support and they have stepped in now that Morsy has
even less.
So the variable here is the military. It is very difficult
to challenge their logic as they axed Mubarak, who was one of them, ostensibly
on the basis of mass public opinion. It does however add a new dimension to the
definition of democratic politics. In the process a secular ElBaradei has
replaced a theocratic Morsy.
MESSY OUTCOME
So at the end of the day where does this leave us?
Forceful changes of a regime never seem to improve the
situation. Morsy’s supporters have predictably not accepted that the military
action was taken in good faith. They did after all win the election. There have
been clashes and over 50 of the Brotherhood are dead. Both sides are blaming
one another. How this will all be resolved is still up in the air.
Basically, the problem initially arose way back when the
Egyptian electorate was ill prepared with very little organization to channel
their political views into coherent political parties. The nearly 80% of the
electorate were not able to put up a united front against the organized Muslim
Brotherhood. All this was a recipe
for the subsequent disaster.
One can only hope that this does not degenerate into Syrian
type situation with several factions fighting and the situation being exploited
by Jihadis. A worse case scenario would be that there is ongoing civil war in
Egypt with the Jihadis becoming prominent and influential and spearheading the
Muslim Brotherhood cause.
THE USA
Egypt is undoubtedly the most important Arab country in the
region. How this situation is going to be brokered is totally up in the air.
The Obama administration having cautioned against military intervention, in the
first place, now have not called the intervention a coup. Obviously, if all
goes well they will support the outcome but if the cookie crumbles the wrong
way they will condemn the action. Congress, generally, seems loathe stopping
Egyptian aid so the consensus appears to be that this was not such a bad thing
after all.
Whatever way it goes the USA will not be involved on the
ground. It is obvious that the USA is removing themselves from the world
trouble spots in haste. They have even told the Afghanis that they are
considering leaving no troops or advisors in Afghanistan after 2014. Obama has taken a decision to call it quits in these no – win
situations.
The Egyptian situation in addition to the Syrian travesty
will be resolved, for practical purposes in those countries. America have gone
into an isolationist mode or as they would put it - a non-interventionist
position. The USA after all their posturing have not done too much after Assad
crossed the line in the sand with chemical weapons and no one seems to care.
As is customary with the present day media they only cover
one issue at a time so that Syria is off the radar. If Assad wants to use
chemical weapons this is the time. The media are not interested. In fact they
are also not much interested in Egypt. The issue du jour is the Zimmerman
murder trial of Travyon Martin. (Blog; Travyon Martin and the American Judicial
Process). So in the same vein the Egyptian military could put the torch to the
Brotherhood and it would barely make the news.
The only certainty is that the Middle East will force its
way back onto center stage regardless of whether the media focuses attention on
it. How all the pieces of the puzzle will resolve and how Iran’s grab for
Muslim and major power status will end is still all up in the air.
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