Egypt: Why 25 January Will Be A Date Enshrined In The Country's History

On the day the people decided to sever their final links with the days of the pharoahs, the rebirth of a nation began

By Ayman Nour and Wael Nawara

This commentary was published in The Guardian on 05/02/2011

Despite a technology blackout, the voice of protest was heard worldwide. Photograph: Etienne De Malglaive/ABACA/Press Association Images

25 January is a date that will be forever remembered in Egypt. That was the day when the Egyptian people decided to end the country's last pharaonic dynasty with a people's revolution. Egyptians, it seems, were ashamed that Tunisians did it first and were determined to have their revolution too. Young Egyptians joined the "Khaled Saeed" Facebook group to launch the call for an uprising against tyranny, oppression, torture, corruption and injustice. The group was named after a young Egyptian man beaten to death by police.

That call was echoed on other Facebook groups, on blogs and on Twitter. El Ghad and a number of youth protest movements embraced the call from an early stage and started to mobilise support throughout the country. Many sceptics took the view that you cannot set a date for revolution, but although Egyptians are not the most punctual of people, this was a date they kept.

On 25 January, Egyptians took to the streets in almost every major town and city. The police tried to crush the protests, but unarmed people stood firm against water cannons, armoured carriers and teargas. Three days later, on the "Friday of rage", more than a million Egyptians took to the streets in support of the uprising. Anti-riot police used maximum force but finally had to retreat – and then they disappeared altogether, from Cairo and other major cities, in what appeared to be a conspiracy to plunge the country into chaos.

The army had to step in and were immediately embraced by protesters, who took photos with them and climbed on to their tanks. Mubarak came on TV that evening, offering a government reshuffle and warning of chaos. The protesters were disappointed and have vowed to remain in protest until their demands are met.

This is a revolution of the people. After eight days of protests, Mubarak started to get the hint – that he is no longer wanted as a president by his own people. The president's termination letter has been sealed by millions of Egyptians. After 30 years of ruling Egypt, the 83-year-old man has clearly become detached from reality.

After the November elections last year, when the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) "won" more than 90% of the seats amid reports of widespread fraud and irregularities, the opposition National Assembly for Change developed what is now known as the people's parliament – a sort of shadow parliament with 100 members from various opposition parties and movements in addition to independents. The people's parliament elected a committee of 10 members to start a dialogue with the regime in order to put people's demands into action.

The demands of the protesters were beautifully crystallised in two chants: "The people want the regime down" and "Bread, freedom and human dignity". In political terms, the first demand relates to dismantling the authoritarian regime and installing democracy in Egypt. This means breaking down a culture of corruption emodied in the ruling NDP party, and restructuring the state security police to focus on criminal activities rather than meddle with the political process in defence of the status quo.

The protesters also demanded the dissolution of both chambers of the parliament as well as local councils, all of which were elected by a theatrical political process controlled by the regime and its security apparatus. For this to happen, the people's parliament proposed a peaceful transition of power through negotiating a national unity government of all political forces and protest movements in addition to the military. This transition government should oversee drafting a new constitution and laying out the rules of a political process that allows parties, civil society organisations and unions freely to emerge. This, in turn, can be followed by free and fair elections.

New political facts have emerged from this "revolution". The Egyptian people have demonstrated that they may be patient and peaceful to a fault, but they surely know how to make their voices heard at home and around the world. The way these spontaneous demonstrations took place and maintained a unity of demands, despite the blackout on mobile communication and stoppage of internet service, proves that a new collective conscience has been born in Egypt. In fact, Egypt itself has in these last few days been reborn.

Ayman Nour, leader of the El Ghad party, was imprisoned in 2005 by President Mubarak and released on health grounds in 2009.
Wael Nawara is a leading Egyptian writer.

Exausted, Scared And Trapped, Protestors Put Forward Plan For Future

On a day of drama and confusion in Cairo, opponents of the Mubarak regime propose a new kind of politics

By Robert Fisk
This commentary was published in the Independent on 05/02/2011

Caged yesterday inside a new army cordon of riot-visored troops and coils of barbed wire – the very protection which Washington had demanded for the protesters of Tahrir Square – the tens of thousands of young Egyptians demanding Hosni Mubarak's overthrow have taken the first concrete political steps to create a new nation to replace the corrupt government which has ruled them for 30 years.

Sitting on filthy pavements, amid the garbage and broken stones of a week of street fighting, they have drawn up a list of 25 political personalities to negotiate for a new political leadership and a new constitution to replace Mubarak's crumbling regime.

They include Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League – himself a trusted Egyptian; the Nobel prize-winner Ahmed Zuwail, an Egyptian-American who has advised President Barack Obama; Mohamed Selim Al-Awa, a professor and author of Islamic studies who is close to the Muslim Brotherhood; and the president of the Wafd party, Said al-Badawi.

Other nominees for the committee, which was supposed to meet the Egyptian Vice-President, Omar Suleiman, within 24 hours, are Nagib Suez, a prominent Cairo businessman (involved in the very mobile phone systems shut down by Mubarak last week); Nabil al-Arabi, an Egyptian UN delegate; and even the heart surgeon Magdi Yacoub, who now lives in Cairo.

The selection – and the makeshift committee of Tahrir Square demonstrators and Facebook and Twitter "electors" – has not been confirmed, but it marks the first serious attempt to turn the massive street protests of the past seven days into a political machine that provides for a future beyond the overthrow of the much-hated President. The committee's first tasks would be to draw up a new Egyptian constitution and an electoral system that would prevent the president-for-life swindle which Mubarak's fraudulent elections have created. Instead, Egyptian presidents would be limited to two consecutive terms of office, and the presidential term itself would be reduced from six to four years.

But no one involved in this initiative has any doubts of the grim future that awaits them if their brave foray into practical politics fails. There was more sniping into Tahrir Square during the night – an engineer, a lawyer and another young man were killed – and plain-clothes police were again discovered in the square. There were further minor stone-throwing battles during the day, despite the vastly increased military presence, and most of the protesters fear that if they leave the square they will immediately be arrested, along with their families, by Mubarak's cruel state security apparatus.

Already, there are dark reports of demonstrators who dared to return home and disappeared. The Egyptian writer Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, who is involved in the committee discussions, is fearful for himself. "We're safe as long as we have the square," he said to me yesterday, urging me to publish his name as a symbol of the freedom he demands. "If we lose the square, Mubarak will arrest all the opposition groups – and there will be police rule as never before. That's why we are fighting for our lives."

The state security police now have long lists of names of protesters who have given television interviews or been quoted in newspapers, Facebook postings and tweets.

The protesters have identified growing divisions between the Egyptian army and the thugs of the interior ministry, whose guards exchanged fire with soldiers three days ago as they continued to occupy the building in which basement torture chambers remain undamaged by the street fighting. These were the same rooms of horror to which America's "renditioned" prisoners were sent for "special" treatment at the hands of Mubarak's more sadistic torturers – another favour which bound the Egyptian regime to the United States as a "trusted" ally.

Another young man involved in the committee selections admitted he didn't trust Omar Suleiman, the former spy boss and Israeli-Palestinian negotiator whom Mubarak appointed this week. Suleiman it is, by the way, who has been trying to shuffle responsibility for the entire crisis on to the foreign press – a vicious as well as dishonest way of exercising his first days of power. Yet he has cleverly outmanoeuvred the demonstrators in Tahrir Square by affording them army protection.

Indeed, yesterday morning, to the shock of all of us standing on the western side of the square, a convoy of 4x4s with blackened windows suddenly emerged from the gardens of the neighbouring Egyptian Museum, slithered to a halt in front of us and was immediately surrounded by a praetorian guard of red-bereted soldiers and massive – truly gigantic – security guards in shades and holding rifles with telescopic sights. Then, from the middle vehicle emerged the diminutive, bespectacled figure of Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the chief of staff of the Egyptian army and a lifelong friend of Mubarak, wearing a soft green military kepi and general's cross-swords insignia on his shoulders.

Here was a visitor to take the breath away, waving briefly to the protesters who crowded the military cordon to witness this extraordinary arrival. The crowd roared. "The Egyptian army is our army," they shouted in unison. "But Mubarak is not ours." It was a message for Tantawi to take back to his friend Mubarak, but his visit was itself a powerful political symbol. However much Mubarak may rave about "foreign hands" behind the demands for his overthrow, and however many lies Suleiman may tell about foreign journalists, Tantawi was showing that the army took its mission to protect the demonstrators seriously. The recent military statement that it would never fire on those who wish to dethrone Mubarak, since their grievances were "legitimate", was authorised by Tantawi. Hence the demonstrators' belief – however naïve and dangerous – in the integrity of the military.

Crucially missing from the list of figures proposed for the committee are Mohamed ElBaradei, the former UN arms inspectors and Nobel laureate, and members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the "Islamist" spectre which Mubarak and the Israelis always dangled in front of the Americans to persuade them to keep old Mubarak in power. The Brotherhood's insistence in not joining talks until Mubarak's departure – and their support for ElBaradei, whose own faint presidential ambitions (of the "transitional" kind) have not commended themselves to the protesters – effectively excluded them. Suleiman has archly invited the Brotherhood to meet him, knowing that they will not do so until Mubarak has gone.

But al-Awa's proposed presence on the committee – and that of the Islamist intellectual Ahmed Kamel Abu Magd – will ensure that their views are included in any discussions with Suleiman. These talks would also cover civil and constitutional rights and a special clause to allow Suleiman to rule Egypt temporarily because "the President is unable to perform his duties".

Mubarak would be allowed to live privately in Egypt providing he played no part – publicly or covertly – in the political life of the country. He is regarded as a still-fierce opponent who will not hesitate to decapitate the opposition should he hang on to power.

"He is one of the old school, like Saddam and Arafat, who in the last two days has shown his true face," another committee supporter said yesterday. "He is the man behind the attacks on us and the shooting deaths." Mohamed Fahmy knows what this means. His own father has been in exile from Egypt for seven years – after proposing identical protests to those witnessed today to get rid of the Mubarak empire.

The Quartet Needs A Qualitative Shift On Palestine

By Hanan Ashrawi
This commentary was published in Foreign Policy on 04/02/2011

The Quartet on Middle East peace will meet on the sidelines of the Munich security conference tomorrow to discuss the current impasse facing the Palestinian-Israeli search for peace. Breaking this impasse will depend largely on whether the Quartet is prepared to take a qualitative shift in the way it does business.

The Middle East "peace process" is in serious trouble. After years of fruitless negotiations, Israel's occupation is still firmly entrenched, eroding what hope remains for establishing a sovereign Palestinian state and concluding a just and lasting peace based on the two-state solution. Recent efforts by the United States to revive stalled peace talks have been nothing short of disastrous.

In the absence of a neutral and principled third party, the vast inequalities separating Palestinians and Israelis have doomed bilateral negotiations to failure. The overall power disparities between occupier and occupied have been transposed to the negotiating table.

The United States throughout has been either unwilling or incapable of playing the role of an impartial and principled mediator or an "even-handed peace broker." Notwithstanding lingering questions over their veracity and timing, the so-called ‘Palestine Papers' clearly show successive American governments to have been totally impervious to Palestinian rights and needs, while going out of their way to accommodate Israeli intransigence and violations of international law. Predictably, the results of this American policy have been decidedly detrimental to peace.

America's policy of shielding Israel from international law has created a culture of impunity in which Israel feels enabled to do whatever it wants, instead of doing what is right and what is needed for peace. This impunity explains why Israel continues to build illegal settlements in violation of international law, why it continues its annexation and ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem undeterred, and why it maintains its ruthless blockade over the Gaza Strip despite overwhelming international condemnation.

Israel's sense of exceptionalism has led to its rejection of any accountability. It refused to cooperate with the Goldstone Report, and continues to denounce any criticism of its use of unbridled state violence to target Palestinian civilians, including its 2008-09 attack on Gaza, or its attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters in 2010.

The Quartet has done little to change or challenge this dynamic. On paper, it wields significant diplomatic power given that it is comprised of the United States, the United Nations, Russia and the European Union. In practice, however, it has served as little more than a flimsy excuse for perpetuating America's monopoly over the beleaguered "peace process." It has also conveniently absolved the United Nations and the European Union from adopting any political initiatives of their own which might be less one-sided than the US approach.  

If the Quartet is serious about trying to salvage prospects for a negotiated peace between Palestinians and Israelis, then it will need to change the way it does business. So far, the Quartet has lacked the political will, even-handedness and commitment to justice required to bring about peace based on international law.

It is not enough just to repeat the mantra in support of a return to bilateral negotiations. Two decades of such negotiations have eroded the very viability of the two-state solution, and the credibility of the Quartet members. It is already too late for statements without actual enactment and intervention. Israel's immunity from accountability and from compliance with the global rule of law must end. The rights and needs of the Palestinian people must be respected and safeguarded.

While the Palestinian Authority continues to build the institutions of state in spite of the occupation, Israel persists in destroying the territorial, economic and demographic viability of a sovereign Palestinian state. These mutually exclusive policies cannot be reconciled.

To render the Palestinian nation-building process successful, Israel's occupation must end before it does irreparable damage to the two-state solution. The September 2011 deadline is drawing closer. It is imperative that the Quartet take concrete steps before it is too late.

A good start on February 5th is for the Quartet to take a clear and bold decision to recognize the Palestinian state on the 1967 border, with East Jerusalem as its capital. It can also convene an international conference to map out Israel's withdrawal to the 1967 borders within a binding timeline. It is also essential that the Quartet afford the nascent Palestinian state the appropriate protection it needs. The whole region is currently undergoing critical transitions. The challenge before the Quartet now is to prove that it can inject a positive momentum for peace and stability in the midst of this sea of change.

Dr. Hanan Ashrawi is a former Palestinian peace negotiator and an elected member of both the Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee and the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Why Obama Has To Get Egypt Right

By George Soros
This commentary was published in The Washington Post on 03/02/2011

Revolutions usually start with enthusiasm and end in tears. In the case of the Middle East, the tears could be avoided if President Obama stands firmly by the values that got him elected. Although American power and influence in the world have declined, our allies and their armies look to us for direction. These armies are strong enough to maintain law and order as long as they stay out of politics; thus the revolutions can remain peaceful. That is what the United States should insist on while encouraging corrupt and repressive rulers who are no longer tolerated by their people to step aside and allow new leaders to be elected in free and fair elections.

That is the course that the revolution in Tunisia is taking. Tunisia has a relatively well-developed middle class, women there enjoy greater rights and opportunities than in most Muslim countries, and the failed regime was secular in character. The prospects for democratic change are favorable.

Egypt is more complex and, ultimately, more influential, which is why it is so important to get it right. The protesters are very diverse, including highly educated and common people, young and old, well-to-do and desperately poor. While the slogans and crowds in Tahrir Square are not advancing a theocratic agenda at all, the best-organized political opposition that managed to survive in that country's repressive environment is the Muslim Brotherhood. In free elections, the Brotherhood is bound to emerge as a major political force, though it is far from assured of a majority.

Some have articulated fears of adverse consequences of free elections, suggesting that the Egyptian military may seek to falsify the results; that Israel may be adamantly opposed to a regime change; that the domino effect of extremist politics spreading to other countries must be avoided; and that the supply of oil from the region could be disrupted. These notions constitute the old conventional wisdom about the Middle East - and need to be changed, lest Washington incorrectly put up resistance to or hesitate in supporting transition in Egypt.

That would be regrettable. President Obama personally and the United States as a country have much to gain by moving out in front and siding with the public demand for dignity and democracy. This would help rebuild America's leadership and remove a lingering structural weakness in our alliances that comes from being associated with unpopular and repressive regimes. Most important, doing so would open the way to peaceful progress in the region. The Muslim Brotherhood's cooperation with Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel laureate who is seeking to run for president, is a hopeful sign that it intends to play a constructive role in a democratic political system. As regards contagion, it is more likely to endanger the enemies of the United States - Syria and Iran - than our allies, provided that they are willing to move out ahead of the avalanche.

The main stumbling block is Israel. In reality, Israel has as much to gain from the spread of democracy in the Middle East as the United States has. But Israel is unlikely to recognize its own best interests because the change is too sudden and carries too many risks. And some U.S. supporters of Israel are more rigid and ideological than Israelis themselves. Fortunately, Obama is not beholden to the religious right, which has carried on a veritable vendetta against him. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is no longer monolithic or the sole representative of the Jewish community. The main danger is that the Obama administration will not adjust its policies quickly enough to the suddenly changed reality.

I am, as a general rule, wary of revolutions. But in the case of Egypt, I see a good chance of success. As a committed advocate of democracy and open society, I cannot help but share in the enthusiasm that is sweeping across the Middle East. I hope President Obama will expeditiously support the people of Egypt. My foundations are prepared to contribute what they can. In practice, that means establishing resource centers for supporting the rule of law, constitutional reform, fighting corruption and strengthening democratic institutions in those countries that request help in establishing them, while staying out of those countries where such efforts are not welcome.

The writer is chairman of the Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Foundations, which support democracy and human rights in more than 70 countries.

More Dangerous than Serpents

By Ghassan Charbel

This commentary was published by al-Hayat on 04/02/2011

The Arab world is going through Egyptian days par excellence. Egypt’s veins are initially linked to the veins of the [Arab] nation, in regard to politics, economics, tourism, songs, books, and films. When Egypt changes, dreams, winds, or interrogations awaken. It is why the Egyptian uprising got more attention than the “Jasmine Revolution”, but without minimizing the importance of the first message. Egypt has a particularity that cannot be denied; any great change in it definitely leaves its impact on the balance of forces in the Arab world and the region.

It is natural to have different interpretations on the dimensions of what Egypt is currently witnessing. It is too early to determine the limits of the change that has begun. It is the start of a labor that doesn’t allow yet to read the topography of Egypt after turning the current page. It is also too early to determine the impact that can be left by the winds that are launched by the Egyptian days on the regional level. What is certain is that what is happening deserves a careful reading by both the ordinary Arab citizens and the party or state officials.

I paused at the latest statements made by President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Their timing implies a close follow-up of the Egyptian days and events; a follow-up that has led to conclusions and decisions. Amidst the calls of the opposition for the days of anger, the President appeared honest and decisive in subjects where he usually avoided honesty and decisiveness.

Saleh said: “I will not be arrogant, and I will offer compromise after compromise for the sake of national interest”, assuring that he will accept what is reached through dialogue with the opposition. He clearly stated “There is no extension or passing on of the presidency”, and confirmed the non-organization of the legislative elections next April, thus yielding to the request of the parliamentary opposition.

This means that the president will not be a candidate [for the elections] at the end of his current mandate in 2013, and that he will not try to bring a parliament that renews his mandate or passes on the presidency to his son. The effect of the Egyptian days is apparent here, including the danger of introducing a parliament whose legitimacy is not recognized by the people or is considered to be flawed.

Yemen is facing great challenges: poverty, the fragility of the state in the face of tribes, the Huthi rebellion, the awakening of the independence tendency among Southerners, the terrorism of al-Qaeda, corruption, and the spreading of weapons. Ali Saleh has managed for three decades this complex game with the brilliance of someone who is aware of the sensitivities and knows how to play with them. He takes away and brings closer; he makes allies and enemies.

Lately, it seemed that the game had become more dangerous, and that the world had changed and no longer allowed some of the methods of managing this game and of sharing its merits. The Egyptian days showed the danger of using the constitution to maintain the situation as it is. They also revealed the limited ability of the security forces when people march on the streets, as well as the difficulty of using force in front of TV cameras and in light of the communications revolution.

Two years ago, I asked the president about the difficulty of ruling in Yemen, and he replied that “it resembles dancing on serpent heads”. A year ago, I asked the same question, and he answered: “The serpents have turned into a type of snakes”, assuring his confidence on being able to tame them. Two days ago, the president came out to try to cut off the road to the storm, and stated that renewing his mandate or passing on the presidency to his son is very unlikely. Perhaps his follow-up of the events of the Egyptian days made him see those who are more dangerous than the serpents he was used to taming. They are young people whom the Internet empowered and made them feel capable of launching change, under the slogan of bread, freedom, and dignity. They are the Egyptian days.

After Egypt's Political Earthquake

By Tariq Alhomayed
This commentary was published in Asharq al-Awsat on 05/02/2011

There isn’t a more accurate description of the political situation in Egypt today than that of an earthquake, and we will pass through a post-Mubarak-era whether he resigns or remains in office until the end of his presidential term. However there is a reality taking shape on the ground [in Egypt] and this is something that could impact the world at large.
 
There is an Arab silence in place [over what is happening in Egypt], except for some allies of Iran who later returned to this silence in fear of what could possiblly happen should the demonstrators in Cairo be successful, and which could affect them by reviving the spirit of protest in Tehran once more. There are also international concerns which are clear to see from the extent of the American confusion in how to deal with what is happening in Egypt; the Americans are extremely concerned by this for it has vital national interests that could be dramatically affected.
 
Many questions are being asked [with regards to the situation in Egypt and its repercussions], however these can only be responded to with conjecture. Questions such as; which direction is Egypt heading in? Will the efforts of the [Egyptian] youth be hijacked and will we see Egypt being governed by the Muslim Brotherhood? Or will these protests be hijacked by the army, once more, with Egypt moving towards true dictatorship, losing what it has achieved politically, not to mention economically? Or rather, will Egypt drown under the weight of its problems and withdraw into itself for a time? Or will it become a truly democratic country, witnessing political and economic growth, and thereby gaining a genuine regional role once more, dispelling the fears of the country's collapse at the hands of Islamists?
 
These are all good questions that rob the sleep of those in the region, both friends and enemies, as well as the international community at large, particularly the US. Internationally speaking, these are the first Arab demonstrations that have not seen the burning of Israeli or American flags, or the chanting of international political slogans. This is a national call demanding internationally recognized values, such as justice, democracy, self-rule, and an end to corruption. What is clear is that the West, and particularly the US, is powerless to do anything, for the wave [of popular anger] is greater than they expected, and the winds of change are blowing quicker than Washington's ability to react. This is evident in the large number of statement being issued from Washington, for the US continues to be powerless until now.
 
Politically speaking much will depend on what happens in post-Mubarak Egypt, especially regarding regional states' foreign policies, particularly those of regional powers. Egypt is a strategic ally of Saudi Arabia and a number of other Gulf States, not to mention Jordan and other regional countries. Egypt is also a strategic ally of the West. Egypt is very influential [in this regard], even on those regional countries who oppose its [foreign] policies, despite their claims to the contrary. For example, Damascus – as we see it today – would be unable to tolerate a truly democratic Egypt, whilst it also would not be able to tolerate an Egypt under the control of the Muslim Brotherhood, as in this case, Damascus would be forced – if it wanted to co-exist with Cairo – to offer significant concessions. The Syrians will also pay the price if Egypt gets engulfed by chaos, for this may lead to disorder that would see Israeli intervention, and this is something that would have dire consequences.
 
Therefore, the scene is uncertain everywhere that we look, and everything depends upon what will happen in Egypt in the next hours, days, and months. No party is able to influence the situation there – or at least influence it in a positive manner – and the only true influence remains in the hands of Egyptian intellectuals.
 
Will this transformation occur calmly without the country sliding into the depths of the unknown?

Three Possible Scenarios For Egypt

By Islam Qasem
This commentary was published in Foreign Policy In Focus on 03/01/2011

Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak is in deep trouble. But there is much more at stake at the heart of this storm. His toppling might bring about the full collapse of the military regime that has supported him for three decades. Now that Mubarak’s hours seem numbered, the military establishment has shifted into high gear to take over key positions of power. Former air force commander Ahmad Shafik took over as prime minister, and former defense minister Mohammed Hussein Tantawi became deputy premier. The most important post of vice president has gone to a former general and head of the powerful security intelligence, Omar Suleiman, a strong man with many connections. 

Despite the new government’s heavy security credentials, it faces an unpredictable future. Right now, Egypt faces three different scenarios.

Scenario one: Mubarak and his lieutenants will try to ride out the unrest. They hope to wear out the crowds using the carrot-and-stick approach. They will promise to address political reforms, improve employment conditions, and allow freedom of speech. At the same time, they will display a show of power with the military scattered throughout the country and fighter jets sweeping low over the crowds. Come September, an election will be held in which Suleiman will do whatever it takes to get to the top. Suleiman and the rest of the military establishment believe that time is on their side as they take every necessary step to avoid a second uprising. Mubarak will step down as a great president who has served his country in an honorable way for 30 years. Meanwhile, the promises made of political reforms are unlikely to be kept. In sum, the status quo will be restored under the leadership of Suleiman.

Scenario two: Mubarak steps down, but the regime does not. If the crowds remain on the streets, Mubarak will be forced to leave office to give the regime a chance of survival. The average Egyptian abhors Mubarak more than anything else. He has come to exemplify all of Egypt’s current failings. By dumping Mubarak, the military regime will not only attempt to avoid clashes with the people but also to win their support. At this moment, the most important thing for the military regime is to keep the reins of power in its own hands. Under this scenario, there will be no radical changes in Egypt’s domestic or foreign policy. Egypt will remain on the same path as in the first scenario.

Scenario three: Mubarak and the regime step down. What the people demand is a complete transformation of the political landscape: the resignation of the military regime that has dominated Egypt’s politics since the Free Officers’ revolution in 1952. A successful regime change in Egypt will have a domino effect throughout the entire region, ushering in a radically different Middle East. At home, the Egyptian society will have to endure a hard period of transition, during which lessons will have to be learned in political compromise, pragmatism, and consensus. At the same time, Islamists of all strips and colors will be emboldened. On the foreign policy front, no other country will feel the pain more than Israel. After all, Egypt and Israel fought four wars. Although a peace treaty was signed between the two countries, Egyptian society has never really legitimized it, and the late president Anwar Sadat paid for it with his own life. The second loser will be the United States. After decades of supporting Mubarak and pursuing narrow-minded policies in the region, U.S. popularity is at rock-bottom.

At this time, there is no telling which scenario will triumph. What is clear, however, is the job of a dictator in Egypt has become much harder. Even if the military regime prevails in the short term, its days are numbered. 

Islam Qasem is a strategic analyst at the Hague Center for Strategic Studies and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.

Mr Mubarak Holds Egypt Hostage

By Michael Wahid Hanna
This commentary was published in Foreign Policy on 03/02/2011

As evidence mounts that the violence in Tahrir Square is a regime-orchestrated attempt to crush dissent and peaceful protest, the manifest flaws in President Mubarak's plan to remain in office are becoming clear. The Egyptian president, under pressure, committed not to run for a sixth presidential term, but refused to begin a serious process of transition. In essence, he was asking the millions of protesters who had taken to Egypt's streets in response to 30 years of authoritarian rule to simply trust him. Based on the violent evidence on display in Cairo today and the actions of the regime since the uprising began on January 25^th, the protesters have no reason to do so.

As this repressive rearguard action unfolds, the regime is indicating that it is working to preserve the very system that protesters have given their life to bring down. A regime that ruled by fiat and the baton is now using these same tools to defend its power and privileges. Those who have now offered themselves as the vehicles for systemic changes are the very actors that have thwarted political reform for 30 years. Mubarak's tactical ploy lays bare that he has clearly not understood the calls of the Egyptian people. Now, the very stability prized previously by the United States in its relations with Egypt is no longer possible with Mubarak at the helm. America's long-term ally is now the primary driver of instability.


Mubarak offered several apparent concessions in his speech to the nation in addition to his pledge to depart the presidential palace in September 2011. Most notably, he directed parliament to amend article 76, which places onerous limitations on candidacy for the presidency, and article 77, which had previously placed term limits on the presidency prior to its amendment in 1981. However, his approach reflects an assumption that the current system should survive with minor alterations. It sidestepped questions on the very legitimacy of the parliament asked to carry out such reforms and did not mention the Emergency Law that has been in place since 1981 and continues to provide the government essentially unfettered discretion to arrest, detain, and prosecute individuals. Vetting of government officials culpable of criminal behavior was never addressed. Contrary to Mubarak's gradualism, the masses in the streets are not complaining about fine print, instead they are finished with the entire system.   

It took unprecedented mass protest throughout the country to force even minimal concessions -- which should worry opposition figures. They must now be concerned that these meager offerings were secured at the moment of maximum leverage when millions of Egyptians filled the streets of the country to reject the current order. If protests are halted prior to negotiations with the regime, as the new vice president Omar Suleiman has insisted, it is unlikely that the fragile coalition of opposition leaders will be in a position to negotiate major reforms and enact a fundamental break from Egypt's failed system. The regime will now look to divide and conquer tactics in an attempt to fracture what has, so far, largely been a leaderless uprising. 

A quick review of the actions of the regime in response to the protests should dispel any and all notions of this regime as a responsible actor capable of initiating reform. In addition to the gratuitous violence directed at demonstrators by the security forces of the Ministry of Interior, the Egyptian government has displayed characteristics previously associated with regimes such as North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Libya. Notions of free press and access to information have been have been trampled, with unprecedented steps to block internet and satellite access to Egypt. Meanwhile, Egyptian state television has functioned as a crude propaganda outlet, at a level not seen in Egypt since the regime's ridiculous renderings of imminent military victory during the June 1967 war. These state-sanctioned outlets have worked diligently to portray peaceful protesters as a conspiracy to shake the stability of the state, in an effort to alienate the silent citizenry from active protesters.

Perhaps most egregiously, the regime sought to sow chaos and fear as a means to deter citizens from protesting and to create the impression that demonstrations were a threat to the stability of the state. This was accomplished by emptying large swathes of the country of its police force and directing armed thugs and plainclothes security forces to loot and undermine public safety. While this was dismissed initially by regime defenders, mounting evidence points clearly to government responsibility for much of this activity.

The actions of the Egyptian government should not inspire confidence. If the regime is willing to employ such violence in front of rolling cameras and worldwide attention, the international community should contemplate what the regime will be capable of doing once that attention has faded. With the current regime committing to solely cosmetic changes, those in the Ministry of Interior who have been the primary repressive apparatus for the state will still be in place and will continue to backed by an emergency law granting them essentially unfettered discretion to continue their activities with a much broader list of regime opponents from which to draw. 

The state does have constituents in addition to security forces and paid thugs -- people who are worried about their positions in a post-Mubarak Egypt, or who legitimately fear an unstable transition. Mubarak is manipulating their fears, and there is some risk that he will succeed at driving divisions among different classes of disenfranchised Egyptians.

The military has now been implicated by this latest outburst of violence. They had previously declared their respect for the legitimate grievances of the opposition and pledged not to use force against them. The armed forces' ultimate intentions are now much more opaque, as they have appeared to collude with regime-backed elements intent on squelching the protest movement following Mubarak's second address to the nation. One telling example, relayed by an eyewitness, involved military forces deployed in front of the state television building. These forces made way for a crowd of pro-Mubarak demonstrators on horses and camels who exited from the 15th May bridge on their way to confront anti-government protesters in Tahrir Square.

These latest provocations present a complex challenge to Mubarak's key patron and ally, the United States, which has had difficulty coordinating and modulating its message in a quickly-shifting environment. It has also struggled to balance its commitments to its long-time ally with its professed espousal of democratic governance. Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesperson, again indicated that U.S. aid to Egypt would be reviewed on the basis of unfolding events. This is a positive step in affirming that current regime behavior could have ramifications. Both the military in Egypt and the government in Washington are balancing competing interests: protecting unpopular projects and, at the same time, trying to maximize sympathy from the pro-democracy protesters.

However, U.S. military aid is not the sum total of American leverage with Egypt. Despite its diminished regional role, Egypt has continued to be privileged by the United States as a strategic ally. This strategic relationship is prized by the Egyptian regime. In fact, as their regional significance has ebbed, its sole utility as a diplomatic player is now derived from its close bilateral ties with the United States. Shorn of this support, Egypt would be increasingly isolated and irrelevant in the region.  

The next step should be a delineation of American red lines, such that there is clarity that a repeat of today's violent episodes would result in definitive action. This should also include a clear public statement that the United States is reappraising its entire strategic relationship with the Egyptian government. While discreet communications remain the lifeblood of diplomacy, relying on such an approach to the Mubarak government at this stage will ensure that the United States, whether rightly or wrongly, is perceived as being complicit with any further regime repression.
This is not to suggest that the United States should be involved actively in brokering Egypt's internal political process. Instead, by weighing in to safeguard the protesters' constitutionally-protected rights to assembly, the United States could assist in establishing a dynamic where the demands of the Egyptian people will be an essential component in the transition to a legitimate government.   

In addition to the strategic rationale for maintaining close relations with Egypt, the repression of political opposition and the desultory state of those efforts made the prospect for supporting political reform and democratization in Egypt bleak. This is clearly no longer the case. Egypt is now a country and society transformed, and many of its people have risked their lives to secure their freedom and dignity. The United States and the rest of the international community now have committed allies within Egypt and they should not now turn their backs on the Egyptian people. Taking these necessary steps will help in establishing a legitimate and stable ally that shares some of America's aims, as opposed to the discredited and repressive regime that now threatens its people and the country's stability.  

Michael Wahid Hanna is a fellow and program officer at the Century Foundation.

The Arab Revolution Grows Up

By David Ignatius
This commentary was published in The Washington Post on 02/02/2011

Nobody said it better than Hosni Mubarak: "Our eventual goal is to create an equal society, not a society of privileges and class distinctions. Social justice is the first rule for peace and stability in society." But that was in November 1981, a few weeks after he had become president of Egypt.

Over the next 30 years, Mubarak became a symbol not of equality but of a deep corruption - financial, political and cultural - that enveloped Egypt and other countries in the Middle East. He grew arrogant like a king, fancying that he could pass on his dynasty to his son; he ignored advice for reform, doing just enough to keep critics at bay; he shamelessly played upon Western fears of Islamic radicalism.

The transition from the Mubarak era began yesterday, with the president's announcement that he won't seek reelection in September. He's on his way out, but it's still far from clear where Egypt is heading.

The most hopeful sign for the future is that the Egyptian military now holds the balance of power. It is the one institution that Mubarak has not been able to corrupt. Indeed, across the turbulent Arab world, it's a paradox that strong armies are now platforms for change.

"The army is the middle class in camouflage," says Jamil Mroueh, a Lebanese journalist. Soldiers are embraced on the streets of Cairo because they symbolize the independence and integrity of the nation. It's a throwback to the paradigm Samuel Huntington described in his 1957 study "The Soldier and the State": A strong army can allow a transition to democracy and economic reform.

At the heart of the current Arab crisis is the inability of leaders to deliver on reforms they knew were necessary. They chickened out for various reasons - fear of offending domestic power brokers; fear of Muslim radicals; and yes, sadly, fear that the reform agenda was seen as part of an elitist, "pro-American" conspiracy to weaken the Arabs.

I've watched these reform efforts rise and fall over the past decade, often traveling to interview leaders about their ideas for change. King Abdullah II of Jordan commissioned an ambitious set of reforms called the "National Agenda"; he abandoned it in 2005 under pressure from an "old guard" that was profiting from the status quo. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria made an effort to shake up the corrupt Baath Party, but he balked at larger political reforms. Abdullah, who dismissed his cabinet on Tuesday, and Assad, who made upbeat comments to the Wall Street Journal recently, are now scrambling to buff the old reformist message.

The reformists seemed ascendant in the first half of the last decade: In 2004, the Arab Human Development Report and the Alexandria Declaration both sounded a clear call for change. But it's wishful thinking to suggest, as Elliott Abrams did last Sunday in The Post, that the persistence of these reform ideas validates President George W. Bush's policies.

In truth, wars that Bush either started or couldn't prevent - in Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza - blunted reform hopes. Bush meant well by his "freedom agenda," but he pulled the reformists down with him.

That's why Assad today is less vulnerable than Mubarak was: His regime is at least as corrupt and autocratic, but it has remained steadfastly anti-American and anti-Israel. Hard as it is for us in the West to accept, this rejectionism adds to Assad's power, whereas Mubarak was diminished by his image as the West's puppet.

Washington debate about the new Arab revolt tends to focus on the U.S. role: Has President Obama blundered by not forcing Mubarak out sooner? Should America abandon other oligarchs before it's too late? But this isn't about us. If Washington's well-chosen emissary, former ambassador to Cairo Frank Wisner, has helped broker Mubarak's departure and a stable transition to new elections, so much the better. But Egyptians don't need America to chart their course.

It's encouraging to see that the demonstrators in the streets of Cairo, Amman and Sanaa are not shouting the same tired slogans about "death to America" and "death to Israel" that for several generations have substituted for political debate. And it's reassuring, as well, that the Muslim Brotherhood and other militant groups have so far played it cool. They know that the past "decade of jihad" was ruinous for Muslims and is unpopular.

"This is not about slogans," says Mroueh. "The real issue is life: I want an apartment, I want a job." And it's about the dignity that comes from these essential human needs. In reaching out to the military, the protesters have chosen the right allies for a path of stability and change.

Rising Oil Prices And the Events In Egypt

By Randa Takieddine

This commentary was published in Asharq al-Awsat on 02/02/2011

Recent rises in oil prices to around $100 a barrel because of the events in Egypt are not justified by the current situation of the oil market. There is balance in supply and demand, even if OPEC countries produce at their maximum levels, with the exception of Saudi Arabia, which always retains a surplus production capacity of 1.5-2 million barrels a day. Its oil minister affirmed that it now has 4 million barrels of excess, unused capacity, while the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait also currently have a bit of extra capacity as well.

Even Iraq has seen an increase in its production over the last three months; its oil clients have noticed that the country has quickly developed its fields and is now asking them to send supertankers to carry the oil. Only recently, Iraq was asking them to wait because the oil was not available. The petroleum industry has noticed that Iraq’s production in the last three months has reached approximately 200,000 barrels a day.

The fears of a closure of the Suez Canal because of the events in Egypt are an element with a big impact on prices, in addition to two other factors that were pointed out by Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, Ali al-Nuaymi, on Monday in Geneva. These are the weak value of the dollar and the desire by speculators and investors in futures markets to test a new price level.

In reality, speculators in futures markets have a very big impact on the fears of geopolitical events, especially when it concerns methods of transporting oil. The fear of a Suez Canal closure is a big factor for speculators. There are more than 3 million barrels a day crossing the Suez Canal and the Sumed pipeline, which begins in the Gulf of Suez and ends in the Mediterranean. These quantities of oil pass every day through Egypt, representing 3 million out of a total of 80 million barrels of world demand for oil.

However, the possibility that the canal will be closed is unlikely, because it is under the authority of the Egyptian army. According to oil industry insiders, the work on loading cargoes, and the work teams on board ships, are moving slowly, due to the events, and this delays the loading of trucks and the rotation of work teams on the ships. Certainly, this will boost fears that are often fed by investors, who resort to investing in future oil markets, as well as those who invest in the dollar, which has seen a drop. In addition, they resort to fears about the closure of the Suez Canal, which could mean that shipments of crude oil to Europe and the United States will have to take a detour around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, requiring an additional 15 days to arrive at their destinations.

It is very unlikely that the Suez Canal will be closed, as it is the primary financial outlet for Egypt’s economy. The country is seeing huge demonstrations calling for changing the regime, but these demonstrations are unlikely to lead to the canal’s closure. If something unexpected like this happens, it will also greatly affect natural gas markets. Egypt is a source of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and transporting oil might take more time; the time needed to transport oil might grow, along with the number of ships standing in the canal, at a time in which more are needed.

It is true that the conditions that led to the oil price rise of 2008 have changed. It is also true that there is no shortfall in supplies. However, psychological fears about geopolitical events could drive prices up to levels that no one wants, and which are outside the control of OPEC. As long as Egypt is unstable, and people fear the protest movement will move to other countries such as Algeria and Libya after Tunisia, oil prices will continue to rise because these countries are not isolated from such events. Even if the supplies are there, the fears play a big role in terms of speculation and futures markets.

Bashar Al-Assad's Views On The Egyptian And Tunisian Prostests

By Adel al-Toraifi
This commentary was published in Asharq al-Awsat in 02/02/2011

In an extremely defiant interview that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gave to the Wall Street Journal (31st January 2011), al-Assad spoke frankly about a series of demonstrations and protests taking place in a number of Arab countries, saying: "If you didn't see the need for reform before what happened in Egypt and Tunisia, it is too late to do any reform."
 
Important and accurate words, from the president of an Arab state at a highly sensitive time, whilst the majority of Arab regimes have remained silent. Perhaps someone observing President al-Assad’s strategy might ask: why would the Syrian President choose to comment, at this particular time, on attempts to change the political regime in two Arab countries? Furthermore, what is the nature of the reform, or change, which he has pledged to Syria and the Syrians in the coming phase?
 
Bashar al-Assad spoke at length –during the interview – about his vision for the world of internal Arab politics. He talked about governance, popular legitimacy, reform, and religious extremism, and he ended [the interview] by describing the correct process – according to his point of view – to achieve democracy in Syria. It can be said that the importance of this interview lies in the fact that the Syrian President spoke – perhaps for the first time – about the future of the Syrian regime, from an internal perspective, ending with eloquently conclusions similar to what can be found in books such as Ibn Khaldun's "Muqaddimah" or Machiavelli's "The Prince.". Talking about the recent events, al-Assad said: “Whenever you have an uprising, it is self-evident to say that you have anger, but this anger feeds on desperation. Desperation has two factors: internal and external. The internal [factor] is that we are to blame, as states and as officials…if you want to talk about the changes internally, there must be different kinds of changes: political, economic and administrative. These are the changes that we need."
 
According to President al-Assad, Syria is immune to what happened in Tunisia and Egypt. He said: “Why is Syria stable, although we have more difficult conditions? Egypt has been supported financially by the United States, while we are under embargo by most countries of the world. We have growth although we do not have many of the basic needs for the people. Despite all that, the people do not go into an uprising. So it is not only about the needs and not only about the reform. It is about the ideology, the beliefs and the cause that you have. There is a difference between having a cause and having a vacuum”.
 
To summarize the President’s (extensive) words, what happened in Egypt and Tunisia was the product of “despair”, and a lack of “hope” and “dignity”. He added that “You have to be very closely linked to the beliefs of the people. This is the core issue. When there is divergence between your policy and the people's beliefs and interests, you will have this vacuum that creates disturbance. So people do not only live on interests; they also live on beliefs, especially in very ideological areas. Unless you understand the ideological aspect of the region, you cannot understand what is happening.”
 
As for al-Assad’s proposed solution, it is not the immediate application of democracy, because the people need to develop, and perhaps it will be the "next generation" that will practice democracy in the future. [Al-Assad said] gradual reform should be undertaken, to develop society, and society’s participation in the decision-making process must be taken into account. “If you want to be transparent with your people, do not do anything cosmetic, whether to deceive your people or to get some applause from the West. They want to criticize you, let them criticize and do not worry.”
 
I find myself in agreement with the Syrian President – when ballot box principles are immediately applied to societies, democratic values do not instantly become part of their consciousness, and the process does not achieve the desired results. Reform must be gradual, so that people can keep pace with the change. These are wise words on a theoretical level, but applying such principles on the ground is another matter!
 
The Syrian President was right in saying that countries such as Egypt and Tunisia have achieved economic growth, and made great strides in opening up to the outside world, yet despite this, uprisings have occurred. However, I disagree with the President when he says that “ideology” – in Syria’s case, Baathist ideology – and a “cause” – i.e. resistance – are safeguards against an internal vacuum. The era of cross-border ideology is over, and a human being today is no longer an anonymous individual of the people, but rather he has his independence and personal freedoms. When a regime uses a ‘cause’, whether this is the liberation of the Golan Heights, or Palestine, this does not provide security when faced with demands for civil and political rights. Here, let us reflect on the ‘Wali al-Faqih’ regime in Iran, which the president referred to as a model of popular will, despite the fact that it was built to resist and stand in the face of the West. Massive youth protests emerged demanding regime change in 1996, 1999, 2003 and 2009, which were all suppressed by the use of force. During the latest Iranian elections, millions came out to object to what they perceived as electoral fraud, and how did this “resistance” regime deal with the people? The ‘Basij’ gangs cracked down and suppressed hundreds on the streets of Tehran. The Revolutionary Guard was forced to reinstate Ahmadinejad by force to preserve the regime, and send the young members of the opposition to the Revolutionary Courts.
 
Finally, those young protestors participating in the demonstrations today are not doing so because of a ‘cause’, or an ‘ideology’, but because they want to change their miserable living conditions. It is perhaps a cause for concern that at the same time they do not have an alternative vision for the future. Likewise, their movement is being led by passion and enthusiasm, and thus the future of their aspirations are not assured should they return to their homes, as the outlawed parties will move to monopolize the current opportunities, and ride the wave of change.
 
All that the observer hopes for is that governments take the initiative to absorb these lessons, and work so their societies can avoid the pitfalls of these painful ordeals.

Egypt Revolt Has Iran In A Spin

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's regime has finally decided what line – and what credit – to take for the demonstrators' actions

By Simon Tisdall

This commentary was published in The Guardian on 01/02/2011

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ordered a violent crackdown on Iranian pro-democracy protesters in 2009, claims to have encouraged the Egyptian demonstrators. Photograph: Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters

Iranian officials and clerics are insisting Egypt's insurrection, and similar popular revolts across the Arab world, are inspired by Islamist political ideology and have their origin in the 1979 Iranian revolution that overthrew the late Shah. But opposition leaders and independent analysts take a very different view. They say the common rallying cause is democracy, not Islamism – and that the Tehran regime is increasingly fearful of an Egypt-style uprising there.

After days of nervous hesitation, the Islamic Republic appeared today to have decided what line to take. A statement signed by 214 MPs pledged strong "spiritual" support for Egyptians in opposing "the tyranny of their rulers". It also condemned "efforts by certain western countries [code for Britain and the US] as well as the Zionist regime [Israel] to exhaust the uprising and separate it from Islamic values".

Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ordered a violent crackdown on Iran's pro-democracy protesters in 2009, claimed on his webpage to have predicted and personally encouraged Egypt's pro-democracy revolt. He offered no explanation for this apparent contradiction. President Hosni Mubarak's persecution of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's biggest Islamist party, and his collusion with the US and Israel, were his undoing, Khamenei suggested.

In a webpage entry entitled Supreme Leader's View Of Egypt, quoted by Shayan Ghajar on InsideIran.org, Khamenei said the Brotherhood's struggle "is just like the yell that the Iranian nation let out against America and against global arrogance and tyranny" in 1979.

Other Iranian officials are singing the same tune. Major-General Yahya Rahim Safavi, Khamenei's military adviser, told Fars news agency that Mubarak would share the same fate as the shah, vanquished by the forces of Islamist revolution. And in case western governments missed the point, pro-regime cleric Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmad Khatami rammed it home. The uprisings heralded "an Islamic Middle East" based on religion and religious democracy, he said. Iranian-style Islamist governance, not US-style liberal democracy, was the coming model.

This official Iranian interpretation of events is open to challenge, to put it mildly. Evidence so far from the streets of Cairo and Tunis suggests Islamist groups have followed, rather than led the popular mood. Egypt's protesters say they are united in opposition to Mubarak, as a symbol of injustice, and are protesting against a lack of democratic freedoms, poverty, a dearth of economic opportunity, and official corruption. Islam is not much mentioned.

Purists point out the Iranian revolution was not, initially, Islamist-led. It, too, was intrinsically a response to poor governance. This is why, paradoxically, Mir Hossein Mousavi, the Iranian opposition leader who many believe defeated Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 2009 presidential election, is also lauding events in Egypt – and claiming credit.

"What we are witnessing in the streets of Tunis, Sana'a, Cairo, Alexandria and Suez take their origins from the millions-strong protests in Tehran in 2009," Mousavi said on his Persian-language website, Kalemeh.com.

Shayan Ghajar said Iran's attempts to spin the story revealed "more about the Islamic Republic's anxiety than the actual facts on the ground in Cairo".

Western governments will have differing assessments of the Islamist role in events in Egypt. But Iran's mullahs have at least one firm if unlikely ally in their corner: Israel. Step forward Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. "Our real fear," Netanyahu said this week, was that Egypt and other destabilised Arab governments could become "repressive regimes of radical Islam".

Mohamed ElBaradei: The Man Who Would Be President

Robert Fisk meets Mohamed ElBaradei, Egypt's saviour-in-waiting

This interview was published in The Independent on 01/02/2011

No he doesn't want to be the president, but when I ask him if he might consider a transitional presidency for himself ? until fair elections, naturally ? I receive a traditional reply. "If there's a consensus by all people to do whatever they think I can do for them... I will do that." Hmmm, I think to myself.

Man of the moment? Of course Mohamed ElBaradei is. But man of the people, I have my doubts. He doesn't claim to be, of course, and sitting in his garden easy chair near an impossibly blue but rather small swimming pool, he sometimes appears – even wearing his baseball hat – like a very friendly, shrewd and bespectacled mouse. He will not like that description, but this is a mouse, I suspect, with very sharp teeth.

It's almost a delight to dissect the bigger mice who work in the White House and the State Department. "Do you remember how on the second day, all we heard was that they were 'monitoring the situation'. On the second day, Secretary Clinton said: 'We assess the situation as stable'; it was funny yesterday, too, to hear Clinton say that 'we have been urging the Egyptian Mubarak for 30 years to move on this – and he moved backward – how on earth can you still ask him to introduce democratic reform? Then Clinton talks about 'the legitimate aspirations of the Egyptian people' and now they are talking about 'the smooth transition of power'... I think they know that Mubarak's days are numbered."

Without any prompting, ElBaradei – Nobel peace laureate, ex-UN nuclear chief inspector, etc, etc – bites our own dear leader. "Yesterday, I heard Mr Cameron saying that 'democracy is not an election, that it's 'block-building'. Well, everybody knows that. But how do you talk about building a judiciary, civil society – how do you talk about these 'building blocks' – under a dictatorship? You either have a civil society or you don't."

Sometimes, ElBaradei sounds too hopeful. He agrees that the best potential Egyptian leadership have all been exiled, deliberately of course. On a recent speaking engagement at Harvard, he found 15 Egyptians on the Harvard Board.

"I told them: If you come back, you can run Egypt." But it's not that simple. As ElBaradei admits: "It's an old story that ends: 'Mubarak is a friend of Israel and we think a change will bring a government hostile to Israel and it will bring on an Iranian-type velayeh-fakhi [guidance by a supreme religious leader]. I say this is like 'True Fiction'. You need to get rid of this 'True Fiction' about the Muslim Brotherhood and the automatic hostility towards Israel. It is a fact that a durable peace can only be between democracies and not between dictators and, if you want a durable peace, whether Egypt is a democracy or a dictatorship, the feeling of the people in the region is not going to change."

He says he is convinced that Mubarak will go. And so say all of us. He also says he believes the Egyptian army will not fight the Egyptian people, which is by no means certain. I suspect that, like me, ElBaradei isn't very keen on armies. "I think, ultimately, that the Egyptian army will be with the people. This is common sense when you see a couple of million people in the street who are representative of 85 million Egyptian people who hate Mubarak, who want to see his back. The army is part of the people. And at the end of the day, after anyone takes off his uniform, he is part of the people with the same problems, the same repression, the same inability to have a decent life. So eventually, I don't think they are going to shoot their people. And why should they shoot their people? To protect what?"

When Egypt lost the 1967 war, ElBaradei wrote that "a soldier fights because he defends something he wants to keep. But in the 1967 war, what was the Egyptian soldier fighting for? There was nothing to go back to. So they ran away". Nasser, so the great man believes, was the worst of Egyptian dictators – "he even nationalised the grocery shops" – but the path of dictatorship ran right through to today. Even a few months ago he could not imagine what would happen. "I had gone to a wake, I told my brother, and I looked at the eyes of the mourners and they were dead – they were dead souls. And now I look at the people today and they have recovered their self-confidence. They are free. It was like a pressure cooker."

He talks about hypocrisy, dictatorship, criminal malfeasance, the darkest deeds of the Egyptian security services, the loyalty of the Egyptian army to the people in a high, astringent but deadly voice. No he doesn't want to be the president, but when I ask him if he might consider a transitional presidency for himself – until fair elections, naturally – I receive a traditional reply. "If there's a consensus by all people to do whatever they think I can do for them... I will do that."

Hmmm, I think to myself.

"All this will continue to be the same until you address the plight of the Palestinians, until you review your policy in the region. We have this strange relationship where you are calling this peace but you cannot even publish an Israeli book here, or vice-versa, for example. If you really want peace, yes, the peace can be made durable with democracy, but also you have your responsibility – which is to review a balanced relationship, particularly on the Palestinian issue, Iraq, Afghanistan, what have you, and then you will have an Arab world which will be friendly to the West."

ElBaradei is surprisingly mild when he speaks of Mubarak the man. He last saw him two years ago. "I would go to see him when I returned from a UN mission or a holiday. I always received a friendly reception. It was a very cordial relationship. It was one-to-one, just us, and there was no formality. I would tell him what I thought of this or that problem, what might be done. He doesn't really have advisers who have the guts to tell him the truth."

Much good did ElBaradei's advice do. He is outraged by the arson and looting. When I ask if state security policemen were behind the arson – which is used by Mubarak, Obama and Clinton to "tag" those who demand Mubarak's departure with violence – the mouse shows its teeth. "They [the police] were, we are now hearing about documents which show that some of these uniformed officers have taken off their uniforms and gone about looting. And everybody says that they have been ordered to do this by the regime or the ministry of interior or whatever. And if this is true, then this is the most sinister of criminal acts. We have to verify this. But for sure, many of these bands of thugs and looters are from part of the secret police."

And then suddenly, in that high voice, eyes glittering behind pebbling spectacles, the mouse becomes a tiger. "When a regime withdraws the police entirely from the streets of Cairo, when thugs are part of the secret police, trying to give the impression that without Mubarak the country will go into chaos, this is a criminal act. Somebody has to be accountable. And now, as you can hear in the streets, people are not saying Mubarak should go, they are now saying he should be put on trial. If he wants to save his skin, he better leave."

My God, those teeth are sharp.

Exit The Israel Alibi

By Roger Cohen
This commentary was published in The New York Times on 31/01/2011

LONDON — One way to measure the immense distance traveled by Arabs over the past month is to note the one big subject they are not talking about: Israel.

For too long, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been the great diversion, exploited by feckless Arab autocrats to distract impoverished populations. None of these Arab leaders ever bothered to visit the West Bank. That did not stop them embracing the justice of the Palestinian cause even as they trampled on justice at home.

Now, Arabs are thinking about their own injustices. With great courage, they are saying “Enough!”

The big shift is in the captive Arab mind. It is an immense journey from a culture of victimhood to one of self-empowerment, from a culture of conspiracy to one of construction. It is a long road from rage to responsibility, from humiliation to action.

The Muslim suicide bomber aims fury at a perceived outside enemy. Self-immolation, the spark to this great pan-Arab uprising, betrays similar desperation, but directed inward. The outer scapegoat is replaced as the target by the inner Arab culprit.

Change won’t come overnight, and won’t be without pain, but Arabs have embarked on it — and the United States must support them without equivocation. Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, is finished: It is only a matter of time. No wonder the Obama administration is calling for an “orderly transition.”

Sure, there is risk. There always is in change. But nothing in the Arab genome says democracy, liberty and plain decency are unattainable.

Remember, Mohamed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 attack, came from Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt. The vast majority of Atta’s henchmen came from another U.S.-backed Arab autocracy, Saudi Arabia. They did not come from Iran. They did not come from Lebanon — or Gaza.

President George W. Bush was right in 2003: “As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment and violence ready for export.” And Condoleezza Rice was right to note that the U.S. promotion of “stability” — read autocracy — had allowed “a very malignant, meaning cancerous, form of extremism to grow up underneath.”

Bush and Rice were also, however, the authors of the Iraq invasion. This destroyed their credibility on Arab liberation. Their Middle East democracy agenda went nowhere. But, self-generated, it remains the right goal.

A 2008 study by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center found that 60 percent of Al Qaeda in Iraq fighters were of Saudi or Libyan origin: the handiwork of those alibi-seeking Arab despots again.

I spoke of risk. Egypt is not Tunisia, it’s the epicenter of the Arab world, self-styled “mother of the world,” a supporter of U.S. interests, a big nation that has made a cold peace with Israel. The direction it now takes will be pivotal to the region.

The arguments of those who say, “Better the devil you know” are already clear. Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel-prize-winning Egyptian opposition leader, has immense stature but no organization. The Muslim Brotherhood, Islamist Israel haters, will fill any void. Look at what Arab democracy brings: Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and chaos in Iraq! You want that in Egyptian guise?

These arguments are facile, as Tunisia, with its very un-Islamic revolution, has just demonstrated, and Turkish democracy shows, and Egyptian restraint suggests. They only perpetuate Middle Eastern dysfunction. They ignore America’s sway over Egypt’s Army as a critical moderating force — and ElBaradei’s rapid emergence as unifier.

Yes, Iraqi democracy is messy, but will prove healthier than Saddam Hussein’s tyranny. A Hezbollah-backed prime minister just came to power in Lebanon, but through a constitutional process — and life goes on. The Palestinian stab at democracy has proved divisive but also produced in the West Bank precisely the move from a culture of victimhood and paralysis that other Arabs are now following.

Indeed, with its fast-growing economy and institution-building the West Bank is an example to the dawning Arab world — and would be more so if Israel helped rather than blocked and hindered.
Nothing good can get built on the false foundation of Arab absolutism with its decades of waste: That’s the irrefutable argument for change.

Images of Cairo 2011 plunge me back to Tehran 2009, when another repressive Muslim — but not Arab — nation stood on a razor’s edge. Henry Precht, an author and former U.S. diplomat, has pointed out some differences: 40 percent of Egyptians make less than $2 a day while such poverty is less widespread in Iran; Iranian women are far more present in universities; literacy is higher in Iran, the fertility rate lower. As Precht writes, “Iranian politics, though badly flawed, offers more elements of democracy than Egypt’s.”

These are perhaps some indices of why the Islamic Republic proved more resilient than Mubarak’s Egypt seems today. Still, Iran’s paranoid rulers will shudder at Egyptian people power.
A representative Egyptian government — the one whose birth pangs I believe we are witnessing — will talk about Israel one day and may be less pliant to America’s will. But it would carry a vital message for Arabs and Jews: Victimhood is self-defeating and paralyzing — and can be overcome.

Why Washington Clings To A Failed Middle-East Strategy

By Gareth Porter

This commentary was published in Foreign Policy In Focus on 01/02/2011

The death throes of the Mubarak regime in Egypt signal a new level of crisis for a U.S. Middle East strategy that has shown itself over and over again in recent years to be based on nothing more than the illusion of power. The incipient loss of the U.S. client regime in Egypt is an obvious moment for a fundamental adjustment in that strategy.

But those moments have been coming with increasing regularity in recent years, and the U.S. national security bureaucracy has shown itself to be remarkably resistant to giving it up. The troubled history of that strategy suggests that it is an expression of some powerful political forces at work in this society, as former NSC official Gary Sick hinted in a commentary on the crisis.

Ever since the Islamic Republic of Iran was established in 1979, every U.S. administration has operated on the assumption that the United States, with Israel and Egypt as key client states, occupies a power position in the Middle East that allows it to pursue an aggressive strategy of unrelenting pressure on all those “rogue” regimes and parties in the region which have resisted dominance by the U.S.-Israeli tandem: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.

The Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq was only the most extreme expression of that broader strategic concept. It assumed that the United States and Israel could establish pro-Western regime in Iraq as the base from which it would press for the elimination of resistance from any of their remaining adversaries in the region.

But since that more aggressive version of the strategy was launched, the illusory nature of the regional dominance strategy has been laid bare in one country after another.

• The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq merely empowered Shi’a forces to form a regime whose geostrategic interests are far closer to Iran than to the United States;
• The U.S.-encouraged Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006 only strengthened the position of Hezbollah as the largest, most popular and most disciplined political-military force in the country, leading ultimately the Hezbollah-backed government now being formed.
• Israeli and U.S. threats to attack Iran, Hezbollah and Syria since 2006 brought an even more massive influx of rockets and missiles into Lebanon and Syria which now appears to deter Israeli aggressiveness toward its adversaries for the first time.
• U.S.-Israeli efforts to create a client Palestinian entity and crush Hamas through the siege of Gaza has backfired, strengthening the Hamas claim to be the only viable Palestinian entity.
• The U.S. insistence on demonstrating the effectiveness of its military power in Afghanistan has only revealed the inability of the U.S. military to master the Afghan insurgency.

And now the Mubarak regime is in its final days. As one talking head after another has pointed out in recent days, it has been the lynchpin of the U.S. strategy. The main function of the U.S. client state relationship with Egypt was to allow Israel to avoid coming to terms with Palestinian demands.

The costs of the illusory quest for dominance in the Middle East have been incalculable. By continuing to support Israeli extremist refusal to seek a peaceful settlement, trying to prop up Arab authoritarian regimes that are friendly with Israel and seeking to project military power in the region through both airbases in the Gulf States and a semi-permanent bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, the strategy has assiduously built up long-term antagonism toward the United States and pushed many throughout the Islamic world to sympathize with Al Qaeda-style jihadism. It has also fed Sunni-Shi’a tensions in the region and created a crisis over Iran’s nuclear program.

Although this is clearly the time to scrap that Middle East strategy, the nature of U.S. national security policymaking poses formidable obstacles to such an adjustment Bureaucrats and bureaucracies always want to hold on to policies and programs that have given them power and prestige, even if those policies and programs have been costly failures. Above all, in fact, they want to avoid having to admit the failure and the costs involved. So they go on defending and pursuing strategies long after the costs and failure have become clear.

An historical parallel to the present strategy in the Middle East is the Cold War strategy in East Asia, including the policy of surrounding, isolating and pressuring the Communist Chinese regime. As documented in my own history of the U.S. path to war in Vietnam, Perils of Dominance, the national security bureaucracy was so committed to that strategy that it resisted any alternative to war in South Vietnam in 1964-65, because it believed the loss of South Vietnam would mean the end of Cold War strategy, with its military alliances, client regimes and network of military bases surrounding China. It was only during the Nixon administration that the White House wrested control of national security policy from the bureaucracy sufficiently to scrap that Cold War strategy in East Asia and reach an historic accommodation with China.

The present strategic crisis can only be resolved by a similar political decision to reach another historical accommodation – this time with the “resistance bloc” in the Middle East. Despite the demonization of Iran and the rest of the “resistance bloc”, their interests on the primary issue of al Qaeda-like global terrorism have long been more aligned with the objective security interests of the United States than those of some regimes with which the United States has been allied (e.g., Saudi Arabia and Pakistan).

Scrapping the failed strategy in favor of an historic accommodation in the region would:

• reduce the Sunni-Shi’a geopolitical tensions in the region by supporting a new Iran-Egypt relationship;
• force Israel to reconsider its refusal to enter into real negotiations on a Palestinian settlement;
• reduce the level of antagonism toward the United States in the Islamic world and
• create a new opportunity for agreement between the United States and Iran that could resolve the nuclear issue.

It will be far more difficult, however, for the United States to make this strategic adjustment than it was for Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger to secretly set in motion their accommodation with China. Unconditional support for Israel, the search for client states and determination to project military power into the Middle East, which are central to the failed strategy, have long reflected the interests of the two most powerful domestic U.S. political power blocs bearing on national security policy: the pro-Israel bloc and the militarist bloc. Whereas Nixon and Kissinger were not immobilized by fealty to any such power bloc, both the pro-Israel and militarist power blocs now dominate both parties in the White House as well as in Congress.

One looks in vain for a political force in this country that is free to press for fundamental change in Middle East strategy. And without a push for such a change from outside, we face the distinct possibility of a national security bureaucracy and White House continuing to deny the strategy’s utter failure and disastrous consequences.