Egyptian referendum reinforces establishment

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From the Times:

CAIRO — Egyptian voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum on constitutional changes on Sunday that will usher in rapid elections, with the results underscoring the strength of established political organizations, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, and the weakness of emerging liberal groups.

More than 14.1 million voters, or 77.2 percent, approved the constitutional amendments; 4 million, or 22.8 percent, voted against them. The turnout of 41 percent among the 45 million eligible voters broke all records for recent elections, according to the Egyptian government.

"This is the first real referendum in Egypt's history," said Mohamed Ahmed Attia, the chairman of the supreme judicial committee that supervised the elections, in announcing the results. "We had an unprecedented turnout because after Jan. 25 people started to feel that their vote would matter."

President Hosni Mubarak was forced from power last month, 18 days after demonstrations against his three decades in power began Jan. 25. The referendum result paved the way for early legislative elections as early as June and a presidential race possibly in August. The ruling military council had sought the rapid timetable to ensure its own speedy exit from running the country.

The military council has been somewhat vague about the next steps. But Maj. Gen. Mamdouh Shaheen told the newspaper Al Shorouk in an interview published Sunday that the generals would issue a constitutional declaration to cover the changes and then set dates for the vote once the results were announced.

The Muslim Brotherhood and remnant elements of the National Democratic Party, which dominated Egyptian politics for decades, were the main supporters of the referendum. They argued that the election timetable would ensure a swift return to civilian rule.

Members of the liberal wing of Egyptian politics mostly opposed the measure, saying that they lacked time to form effective political organizations. They said early elections would benefit the Brotherhood and the old governing party, which they warned would seek to write a constitution that centralizes power, much like the old one.

Yes, it all happened rather quickly, and it's hardly surprising that the results benefitted establishment elements over more progressive ones. Indeed, as Steven Taylor notes, "[a]nother not so small issue is that the military will retain executive power (as it has before declared) until presidential elections, meaning that the military is going to retain substantial influence over the transition."

On the one hand, the situation remains unclear. On the other hand, at least Egypt's in a better place than Libya (or any number of other places), and at least the possibility of liberalization remains. The key is not so much whether liberal forces prevail now but whether a system is set up to allow those emerging forces to prevail in future. The worry is that the new Egypt will look a lot like the old Egypt, with Mubarak replaced by a more engaged military and with the political landscape dominated by two generally illiberal parties that have no interest in helping to usher in meaningful, democratic change.

But it's better than nothing -- and certainly better than what was there before.

Hope's last chance?

Guest post by Ali Ezzatyar 

Ali Ezzatyar is a journalist and American attorney practising in Paris, France.

(Ed. note: This is Ali's fourth guest post at The Reaction. Last month, he wrote on dictatorship in Tunisia and Egypt and on the revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East. In January 2010, he co-wrote a post on Iran with Bryan Tollin. On the situation in Egypt, he was recently quoted by Robert Fisk at The Independent. -- MJWS)

**********

Comparisons to Ceausescu, while initially pessimistic, could turn out to be understated. Qaddafi is digging in and Libya is moving closer to what may be a prolonged and bloody struggle for the country's future. The international community and the United States in particular continue to wonder what role they should play in helping the good guys win.

Surely, it would have been difficult for any U.S. president in 2011 to seriously consider intervention in Libya. But on the eve of his election, one would have thought that Barack Obama was the exception. Promising a break from the past with the Muslim world, the usual suspicion and presumption of ill-intent that followed a U.S. president to the Middle East was tabled in Obama's case. But a combination of unfulfilled promises has relegated him to a class of leaders who must tread with extreme caution in Libya; still, he continues to have a rare opportunity that he should exploit.

He came to power partially on the perception that his unique persona and experience, and the policies and goodwill that would emanate therefrom, could reverse the Bush-era suspicion harnessed towards America almost everywhere in the world. Obama's domestic and international behavior on most everything Middle East, though, has been a disappointment.

Whatever the reality may be, his policy thus far in Iraq and Afghanistan is mostly seen as a continuation of an unpopular status quo. Everyone, including Israel, is complaining about his lack of coherence. On certain domestic issues that are especially important to increasingly well-connected followers abroad, he has again failed to live up to expectations. He signed an extension to the Patriot Act without reforming its most controversial portions. Just this week, he also ordered trials at Guantanamo Bay to resume, casting his promise to immediately close the prison even further into oblivion.

Miraculously, though, with the wave of unrest in North Africa and the Middle East, Obama's foreign policy credentials in the region have been partially revived. In January, American intervention directly lead to Ben-Ali fleeing Tunisia. The story is similarly positive in Egypt, as President Obama's personal conversations with Mubarak in the days leading up to his departure were historically unprecedented in the scope of their rebuke and insistence; the State Department is even rumored to have been very critical (if not threatening) in Bahrain, where the U.S. has a military base, during "consultations" on the paths forward for the king.

From what can be gauged of the region's opinion of how things have been handled thus far, the reaction is overwhelmingly positive. No burning American flags or effigies of Obama; rather, the U.S. is appearing to come out on the right side of events, without having dictated the results of a crucial, strategic Arab nation's political future.

Among disappointment and positive surprise, Libya, then, is a sort of tie-breaker. Obama needs to be the galvanizing force that ensures the world, and not just the U.S., stands on the side of Libya's people. This should include support for a U.N.- or NATO-led no-fly zone to prevent the strafing of civilians, more humanitarian aid to Libyan refugees, and strong diplomatic support for the Libyan people. But further intervention, such as tactical support for Libyan rebels, should also be considered. At this juncture in history, such intervention is unlikely to engender a negative perception, even if the rebels lose. Consider, furthermore, what all of the parties have to gain.

Through the popular, secular uprisings that are spreading through the region, al Qaeda and terrorism are being dealt a crucial blow that billions of dollars and thousands of American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan have yet to accomplish. But Obama must note that the clock is ticking and the jury is still out. Compared to the potential cost of inaction, decisiveness in Libya is simply crucial. Over the course of the next year, a partial reversal of decades of negative U.S. perception could instigate the new era of mutual respect and interest that Obama spoke about in his June 2009 speech in Cairo. That event would mean, among other things, a fundamental blow to extremists everywhere in the region and a huge boon America for decades to come.

Welcome to the new authoritarianism, Egypt

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Well, that didn't last long, did it? I mean the hope that Egypt, sans Mubarak, would transition peacefully, and quickly, to some sort of sustainable liberal democracy. There may indeed be meaningful change, but it seems that the military is firmly in command:

CAIRO — Tens of thousands of protesters returned Friday to Tahrir Square, the site of demonstrations that led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak two weeks ago, to keep up the pressure on Egypt's military-led transitional government.

But by early Saturday, the military made it clear there would be limits to further dissent as soldiers and plainclothes security officers moved into the square, beating protesters and tearing down their tents, witnesses said.

In a day that had begun with equal parts carnival and anti-government demonstration, protesters' called for the quick cancellation of the Emergency Law, which for three decades has allowed detentions without trial, and the resignation of Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, a former air force general appointed by Mr. Mubarak days before he stepped down.

But after night fell, the protest transformed into a tense standoff between protesters and the military, whose neutrality during the uprising, and unwillingness to fire on the protesters, had turned them into popular heroes. 

The military may have been "popular heroes," for a short time (and perhaps understandably so), but it's not like it's really an engine of change, let alone to a new chapter in Egyptian history that would see its power (and economic status) reduced. The military was the one significant institution that Mubarak allowed to remain in place during his rule, and it used its position to acquire enormous power within the structure of Mubarak's authoritarianism, or perhaps despite of it, with an enormous stake in Egypt's economy. (For more on this, see Fred Kaplan's recent piece at Slate on the Egyptian military.)

And, indeed, it may not have fired on the protesters -- and been willing to appear to side with them, giving it enormous credibility in terms of public opinion both at home and abroad (and most importantly with the U.S., where many top Egyptian military officials were trained) -- not because it agreed with them but because it was quietly encouraging the end of Mubarak's regime so that it could take over. As Ellis Goldberg wrote at Foreign Affairs a couple of weeks ago:

Earlier that day, the Supreme Military Council released a statement -- labeled its "first" communiqué -- that stated that the military would ensure a peaceful transition of Mubarak out of office. In practice, it appears that power has passed into the hands of the armed forces. This act was the latest in the military's creep from applauded bystander to steering force in this month's protests in Egypt. Since the protest movement first took shape on January 25, the military has, with infinite patience, extended and deepened its physical control of the area around Tahrir Square (the focal point of the protests) with concrete barriers, large steel plates, and rolls of razor wire. In itself, the military's growing footprint was the next act in a slow-motion coup -- a return of the army from indirect to direct control -- the groundwork for which was laid in 1952.

And so the threat to a democratic future for Egypt isn't Islamism but military rule:

The West may be worried that the crisis will bring democracy too quickly to Egypt and empower the Muslim Brotherhood. But the real concern is that the regime will only shed its corrupt civilians, leaving its military component as the only player left standing. Indeed, when General Omar Suleiman, the recently appointed vice president to whom Mubarak entrusted presidential powers last night, threatened on February 9 that the Egyptian people must choose between either the current regime or a military coup, he only increased the sense that the country was being held hostage.

It's no longer being held hostage. The military has taken over.

In the past, the U.S. and others have forged alliances with military dictators all around the world, mostly as a supposed bulwark against communism but also because of a general distrust, if not outright opposition to, democratic movements whose outcomes are unclear. The same has happened more recently, with the U.S. backing dictators as a bulwark against Islamism (or, rather, the threat of jihadism), including in Central Asia and the Middle East.

Given what happened in Egypt this month, with the world's attention focused on the courageous protesters in Tahrir Square and with all the celebrations and talk of democracy that accompanied Mubarak's resignation, it remains to be seen whether the revived military authoritarianism in Egypt will be welcomed by the U.S. -- and whether it will be allowed to get away with this coup -- or whether there will be continued pressure for lasting change beyond this supposed "transition."

I'm not optimistic.

Do Republicans hate freedom?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

When it's for Muslims, yes, certainly, most of them do.

Perusing CPAC, the WaPo's Eugene Robinson finds a lot of love for Mubarak and the bigoted conviction that Muslims just can't handle democracy.

Part of it is that Republicans oppose Obama no matter what, so when he supports the protesters (or seems to), they oppose them.

Part of it, too, is that Republicans (and conservatives generally) had a hard time coming up with a coherent response to the Egyptian uprising, and really were never able to and so remained deeply divided.

But a lot of it, obviously, is anti-Muslim bigotry, including the misguided view that Islam is inseparable from theocratic sharia rule.

"These conservatives are arguing that the world's 1.2 billion Muslims cannot be trusted to govern themselves," writes Robinson. "That's not what I call loving freedom."

No, it's called being Republican.

Beck goes bonkers: Communism is coming to the U.S.

By Nicholas Wilbur

Glenn Beck is worried. Not quite trembling, and not yet so crazy that he's barking at squirrels, but worried. The uprising in Egypt marks the beginning of the end. Communists and Islamic extremists are mounting an offensive against the Western world.

As proof of this "communist revolt," Beck cited a story in The New York Times:

This is what I've been called nuts for for the last two weeks. And basically, it's on the front page story, "Wired and Shrewd, Young Egyptians Guide Revolt," and what it talks about is how the Islamic extremists have gotten together with socialists and communists and they have sown the seeds of revolt.

It goes without saying that people who watch Beck's show on Fox News aren't big fans of The New York Times. Probably many of his fans (literally, fanatics) were offended by Beck's reliance on the unpatriotic, anti-American, and undeniably traitorous manifesto as evidence of this "insurrection" heading to the United States.

In the interests of context, I have lifted the following passages from the above-referenced news article, which Beck cites as proof of a communist-socialist-Islamic extremist movement:

• They are the young professionals, mostly doctors and lawyers, who touched off and then guided the revolt shaking Egypt, members of the Facebook generation who have remained mostly faceless — very deliberately so, given the threat of arrest or abduction by the secret police.

• In the process many have formed some unusual bonds that reflect the singularly non-ideological character of the Egyptian youth revolt, which encompasses liberals, socialists and members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

• Islam Lotfi, a lawyer who is a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood Youth, said his group used to enlist others from the tiny leftist parties to stand with them in calling for civil liberties, to make their cause seem more universal. Many are now allies in the revolt, including Zyad el-Elaimy, a 30-year-old lawyer who was then the leader of a communist group.

Mr. Elaimy, who was imprisoned four times and suffered multiple broken limbs from torture for his political work, now works as an assistant to Mohamed ElBaradei, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the International Atomic Energy Agency. In turn, his group built ties to other young organizers....

• Most of the group are liberals or leftists, and all, including the Brotherhood members among them, say they aspire to a Western-style constitutional democracy where civic institutions are stronger than individuals.

But they also acknowledge deep divides, especially over the role of Islam in public life. Mr. Lotfi points to pluralistic Turkey. On the question of alcohol — forbidden by Islam — he suggested that drinking was a private matter but that perhaps it should be forbidden in public.

Asked if he could imagine an Egyptian president who was a Christian woman, he paused. "If it is a government of institutions," he said, "I don't care if the president is a monkey."

Okay, so to be clear there are, as Beck professes, communists, socialists, and members of the Muslim Brotherhood behind the organized rallies that, as of February 11, 2010, successfully overthrew an oppressive and corrupt dictator in Egypt.

But as the article clearly shows, these are not anarchists, radicals, or extremist Muslims aspiring for some new world order run by a fundamentalist Caliphate, as Beck believes. They are college-educated professionals, "mostly doctors and lawyers" (one of whom is Wael Ghonim, "a Google executive who was detained for 12 days but emerged this week as the movement's most potent spokesman") who were "born roughly around the time that President Hosni Mubarak first came to power... and [who] all have spent their adult lives bridling at the restrictions of the Egyptian police state – some undergoing repeated arrests and torture for the cause." Their cause being "a Western-style constitutional democracy."

If, as Beck claims, there are "communist revolutionaries who are willing to band with anyone here in America" and who are ready to spread their "cause" across the world, then America better brace for its own revolution. "It will come to America," according to Beck.

Grab your tinfoil helmets, pull out your Bibles, and sharpen your bayonets, folks. A "Western-style constitutional democracy" is heading this way.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Bush talked freedom, Egypt walked it

By Nicholas Wilbur

Corruption is out, liberty is in, and with the recent uprisings in Egypt and throughout the Arab world the media are hoisting up former President George W. Bush as the retrospective hero of democracy for what is turning out to be an effective "freedom agenda."

In a column published on February 3, 2011 -- titled "Was George Bush right?" -- The Economist gave a balanced overview of the conservative spin being applied to the people's backlash in Africa and throughout the Middle East:

With people-power bursting out all over the Arab world, the experts who scoffed at Mr Bush for thinking that Arabs wanted and were ready for democracy on the Western model are suddenly looking less clever – and Mr Bush's simply and rather wonderful notion that Arabs want, deserve and are capable of democracy is looking rather wise.

This is, simply put, a severely exaggerated, self-aggrandizing example of the political butterfly effect. Though we may believe that America is the beautiful epicenter from which all international reverberations of freedom and culture and wealth and greatness commence, it is also a rather shallow, ethnocentric interpretation of causality.

Can we honestly take even partial responsibility for the Egyptian people's uprising on the basis that our president invaded Afghanistan and dumped trillions of dollars into a 10-year mission of wandering the hillsides and peaking into caves in a fruitless search for the 9/11 mastermind? Are we the bricklayers of this new foundation of liberty because Bush took America to war in Iraq on the pretense of some imminent nuclear threat that eventually proved utterly false?

If that is true, then the opposite could be argued just as easily – that Bush's vacancy of the White House gave Arabs the go-ahead to fight for democracy without having to fear that the U.S. military would flatten their cities, control their borders, manage their natural resources, and play puppet master with their "democratically elected" officials.

Bush never called on the people to overthrow corrupt regimes. He did it for them or he did nothing, as The Economist noted when it contextualized the media's recent attempts to vindicate the former president:

The big thing Mr Bush did in the Arab world was not to argue for an election here or a loosening of controls there. It was to send an army to conquer Iraq. Nothing that has happened in Tunisia or Egypt makes the consequences of that decision any less calamitous... (Bush) wanted Arab democracy on the cheap. That is to say, he wanted Arab leaders to empower their people but at the same time to protect America's strategic interests. That put a limit on how far he dared to push the reliable old autocrats. And, knowing this, the reliable old autocrats thought all they needed to do to stay safely on their perches was to wait Mr Bush out.

Of course, no praise of Bush would be complete without a fair and balanced critique of President Barack Obama. Highlighting the criticism of Obama's failure to double-down on Bush's "freedom agenda" and his "lack of presumption" in foreign meddling, The Economist cited Obama's 2009 Cairo speech as proof of this administration's "diffidence" when it comes to international diplomacy. I provide a significantly larger chunk of Obama's speech than was quoted in The Economist: 

I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq.  So let me be clear: No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation by any other. That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people.

America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas; they are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere.

Okay, so Obama is a pacifist, perhaps even a neo-isolationist – on top of the usual criticisms spewed daily by the Republican sound machine (socialist, Communist, anti-colonialist, ististist...). But if we're competing for who can best swindle the masses into buying a series of baseless assertions about which president has done more to usher in a new era of international peace, one could brainstorm plenty of logical reasons why Obama, not Bush, is responsible for the recent removal of an Egyptian dictator.

For one, Egypt made no progress through eight years of Bush's "war on terror," and yet only a year and a half after Obama told the Egyptians to stand up for themselves, they did.

Second, while Bush half-assed lobbied the leaders of Arab nations to maybe, if they had some free time, perhaps start thinking about thinking about representing the people, it was Obama who spoke not to the comfortable dictators but to the oppressed people themselves. He threw the ball in their court, essentially saying, "We're not your liberators. You must decide how your government represents you. The United States will not jump into another international quagmire only to be abandoned by allies, rebuked by the world and bankrupted by war, again. America fought for her freedom and independence. So must you, if that is your wish."

The truth, I believe, is somewhere in between. Neither Bush nor Obama is to blame or thank for having any more than a peripheral influence on the uprising in Egypt. America is but an example of how it is possible to establish a government that is of, by, and for the people. The Egyptian people are now fighting, and dying, for that dream. If it is achieved, it will be because the Egyptian people acted.

Credit is due them, not us.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Free Egypt

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It's not clear what the military, now in control after Mubarak's resignation, will do, but, for now, there is good reason to celebrate.

What an incredible time for Egypt, shedding decades of oppressive tyranny and now looking towards a much brighter future.

It is so deeply moving, the courage and conviction of the Egyptian people, an inspiration to all of us who value liberty and self-governance, a reminder that we often take what we have, our democratic luxuries, for granted.

Progress isn't easy, but the fight is a noble one. Let us all stand with the new Egypt.

(photos)

Question of the Day

By Michael J.W. Stickings

With respect to the advancement of liberty, which is more important, Hosni Mubarak's resignation or Jon Kyl's retirement?

Oh, sure, it's the former, of course. As bad as he is, Kyl is no Mubarak.

I just thought I'd mention that Kyl was our 2010 Douchebag of the Year.

So good riddance to him as well.

Top Ten Cloves: Things Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak might do when he steps down

By J. Thomas Duffy

News Item: Egypt's Mubarak to step down, sources say

10. Nothing, until he sees the new X-Men: First Class movie

9. Maybe a trip to Los Angeles, as he sheepishly admits to having a crush on Lindsey Lohan

8. Has a hankering to do one of those reality shows, like Sarah Palin's Alaska show

7. See if there's another opening at Current TV

6. Would like to lose a little weight -- plans on connecting with Kevin Smith to see how he did it

5. If they can work out the kinks, might like to try having camera implanted in his head

4. Already talking with Arianna Huffington about being the CairoPatch correspondent

3. Look into one of those $1,000 houses Detroit Mayor Dave Bing is offering

2. Join Faux News -- thinks he can make up stuff just as good as anyone else

1. Might give that posing shirtless on Craigslist, to pick up women, a try

Bonus Riffs

NYT: Egypt’s Army Signals Transfer of Power

Steve Benen: THE DAY EVERYTHING CHANGES IN EGYPT?

Steve M: MUBARAK TO STEP DOWN? ENTIRE FOX AUDIENCE TO SEEK FORTIFIED BUNKERS?

Updated Riffs

BBC: Egypt's Mubarak refuses to quit ...Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak has said he will stay in office and transfer all power only after September's presidential election

ABC News: Hosni Mubarak Doesn't Resign, Cairo's Tahrir Square Erupts with Anger Egypt's Embattled President Announces Reforms but Won't Step Down Despite Protesters' Demands

David Kurtz: Mubarak Staying?

(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

Mubarak refuses to step down. And so the Egyptian people now need to remove him from power.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As you've probably heard by now, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has refused to step down. Though all signs seemed to be pointing to his imminent departure, he used a 17-minute speech yesterday to prove that he is completely out of touch with the Egyptian people, desperately clinging to his tyranny while making vague promises of reform that, under his watch, will surely never come to be.

The Egyptian people, other than pro-regime thugs and others who benefit from Mubarak's tyranny, are understandably enraged, and it's not clear what will happen now. It's possible that what have been generally peaceful demonstrations will turn if not violent at least significantly more agitated. And the question remains how the international community, and particularly Obama, will respond to Mubarak's snub. Will it now rush to support the pro-democracy movement? Or will it allow Mubarak and Suleiman to continue to block Egypt's transition to freedom?

Whatever the case, Mubarak's position is now completely untenable. He may be able to hold onto power until his "term" is up later this year (there are elections scheduled for September), but he has lost whatever shred of legitimacy he had left. There's the NYT's Nicholas Kristof with some excellent observations:

He offered cosmetic changes and promises of reform down the road. For example, he said that he would lift the state of emergency... down the road... sometime when the time is right. He seems to have delegated some powers to his vice president, Omar Suleiman, while remaining in office himself.

This is of course manifestly unacceptable to the Egyptian people. Mubarak's speech was a striking reminder of the capacity of dictators to fool themselves and see themselves as indispensable. If he thinks that his softer tone will win any support, he's delusional. As he was speaking, the crowd in Tahrir was shouting "Irhal!" or "Go!" And the Egyptian state media — from television to Al Ahram, the dominant newspaper — have been turning against Mubarak, so he's losing control even of his own state apparatus.

*****

It was interesting that Mubarak tried to push the nationalism button and blame outside forces (meaning the United States) for trying to push him out. That won't succeed, but it's actually beneficial to America, giving us credit for siding with people power that I don't think we actually deserve.

My guess is that we'll see massive demonstrations in many cities — not just Cairo — on Friday, a traditional day for demonstrations. In effect, Mubarak and Suleiman have just insulted the intelligence of the Egyptian people — and they will respond.

And I hope they do, though with restraint, for what would not be helpful would be for the demonstrations to turn violent and for the demonstrators to lose credibility and international support, which would only benefit Mubarak and Suleiman. Still, the time has come for the Egyptian people to remove Mubarak themselves. It may fall to the military at first, which would seem to be in a position to do just that, but ultimately Egyptians need to rid themselves of this monster. There is no time to wait. 

Elephant Dung #13: Beck and Kristol trade insults over Egypt

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.)

The right has had a hard time figuring out where to stand on the situation in Egypt.

Or, rather, it has had a hard time coming up with a unified position, simply because there isn't one, what with some conservatives backing Mubarak (and U.S.-friendly dictatorships generally), some of them because they support Israel no matter what and Israel backs Mubarak, others lashing out against Islam as the great threat to America and asserting, without a shred of convincing evidence (the Muslim Brotherhood is not evidence), that the pro-democracy movement in Egypt is basically Iran-style Islamism, others, on the other side, still buying into Bush's democracy-promotion agenda and approving the prospect of change in Cairo.

Conservatives like to stick together. You know, like with "taxes are bad," "abortion is wrong," etc. The Iraq War ultimately exposed huge fault lines on the right. And now, with Egypt, conservatives are actually coming to blows, including two of the most prominent, Krazy Bill Kristol and even crazier Glenn Beck:

Fox News's Glenn Beck lashed out at Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol on his radio show this morning, accusing Kristol of betraying conservatism and missing the significance of what Beck sees as an alliance between Islamism and socialism.

"I don't even know if you understand what conservatives are anymore, Billy," Beck said in his extended, sarcastic attack on Kristol. "People like Bill Kristol, I don't think they stand for anything any more. All they stand for is power. They'll do anything to keep their little fiefdom together, and they'll do anything to keep the Republican power entrenched."

Kristol this weekend took Beck to task for the latter's skepticism of the Egyptian uprising:

When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left, he brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. He's marginalizing himself, just as his predecessors did back in the early 1960s.

Kristol's words drew an approving nod from National Review's Rich Lowry, a rare public repudiation of the influential Fox host from a conservative elite that quietly dislikes him. 

And all this at the time of the Reagan birth centennial. What was that about some 11th commandment?

Now, there's really no contest between Kristol and Beck. Kristol's a smart guy who often knows what he's talking about, while Beck is paranoid and insane. And Kristol is right that Beck is "marginalizing himself" with this conspiracy-theory nonsense. It's good to see that Kristol, a vicious Republican operative who has never shied away from spewing nonsensical and utterly ridiculous talking points, isn't even pretending to play along with Beck.

But, you know, Beck is sort of right, too, isn't he? I mean, Kristol may talk principle but he's really all about power, about getting Republicans elected and keeping them there. Think back to the '90s, when he was the source of the Republican opposition to "Hillarycare," all because he didn't want Bill Clinton to have a victory on a key, and historic, social policy issue.

And yet Kristol isn't necessary all about power. He isolated himself in 2000, for example, with his support for the renegade John McCain and he has certainly spent much of his career in Washington, and inside Republican circles, pushing a specific neocon agenda, specifically around a neocon view of American global hegemony. That's about power, too, but national rather than personal, and I suppose Kristol has at times been willing to run counter to the prevailing winds in the Republican Party, even if, in public at least, he is generally a good team player.

Anyway, it's fun to see these two go after each other. And yet it's not just about two prominent conservatives trading insults, it's about a serious divide on the right, with Republicans unable to land on a coherent message, let alone one they can all agree with.

The situation in Egypt will slowly drift away from American consciousness and will likely have no play at all in next year's Republican primaries, but this divide and others will remain, and deepen, and Republicans, divided against themselves, might just unravel into all-out civil war.

Enjoy.

Dictatorships 101, in 2011

Guest post by Ali Ezzatyar

Ali Ezzatyar is a journalist and American attorney practising in Paris, France.

(Ed. note: This is Ali's second guest post at The Reaction. In January 2010, he co-wrote a post on Iran with Bryan Tollin. -- MJWS)

As Egypt moves ever closer to life without Hosni Mubarak, governments and analysts everywhere ponder the important question of what will come next. The conventional and clichéd wisdom pronounced by pundits and politicians the world over focuses on the risk of a dramatic rise to power for the Muslim Brotherhood and the inevitability of a new Islamist, and implicitly dictatorial, ruling establishment. Disaster for the U.S., for Israel, and for the future of Egypt, right? If the events of recent weeks demonstrate anything, however, it is that dictatorship is increasingly difficult to manufacture in the age of modern communications.

Let's take a step back and acknowledge exactly what these Twitter and Facebook "revolutions" have managed to overcome in just Tunisia and Egypt so far (bearing in mind events in Jordan and Yemen as well). Former president Ben-Ali ruled over Tunisia, with the help of a highly-trained secret police force (among other levers of control), for over 20 years. Just weeks before he fled the country, few a Tunisian would have ever imagined a day where he and his cronies would not dominate the landscape of politics and life in Tunisia for as long as he lived. What had largely been considered one of the most stable and pacified populations in the Arab world, however, took to the streets in large numbers, rendering the president's apparatus of control inoperable against the masses of people from which it was drawn. Increasingly facing the possibility of internal betrayal and what that would mean for his own head, Ben-Ali fled. What happened afterwards, however, was in many ways more remarkable than his being deposed.

The government that immediately replaced the Ben-Ali regime was largely made up of his associates. And while that new government immediately pledged and took concrete steps to dismantle the means of censorship and develop democratic institutions, the Tunisian population, well-informed, continued to protest. Staging demonstrations and continuing to put pressure on a still-infant government, remaining elements from the old guard were purged from the new interim regime. All the evidence suggests that Tunisia is on its way to democratic institution-building and free elections. From communication to coordination, it is hard to imagine how such an historic sequence of events could have happened without the Internet tools that have only become widely used in the region in the last few years.

Events in Egypt are, in the most important ways, following a similar trajectory. While such events are impossible to predict, it is reasonable to hypothesize that, as in Tunisia, no group that fills the potential power vacuum in Egypt will have the clout, influence, or muscle that Mubarak developed over the last 30 years to implement his dictatorial rule. With the tools at the disposal of the world's citizens today, the fear of new dictatorships springing out of such well-established ones -- former dictatorships that had decades to harness accountability from their repressive systems -- seems almost far-fetched. The protesters and the press, emboldened by the information and images they see and transmit in seconds, are already focusing their rhetoric on a post-Mubarak era and the avoidance of a failed transition to democracy.

The world's governments that have been criticized for becoming more dictatorial in the last decade seem to have done so through reform, not revolution. Take Venezuela, for example. The specter of an Iranian-type genuine revolution turned radical Islamic regime also seems unlikely in the Egyptian context. The lack of a unified and charismatic Islamic front (with the Muslim Brotherhood being rather late to the game), coupled with the modern means of communication that are helping to topple Mubarak, will threaten to make the consolidation of power for a new dictatorial regime untenable unless it is extremely popular.

Most importantly, though, let's acknowledge that democracy's growing pains, whatever they may be, deserve the opportunity to play themselves out. It is not the business of entities foreign to Egypt to try and divine the potential makeup of a future government, and then exercise preference over whether or not Egyptians have a right to their own destiny. Foreign influence (short of intervention) should be designed to help strengthen populations and countries that seek to take destiny into their own hands, in the model of Tunisia (with the U.S.' encouragement of Ben-Ali's stepping down), and not in the old model of Iran. Note that the undermining of Iran's popular and democratic movements of yesterday are thought to have contributed to the radicalism and anti-Americanism of its revolution and its government today.

U.S. policy suggests it is frantically trying not to be on the wrong side in Egypt, and in the region generally. We should consider, though, the monumental reputational damage the U.S. will sustain if it stands on the side of autocracy or even ambiguity as it has done in the last two weeks. The specter of loss of interests should yield to the realization that only democratic partners in the region can protect our interests permanently, and that those democratic partners had better be our friends.

You're a good man, Hosni Mubarak

By Capt. Fogg

"I also think there comes a time for everybody when it's time to hang it up and move on,"

Said Former Vice President Dick Cheney. It would seem that he didn't feel the end of his term in office was such a time for him, smoothly transitioning from denouncing all critics in an official and perhaps illegal fashion to doing as much as a private citizen. He's only moved out, not moved on.

He was of course referring to the apparent end game of Hosni Mubarak, a "Good man" says he.

"he's been a good friend and ally to the United States, and we need to remember that"

That's a statement hard to remark upon so I won't. I'll only add the good Mr. Mubarak to the list of rogues our government has supported for similar reasons through the years, choosing "stability" over every other consideration. Like many administrations from Reagan, whose anniversary he was celebrating, to that of Cheney and Bush, we've provided weapons to tyrants while the people suffered from want. We've overthrown democratic choices and prevented elections and installed monsters and looked the other way at nauseating atrocities simply to serve our appetites.

Yes, Mubarak did what we paid him to do and you'll note that those are American tanks patrolling the streets, American jets overhead. He maintained an uncomfortable peace with Israel and helped us punish oil-rich Iraq. He did resist the pressure from fundamentalist Theocrats and he helped us to apply torture methods even our own flimsy consciences wouldn't allow -- and we paid him to do it and didn't place many strings on our largess. He was a good man.

Cheney as an unhealthy old man, younger but much sicker than Mubarak and I'm sure we can look ahead to other, not too distant days and the gathering of other people telling us Dick Cheney was a "good man" just like the other good and bloody handed friends and allies. Let the circle be unbroken.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

The economic aspects of the Egyptian protests

Guest post by Dan Fejes 

Dan Fejes is a blogger at Pruning Shears. He lives in northeast Ohio.

(Ed. note: This is Dan's second guest post at The Reaction. You can find his first, on the Arizona shooting, a response to the stupidity of Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, here. -- MJWS)

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Conventional wisdom in Washington seems to have pretty quickly settled on an ideological basis for the unrest in Egypt. By doing so, it has ignored a more compelling -- and prosaic -- explanation.

There appears to be a yawning chasm between what ishappening in Egypt and elite opinions in D.C. Consider thisexchange between Chris Matthews and NBC News chief foreign affairscorrespondent Richard Engel:

ENGEL: The Muslim Brotherhoodis telling the army that it can be a reasonable, rational organization.I did an interview tonight with one of the senior leaders of the MuslimBrotherhood. He was telling me to tell the American people that theMuslim Brotherhood can be reasoned with, wants to be a player, isn't aradical group. So you're trying -- you are seeing the Muslim Brotherhoodlegitimize itself, much in the same way you saw Hamas try and legitimizeitself during the elections in Gaza.

MATTHEWS: Does thatsurprise you, as someone who really grew up over there as a journalist,living among the Muslim Brotherhood? Does it surprise you that theycould be copacetic with the military?

ENGEL: Not at all. A lotof them are truly patriotic Egyptians. They don't necessarily want tooverthrow the military regime. In the belief structure and thepolitical structure that the Muslim Brotherhood has, which is common inIslamic moments, they believe in a strict hierarchy. There can be aruler. There can be a military ruler. But as long as that militaryruler doesn't impede on the ability of the Muslim people to worship,then they have no problem with that. So they could live verycopacetically with the military. It's not that it is a Taliban kind ofmovement that wants to take over...

MATTHEWS: I getyou.

ENGEL: ...and tell everyone what to do and how to do it.They're very patriotic. They have lot of supporters. You mentioned Ilived with a lot of them. They were nice people. I mean, If you felldown in the street, they would come and help you out. If you didn'thave enough money for the bus, they would give you money. There was acommunity feeling that a lot of people are nostalgic about in thiscountry that is still present in the poorer, more Muslim -- more Islamiccommunities here.

What people are so upset about is prices havegotten so high, there's become this elite class of Egyptiansthat...

MATTHEWS: Right.

ENGEL: ...no longer reflects alot of the traditional cultural values here. And the Muslim Brotherhoodstill does embrace those values very close to itschest.

Matthews comes across as somewhat surprisedthat the Muslim Brotherhood could play a legitimate role in a newEgyptian government. The assumption, apparently widespread in Washington, is that a populist Islamic movement is necessarily violent.(In fairness, they might just be extrapolating from America's ownexperience with religious extremists.)

In fact, he mighteven be something of an outlier in his mildness. Tom Friedman, whousually -- but notalways! -- hides his anti-Islamic fervor well, hadthis to say: "For the last 20 years, President Mubarak has had allthe leverage he could ever want to truly reform Egypt's economy andbuild a moderate, legitimate political center to fill the void betweenhis authoritarian state and the Muslim Brotherhood."

He simplypostulates that the Muslim Brotherhood is the opposite pole of anauthoritarian state. He does not appear to have done any analysis toarrive at that conclusion. He has not spoken with anyone in theorganization (my God man, are there notaxis in Cairo?) (Also seethis, just because.) He just assumes that everyone intuitivelygrasps exactly what he does.

That seems to be roughly thecenter of conventional wisdom. To find the far edge of fear andloathing, seethis from Richard Cohen: "The next Egyptian government -- or the oneafter -- might well be composed of Islamists. In that case, the peacewith Israel will be abrogated and the mob currently in the streets willroar its approval." His entire misanthropic screed throbs with themessage: these savages cannot govern themselves. It isn't even subtextat this point. It's right there on the surface.

There doesnot appear to be any appreciation that very ordinary concerns might bedriving the protesters. What was toutedas an economic miracle wasdisastrous for those on the lower end of the economic scale; NomiPrins calledthis "the appearance of enhancement." Robust economic growth wasoutpaced byinflation, which lead to widespread hunger (I refuse to use theeuphemism "food insecurity"). Food riots have killedpeople. The marvels of globalization have been decidedly lesswonderful for many.

Do the anti-Islamic commentators in Washingtonhave any sense that such workaday issues might just be front-and-centerin the protester's minds? And that any party that begins to addressthem will thereby enjoy the consent of the governed?

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As acoda, those of us in the West might want to consider the followingthoughts William Gambleshared about Tunisia:

All authoritarian governmentseverywhere, by definition, are not limited by any legal restraints. Thisallows elites to become rent seekers often through state-owned companiesand monopolies. Without legal limits, the percentage of the GDP thatthey take for themselves will constantlyincrease.

[snip]

The main impact of an economy ofcorruption is on investment, the investments necessary to create jobs.For Tunisia and many other emerging and frontier markets, this is amajor if not the issue. The unemployment rate in Tunisia is officially13%, but it is probably twice this for younger people. Even universitygraduates face an unemployment rate of over 15%. This is not unusual forthese markets where unemployment rates among younger workers can rise ashigh as 40%. According to the IMF, the Middle East needs to grow 2%faster every year to avoid its present chronic and high unemployment.

Worsening inequality, impunity for those at the top,reduced investment leading to high unemployment: a multi-party democracyin which a governing majority is persistently unresponsive to publicopinion is functionally similar to a one-party state. And prone tosimilar expressions of dissatisfaction.

John Kerry really wants to be secretary of state

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As Joan Vennochi writes in the Globe:

The Bay State's senior senator is running an unofficial campaign to become the next secretary of state. For once, he looks artful, as well as ambitious.

His recent opinion piece in the New York Times said what President Obama couldn't or wouldn't: Mubarak must go.

Kerry's conclusion was elegant, but unequivocal: "President Hosni Mubarak must accept that the stability of his country hinges on his willingness to step aside gracefully to make way for a new political structure."

Of course, one has a certain freedom as a senator that one does not have as secretary of state -- or even as president -- and so Kerry can be direct in a way that Obama and Clinton cannot. Still, his strong position on the situation in Egypt is admirable, and while picking Hillary to be secretary of state made sense for Obama after the tough primary battle they waged, a "team of rivals" to unite the Democratic Party, it makes sense to turn to Kerry next, whenever Hillary leaves her post, perhaps after the 2012 election should Obama win.

I have defended Obama's handling of the situation, from the American perspective, but I agree to a certain extent with Vennochi that his administration generally "looked unprepared and off-balance when Egyptians took to the streets of Cairo." I don't necessarily fault Obama for this, as the situation and its likely outcome was unclear and he needed to walk a fine line with Mubarak, if only not to alienate him (and endanger U.S. interests) in the event he remained in power, but I do wish Obama would respond with greater moral clarity for once instead of equivocating (and, in this case it would seem, dismissing the pro-democracy movement and supporting, even if just as a "transition," yet more tyranny).

I'm not sure Kerry would bring such moral clarity to Foggy Bottom, and, even if he did, he wouldn't really be in a position to articulate it as formal U.S. policy unless authorized to do so, but he would be a smart, refreshing addition to Obama's team.

From Mubarak to Suleiman, one tyrant to another, with America's blessing

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I've been praising President Obama's careful handling of the situation in Egypt, making the case that he deserves enormous credit for trying to push Mubarak out while remaining generally non-interventionist.

I stand by that, even if I don't think Obama has shown nearly enough direct support for the pro-democracy movement that has the support of the people, but this -- even as I would like to give Obama, Clinton, et al. the benefit of the doubt -- is rather troubling:

The Obama administration is discussing with Egyptian officials a proposal for President Hosni Mubarak to resign immediately and turn over power to a transitional government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman with the support of the Egyptian military, administration officials and Arab diplomats said Thursday. 

What this means is that the U.S. -- and Obama in particular -- is looking to replace one tyrant with another, as Omar Suleiman is just the sort of dictatorial type the U.S. has preferred to deal with not just in the Middle East but around the world -- Pinochet, Noriega, the Saudi royal family, etc., ad nauseam. He's now the new VP, but he was the country's intelligence chief, involved in rather messy business (to say the least), including America's rendition program. In a way, you could call him Egypt's torturer-in-chief.

The key, I suppose, is that Suleiman would only head up a transitional government. But transitional to what? And what assurances do we have that he wouldn't just be another Mubarak?

And what about those brave people in Tahrir Square and elsewhere, those who have risen up against oppression and who are demanding meaningful change, those who want to be free and who want their country to be a democracy? Screw them, it would appear.

So much for the Lotus Revolution.

The self-aggrandizing bullshit of Hosni Mubarak

By Michael J.W. Stickings

ABC News's Christiane Amanpour sat down yesterday with the Tyrant of Cairo, Hosni Mubarak. Here were some of the highlights of the interview:

He told me, "I was very unhappy about yesterday. I do not want to see Egyptians fighting each other." 

Then stop sending your thugs out into the streets to attack the peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators, as well as journalists. We get what you're trying to do. You're creating "chaos" so as to be able to justify a crackdown -- or at least to secure your position for the time being, until you leave on your own terms. And perhaps you're also trying to goad the pro-democracy protesters into committing retaliatory violence so as to discredit them in the eyes of the rest of the world.

But it's you, Mubarak, who has no credibility.

When I asked him what he thought seeing the people shouting insults about him and wanting him gone, he said, "I don't care what people say about me. Right now I care about my country, I care about Egypt." 

Sure you don't. Which is why you have a history of silencing your critics.

Sure you do. Which is why you have a history of oppressing its people.

He told me that he is fed up with being president and would like to leave office now, but cannot, he says, for fear that the country would sink into chaos.

Well, maybe you're tired, sure, but the rest is pretty much what all authoritarian dictators say, isn't it? And of course it might only descend into chaos because of those thugs of yours. (Do you really think so little of your fellow Egyptians that it would be chaos and not peaceful democratic governance?)

Let me repeat: You have no credibility. Period.

Good riddance -- whenever you do finally leave office. Or are forceably removed.

Good riddance, Mubarak. The Egyptian people demand to be free.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

With a popular, pro-democratic uprising in full swing, and with their economy facing disaster, Egyptians took to the streets in huge numbers today in Cairo. In a country ruled for decades by a brutal authoritarian tyrant, it was simply extraordinary. The outcome of the uprising has been unclear, but change seemingly was at hand.

And then it came.

With the writing on the wall, President Hosni Mubarak, who has lost both popular and military support, finally announced that he would not stand for re-election -- not that Egyptian elections under Mubarak are free and fair:

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has said he will not stand for re-election in September, as protests against his rule grow.

Speaking on state TV, Mr Mubarak promised constitutional reform, but said he wanted to stay until the end of his current presidential term.

The announcement came as hundreds of thousands rallied in central Cairo urging him to step down immediately.

US President Barack Obama said that Egypt's transition "must begin now".

As indeed it must. For while the American right is responding to the situation in Egypt with pro-Mubarak and therefore pro-tyranny paranoia, claiming that opposition leader Mohammed El Baradei is an Islamist and that, without Mubarak, the country will be taken over by the Muslim Brotherhood (which it misrepresents), there is good reason to believe that Egypt -- a relatively modern, secular state -- will emerge from this "crisis" with a moderately progressive government committed to liberty and democracy.

Glenn Beck may object to that, and so may the extremist pro-Israeli neocons, but the Egyptian people, having lived through decades of oppression, have every right to remake their country as they see fit, particularly if the future they envision is one that any liberal democrat should be able to embrace. (For the right, this is the usual hypocrisy. They talk up democracy in Iraq, emerging from a war they started, but Egypt must remain under a tyrannical yoke because they'd prefer to have a strongman in power there?)

President Obama was "clearly frustrated by... Mubarak's intention to retain his hold on power until elections later this year," as the WaPo puts it, but, as I have argued before, he deserves enormous credit for handling the situation so well. Without appearing to be too interventionist, given the delicate relationship the U.S. has both with Egypt and its neighbours in the Middle East, he carefully indicated U.S. support for the opposition, and for reform, and pushed Mubarak to leave:

In brief remarks at the White House, Obama made no mention of Mubarak's announcement that he had decided not to stand for reelection. Instead, Obama said he had told the Egyptian president in a telephone call that this was a "moment of transformation" in Egypt and that "the status quo is not sustainable."

Obama's message appeared carefully calibrated to avoid publicly calling for Mubarak to stand down, while making clear he should stand aside. Administration officials say they are seeking a transitional government, with or without Mubarak as its titular head, formed by representative reform leaders and backed by the Egyptian army that will address legitimate grievances, restore stability and plan for a free election. 

As the NYT notes, Obama sent an experienced envoy to Egypt on Sunday, former diplomat Frank Wisner, to urge Mubarak to step aside:

At a two-hour meeting at the White House last Saturday, Thomas E. Donilon, the national security adviser; William M. Daley, the White House chief of staff, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta; and other officials coalesced around a strategy to start trying to ease Mr. Mubarak out, an official said.

Mrs. Clinton, officials said, suggested that the administration send Mr. Wisner, a former ambassador to Egypt who knows Mr. Mubarak well, to deliver a message directly from Mr. Obama to the Egyptian leader. Officials said Mr. Wisner urged Mr. Mubarak to declare publicly that he would not run for re-election. But Mr. Wisner has extended his stay in Cairo, officials said, and may have a follow-up meeting with Mr. Mubarak if events seem to demand a quicker exit.

At the Saturday meeting, the officials also agreed that Mrs. Clinton would start calling for "an orderly transition" when she taped a round of interviews for the Sunday talk programs. Administration officials were already smarting from not coming out more fully in support of the protesters earlier.

Yes, Obama and others in his administration could have voiced their support for the opposition sooner, but, again, there was a need to proceed with caution, not least because the situation was so unclear, and remains so, and because, like it or not, Mubarak has been an important U.S. ally for a long time. What was needed was for the president to monitor the situation closely and then act, on little notice, when appropriate. He did that, and it seems to me he did it exceptionally well.

And so while conservatives lash out against those courageous Egyptians taking to the streets to shake off the yoke of oppression, and place themselves decidedly on the wrong side of history, Obama emerges from this situation -- which, admittedly, is still not over -- with his statesmanship strengthened.

But back to Egypt.

History is being made on the streets of Cairo and throughout the country. What we are witnessing is the force of freedom rising up against tyranny. It is a proud moment for Egypt, and those of us who genuinely wish well for the Egyptian people should applaud what is happening.

(photos)