Category: Middle East Page 22 of 26

Here are the numbers:

Since Mr Morsi’s overthrow his Muslim Brotherhood group has been the target of a fierce crackdown by the military-backed authorities. More than a thousand Brotherhood members have been killed and more than 16,000 people, many of them Islamists, have been arrested.

Then, of course, there was the death sentence for 529 protestors for the death of one policeman.

Al-Sisi, the General who overthrow Morsi in a coup is now “running for President.”  He has also kept the Gaza crossing closed more often than not.

Meanwhile, the resistance has, actually, gone out of its way to attack targets like police stations, which are, frankly, legitimate targets.

The Muslim Brotherhood, and anyone else, in my view, has an entirely legitimate right, in this case, to violent revolution.  A democratically elected government was overthrown in a military coup.  The Brotherhood claims not to be behind the violence, but whoever is, is not in the wrong, unless you believe that political violence is never justified.  (In which case, Americans, please start paying your taxes to the Crown.)

More to the point, the Brotherhood was legitimately the most popular party in Egypt. They did win the election fairly, after having their preferred candidates disqualified by judges appointed by the old government. They did run the clinics, distribute food and so on in much of the country.  The outlawing of the Brotherhood and seizure of all their property was a huge blow for ordinary people, even as it enriched the government.  Note that, as in Iran, the Egyptian military is a huge economic power in Egypt, owning many businesses.

The entire situation stinks to high heaven, suggesting that the original demonstrations were allowed to succeed by the military so that they might later undertake a coup.  The deep state also, clearly, deliberately sabotaged Morsi at every step, in particular power supplies suddenly became unreliable right after he was elected.  Contrary to the army’s propaganda, that’s not something Morsi could have caused, and that it was so is indicated by the fact that right after the coup, the power suddenly became much more reliable again.

The original demonstrations succeeded when the army decided they wouldn’t support the government, remember.  Let this be a reminder to you that if you do not have control, physical or ideological, over those who have the ability to inflict violence in your society, you do not actually rule: you are only in charge as long as they want you to be.

Meanwhile, with the largest and most popular party in the country outlawed and 16,000 of its supporters in jail (imagine 16,000 Democrats or Republicans in jail for protesting), I’m sure al-Sisi will cruise to victory and become “President”.

This includes seizing all their money and assets.  Among other things, this is a humanitarian disaster: who do you think feeds many of the poor in Egypt?  Who runs the clinics?

One of my friends worked in Egypt, for the Mubarak regime, for a while.  He’s a man with a strong stomach, but they disgusted him.  His most telling observation was this: “the middle class are all fat.  Obese.  Everyone else is skinny.”

I’ll be straightforward: the Muslim Brotherhood has the right to resist this violently.  They’ll probably lose, but they won the election fairly and the results of a democratic election were thrown out by a military coup.  You really can’t get any more legitimate reason to commit violence than that, except straight-up genocide.  So I don’t want to hear hand-wringing when the bombs start going off: it is the logical consequence of what the military has done, which includes gunning down unarmed civilians in the street.

As for the “liberals” who supported the coup, they have disgraced themselves.  If the Muslim Brotherhood or some much nastier successors do win, you can be sure liberals will have NO meaningful influence in Egypt’s government.  Perhaps they had very little under the Brotherhood, and certainly the constitution was unfair, but this was a coup, and they supported it.  It will not be forgotten, least of all because a lot of blood has been spilled and far more will be.

(Why did the Muslim Brotherhood win the election and not liberals?  Because they had consistently opposed Mubarak and paid the price for it, and because they, not liberals, fed the poor and cared for the sick.)

There have been more killings in Egypt today of Muslim Brotherhood supporters.  Of particular note is the death of Asmaa al-Beltagi, daughter of a senior Muslim Brotherhood leader, Dr. Mohammed al-Beltagi (h/t MFI).  Martial law has been declared, the streets are being cleared, and military governors are being appointed.

A cynical man might say that clearly Egypt’s military and deep state want a civil war.

More to the point, the deep state—the Mubarak era civil servants, the military, police, the businesspeople in bed with them, and the judiciary, must now not lose power for the forseeable future.

It has been noticed that, miraculously, post coup, power problems, for example disappeared.  The belief of many (and I agree) is that the deep state sabotaged Mursi.  When the coup occurred, the government started working properly again.  The regime claims that Mursi was incompetent, but basic logistical matters like power distribution rarely fix themselves overnight unless they weren’t really broken in the first place.

What Mursi did not do, despite sacking some high level apparatchniks, was purge the state of Mubarak era supporters who were in any position to sabotage his new government.  Any new, actually democratic government, will likely learn that lesson, and if they take power, they will purge, purge, purge, as was done in Turkey, even if it requires being unjust and unfair, they will decide they cannot risk allowing Mubarak supporters to continue in any positions of power.

Having played their hand, having sabotaged Mursi, and having engaged in a coup, the military and its supporters are all-in.

Mursi did what he could, but I expect he feared a backlash if he purged the deep state.  He also, in my opinion, overreached in the constitution.  He tried to turn a temporary win, an electoral victory, into a constitution which locked down Egypt along the lines the Muslim Brotherhood wanted, and would keep it locked in that state even if secular forces won an election outright in the future.  That enraged a lot of people, and made them more willing to be cat’s paws of the military and the deep state.

Egypt has another fundamental problem.  It cannot feed itself.  Any government which takes power in Egypt, it truly wants to pursue the policies which will make it prosperous, must have a plan which will allow Egypt to feed itself, and which during the transition period allows it to buy food in a non hard currency.