Egypt

Brian,

This is yet another example of blowback from 65 years of the wrong, primarily US, foreign policy (abetted by the former colonial powers) - support for (and installation of) totalitarian rulers in the post-colonial world that can be bought off to stay on our side of the cold war and protect our economic interests. As part of this policy any form of Nationalism was conflated with Communism as an excuse to suppress any form of democracy that might lead to the "wrong" folk getting elected and doing harm to our economic and strategic interests. When the wrong guys did get into power we orchestrated or perpetrated their removal. This is a self-defeating mechanism as after enough political repression the only ones left standing are the extremists - all other forms of more democratic opposition are driven out of the country. As a result of continuing this policy, after Communism went away, any sign of Nationalism from the remaining "opposition" became rapidly branded as "terrorism". So it behoves the supporters of this policy to find exaggerated threats from militant Islam under every bed. The new McCarthyism.

This is nothing new - Churchill was saying the same things a long time ago for more or less the same reasons that the Crusaders said them even longer ago - as shown below

 "How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.
 
A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
 
Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.
 
No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome."
 
Sir Winston Churchill; (Source: The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 London) 
 
In the case of Egypt - after the failed (stifled by the USA for its own strategic benefit) attempt to re-occupy it militarily by the Brits and French when an ultra-Nationalist Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal - it headed into the arms of the USSR - and not because it wanted to become Communist. Everything from that point on has been to ensure that no leader with unfavourable to the West leanings held power. Threats to that power were repressed violently by one hand while the other hand accepted enormous payments that enriched the military, commercial and political elites. This encouraged them to toe the line with our foreign policy objectives - peace with Israel being just one of them. The West saw this as a benign regime. In reality Egyptians lived in a dictatorial Police State - albeit a handy one where we could send terrorist suspects to be tortured. Repression was justified by the threat of militant Islam in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood - however small that threat, in reality, might be. What the population wanted was neither here nor there - until we announced that our Foreign Policy was to export Democracy to those that didn't yet have it - we justified our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan as bringing democracy to them. Unfortunately Democracy elected Hamas in Gaza. You reap what you sow. The vast majority of Egyptians spend their time thinking about survival not politics - they are too poor - Religion is the politics of survival. As yet Egyptian politics is the realm of a few million (at most) of the upper and middle (educated) classes - the elites and those that want to be elites - so the first move will be dominated by secular thought and economic self-interest. The religiously represented poor will garner a minority of the vote. We will do everything we can to ensure that the outcome suits us and when, eventually, the poor democratically elect too many religiously inclined representatives we'll attempt to orchestrate an acceptable take-over of power from them - and if that fails we'll consider invading the Suez Canal Zone - ably assisted by the Israelis. Although the Canal is not as important as it is made out in the general fear mongering of the moment - it was closed for years while the Israelis occupied the Sinai and nobody came to ruin - we invented super-tankers. Nobody asked the Israelis to withdraw to reduce the price of oil raised by the Arabs in response to the occupation of Arab land. Today the real unknown is how many Middle-East, North African countries may go for a popularly demanded regime change all at once. We might be able to have some influence in a few but not all at the same time - as I've said before Globalisation contains the seeds of its own demise. There is the possibility that a wrong move by us will encourage a widespread and unstoppable independent nationalistic response in the face of overt or covert outside interference. Sticking US forces into the oil states could well backfire. A sort of "we saved the village by destroying it" moment.

So don't speak too soon about what the Egyptians as a whole will eventually do under Democracy - when you're fed-up being poor and you're only refuge is Religion and you are the majority in a democracy there are only two ways it can go - Theocracy or Socialism - both heavily flavoured with Nationalism and Nationalisation. How long it takes for this to come about is the period that permits real reform to modify the popular intent. The post-revolutionary Iranian Govt. had secular elements for about the first 3 years. The West's policy towards Iran did away with that.

We're not howling about Democracy in the major oil exporting countries - heaven forbid that real Democracy there elects those that would nationalise their oil companies. What we would like is for the rulers there to set up a few Democratic looking institutions and adjust their attitude to women. (I could go into my glib theory here about feminism being the root cause of Al Qaeda - but I won't). They'll probably do a bit of tinkering with Democracy under our direction. Meanwhile we'll supply them with enough arms to get some of the money back. The threat from Iran will be used widely here. Unfortunately we don't have enough military force to invade everywhere at once so we'll need to keep a few repressive regimes in power - fuck democracy when oil is at stake! Outside of the oil exporters the other Arab countries don't have any over-riding strategic importance - although the military-industrial complex and some export businesses might argue otherwise.

Which brings me to the question of who actually sets the West's foreign policy? Since the end of WW2 the US policy (recently embraced by others) has been militaristic and is now even more so since the check of the USSR vanished. After the World Trade centre fell down the world's biggest office building remains the Pentagon. Where commanders sit and approve drone launched attacks on wedding parties. The money spewed out by the Pentagon has militarised American society. By Eisenhower's time the Pentagon's national influence extended to things economic, political, martial, academic, scientific, technological and cultural - hence his military-industrial complex warning. It continues to this day but should be extended to include the military/security, industrial, academic and political complex. Illustrated by the unquestioning increase in defence spending as the US wallows in debt. A reliance on the long term efficacy of the Neocon strategy relies on this continued haemorrhaging of money into the military's coffers - but it only works if there is a military solution. There might be a touch too much "democracy" around for that.

Best,