With Friends Like This, Egypt Doesn't Need Enemies
I'll put this plainly, since my government isn't. Every bit of my heart, as an American and a human being and someone who deeply believes in democracy and human rights, is on the side of Egyptians who want exactly the rights and freedoms and opportunities all Americans take for granted. And we should say so to Mubarak: Do not touch another hair on the head of another protester, or you will face the wrath of the United States.
We must also confront forthrightly the chance--not a certainty, nor even a likelihood, but not an impossibility--that the Muslim Brotherhood will take power as the result of the uprising there.
I don't believe this is an Islamist uprising. I believe it is a genuinely democratic uprising. But Egyptian civil society is fragile and the Muslim Brotherhood is strong, well-organized, and well-financed. Were it to take power, there is every reason to believe it would make those very Egyptians for whom my heart aches long for Mubarak. The Muslim Brotherhood does not envision for Egypt a tolerant, pluralistic modern democracy: It envisions a theocracy. I have made this case at length and I stand by it.
This is why my heart sank when I saw this op-ed by about Egypt by Anwar Ibrahim in the Wall Street Journal:
The problems that plague the Arab world remain overwhelming: the concentration of wealth and power by the few over the many, poor infrastructure, primitive education systems, minimal health care, and decreasing incomes in the face of rising food prices and cost of living. Corruption and nepotism reign in the complete absence of accountability and transparency.
It is a perfect recipe for political upheaval: political marginalization and economic impoverishment for the people and ill-gotten wealth for the ruling elite. It’s a reality that can’t be cloaked by propaganda—citizens can see the reality on YouTube and Facebook—though the leaders certainly try. Indeed, no Arab leader has owned up to any of these evils, other than by offering pious platitudes about improving the economic lot of their people. ...
And he's right! He's right! What man of conscience could read this without nodding?
Except for one thing. Anwar is a textbook exemplar of Islamism 2.0, an anti-Semitic Muslim Brotherhood loyalist (no doubt about that) who has come to appreciate that the word "democracy" is his friend and that no one in the West will be that curious about what he truly believes or the company he keeps so long as he liberally uses the magic word "moderate."
I've written about this before. Among his other Islamist achievements, Anwar co-founded the IIIT, a Muslim Brotherhood front organization in the United States whose members have been arrested on terrorism charges. It publishes obscene Islamist propaganda, and has been implicated very credibly as a financier of terrorism:
There is more evidence of IIIT’s links to terrorism. A few examples: according to court documents, in the early 1990s IIIT donated at least $50,000 to a think tank run by Sami al-Arian, the World Islamic and Study Enterprise (WISE), that served as a front group for Palestinian Islamic Jihad. IIIT is also named as a defendant in two class-action lawsuits brought by victims of the 9/11 attacks. One alleges that IIIT received the bulk of its operating expenses from the SAAR network, whose component groups are accused in another class-action suit of being “fronts for the sponsor of al Qaeda and international terror.”
In 2006, lecturing in Washington DC, Anwar noted (not at all for the first time) that he was most influenced by the writings of “Syed Qutb, Hassan Al Banna, and Maududi.” Those names will be familiar to Ricochet's readers: You'll know what they stand for, and it's surely not democracy. To the extent that such ideologues embrace democracy, it is not democracy for its own sake--it's democracy as a streetcar to sharia. In Malaysia, Anwar's party has formed an electoral alliance with the PAS, the party that calls for the strict imposition of sharia law. And he is positively proud of his association with Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
Anwar continues:
The bogeyman of Islamism, the oft-cited scapegoat of Middle Eastern dictators to justify their tyranny, must therefore be reconsidered or junked altogether. The U.S., too, should learn a lesson about the myth that secular tyrants and dictators are its best bet against Islamists. Revolutions, be they secular or religious, are born of a universal desire for autonomy. The common thread that binds the Iranian revolution and the Tunisian upheaval is the rising discontent of the people after years of suffering under oppressive rule.
Anwar is the bogeyman of Islamism: It's a self-refuting statement. One of the most sinister aspects of Islamism today is that it has learned to exploit democracy, or at least the rhetoric of democracy, and it has learned to exploit the way the West pays no attention to the details.
That said, he is also right that secular tyrants and dictators are no inoculation against Islamism. They are no inoculation against tyranny and dictatorship, either. These are inherent evils. We do not oppose Islamism because it is Islamic, we oppose it because it is tyrannical.
As Americans, we have to be against all tyranny--against kleptocrats, against aging dictators, against Islamists, against communists, against fascists. We are for democracy, civil rights, the rule of law. We're against cracking the heads of young people exercising their God-given freedom to assemble and speak. We're for freedom of expression. We're against Islamists like Qaradawi and his friends. We're for free elections in Egypt, unmarred by corruption.
But let's come out and say it. We are not for the participation of the Muslim Brotherhood in those elections, unless this movement explicitly renounces those parts of its political ideology that are simply incompatible with democracy. Unless they do, they will be the next group of thugs cracking the heads of Egyptian democrats.
We are allowed to say all of this. And we must. There's only one side to be on in this: The side of liberal democrats. That's what we are and that's what we believe.
I hope.
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Nov '10
Re: With Friends Like This, Egypt Doesn't Need Enemies
"This is the Middle East. Whatever you do, do it fast and strong."
Your friend, Milady Claire, is exactly right. Somewhere in a copy of Barbara Tuchman's essays, now out of my reach, she makes the same point about the importance of resolution in the actions of States.
But, what is our policy? I return to a question that I asked in another thread. Where has our government made a clear statement of whom we support and what we will do?
I hesitate to say it, but where is our CIA now? I hope that we have people on the ground who will encourage and protect the real democrats without demanding that they give us anything other than dealing fairly and generously with their own people (and not demonizing us).
Jun '10
Re: With Friends Like This, Egypt Doesn't Need Enemies
EJHill: American foreign policy has never been about either freedom or democracy. It's all about stability.
The basic philosophy is that bad things happen in unstable situations, so therefore the known is always to be favored over the unknown. That's why we'll prop up a dictator like Mubarak for thirty years. Or the House of Saud. Or even a jerk like Karzai. · Jan 27 at 9:36am
I think our support for Arab dictators mostly stems from Cold War strategy. We cozied up to Mubarak, Saddam, and the Saudis to prevent the Soviets from dominating the region and cutting off NATO's oil supply. Much like our troop levels in Germany, it's largely a product of inertia and is a couple decades overdue for a serious rethink.
Oct '10
Re: With Friends Like This, Egypt Doesn't Need Enemies
The best long term approach is to simply support free and fair elections. If Egypt votes in the MB, then they have to live with that decision, like Gazans have to live with Hamas. That's the only way to be 'on the side of the people', and insulates us against supporting today's revolutionary hero who becomes tomorrow's genocidal maniac.
Oct '10
Re: With Friends Like This, Egypt Doesn't Need Enemies
I really don't see how an Algeria-type scenario can be avoided here.
Dec '10
Re: With Friends Like This, Egypt Doesn't Need Enemies
Updated link from my earlier comment on Judith's thread (the date changed, after I previuosly copied it). That's now oldish news.
More currently, the White House appears to be taking a stand against violence from all parties, but the point seems clear (to me). Ignore the headline and see the fourth and fifth paragraphs. From later today, the pressure on Mubarak appears to have become greater.
May '10
Re: With Friends Like This, Egypt Doesn't Need Enemies
"This is the Middle East. Whatever you do, do it fast and strong."
I would put it this way: "This is the Middle East. Whatever you do, it will be wrong."
I do not believe there is a great yearning for democratic systems outside of the one nation that already has it. The Kurds are free of tyranny in Iraq, and put their own kleptocrats into place. The Shaw is overthrown, and they put in an Islamic dictatorship. Turkey is falling fast in that direction.
It is like an interview I saw with someone in Somalia back in the 90's. The person interviewed said sure they wanted peace. When asked if they would share power with another tribe, they spat and said "no way".
There is no real evidence that the people of the Middle East do not want peace. The people out of power want to get into power so *they* can stick it to the next person.
I will believe in Middle East democracy when some nation there actually has it. And Iraq does not count because 1: We made it happen, and 2: It is a pretty un-liberal version that makes Japan look transparent.
May '10
Re: With Friends Like This, Egypt Doesn't Need Enemies
I have no idea why that came out all in bold.
Re: With Friends Like This, Egypt Doesn't Need Enemies
flownover: As a fly on the wall here in the State Department, I need to tell you that ........
no one is here. Nobody showed up today. There's no people, no plan, and the only thing that's happened is the new Ambassador to Syria has presented his papers in Damascus.
And that's what happening in Foggy Bottom.......................... · Jan 27 at 10:46am
I'd like to hear a lot more from that fly on the wall, because that's pretty important.
Aug '10
Re: With Friends Like This, Egypt Doesn't Need Enemies
A small but depressing point: an "in depth" news report on Irish TV last night managed to cover the situation in Egypt for maybe 15 minutes, complete with various interviews, without any reference whatsoever to the MB or to Islamism.The presenter/interviewer was Mideast correspondent for the State TV station for some time and even wrote a book about Israel/Palestine (sympathetic to the latter of course) so he must be aware that this is more than just the Dictator v The People face-off that was presented, without any possible downside if the People "win". I mention this because I fear it is typical of a lot of reporting on recent events- I have even seen some which suggests an MB takover would be a positive thing,but the source for that is an activist with a typewriter. By the way, one interviewee on the TV report, a professor from, I think, Suez City University, mentioned that a very high divorce rate and huge number of unmarried women were causes of instability- I had not heard this perspective before and found it interesting.
Aug '10
Re: With Friends Like This, Egypt Doesn't Need Enemies
Claire, On a separate but somewhat related issue, would you care to share your assessment of Robert Fisk?
Oct '10
Re: With Friends Like This, Egypt Doesn't Need Enemies
To be blunt, "free and open elections" almost always leads to slaughter--liberal democracy succeeds because it emphasizes the rule of law, checks and balances, and a commitment to secular governance. These all act to restrain populist impulses, and protect citizens from democratic oppression.
There is a reason "democracy" was a dirty word until the founding of the United States, which placed more emphasis on the rule of law and checks and balances then on direct democratic control of society.