Three Cheers for Serviceable Hypocrisy

[Valin]

The Middle East and Beyond:

 

Adam Garfinkle

 

In response to my most recent post[/.url], one of my loyal readers (my only loyal reader, for all I know) asked me to expound on the U.S. policy implications of what is going on in Egypt. I was going to do so in that earlier post, but I try to keep these things relatively short, as befits the genre of the blog. As you will soon see, discussing the policy implications is very hard to do in brief.

 

But before we come to questions of policy, I think we need a brief update on what has gone on in Egypt over the past few days. The key fact is that the military, in the quaintly termed form of the SCAF (Supreme, or Higher, Council of the Armed Forces; المجلس الأعلى للقوات المسلحة‎, al-Majlis al-ʾAʿlā lil-Quwwāt al-Musallaḥah) has delayed announcing the winner of this past weekend’s presidential election. That announcement was supposed to have been made on Thursday, but the election commission, which is of course not really independent of the SCAF, claimed that there were too many polling irregularities to sort through to determine the winner on time. No doubt there were some irregularities, but that never stopped these guys before. No, something else explains the delay. We know this because as a British parliamentarian once said some years ago, you should never believe anything in political life until it has been officially denied. And the SCAF is denying all shenanigans left and right.

 

The SCAF has already pointed the finger at presumed Muslim Brotherhood ballot box stuffing. Even worse, now both candidates are claiming victory, which means that when a winner is announced—assuming a winner is announced and the SCAF does not annul the ballot altogether—a lot of people are going to be extremely bent out of shape. All else equal (which in Egypt it never is), that means that the prospect of violence—not between the regime as such and protesters, but between opposing political camps, one of which is extremely close to but not exactly the same as the SCAF—goes up.

 

(Snip)

[Pepper]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2012/jun/24/egypt-election-results-live

 

@Valin

[Valin]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2012/jun/24/egypt-election-results-live

 

@Valin

 

Thank you!