Analysis: Is Egypt facing another revolution?

[Valin]

Jerusalem Post:

 

It is the West helping keep an anti-Western, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic organization in power.

ARIEL BEN SOLOMON

01/29/2013

 

Since the January 2011 overthrow of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, political unrest and divisions, violent protests and crackdowns have beset the country. Overseas investments and tourism have dropped, and the country’s foreign currency reserves have plummeted.

 

The Muslim Brotherhood continues to claim that much of the opposition is dominated by Mubarak-era thugs and secularists trying to remove the Islamic identity of Egypt, while the opposition says the Brotherhood is taking over the government and attempting to forcefully Islamize Egyptian society.

 

“The opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule is now genuine and deep-rooted, and increasing day by day,” Tariq Alhomayed wrote on Sunday in the Saudi-backed Arabic daily Al- Sharq al-Awsat, reflecting the tensions between the Gulf states – with the exception of Qatar – and the Muslim Brotherhood.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Egypt's Revolution Will Take Decades

Austin Bay

January 29, 2013

 

Egypt's Arab Spring revolution abounds with destructive ambitions and cruel ironies. But to label Egypt's revolution a failure, just two short years into a process involving drastic political change, is an act of extraordinary haste.

 

(Snip)

 

I'm not suggesting popular revolutions appealing to the human longing for freedom, equal standing before the law, honest government and a fair economic shake don't fail. An utterly failed revolution figures prominently in Arab Spring disaster narratives, and well it should. In 1979, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini decried the shah's tyranny and corruption. In 2013, Iran's dictatorial clique of shabby clerics and secret policemen run a government whose appetite for repression and graft exceeds that of the monarchists they replaced.

 

(Snip)

 

The stage is set for a rapprochement among secularists, Islamist moderates and military leaders who are smart enough to let the evolutionary process continue but willing to jail terrorists. This is a very slow process, one measured in decades. Ask me if it succeeded or failed in, say, January 2033.

[Valin]

A pro-American Egyptian military wouldn’t look so bad now, and it never did

Paul Mirengoff

1/3013

 

The chief of Egypt’s military, Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, warned of the possible “collapse of the state” following a fourth night of street fighting in Cairo and other major cities. In that event, the military might very well intervene in an effort to restore stability.

 

Unfortunately, as we noted in August of last year, Sissi’s sympathies lie with the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed, this report by the Washington Post, though it suggests that the military itself is “fundamentally neutral,” acknowledges that “Sissi is far more loyal to the Islamist regime than the previous generals would have been.”

 

(Snip)

 

We have noted that Obama seems to view the Muslim Brotherhood as the wave of the future in the Middle East. The Egyptian street may beg to differ, but Obama has done his best to make his terrible prophecy a self-fulfilling one.

 

_______________________________________________________

 

The Collapse of Egypt: A Terrifying Idea

30/01/2013

Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed

 

Nobody would have put forward this idea, namely the collapse of the Egyptian state, if the most senior Egyptian military official, Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, had not sounded the alarm bell, warning that the continuation of conflict between the country’s various political factions could lead to “the collapse of the state.”

 

Neither the Egyptians, nor the Arabs, nor indeed the world at large could bear such a terrifying idea. Regardless of their different positions, the Egyptian people must never allow total chaos to take hold and for the state of Egypt—which the people laud as being one of the oldest in the world, with roots dating back seven thousand years—to collapse. The Defense Minister’s statement contains numerous connotations. In addition to alerting Egypt’s blinded politicians regarding the reality of the situation, this also represents a warning that the army will not stand idly by while the country burns, and will therefore intervene, not just to impose a curfew—as requested by President Mohamed Mursi—but possibly go further than this and declare martial rule, establishing military rule that could last for years in a repetition of the Algerian experience.

 

Prime responsibility for preventing the collapse of the state, and subsequent military rule, falls on the shoulders of President Mohamed Mursi If he is not able to bring opposing factions together and convince them to work under his leadership—by reaching common ground on controversial issues—then we may truly be witnessing the collapse of the second republic of Egypt.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Walid Phares: Morsi will use everything he can to fight rebellion against him

 

 

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Blast at Fordow facility

[Valin]

Via Meadia: Radical Turn in Tunisia? Arab Spring on Wayward Course

2/6/13

 

Is rampant street violence coming to Tunisia too? Could be, as opposition leader Chokri Belaid was shot and killed in front of his home in Tunis today. An outspoken critic of the Islamist party Ennahda, which is widely considered moderate but has at times been indulgent of the radical Salafis, Belaid had received several death threats in the weeks leading up to his murder. Things had been especially heating up recently, the New York Times reports:

 

(Snip)

 

Western observers love to turn foreign revolutions into morality plays: good moderates and pluralists, bad radicals and so on, but the key to the region these days is the ugly truth that none of the factions contending for political power has any idea how to satisfy the masses. The Middle East is in a development trap, unable to grow in ways that would make life bearable for its huge youthful population. Fifty years ago radical socialism and communism would be the ideological beneficiaries of these trends; today it is radical Islam. But regardless of the ideological flavor of the week, the reality is that when government can’t deliver the kind of life people would like, the alternatives are often chaos as order breaks down or ruthless repression as an imperfect and unpopular order is imposed. Armies, tough and smart kings and radical Islamists may, under today’s conditions, be the people most capable of maintaining order, and governments shaped in various ways and to various degrees by these elements may well be what emerges from the chaos we see in the region today.

[clearvision]

The Middle East is in a development trap, unable to grow in ways that would make life bearable for its huge youthful population.

Can't they just give them free birth control, food stamps, health care, college loans and make sure plenty of booze and drugs are available? Seems to be the plan for some countries.

[Valin]

The Middle East is in a development trap, unable to grow in ways that would make life bearable for its huge youthful population.

Can't they just give them free birth control, food stamps, health care, college loans and make sure plenty of booze and drugs are available? Seems to be the plan for some countries.

 

BRILLIANT!!! I am in awe.

[Valin]

Egypt's Refuseniks

Michael J Totten

2/12/13

 

Here’s something you don’t see every day:

[Valin]

Kerry: Egyptians need to find political consensus

 

CAIRO (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says bickering Egyptian government and opposition leaders need to reach a political consensus to help their country emerge from an economic crisis.

 

Kerry arrived in Cairo on Saturday for meetings with business people, opposition figures and the foreign minister. Talks with President Mohammed Morsi were set for Sunday.

 

U.S. officials accompanying Kerry on his first overseas trip as a member of President Barack Obama's Cabinet said Kerry was particularly concerned that Egypt undertake the reforms necessary to qualify for a $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund loan package. Steps could include increasing tax collections and curbing energy subsidies.

 

(Snip)

 

 

WOW! He really are smart!