I dunno how unsafe it is in Cairo and near the pyramids. I know plenty of journalists that are based here and cover Cairo. I briefly dated an AP journalist that covered Libya / Tunisia / Egypt during their respective revolutions. She said the presence of cops and military was nothing like the old days and was certainly less safe right after Tahir square, but that it seems to have stabilized. In any case, I know people that still go there without complaint. It's Sinnai that's the concern, which never had much loyalty to Cairo and sees itself as semi-autonomous. Outside of the major resorts, it's thinly populated by Bedouin who owe no loyalty to anyone other than their own clan. A lot of them were always involved in dodgy stuff like smuggling Sudanese refugees and drugs into Israel. That mixed with sporadic terror activity along the Israeli border is way less checked by the Egyptian military than it used to be. Israel agreed to allow them to bring some tanks near the border (in violation of the treaty) in order to tighten things, and after a recent terror attack on the border on workers building a border fence (killing an Arab worker from Haifa, no less) Israelis recently brought tanks in as well. Sinnai was always a wink away from anarchy, but the presence of the army kept it (mostly) safe for tourists off the beaten path. The testimony of refugees from Sudan that made it to Israel probably scares me the most. It doesn't sound good there. My take on the election? The Good: the revolution in Egypt was organized by young secular people. They were the ones getting the brunt of it in Tahir square. And while the Muslim Brotherhood won the election, it was by a pretty slim margin. They were the only people organized enough to field a major candidate other than the successors to Mubarak, and with those options, it's not surprising non-religious people voted the way they did, sort of the same way many secular and Christian Palestinians voted for Hamas, who promised to feed the hungry and eliminate corruption in 2006 over what they saw as a corrupt Fatah. Also assuring, is that the relations between the Egyptian and Israeli militaries is still very sound and they cooperate extremely well on security issues. That remains very stable. The Bad: The Muslim Brotherhood was relatively late to the game, stepping in and to some degree co-opting the "revolution." They also assured Egyptians they wouldn't field a candidate for the presidency and were only partners in bringing down Mubarak and bringing justice to the people, etc. Oops. This sort of thing was how the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia and the Mullahs in Iran after their own respective revolutions, and plenty of right-wing political commentators are quick to dig that out of the bag. As to what degree of alarmism is appropriate, I'm not sure, but for now I'm sticking by respecting the vote of the Egyptian people and respecting their sovereignty. The MB has no love for Israel (or the US) but they aren't stupid. They have to appease a very diverse base and while they want to negotiate changes in the treaty with Israel, I don't think eliminating the treaty completely or spoiling for war is what they want. They know, you know, and I know that certain elements in Israel can't wait to take Sinnai back - a notion that would be much easier to sell to the public than bombing Iran if Egypt starts to rattle the sabre. One thing about the treaty which has to bother the MB: one section hinged on Israel withdrawing from the occupied territories in a reasonable amount of time. Considering that the treaty was made in the 70s, it would be safe to say Israel hasn't exactly lived up to the expectations of the treaty. I think if the MB was to make a push diplomatically, it would be over this. They'd score major diplomatic points in world opinion, it wouldn't be unreasonable, and it would deflect attention away from them and onto Bibi's Super-friends of the Right.
Well done on spelling out this observation: The Muslim Brotherhood "stole" the revolution from the young, secular people. They LIED about fielding a candidate for the presidency. Their goal is to establish a global Islamic Caliphate. They have been the ideological source for terror groups worldwide and are linked to many well-funded Muslim organizations in the world. It is disgusting what happened in Egypt. Young Egyptians who fought for more freedom and risked their lives on Tahir square have to be devastated. People thought the same things about Hitler and the Nazis, although "Mein Kampf" and the Nazi program was clearly out there for everyone to see. If you read the Brotherhood manifestos, they are just like "Mein Kampf". Did you see their statements I posted in the previous post? I say a very high degree of alarmism is appropriate with regards to them. Well, do you think that if they got that, they would stop and be content? Does anyone seriously think that?
This statement is so crazy, given the context of what the Muslim Brotherhood's goals and history are. That's like saying Hitler was an improvement over Hindenburg.
In Middle Eastern politics, a lot of rhetoric is to rally the faithful (literally and figuratively) and an awful lot is promised that would be impossible to deliver, and they know it. The moment someone is in power, their main concern is keeping it and that involves good old-fashioned politics, or as we say in Tel Aviv, lies. The Muslim Brotherhood may very well want a pan-Arabic caliphate.* Getting one means going to war with every state in the region. Unlikely to happen. They aren't Al-Queda. Neither is Hamas, as an example. The Hamas charter is full of machismo and promises to throw Jews in the sea and all that, and they write songs about it and make videos about liberating Jerusalem. Can they? No. And if you consider launching homemade rockets blindly into civilian areas as "trying" I have a bridge to sell you. I'm way too cynical to believe that anything is much more than an effort to remain in power. The Israeli right does the same thing, "promising" to conquer all of "Eretz Israel," which depending on who you talk to, extends all the way to the Euphrates. Also unlikely to happen See also: Saddam Hussein, and pretty much every head of state in the post-colonial Middle East. EDIT: If you are an Osama Bin Laden or a Nasrallah, the rules are a bit different, but even Nasrallah these days is being mainstreamed into Lebanese politics and the legitimacy has a cost. Lately he's finding himself having to play the games of politics and some of the Hizbollah faithful are starting to accuse him of...um...selling out. * And I want a stateless world society without war or poverty or bigotry or oppressive religious dogma. It still doesn't make me a threat to any government or religion, nor do I have any realistic expectations in its outcome in the next few thousand years at least.
Deji, I see what you are saying, but people thought the same about Hitler: "He can't be that crazy. It's just rhetoric. Let's start politics of appeasement." Yup, he was that crazy. These programs are not just rhetoric. They mean what they say.
The Nazis in Germany in 1933 don't compare at all to the MB in 2012, for a zillion reasons. Egypt has a pretty high tech military (M1 Abrams tanks and so on), but it's completely dependent on the US to maintain it. I don't see the MB spurring an economic miracle to build their own war machine, do you? Even at the peak of Egypt's military prowess under Nasser, it was only due to it being a client state of the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, and in a super-important place strategically (the Suez). In short, there's no way they can be much of a threat to anyone without a lot of help from a major power. The MB will have to tolerate Israel and the US the same way Mubarak tolerated anti-Israel demonstrations and the broadcast of tv shows with anti-Semitic themes and so on. Iran might be a better comparison, but even to achieve that, that would have to build a security apparatus and secret police beyond the scope of Mubarak's, in the same way the mullahs had to build one beyond the Shah's. Or the bolsheviks beyond that of the Czar's. In a country as divided and in a natural state of chaos as Egypt's I think that would be pretty difficult. Not impossible, mind you, but not realistic.
Deji, so you are saying it is not that they would not want to, but that it is not feasible for them right now, right? So what if they can unite with Iran (as Morsi wants to) and with the other anti-Israel forces in the region? I see your argument that they are not in a position of power right now to achieve their aggressive goals, but that doesn't mean they could not strengthen this position over time. Germany was in a bad economic position when Hitler came to power as well, and still, they managed to put together a terrible war machinery, and they managed to kill millions. Again, the manifesto and program of the Muslim Brotherhood reads like "Mein Kampf" by Hitler. Same craziness and dreams of dominating the world.
It's also not feasible for Southern Baptists to convert the world to Evangelist Christianity, but it doesn't make Billy Gramm Hitler! Like I said, they aren't Al-Quaeda or Nazis and they aren't willing to destroy themselves to realize their "dream." If they have any particular goal in mind, it would be to use the treaty with Israel to pressure an end to the Occupation (as it was written and agreed to), which unless you are a rabid Settler, is not exactly the Holocaust. Since the 70's (the Iranian revolution / Camp David) Egypt and Iran were enemies competing for dominance in the region. Restoring relations could be good for the stability of the region. I don't think anyone is talking about a military alliance...they have way too many differences to make that happen. You can be sure Iran wants to see a pan-Arab Sunni Caliphate even less than you do. As for a Pan-Arab anything, Nasser got closer than anyone and his was strictly secular. It's less likely to happen than Russia joining the EU. Germany was still a major world power and it managed to rebuild at an incredible pace (the source of Hitler's credibility to most). It also had a lot of grievances about how the war before was settled. Egypt has no Sudetenland to reclaim. Egypt has no desire for war, ESPECIALLY not amongst it's military officers, it's highest ranking ones still have experience with the reality of what war entails and have been cooperating with the IDF for nearly 40 years. It also probably needs to be said the Egypt is a third world country. Germany for all the pains of the Weimar period, was hardly in the same situation. I wouldn't expect it to read like the lyrics to John Lennon's "Imagine" either. That kind of rhetoric is hardly rare, but it's also 100 years old. Mein Kampf was hot off the presses and selling like mad when the brown shirts were being ironed for a walk through the park to beat up undesirables. This government will have to address the needs of a very diverse group of people. It's minorities are a large percentage of the population and without a security apparatus that rivals the Stasi, it won't be able to beat submission into the people any time soon. It also doesn't have much of a mandate. It narrowly won and everyone is looking to it to rebuild and create a more equitable society than the one it replaced. Considering the current political climate of popular revolts (and Turkey and Saudi Arabia's willingness to fund the current one in Syria), they won't last long if they go all-in with Theocracy. I'm up to date on all the neo-con / Likud fear-mongering, and it's authored by the same usual suspects, with the same predictable short-term goals, which are (pssst) mostly about staying in office themselves. Read it, but try to read it between the lines as you would any political discourse from the Middle East. The situation in Egypt is far from ideal, but I would give them the same consideration everyone has given Iraq in it's efforts at democracy. The people voted and we have to respect that. We can't ALL have Angela Merkel.
Not the same. I don't think Southern Baptists have a manifesto that is shooting for world domination. (I am well aware that Southern Baptists are sort of fundamentalist in their beliefs, but I have yet to see Southern Baptists blow themselves up on the subway or fly planes into buildings.) Simply not comparable. Al Qaeda is to some extent an offspring of the Muslim Brotherhood. Same ideology, same goals. I agree that the military is probably the best bet for stability in that country, but Erdogan has shown how an Islamist can slowly but surely move a country away from secularism and how an Islamist can cut the military's decisionmaking power and make them an instrument of his own goals and ideology. Feasibility - that doesn't mean there aren't significant forces within the Muslim Brotherhood who would want to wage war. The guy (Morsi) even said after he was elected that he wants to make Jerusalem the capital of the caliphate. You can choose to ignore these statements or downplay them, but again, that was a mistake people made with Hitler, too. To a large extent, these statements have been repeated constantly and the game plan has been executed. And Morsi's statements are not 100 years old. Islamists have been burning down Coptic churches in Egypt, very recently. If you need a reminder: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Copts Agreed. But that doesn't mean one should not watch very closely what the Muslim Brotherhood is up to. They lied before about not fielding a presidential candidate. Their program is expansionist, aggressive, fanatical and ideologically charged, and looking for world domination, just like the Nazis'. Hopefully not. Just because some people might say these things out of self-interest and you are politically opposed to them (I believe you are sort of on the far left in Israel?) doesn't mean a lot of it could not still be right. Yes, there is no other choice, one needs to see how things develop, but again, I would not put a whole lot of trust into the Muslim Brotherhood. We will see how it plays out.
You understand what I meant. We all have an ideal of how we think the world would work better, but most of us figure out at some point in adolescence that we won't get our way. I think that's a bit over-simplistic. The Muslim Brotherhood is for sure the inspiration to and are sympathetic to groups like Hamas, but that's still very different from Al Qaeda. They have very specific goals and in the case of the MB and Hamas, their main goals are very much local. At the most cynical, a group like Al Qaeda has the freedom to commit terror acts around the world simply because they don't have the responsibility to govern and feed people. It's much harder to stay in power and govern people than it is to fight a "revolution." It also puts limits on your fantasies. It's also happening in Israel, but no one (outside Israel anyway) seems too concerned about religious Israeli soldiers suddenly demanding that women not be allowed to sing in the presence of men (among oh so many other things). The advocates of Jewish theocracy are alive and well, in some cases elected, in some cases in military uniforms and very much like the advocates of Islamist theocracy. They are becoming mainstreamed and it's (again) a far bigger threat to Israel. If you live in Israel, you get used to hearing these things. You also get used to hearing them said in the Knesset. Even some of the most moderate members of the PA have done it. It's just the way that game is unfortunately played. I'm a lot more concerned about Hizbollah as a credible threat or Israel's own lunatic fringe. For now, it's talk. If there's war, it will be a war Egypt has zero chance of winning, unless you think the US will be there to maintain their military in a war with Israel. Copts didn't exactly have it so great under Mubarak either, but as I recall, the MB went to great lengths to act against it when the "revolution" took a side track for Christian-bashing. Shas, to my knowledge, made no such attempts to address the "price tag" mosque burners in the West Bank. World domination will have to wait when they can barely win an election in their own country. I pretty dislike almost all politicians or parties, but I'm not doctrinaire. I wouldn't even say my politics are that easily defined. I have no problem giving credit where it's due. Depending on who you ask, I'm a commie for being against the occupation and supporting non-violent resistance by Palestinians, and a fascist for not approving the means by which the European left thinks they are helping. I think the world is full of nuance and most people don't care to understand the facts fully before forming a strong opinion and suffer from confirmation bias. I'm welcome neither in the country club nor the drum circle, but I have friends in both. I also have friends who are Palestinian poets and friends who are IDF officers. They probably would agree more on ME topics than most of the posters here, but these conversations only happen when they meet abroad and could get them in serious trouble if anyone found out. There are some right-wing politicians in Israel and the US who believe in democratic principle over incumbency protection or pandering to their base, and I respect them far more than I do someone that might agree with me on cultural or economic issues that plays partisan. But those kinds of politicians are in decline in the sound-bite age and are usually very old. Olmert, for all his flaws, came closer to peace and a two state agreement than any other PM. Few dedicated leftists will admit that. The only world leader I like very much is Merkel. I think you should be consoled by the fact that the average Egyptian voter is not entirely trusting of anyone. At the end of this long thread, voters had to decide between the MB and the old guard. The kids that started the whole revolution couldn't compete with long established organizations that already had the infrastructure and mailing lists and contacts to build political parties. The ONLY reason the MB existed as an entity in Egypt was BECAUSE they met in mosques instead of offices. If they had ever been a real political party they would have been broken up and thrown in prison. They survived as an organization only BECAUSE they were religious and could hide from a government that basically outlawed all political opposition. If there was one thing I would be watching, it's to see if the new government will not be as repressive to opposition parties being formed and organized.
It takes a very specific type of person to want to block the free will of Egyptians and then chide them for picking someone who acts like he opposes American foreign policies (i.e. blocking free will). Ironically, Morsi wouldn't be President if the US-funded SCAF didn't approve him. How sad. At the same time, it must be a hoot to live in a world where your biggest problem is the ramblings of a religious president of a shamocracy on the other side of the world who has no control of the military, and who's military is funded, supplied, supported and trained by yourselves. *sigh*
