Conflict and Opportunity in Post-Mubarak Egypt - an Analysis

By BRIAN M. DOWNING

8. February 2011

B. Downing

Hosni Mubarak's thirty-year rule in Egypt is nearing an end and though the denouement of events there is still unclear, the new polity is almost certainly to be shaped by the military institutions and popular sentiments. This is causing considerable dismay in Jerusalem and Washington. National security institutions tend to think in worst-case scenarios, but recent events in Egypt present opportunities for the long sought after solution to the Palestinian problem.

Anti-Israel Sentiment

Public sentiments that erupted in Egypt, like those in Tunisia and Jordan and Yemen, are based on a large youth segment that sees only dismal opportunity in a country whose economy is sluggish, corrupt, and dominated by the regime and its coterie of supporters. This demographic bulge will not be easily mollified and its concerns and demands will shape the politics of the region for decades.

Not too far below the surface is anger over Mubarak's acquiescence to Israel's actions toward fellow Muslims. Israel, in the eyes of the Egyptian public, has brutalized the Palestinian people, expanded settlements ever deeper into the West Bank, and inflicted great casualties on the people of Gaza and Lebanon.

The peace treaty between Egypt and Israel – so highly prized in Israel and the US – has served not to further peace in the region but to give Israel a free hand in dealing with Muslims along its periphery. Once the matter of a new government is settled – a process that will take many months or more – attention will turn to the east.

Anger toward Israel is also plain in the Egyptian military. Owing to conscription, the military is not aloof from public sentiments. Indeed, the younger officers share the public hostility toward older elites, in and out of uniform. The Muslim Brotherhood is likely to have been placing adherents into the military for several decades now, where they are now reaching the higher ranks.

Generational dynamics are visible as well. Beneath the lofty heights of the general staff there is a brooding sentiment that sees political, military, and business leaders as an intertwined elite that has forsaken national interests in exchange for US subsidies and Israeli commerce. 

The officer corps and general staff are infused with institutional myths based on wars with Israel. It was then that Egyptian forces performed quite well attacking across the Suez Canal and driving well into Sinai. Israeli forces were in retreat, their leaders in near panic, until US assistance broke the Egyptian air defense system, leaving Egyptian infantry and armor columns at the mercy of Israeli airpower. 

The Egyptian military, though steeped in notions of power and defending the people, has had to sit by as Israel roughly imposed its will on Palestinians and Lebanese. Ongoing events may encourage them to reassert themselves on the world stage.

The Form of Conflict

Egyptian MIG 17 fighter shot down by the Israelis in 1967

Public anger directed toward Israel and a military pervaded by myths based on wars against Israel might seem to make another war inevitable. For all the emotion and momentum, however, an outright war along the lines of the ones in 1967 and 1973 is unlikely.

The new government in Cairo, military or Islamist or an amalgamation of both, will be charged with reforming the economy and providing opportunity for the energized young generation. War with Israel would end a considerable portion of the trade between the two nations and as well the large US subsidies that have come since the peace agreement of thirty years ago.

In any event, for all the US training and equipment, the Egyptian military – whether alone or in conjunction with Syria – is no match for the Israeli military. Though thwarted twice by Hizbullah guerrillas In Lebanon, the Israeli army remains a potent conventional force. It still enjoys advantages in cohesion, training, and technology.

Israel's airstrike on Syria in 2007 ably demonstrated its ability to defeat air defense systems and the Stuxnet virus that damaged Iranian nuclear facilities last year will give pause to any military commander, who can never know if his command and control system will be operable. Further, few can doubt Israel's willingness to use nuclear weapons should it face a crushing conventional defeat.

A more likely form of conflict will lie in providing limited material support to various groups in and out of Israel – Hamas in Gaza, Fatah in the West Bank, and Hizbullah in Lebanon. Such pressure will force greater Israeli defense spending, reduce foreign investment in Israel, and raise the specter of widespread emigration – especially by educated, secular Israelis so vital to the military and economy. Another form of support for the Palestinians will lie in increasing the diplomatic pressure on Israel to find an answer to the Palestinian issue.

Limited material support and more forceful diplomatic pressure will confer prestige and legitimacy on the new government in Cairo. This will provide time to embark upon far-reaching economic policies that must offer opportunity for the expansive, restive youth segment – a program that farsighted Israeli figures might well see as in their interests as well.

A New Approach To Peace

In recent years, peace talks come and go with little if any progress. Israel continues to expand its settlements on the West Bank, moving closer to a de facto annexation. US efforts to stop the settlements and bring about meaningful talks have failed once more. Mubarak's fall will bring about new forces that could well lead to meaningful peace talks.

Israel will soon face an ominous coalition along its periphery comprising a newly-strident Egypt, a Lebanon with Hizbullah on the rise in government, and Syria which has resisted efforts to divert it from its longstanding hostile stance. And of course Jordan could follow the Egyptian path in coming weeks.

Short of intermittent and possibly endless wars, there is only one way to counter this emerging coalition: settling the West Bank issue by forming a Palestinian state there. 

Arab pressure on the periphery will also cause Israel to rethink its clandestine operations in Iran. In recent years Israel has supported insurgencies, bombings, and assassinations throughout Iran in order to pressure Iran to give up its nuclear program and to stop its support of hostile actions by Hamas and Hizbullah. The former is probably unstoppable but the latter could readily be part of a regional peace agreement.

Israel will have to balance Iran against Arab powers, as it long did, or more likely, balance Arab forces against Iran, as it was attempting to do prior to the turn of events in Egypt. Otherwise, Israel will face a powerful Arab-Iranian coalition. Not even the vaunted Israeli military and intelligence service can take on so many foreign powers. Not even the once bottomless American military and fiscal assets will want to support that for an extended period.

* * *

The passions and fissures of the region make a transformation into a harmonious land unlikely, but with the new disposition of post-Mubarak Egypt, a significant easing of regional problems is within reach. This will benefit the entire Middle East and prevent Israel from degenerating into a new apartheid state presiding over a growing underclass. It will also prevent the moral principles that many Israelis still pride themselves on from being further supplanted by the ruthless principles of national security.

Brian M. Downing is the author of several works of political and military history, including The Military Revolution and Political Change and The Paths of Glory: War and Social Change in America from the Great War to Vietnam. He can be reached at: brianmdowning@gmail.com

courtesy COUNTERPUNCH 

The use of the Muslim Brotherhood by MI6 and the CIA in Egypt, Syria and Iran

article from aangirfan about the origins of Egypt's possible new ruling party

Muslim Brotherhood's coat of arms

The Chicago Sun-Times reported, 28 November 2005:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-egypt28.html

Egypt, the world's most populous Arab country, is suddenly roiling with a wide-open, combative election that seems certain to end with the country's main Islamic group, the banned Muslim Brotherhood, as a big winner.

The country's rulers, longtime American allies, are starting to show signs of panic: Police have barred voters from polls and thugs have attacked Brotherhood supporters in recent days in an apparent effort to blunt the group's growing momentum.

Even before the final round of voting Thursday, Brotherhood loyalists have increased their seats in parliament fivefold. That's not enough to unseat the ruling party, but is still seen as a slap to President Hosni Mubarak.

The following is taken from http://www.redmoonrising.com/Ikhwan/BritIslam.htm

 

Freya Stark

Prior to World War II British Intelligence cultivated ties with the Brotherhood through agent Freya Stark, the British adventurer and writer (1). These covert connections were used to keep track of the growing German presence in North Africa and to stay informed of the many different political movements that were springing up. The Muslim Brotherhood spread throughout the Muslim world and has evolved into something like a Muslim equivalent of the West's Masonic brotherhood. It became one of the first Islamic Fundamentalist terror organizations...

"According to CIA agent Miles Copeland, the Americans began looking for a Muslim Billy Graham around 1955... When finding or creating a Muslim Billy Graham proved elusive, the CIA began to cooperate with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim mass organization founded in Egypt but with followers throughout the Arab Middle East... This signalled the beginning of an alliance between the traditional regimes and mass Islamic movements against Nasser and other secular forces." (1)

The CIA was following the example of British Intelligence and sought to use Islam to further its goals. They wanted to find a charismatic religious leader that they could promote and control and they began to cooperate with groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. With the rise of Nasser the Brotherhood was also courted more seriously by the pro-Western Arab regimes of Saudi Arabia and Jordan. They needed all the popular support that they could muster against the rise of Nasser-inspired Arab nationalism to keep their regimes intact.
 

Nasser

The Muslim Brotherhood was an obvious ally against Nasser, because he had abolished it from Egypt after it was involved in a failed assassination attempt on his life in 1954. The Brotherhood rejected Nasser's policy that, for the most part, kept religion out of politics. Officially the Brotherhood was an outlawed organization, but it remained influential and active within Egypt working against the secular regime, often hand-in-hand with British Intelligence. In June of 1955 MI6 was already approaching the Brotherhood in Syria to agitate against the new government that showed strong left-wing tendencies and a desire to merge with Egypt (2). The Brotherhood became an even more important asset after Nasser announced the Egyptian takeover of the Suez...

In Syria, in 1982, there was a major conflict between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Syrian government at the city of Hamma that resulted in 20,000 casualties. In the aftermath Syria's President Asad revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood forces were armed with US-made equipment...

Israel, forever inclined to back divisive movements, surfaced as another supporter of Islam and began to fund the Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas." (8)
The most noteworthy success of the Islamic movement during this time was of course the overthrow of the Shah of Iran and the installation of the Ayatollah Khomeini as the Islamic dictator. British Intelligence had used their contacts with Iran's mullahs and ayatollahs to help overthrow Mossadegh and install the Shah back in 1953, and these contacts were maintained and used again to overthrow the Shah when his regime fell out of favor. 

Shah Reza Pahlavi

The Establishment history of Iran's Islamic Revolution is that Khomeini's revolt was spontaneous and populist, and that it overthrew a repressive dictatorship that was hated by the people but supported wholeheartedly by the United States. It is true that the Shah's government was not a democracy and that his secret service, trained by the CIA, was one of the most effective intelligence organizations in the world. But what is not reported is that prior to the British-sponsored massive public relations campaign on behalf of the Ayatollah the government of the Shah was loved by the vast majority of the population.

After taking over from Mossadegh the Shah began to push forward a number of nationalist policies that increased his popularity at home but, in some cases, worried the Anglo-American Establishment. First, he signed petroleum agreements with ENI, the Italian oil company. Then in 1963 he pushed forward on a series of popular reforms that became known as the White Revolution. The Shah evolved into a nationalist whose path paralleled that of Nasser far too much for the Establishment's liking:

- He bought land from the upper classes and, along with the crown's own land, sold it back cheaply to tenant farmers, allowing over one a half million people to become land owners and ending the old feudal system.

- He allowed women the right to vote, and brought an end to the wearing of the veil, which were "Westernizing" moves unwelcomed by the religious sector.

- He pushed forward on a $90 billion nuclear power program.

- He moved to shut down the lucrative opium industry that had been created during the days of British Empire control that had been running for a hundred years. (9)...

The attack on the Shah's government came through the Muslim Brotherhood and through the mullahs and ayatollahs of Iran, supported and manipulated by British Intelligence...
 

Hamas

Dr. John Coleman, a former British Intelligence agent... states in his report on Iran's Islamic Revolution (11) that the Muslim Brotherhood was created by "the great names of British Middle East intelligence" ...and that their mission was to "keep the Middle East backward so that its natural resource, oil, could continue to be looted..."

Dr. Coleman writes that in 1980 the broadcasts of Radio Free Iran divided the enemies of the Shah into four categories: 1. Iranian politicians bought by the Israeli Shin Bet, 2. The CIA's network of agents, 3. The feudal landowners, 4. The Freemasons and the Muslim Brotherhood (viewed as the same enemy).

In his report Dr. Coleman writes that in Iran, "At one time there was even a joke about the mullahs being stamped 'made in Britain.'" When the Shah introduced his plan for modernization in 1963 the Ayatollah Khomeini emerged as the leader of the religious opposition. Up until his exile from Iran in 1964, Khomeini was based at the religious city of Qom. Dr. Coleman relates that Radio Free Iran claimed that while at Qom Khomeini received a "monthly stipend from the British, and he is in constant contact with his masters, the British."

Notes http://www.redmoonrising.com/Ikhwan/BritIslam.htm
~

It would seem that the UK and US military like governments to be fundamentalist because then things are easier to control.

courtesy AANGIRFAN

CIA or Mossad Distribute "How-to-Kick-Mubarak-Ass" Fliers to Egyptians?

A few points to note about this pamphlet:

1. The content appears to have been carefully selected. Someone familiar with police crowd control techniques has given a great deal of thought to organizing, propagandizing, and effective protesting

2. The ordering of ideas is carefully structured. It adheres to the following format: - Demands - Strategic Goals - Tactics (mobilizing crowds, clothing, fighting techniques, miscellaneous tactics) - Effective propaganda (propaganda displays and means of distribution)

3. The format is styled like a Powerpoint presentation concocted by a staff familiar with trendy, simple, and effective forms of communication. The written text is kept to a minimum. Instead of compiling a list of top ten tips or merely writing down the ideas contained therein, careful thought was given to expressing these ideas mainly thru imagery. Whereas Arabic style of communication tends to be long-winded, indirect, and verbose with lots of flowery rhetoric, this is short, succinct, and primarily a pictorial explanation. Written text is kept to a bare minimum. That is not the middle Eastern style of communication. It is the style of boardroom powerpoint slideshows and of Madison Avenue.

4. The images in the penultimate slide showing an attractive young woman displaying the peace sign in solidarity with a smiling matronly elderly woman positioned on either side of a young, physically imposing but friendly and smiling Egyptian soldier seem like the way Madison Avenue would go about selling this message. Traditional societies would be less likely to include smiling women in their propaganda. They would typically favor displays of bravery and romanticized rhetoric exhorting one to protest for a noble cause. Men who are experienced in crowd control and security techniques also are unlikely to think of using this kind of feminized imagery.

5 The translation into English is literally perfect. All the idioms are right. It gives one the impression that perhaps this document was originally written in English, carefully and methodically put together by a committee with input from military, marketing, and technical writing staff. http://www.businessinsider.com/egypt-activist-plan-2011-1#-1

So who put this pamphlet together? America, Israel, one of Soros’ NGO’s?

see the pamphlet at BUSINESS INSIDER  

comments courtesy Charles

"Color Revolution Of The Week": Tarpley (very good)

Egypt; Is a "Greater Israel" now a greater possibility than ever before? - Piper Report

For "Greater Israel" see WIKIPEDIA

Original map from the infamous "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"

" It lies upon the people's shoulders to prepare for the war, but it lies upon the Israeli army to carry out the fight with the ultimate object of erecting the Israeli Empire." [Moshe Dayan (Israel Defense and Foreign Minister), on February 12 1952. Radio "Israel."]

"The only solution is Eretz Israel [Greater Israel], or at least Western Eretz Israel [all the land west of Jordan River], without Arabs. There is no room for compromise on this point ... We must not leave a single village, not a single tribe." [Joseph Weitz, Director of the Jewish National Fund, the Zionist agency charged with acquiring Palestinian land, Circa 194. Machover Israca, January 5, 1973 p.2.]

" The present map of Palestine was drawn by the British mandate. The Jewish people have another map which our youth and adults should strive to fulfill -- From the Nile to the Euphrates." [Ben Gurion]

"The Lord reigns. The Lord has reigned. The Lord will reign forever and ever."

 

 

ca. 1930, Irgun terrorist organization

‘Catastrophic Zionism’: How Turmoil Benefits Israel

by Michael Collins Piper (American Free Press)

If there is anything that can be said about the crisis in Egypt—which is reverberating throughout the Middle East—it is that it is ultimately open to multiple interpretations. Any “expert” who purports to give you “the last word” on the topic is deceiving you and perhaps himself. Geopolitical strategists, armchair pundits and conspiracy theory devotees are competing to tell the world “what’s really happening and why,” but there is no single truth to the matter.

First of all, consider the issue of popular unrest in Egypt. All serious evidence indicates Hosni Mubarak’s regime has sustained itself through force and oppression and, not surprisingly, support from the Egyptian military. In addition, Mubarak has maintained a close relationship with the United States and, thus, with Israel, with which Egypt entered a controversial peace agreement in 1979 that remains in effect today.

These factors have preserved Mubarak’s rule—at least until now.

However, within Egypt, there has long been widespread discontent among a variety of domestic sources, ranging from Islamic fundamentalists in the Muslim Brotherhood to more “Western”-oriented young people to working families struggling to pay food bills.

So while there is breadth and apparent depth to the opposition, the critics of Mubarak are by no means united across a wide range of issues. However, the economic turmoil plaguing Egypt in recent months seems to have been a critical factor in helping spark the rebellion.

In short, to suggest that the Egyptian rebellion was orchestrated solely by the United States and/or Israel would ignore genuine grassroots Egyptian concerns.

Israel and the American supporters of Israel know that many Egyptians of all political stripes and religious persuasions have never been comfortable with the U.S.-Israeli-Egyptian relationship and that an element of Egyptian opposition to the Mubarak regime has been its cozy concert with Israel.

As a consequence of this, many pro-Israeli elements are taking a firm stand against “democracy” in Egypt precisely because they fear a popularly elected regime replacing Mubarak could be hostile to Israel, no matter what the new regime’s religious flavor—if any at all.

Note, too, that one of the leading critics of the Mubarak regime is Nobel Prize-winning former International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei. Supporters of Israel consider ElBaradei to be problematic because he was a critic of the Bush administration’s campaign against Saddam Hussein of Iraq, raising questions about Bush claims that Saddam was engaged in building nuclear weapons. Likewise, ElBaradei has stood in the way of Israeli and American efforts to provoke a confrontation with Iran over its efforts to engage in nuclear development.

However, there are more than a few observers who perceive ElBaradei as a ubiquitous double-dealer whose agenda is uncertain In the meantime, despite all of this, it is not a stretch of the imagination to believe that Israel could stand to benefit from turmoil in Egypt. The average observer might find this difficult to understand.

 While most rational people would assume that Israel would prefer to have neighboring states that are stable, successful participants in the region, this is not necessarily the case.

In fact, a carefully crafted “think piece” entitled “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s,” featured in the February 1982 edition of the World Zionist Organization’s Jerusalem-based publication Kivunim: A Journal for Judaism and Zionism, candidly put forth an Israeli strategy to wreak havoc in the Arab world, dividing the Arab states from within. The author was Oded Yinon, an Israeli journalist with close ties to Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

The program—which amounted to “balkanizing” the various Arab republics, splitting them into religious enclaves in which, for example, Shiite Muslims or otherwise Sunni Muslims would predominate—was an agenda
that Israeli dissident Israel Shahak said, quite simply, was designed “to make an imperial Israel into a world power,” by disrupting the Arab states and thereby setting the stage for Israeli dominance in the Mideast.

The formula was founded on the idea of creating chaos among Israel’s Arab neighbors, hardly a policy any decent, well-meaning neighbor could be credited for fostering. In fact, the current-day political and religious divisions and devastation in Iraq—the consequence of the American invasion of Iraq demanded by the pro-Israel lobby in Washington—mirrors precisely what the Zionist position paper laid forth as the ideal state of affairs for Iraq, from an Israeli point of view, that is.

But where does Egypt fit into all of this? Reflecting on the Zionist strategy paper, Ralph Schoenman—an eminent American Jewish critic of Zionism—writing in 1988 in his book, The Hidden History of Zionism, pointedly noted the paper’s intent of “double-crossing Mubarak” and emphasized that the Yinon paper hoped for “the downfall and dissolution of Egypt,” despite the 1979 Camp David peace agreement.

This is geopolitics at its best—or worst—and demonstrates the kind of gambles Israel has historically been willing to take.

After all, Israel helped subsidize and nurture the fledgling Hamas faction within the Palestinian statehood movement, as a means to counter and undermine the secular Fatah faction led by senior Palestinian statesman Yassir Arafat. But Hamas got out of control, grew in popularity, and now stands as one of Israel’s chief rivals.

Such gamesmanship by Israel is part of a philosophy known as “catastrophic Zionism,” a term used almost exclusively by Israeli and Jewish writers.

The theme of “catastrophic Zionism,” sometimes called “war Zionism,” suggests that Israel—as a state— relies on crisis and the potential of war with its neighbors as a foundation of its very existence. This has actually been the belief of many hard-line “right wing” elements going back to the earliest days of Israel.

In short, there are many Zionists who believe such crisis is vital—fundamental—to Israel’s survival. And for this reason, the believers in “catastrophic Zionism” will never lend their support to any policy, domestic or international, that could lead to a final solution of the conflict between Israel and its Arab and Muslim neighbors.

In actual fact, this notion—that peace could be dangerous to the survival of Israel—is a governing concept in the minds of many Israelis and their supporters worldwide.

Tarpley Dissects Egyptian Riots

Pritchard: Food Scarcity Likely To Trigger Series of Revolts (analysis)

Political risk has returned with a vengeance. The first food revolutions of our Malthusian era have exposed the weak grip of authoritarian regimes in poor countries that import grain, whether in North Africa today or parts of Asia tomorrow. 

(...) The surge in global food prices since the summer – since Ben Bernanke signalled a fresh dollar blitz, as it happens – is not the underlying cause of Arab revolt, any more than bad harvests in 1788 were the cause of the French Revolution.
Yet they are the trigger, and have set off a vicious circle. Vulnerable governments are scrambling to lock up world supplies of grain while they can. Algeria bought 800,000 tonnes of wheat last week, and Indonesia has ordered 800,000 tonnes of rice, both greatly exceeding their normal pace of purchases. Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Bangladesh, are trying to secure extra grain supplies.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said its global food index has surpassed the all-time high of 2008, both in nominal and real terms. The cereals index has risen 39pc in the last year, the oil and fats index 55pc.
The FAO implored goverments to avoid panic responses that “aggravate the situation”. If you are Hosni Mubarak hanging on in Cairo’s presidential palace, do care about such niceties?(...)

The immediate cause of this food spike was the worst drought in Russia and the Black Sea region for 130 years, lasting long enough to damage winter planting as well as the summer harvest. Russia imposed an export ban on grains. This was compounded by late rains in Canada, Nina disruptions in Argentina, and a series of acreage downgrades in the US. The world’s stocks-to-use ratio for corn is nearing a 30-year low of 12.8pc, according to Rabobank.

The deeper causes are well-known: an annual rise in global population by 73m; the “exhaustion” of the Green Revolution as the gains in crop yields fade, to cite the World Bank; diet shifts in Asia as the rising middle class switch to animal-protein diets, requiring 3-5 kilos of grain feed for every kilo of meat produced; the biofuel mandates that have diverted a third of the US corn crop into ethanol for cars.
Add the loss of farmland to Asia’s urban sprawl, and the depletion of the non-renewable acquivers for irrigation of North China’s plains, and the geopolitics of global food supply starts to look neuralgic.
Can the world head off mass famine? Yes, with leadership. The regions of the ex-Soviet Union farm 30m hectares less today than in the Khrushchev era, and yields are half western levels.
There are tapped hinterlands in Brazil, and in Africa where land titles and access to credit could unleash a great leap forward. The global reservoir of unforested cropland is 445m hectares, compared to 1.5 billion in production. But the low-lying fruit has already gone, and the vast investment needed will not come soon enough to avoid a menacing shift in the terms of trade between the land and the urban poor.
We are on a thinner margin of food security, as North Africa is discovering painfully, and China understands all too well.

Read full article at TELEGRAPH