danivon wrote:

rickyp wrote:The two earliest attempts at democracy by middle eastern nations, apart from israel, were in Egypt and Iran. Both attempts were ended with the intervention of foreign nations.Britain and france in one case. The US in the other.

Sheesh!

Yes, the US (and other Western nations) were certainly involved in the coup that removed the democratically elected Mossadeq in Iran and thus entrenching the Shah's power (and the reaction to that led to the late-70s Islamic Revolution).

However, on Egypt, I think you have a problem.

The Kingdom of Egypt was indeed fairly democratic until the 1950s. However, it would be incorrect to say that France and Britain ended it. If anything, their democracy was assisted by Britain and to a lesser extent France. The Monarchy was fairly powerful, but there were elections for about 20 years.

However, who ended that? The military coup that brought Nasser to power in 1952. By early 1953 political parties were banned, and later the MB became an illegal organisation.

What Britain and France were involved in was the 1956 Suez War, fought against Nasser and with Israeli assistance. It wasn't about ending Egyptian 'democracy' but it was certainly against populist nationalism and the policy of taking over the Canal.

There were elections in Egypt under Nasser and his successors. Presidential elections were pretty much fixed, with Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak usually getting close to 100% of the official votes.

There were parliamentary ballots too, but in those elections the military excluded many candidates and of course the resulting National Assembly was pretty powerless. All of those took place after Suez, and so it's ridiculous to suggest that the Anglo-French action 'ended' democracy in Egypt - The Egyptian military did, and entrenched their power through a one-party state and rigged elections.

A very interesting post in light of recent events.

I believe that the Egyptian generals are responsible for their brutal crackdown. But I also wonder the extent to which Obama and Kerry have made matters worse in 2 ways:

First, they gave every indication to the generals that they would not object to the coup, or even call it that.

Second, our passivity as it relates to Syria has shown that the US doesn't have the will to intervene, particularly when it is hard to sort out the good guys and bad guys.

My view is that the US should take a moral view and suspend aid to Egypt. Although we have geopolitical interests in Egypt (the Suez and the Israel peace treaty), I don't think that outweighs the moral bankruptcy of supporting a regime that overthrows a democratically elected President (warts and all) and brutally cracks down and kills hundreds, and perhaps soon to be thousands. They are one of the most anti-American countries on the globe (see the map from the WAPO thread that I just posted) and seem to hate us either way. I'd be interested in other views.

ray

the US doesn't have the will to intervene, particularly when it is hard to sort out the good guys and bad guys.

This is a bad thing? The US should intervene somehow?

I think they we should stay out of it. Morsi brought this on in changing the Constitution to reflect Islamic views and that was in itself not democratic. Egypt was threatening to erupt into revolution so I think the military intervention was unfortunately necessary. Right now, the Muslim Brotherhood will not accept their loss of power and until they do bloodshed will continue. We should apply pressure at an appropriate time for the military to allow a return to civilian democratic rule. Now is not the time. There is nothing we could have done to stop this, I think.

rickyp wrote:ray

the US doesn't have the will to intervene, particularly when it is hard to sort out the good guys and bad guys.

This is a bad thing? The US should intervene somehow?

No, I think we should suspend aid to the Egyptian government.

ray

No, I think we should suspend aid to the Egyptian government

I agree.
I just don't see why the question of the current non-intervention in Syria enters into this ...

even if the US were droning or bombing in Syria .... that kind of activity would never be a plausible scenario in Egypt. Nor would any kind of military intervention...

freeman3 wrote:I think they we should stay out of it. Morsi brought this on in changing the Constitution to reflect Islamic views and that was in itself not democratic. Egypt was threatening to erupt into revolution so I think the military intervention was unfortunately necessary. Right now, the Muslim Brotherhood will not accept their loss of power and until they do bloodshed will continue. We should apply pressure at an appropriate time for the military to allow a return to civilian democratic rule. Now is not the time. There is nothing we could have done to stop this, I think.

As you know, I'm as critical of the MB as anyone. However, the transgressions of the military are much worse than those of the MB. The military has killed close to 1,000, has imprisoned the top hierarchy of the MB, and has injured many. The MB legitimately won the presidency. I don't see how you can get Islamists to accept democracy if you replace them after they legitimately win elections.

By the way, here's a very interesting article on the inner negotiations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/world ... d=all&_r=0

From what I've read recently, withdrawing the aid to Egypt entails all kinds of complications. The Egyptian generals are solidly backed by the Saudis and the other rich Gulf arab monarchies, who hate the MB. One of the first things that happened after the coup was a $12 billion donation to Egypt from these countries to keep the government afloat, and it seems likely that they'd be happy to make up the shortfall if the US aid were withdrawn. As such the money isn't really so much of a lever as we might think. Chances are that if Obama were to withdraw support for the Egyptian military it would just pish them further into the arms of the Saudis. That may not necessarily be such a bad thing, but it wouldn't achieve much and it hardly bodes well for the prospects of Egypt ultimately making a transition back to democracy. It should also be noted that both Russia and China also support the coup. The US government must surely be wary of pushing a key strategic ally into the arms of geopolitical rivals like that.

The $1.2b a year that the US gives in military aid is a bribe. What it buys is fast-track access to the Suez Canal for US navy ships and, more importantly, Egyptian adherence to the peace treaty with Israel. Both of those things are vitally important for US interests in the region. It also buys a degree of leverage of course, but that should be used wisely and with a view to the furtherance of the national interest. I can completely understand why Obama has been reticent.

I don't see a 'right' answer for the USA.

Sass makes a good point that the military aid (which was maintained all the way through the Mubarak years, through the Arab Spring and while Morsi was in power) being withdrawn now won't make much difference to how the military acts now - and hey, they got the hardware they needed to carry out the coup out of it!

Mind you, I find it frustrating that every single issue comes down to what America should or shouldn't do. There is more to it than that.

I guess my point RJ would be that Morsi erred by pushing through a constitution that appeared to cater to the Islamic religion and he also talked about having dictatorial powers in a state of emergency. Those kinds of things scare the majority of the population that is not a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. And given that Egypt appeared to be on the verge of civil unrest, then the military had the option of using force to keep Morsi in power or using force to oust him. I think I am glad that they used force to oust Morsi. How many times in 20th century did we see communist and fascist groups gain power democratically then enact new constitutions and declare emergency powers? It's great if Islamic groups win democratic elections, but not if they 're going to pay lip service to democracy

ray

The MB legitimately won the presidency. I don't see how you can get Islamists to accept democracy if you replace them after they legitimately win elections.

There's more to democracy than elections.
Morsi paid the price for adhering more to the strict islamic agenda than to the goal of the military of a more liberal democracy, and for ignoring the fact that as an institution the military both had greater power and legitimcy with Egyptians than any other ...
Winning an election doesn't mean ignoring the needs, wants and goals of a very large portion of the minority . I thought Morsi was more than just an Islamist, and hoped he had a vision that would allow a true liberal democracy to quickly evolve.
In not being that, he doomed the country to the current chaos....

Ray Jay wrote:
Which is the more likely pattern for Egypt? Why does Indonesia evolve towards democracy whereas Iran devolved into a theocracy? It seems to me that the most important factor is the transitional leadership. Having a theocratic leader (such as Morsi) seems to me to be a negative since the theocratic leader will put his (and his supporters) religious views above any desire for democracy and its requirement of independent institutions, both religious and secular. In what ways is Egypt more similar to Indonesia than Iran?

Ricky, thanks for the lecture. This is what I wrote on page 7 over 6 months ago.

Ray Jay wrote:

So again, your posting of the extreme language of Morsi and this individual news story is suppossed to say what about the Arab Spring?

I'm commenting on "Egypt's Spring" which is the subject of this thread. I'm saying that there's a good chance that it isn't going to be a sunny and warm pleasant spring with lots of blooming flowers and birds chirping.

And this in reply to your question.

Danivon:

Mind you, I find it frustrating that every single issue comes down to what America should or shouldn't do. There is more to it than that.

I'm not sure where you are going with this. It's fairly normal for Americans to debate their own country's foreign policy. It's also normal for other westerners to discuss U.S. policy because of our influence (or lack thereof in this case). It doesn't mean that we are ignorant or unconcerned about Egyptian opinion or pain.

Where it concerns US foreign policy, I agree. But quite often it gets conflated with US domestic politics. Specifically the question of why everything everywhere is Obama's fault - which I know you are not arguing.

I guess there is a tendency - a human one - to think of solutions that involve us, even as part of a national collective. My feeling is that there is little that the outside world can do about what has already happened out in Egypt. Maybe we (the US and EU) can exert influence by suggesting aid could be reduced or withdrawn. But if other less... liberal (in the historical sense) countries like Russi or China or Saudi can simply fill any gap, that would be worrisome.

The thing that concerns me is whether it could lead to a military backlash in places like Tunisia (where the MB are a significant part of the government but are being less ambitious in imposing their will so far), or a conservative hardening in places like Morocco and the Gulf where the protests did appear to lead to limited reforms.

Egypt is in a strange position. While a majority may not be in the MB, a majority did vote for them (and a significant minority for more hardline Salafists). It is not 'democracy' that Morsi's government were trying to subvert, but the secular liberal republicanism that we (even those of us in a constitutional monarchy with a state religion) tend to think goes hand in hand with democracy. The key thing that democracy needs to be kept away from is majoritarian rule at the expense of minorities. One of the results of the military crackdown has been Islamists burning churches (whether in 'reaction' to the storming of a mosque or not I am unsure).

There are essentially three competing factions in Egypt. The most numerous (but not in Cairo) are the Islamist leaning people. To what extent they are extremists or just socially conservative and wanting a modest swing back away from secularism is not clear. The most powerful is the military, who through the NDP ran the country for about 60 years and see Islamism as a rival and a threat.

Caught in between are those who were protesting a couple of years ago. I guess these people, who are more liberal, middle class, democratic etc are who we'd want to see prevail. The military had them on side until last week.