Egypt and Violence: Or, How to Hijack a Revolution
Photo of young Egyptian Protester from Nicholas Kristof's Blog
Camels, horses and swords? Really? It was a situation deadly serious, and yet there was something irrepressibly droll about the image of sword wielding Mubarak thugs making a rush through Tahrir Square. A political ironist would find rich material in the scenario: the head of one of the most ultra-equipped militaries of the Middle East using the props for a Egyptian television drama on the Mameluk era. Or as a blogger puts it, as if someone ransacked the store house of a documentary on the American Revolutionary War.
So, if Tahrir Square is a stage, what kind of play is being staged on it? An intriguing question, indeed. Clearly, Al-Jazeera and Press TV coverage of the events changed the game, making it impossible to ignore and sideline like a squabble in the boondocks. With the world watching, a quiet genocide was never in Mubarak’s cards. Even Mubarak’s “thugs” are more for psychological war than anything else: the molotov cocktails, tear gas, beatings and other intimidation tactics are designed to break the crowd’s spirit rather than to crush down lives. (Yeah, the camels). Even more interesting is the army’s position. What do we make of their supposed “neutrality,” even as more than 800 Egyptians–men, women, and children—are being injured before them? Then arbitrarily breaking up the hired “pro-government supporters” and the demonstrators, like a holier-than-thou referee on the wrestling shows? Hardly neutral, I’d say. This too is psy-war, the projection of power that clearly states that they are the decision makers, the diva anchoring the whole opera.
Mubarak is in strategic denial, telling Christiane Amanpour in a recent interview (wait, wasn’t she being attacked by the pro-Mubarak crowds a few minutes ago?) that he’s tired but he’ll nobly staying on for the sake of Egypt (and not the Egyptians). But there is no way he would have held on as long as he had if this popular storm didn’t threaten Israel’s geopolitical existence. In a Feb. 1st NYT op-ed (titled “Israel, Along Again?” or “Islamists at the Gates”, Yossi Klein Halevi outlines Israel’s David-Goliath complex in the Middle East
The fear of an Islamist encirclement has reminded Israelis of their predicament in the Middle East. In its relationship with the Palestinians, Israel is Goliath. But in its relationship with the Arab and Muslim worlds, Israel remains David.
Yes, that’s despite having the fourth largest military in the world, and the benefit of having annual handouts of $3 billion from the US Congress.
And should Israel’s border with Egypt “fall,” as the military lingo puts it, then the hermetically-sealed Gaza blockade will be broken. And while tiny, preternally divided Lebanon may encourage military incursions in service of Greater Israel, Egypt’s size and heft and population density makes it quite another matter. And this is why the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty must stand at all costs. As a young Egyptian graduate student put it, “We have peace, but we have no dignity”.
So, the mess in Egypt is the result of two different solutions tested out. Number one, Mubarak stays, as Netanyahu and Israeli brass insist he must, by dividing the crowd, maintaining low-degree violence over the demonstrators, and starving them of supplies. Number two, a representative government that allows limited forms of political expression but will essentially maintain US and Israeli security agreements.
It’s very probable that the second option will happen. Mubarak is done—he’s tired as he puts it, and the aging potentate is getting close to his expiration date by now. He’s run through his legitimacy by now—the “camel attacks” were the last straw, a self-mockery of his 30 years of iron rule. It’s as if Leonardo da Vinci took one of his self-portraits and drew Hello Kitty ears on it. The latest bluster about not leaving the country is probably a last act of service he is rendering to his US and Israeli handlers, an act of self immolation.
Time is precious in this situation, especially to the round-the-clock Pentagon crisis action team that is making sure this doesn’t go too disastrously for the US of A. Mubarak becoming a political suttee is giving them just that—time. By voluntarily going down in flames, Mubarak is allowing US journalists to loudly join in the calls for democracy and belated rack up some street cred (including Anderson Cooper, who twittered his being attacked by Mubarak thugs, but nary a scratch on his handsome mug). [Side note: It's rather whiplash-inducing to observe employees of ABC and FOX to get arrested and threatened, receive "million percent" regrets from the Prime Minister, and accept invites to presidential chats at Mubarak's place].
And oh yes, the rewards: what better transitional government than the kind that the protesters are too exhausted and tired to take political control of?
As the arch-conservataive William Kristol writes on the NPR website and in his own Weekly Standard, its a must to . . .
get the U.S. engaged — to some degree publicly, but on all cylinders privately. Our ability to shape events is limited, we keep on being told. That’s true — but we don’t know how much we can do until we try. And what’s the downside? We can’t bring back the status quo ante.
