Posted on 07/01/2015 4:19:57 PM PDT by robowombat
Egypt at War Michael Rubin | @mrubin1971 07.01.2015 - 3:00 PM
Over the last few days, Egypt has faced a terrorist wave. First, there was the assassination of Hisham Barakat, Egypt’s state prosecutor, the equivalent of the Attorney General. Barakat was the target of Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist animus for his role prosecuting thousands of Islamists since Gen Abdel Fattah el-Sisi overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated president Mohammed Morsi in 2013. Now, today, a wave of attacks has killed at least 50 soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula. Ominously, several Egyptian security sources are pointing the finger at Turkey, Qatar, and Iran. According to Kirk Sowell, probably the best open source Arabic analyst today, the Saudi-funded Al-Arabiya satellite, the Egyptians are accusing Turkey of being operationally behind the attacks.
Western critics of Sisi base their criticism in the 2013 coup. Morsi was, after all, Egypt’s first democratically elected president. And while many observers acknowledge deep unease at Morsi’s attitude toward democracy as a means toward an undemocratic end, there is merit to their argument that forcing Morsi’s exit might provoke the Muslim Brotherhood or other Islamists to violence, whereas a better approach might be to allow subsequent elections delegitimize Morsi. The counterpoint to this argument, of course, was that Morsi might not allow future free-and-fair elections. Sisi won subsequent elections with 96 percent of the vote, a margin usually reserved for Arab autocrats. While Sisi certainly had the public behind him leading up to and in the immediate aftermath of the coup, the inflated margin also reflects the inability of any opponent to wage a serious campaign and receive equal attention in the state-controlled media. Over subsequent months, Sisi and his team have used security forces and the judiciary to devastating effect against those prone to seek a more Islamic order.
Unease at Egypt’s human rights situation may be real, but that does not mean that the United States can be sanguine about the fight Egypt now faces.
First of all, even for those prone to see democratic potential in the Muslim Brotherhood, the Sinai is a completely different ballgame. Even at the height of Mubarak’s security state, there was huge disaffection in the western Egyptian province of Matruh, in the Sinai, and Upper Egypt. Moderators had to silence regional delegates to Mubarak’s own party’s convention when they complained about the lack of infrastructure, housing, and opportunity.
The Sinai, however, was always a special case. There has always been a sharp cultural divide between Egyptians from Egypt proper and the Sinai. Egyptians did not consider themselves Arabs until the 1920s and 1930s, while the Bedouin consider themselves to be the proto-Arabs. Egyptians have long looked at the Bedouin with additional suspicion because of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The first reason is that some lived under Israeli control between 1967 and 1982, when Israel completed its withdrawal from the Sinai. Second, many have distant relatives who are Israeli citizens, although no Egyptian I have interviewed has ever been able to cite an example of an Egyptian Bedouin betraying Egyptian security to Israel.
Over recent decades, Saudi television has also radicalized some Bedouin. Bedouin Arabic is closer to that spoken in the Arabian Peninsula than it is to mainstream Egyptian Arabic. Before the advent of satellite television, it could sometimes be easier for Bedouin to access terrestrially broadcast Saudi programs than Egyptian television and, given the choice of either, Bedouins often preferred to listen to the more easily accessible Saudi dialect. The Saudis, meanwhile, broadcast a steady stream of religious propaganda that encouraged radicalism. The Mubarak regime kept Bedouin radicalism at bay, but Morsi opened the floodgates. He stopped any serious security regimen and encouraged Hamas in the neighboring Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy held up the delivery of helicopters meant to counter the Al Qaeda threat. The rise of the Islamic State has only radicalized things further. The Ansar Bait al-Maqdis group targeting police and Egyptian soldiers stationed in the Sinai pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2014. Europeans and American officials may be critical of Sisi and skeptical of his reformist pledges, but it can be incredibly shortsighted to risk a growing Islamic State foothold alongside the Suez Canal out of animus to the new Egyptian leader.
But what about the Muslim Brotherhood? Al-Watan online has reported in Arabic today that Egyptian security forces today killed nine Muslim Brotherhood operatives. Even if Western officials are more sympathetic to their political plight in the wake of the coup, it would be incredibly backward to rationalize the assassination of Barakat simply because of the events of 2013 left a bad taste to those seeking broader, faster democratization inside Egypt. First Morsi and then the coup may have polarized Egypt, but it’s important to deal with reality than fantasy. As broader violence erupts between Sisi on one hand and the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic State proxies on the other, it’s crucial to back the former and a definitive U.S. interest to seek the defeat of the latter.
As for Turkey and Qatar, Saudi-backed media has to be taken with a grain of salt. But be it in Syria, Iraq, the Gaza Strip, and now Turkey, there is an uncomfortable pattern emerging of the Turkish state backing the most radical Islamist movements in the region. Diplomats might like to talk to the partner they’d like to imagine rather than the partner sitting in front of them, but it’s essential to deal with the reality: Egypt is a friend in the war against terror; Turkey is not.
Egypt will grind them to dust.
Will be interesting to see Turkey and Iran, once almost secular and westernized, reignite Moehammedan fervor and lead the End Times Caliphate Beast.
The problem is Islam. Just like Christianity has seen revivals in America, Islam sees revivals in secularized nations. Pretty stark difference in what results.
In this light, everything is easily explainable.
This is a result of the Hillary/Obama middle East legacy.
The Mubarak regime kept Bedouin radicalism at bay, but Morsi opened the floodgates. He stopped any serious security regimen and encouraged Hamas in the neighboring Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy held up the delivery of helicopters meant to counter the Al Qaeda threat. The rise of the Islamic State has only radicalized things further. The Ansar Bait al-Maqdis group targeting police and Egyptian soldiers stationed in the Sinai pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2014... But be it in Syria, Iraq, the Gaza Strip, and now Turkey, there is an uncomfortable pattern emerging of the Turkish state backing the most radical Islamist movements in the region.Turkey hasn't done any such thing -- Iran has, and this isn't new, it's been going on since the mullahcracy overthrew the Iranian gov't and instituted dictatorship. The Turks have been fighting against Kurdish independence, a goal the US should be supporting, at the expense of the failed states of Iraq and Syria, and the Islamofascist states of Iran and Turkey.
Egypt is at war it just doesn’t know it yet. Take a few more hits before it sinks in.
Why should the US support Turkey against the Kurds? There have been numerous reports that Turkey is allowing ISIS forces border access in and out of Syria. Turkey has also recognized ISIS diplomatically.
I would think it prudent to support the Kurds in establishing their own autonomy as a buffer between Turkey, Iraq, and Syria in order to curtail ISIS movements across borders, and help interdict their logistics..
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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There may be an opportunity here to strengthen and Egyptian-Israeli-Jordanian alliance.
A few grains of news afloat in a sea of pontification. Is this guy writing an editorial, or reporting?
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