Dictator-for-life isn’t a position conducive to good judgment and selflessness. Hosni Mubarak is a case in point. In extending his exit, he’s increasing the instability of an already-dangerous situation in Egypt.
The interest of the United States in Egypt is to avoid the worst case — chaos, or a takeover of the state by the Muslim Brotherhood. That means we should want a very deliberate process of transformation, playing out over an extended period rather than all in a rush in the coming weeks or months. The best way to buy time for careful change shepherded by the Egyptian military is to do as much as possible now to meet the protesters’ reasonable demands, beginning with Mubarak’s resignation.
Advertisement
So far, the protests have been blessedly peaceful, with the exception of the assault on the demonstrators by Mubarak’s thugs last week. But that could change at any moment, including as soon as today, when protesters’ ranks will presumably swell with Friday prayers and the anger stoked by Mubarak’s latest non-resignation speech. Violence could be a disaster. Put aside the human cost; it is almost always radicalizing, and a crackdown could split the army, the most important institution of the state.
If the regime were to succeed in smothering the protesters and perpetuating itself in a post-Mubarak version of the status quo, that would avoid the worst cases — but perhaps only in the short term. Surely, discontent would bubble up again, and in all likelihood the lesson would be that next time a revolt cannot be as moderate or mannerly. In this scenario, it would be not the first but the second revolution we’d have to fear — not 1905, but 1917.
All this means that the best course for the Egyptian government is to move to create goodwill on the streets. There is no reason for Mubarak to stay if his regime is still in control. There is no reason for the state media to continue to pump out propaganda, no reason that free speech cannot be honored, no reason genuine political prisoners cannot be released, no reason the longstanding emergency law cannot be revoked.
These changes would indicate the beginning of a new dispensation in Egypt, and, one hopes, create the conditions for a slow, steady transition to a new regime. The first step would be for the government to negotiate a timeline for change with the opposition, for constitutional reforms and eventually elections. Most important are the constitutional reforms. To the extent we can influence the process, we should erect as many guardrails as we can against the possibilities that a determined minority like the Muslim Brotherhood will take over the government, and that the Brotherhood will play the poisonous Hamas/Hezbollah game of half electoral player, half armed gang.
Elections have to be delayed so that players besides the Brotherhood can organize. We want to give independent political parties, journalists, and activists the space they need to build the foundations of a democratic polity. It very well may be that there’s no way to deny the Brotherhood a role in the political process, but we shouldn’t welcome that fact, and we shouldn’t tell ourselves ridiculous bedtime stories about what the Brotherhood is, as Director of National Intelligence James Clapper did in his congressional testimony yesterday.
Count us as cautiously pessimistic on Egypt. It needn’t go the way of Iran in 1979. Yet we should remember that Egypt — for all the hope represented by the young, tech-savvy protesters — is a society with basically illiberal values. Simply throwing elections on top of such a society is not a formula for liberal democracy.
Our friend Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard writes, “An American conservatism that looks back to 1776 cannot turn its back on the Egyptian people.” No one should turn his back on the protesters, who have risked their lives for what they imagine will be a better future. But we should be careful about comparisons to the American Revolution. In 1776, America already had a vast amount of experience with elections, self-government, and the rule of law; we were already in important respects a democratic society.
Egypt doesn’t have that luxury, which is why its revolution must be handled with the utmost care.
So far, the military appears to be in control. However, even if they keep a lid on things for now, I don't see how any genuinely free election is going to lead to anything other than an Islamic state, given the poll numbers cited by Doug Schoen and the electoral success of Hamas in the West Bank. The latter was a free election, too, as were the elections which have led to an Islamist civil government in Turkey. Also, just read today that the Afghan government -- that is the one we helped install after so much money and blood -- is moving to crack down on women's shelters. Any woman seeking asylum from abuse will now have to go before an 8-man (and man is the key word) panel to justify her need to flee, and will have to undergo, among other things, a virginity test. So left to their own devices, and given a chance to elect their own representatives, Muslims have so far made it awfully hard for their apologists to continue claiming that Islamic fundamentalism is a "perversion of Islam," and not its main expression. I would like nothing better than to be wrong, but if the Egyptian military does indeed relinquish control, my prediction would be that you will be looking at an Islamic state by fall, and that it's first official action will be abrogating the peace treaty with Israel...
MReed 53-- I can't see Egypt turning intto an Islamist state, and certainly not that quickly. Egypt must have tourism money or it will die, and Islamist states aren't exactly tourist-friendly. Plus, look at these people. They want to be free. They're smart, wary, and now, experienced. Those protests were Muslims, Christians, and who knows what else all standing together, protecting each other and praying together. They won't forget that easily.
If we agree that Islamic extremists are not a perversion of Islam, do we also have to agree that Christian fundamentalists who deny equal eights to gays are also nor a 'perversion' of Christianity given that Jesus condemned homosexuality exactly 0 times?
Denise,
I wish I shared your optimism. Certainly, there were varied elements in those crowds -- including, with apologies to Bill Kristol, many radical socialists and other leftwing organizers from all over the globe. Undoubtedly, the crowd also included many people who just wanted Mubarek gone, some food on their table and a job.
However, it is delusional to think that the vast majority were not Islamists, since most Egyptians comprise that group, based on multiple samplings of their opinion. Just watching a live shot on Fox last night from the square in Cairo, the main speaker at the time was being heartily cheered as he denounced Mubarek for, among other things, "giving away the water of the Nile to the Zionists."
I do not believe that any concern about continuing tourism can serve as a counterweight to that type of ideological/religious fanaticism. The majority of the military may be worried about maintaining its financial and strategic ties to the west, but even the military is not a homogeneous group, and in the end the Iranian military could not prevent the rise of the Mullahs. Again, I devoutly hope that I am wrong. I hope that Egyptians suddenly discover the virtues of limited, Constitutional government with guarantees of individual liberty. But considering none of those concepts have ever penetrated Arab lands, that outcome is at least as unlikely as it would be for the Democratic leadership in congress to suddenly begin espousing the same virtues. Our problem is that we have fetishized democracy, when in fact democracy is nothing but a process. Without permanent guarantees of individual freedom carved into the stone of the law, and in the absence of an enlightened electorate committed to individual liberties, democracy is just as likely to lead to what we have seen on the West Bank and in Turkey. The American Revolution was not fought to bring about democracy; it was fought to guarantee the rights of Englishmen as guaranteed by British law and to expand those rights under a republic. In other words, our revolution was about freedom and due process. The French Revolution, in contrast, was about democracy and equality, and we all know how that turned out. Again, I hope that Egypt emerges from this process still allied with the west and run by a government which respects the rights of all its people. But that hope can not persuade made me to abandon my reason, which tells me that Egypt is almost certainly heading in a far more dangerous direction. I further fear that it will lead those few other Arab states on which we can rely down the same disturbing path.
One can see today more clearly than ever before, that there is no transition - Egypt was and is ruled by its military leadership. And nothing changes, other than the names of the personnel, which itself, from global perspective, is practically irrelevant.
Because of the scale of the unrest, and because of the sudden nature of the protests throughout the Mediterranean and the Middle East, once can be sure that Egyptians were not the initiators. At the same time, their calm and somewhat welcoming attitude (for a military dictatorship), might indicate that they are listening to the offers being extended towards them right now.
As such, talking about democratization and such, at the time, when others are speaking of hard cash (see, e.g., here: External Link ) seems like the voice of the loosing side of this encounter.
