Egypt

This article was originally published here on ForeignAffairs.com on Sunday, June 8, 2014.  “I wish I was like Nasser,” Egypt’s new president, the retired field marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told Egyptian journalists during a televised interview in early May, referring to the former president, Gamal Abdel Nasser. “Nasser was not just a portrait on walls for Egyptians but a photo and voice carved in their hearts.” Sisi’s comments seemed rather appropriate; his crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, his military background, and his apparent popularity have a distinctly 1950s feel to them. Yet Sisi is not Nasser. Nor is he Anwar Sadat or Hosni Mubarak, or any other formative Egyptian leader. Sisi is just Sisi. As much as the new president has been billed as a hero and a savior, his coming rule is likely to be banal. It should be clear to virtually everyone, no less to Sisi, that it is far better to be field marshal and minister of defense than it is to be president. He is hemmed in by Egyptians’ demands, a collapsing economy, a Muslim Brotherhood that is bent on delegitimizing him, and opposition to his rule within the state apparatus. To make matters worse, Sisi has few political resources at his disposal. For a man who rode mythical throngs of 30 million to power in last summer’s coup, things were supposed to be very different. To be sure, there were signs well before Sisi won virtually all of the vote in last month’s presidential election that his real popular support was not what the pro-Sisi media made it out to be. Continue reading here...

Hdeel Abdelhady says that Egypt’s new investment law is not a solution to its economic woes, but rather is a symptom of the country’s inability to conceive and implement coherent economic policies. Paul Schutzer, Casualty of War: A Great Photographer’s Final Pictures  Jenny White weighs in on Turkey’s upcoming elections and posts some upbeat music.  

When Martin Kramer met Patrick Seale. Robin Yassin-Kassab’s primer on Syria’s Alawis. Delegitimizing artists in Sisi’s Egypt.  (Hat tip to Arabist)

Below is a CFR Expert Roundup piece on Egypt’s elections, with contributions from Issandr El Amrani, Charles W. Dunne, Michael Hanna, and me.  The original article can be found here.  Steven A. Cook, Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies, Council on Foreign Relations Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s election will complete the second component of the roadmap to guide Egyptian politics after the July 3 coup d’etat, following the adoption of a new constitution in January. The next phase is slated to come in the fall with the election of a six-hundred-seat parliament. As expected, the Egyptian government and its spokespeople have already begun to hail the presidential elections as the next step in Egypt’s "transition to democracy." This seems unlikely. Sisi’s election is not a turning point, but rather the continuation of a convergence of political developments that began to undermine the democratic promise of the January 25 uprising well before the military stepped in to oust President Mohammed Morsi. Although all of Egypt’s political actors have consistently expressed fealty to the revolution, they have also sought to advance their agendas through non-democratic means. This is as true for the current interim government as it was for the Muslim Brotherhood and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces before them. Now, well into the fourth year since Hosni Mubarak was deposed, Egypt is no closer to becoming a democratic polity than before and is confronting a panoply of problems that has likely set back that now-distant dream even further. For all of the resolve and determination that Sisi has projected, he does not have the answers to an insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula, a destabilized border with Libya that has allowed weapons trafficking, the potential for a solvency crisis, a mobilized and angry population, and the Muslim Brotherhood, which is determined to delegitimize the political process and the new government it produces. Added to this potent mix is a public discourse that abets polarization and violence. Sisi will likely apply force and coercion in an attempt to gain political control, but this may not work, leading to more uncertainty and instability. If it does work, Egypt’s authoritarian path will be clear. Needless to say, neither outcome is good for Egyptian society. Issandr El Amrani, North Africa Project Director, International Crisis Group Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi only released his economic program less than a week before elections, perhaps thinking it a waste of energy to put it up for debate. His priorities are nonetheless clear. Sisi wants to get the Egyptian state, battered by three roller-coaster years, back in shape, and with it, the country’s economy. Belts must be tightened as difficult, long-postponed reforms are carried out, he argues. As he recently told a television audience, he has "nothing to give" the Egyptian people. This brutal honesty is what differentiates Sisi’s economic outlook. The challenges he has highlighted are the same ones that others, including former president Mohammed Morsi, whom he deposed last July, centered upon: conserving electricity, reforming fuel subsidies, creating jobs, improving infrastructure, reducing the fiscal deficit, and weaning Egypt off foreign assistance. What may give Sisi a better chance is the strong support he has received from major state institutions, as well as from the Gulf countries that have channeled some $20 billion to Egypt since last July. Economic success, however, will hinge upon political choices. Two questions will loom large over prospects for Egypt’s economy. The first is whether the rift in Egyptian society caused by the overthrow of Morsi and subsequent crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups will impede reform and recovery. Sisi has vowed that there is no role for the Brotherhood in Egypt’s future, but he will face unrest by disgruntled Islamists who want him to fail, just as Morsi’s opponents continuously undermined him in 2012–2013. Major economic reform is likely impossible while that rift lingers, and growing state repression alienates even Sisi’s one-time allies. The second question is whom Sisi will surround himself with. His regime is still being formed, and competition to be in its circles of influence is fierce. The lobbies that made radical reform difficult, if not impossible, during Hosni Mubarak’s rule are still present in the bloated, often corrupt state and among a business class that often benefited from cheap energy and other state favors. Private-sector businessmen worry about an outsized role for the military, Sisi’s base, in the economy. And ordinary Egyptians, the biggest lobby of all, desperately want to see improvements in their lives. This battle to define economic policy is bound to impose constraints on Sisi’s avowed "tough love" agenda. Charles W. Dunne, Director of Middle East and North Africa Programs, Freedom House Egyptians will elect a new president next week, but this will not cement a democratic transition. Quite the opposite: It will bury the promise of democracy and plant the seeds for the next revolution. Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is the certain winner of this election. Backed by the instruments of state power, including the tightly controlled media, government ministries, and a repressive judiciary, he has not bothered to campaign. As leader of the coup that ousted the freely elected president Mohammed Morsi, Sisi bears responsibility for the imprisonment of some nineteen thousand Egyptians on political charges, killing of hundreds of others, and restrictions on basic freedoms. Authorities arrest people for making even tepid criticisms of the government, and repress religious minorities. Antiterrorism restrictions criminalize any contact with the Muslim Brotherhood, including that of journalists, at least twenty of whom have been detained. The secular April 6 movement, which helped organize the anti-Mubarak revolt, was recently banned, and courts have sentenced about seven hundred people to death. The United States should hold Egypt accountable. Washington’s assent to a "roadmap to democracy" that does not guarantee fundamental rights is a policy failure. Neither the reputation of the United States nor its interest in stability is served by unquestioning support for authoritarianism. U.S. interests in Egypt include continued respect for the peace treaty with Israel, counterterrorism cooperation, and access to the Suez Canal for commerce and airspace for military operations. But the Obama administration must understand that these interests are undermined by acquiescing to the Egyptian military, now more powerful than ever due to a new constitution that puts it above the law, unaccountable to civilian authority. The United States should freeze military aid, which Egypt now complacently expects. Though Persian Gulf states give more aid than the United States, there is a qualitative difference: For reasons of interoperability, financing, effectiveness, and the prestige that comes from top-end American equipment, U.S. aid cannot easily be replaced. This would be a wake-up call inviting a reevaluation of the now staid, thirty-five-year-old relationship. Washington must tie improved relations and the resumption of military aid to guarantees of fundamental human rights and political inclusivity, as well as the reversal of convictions of pro-democracy NGOs. Nothing less will satisfy the requirements of democratic change in Egypt or U.S. investment in the bilateral relationship. Michael Wahid Hanna, Senior Fellow, The Century Foundation Egypt’s security situation has deteriorated since the military’s ouster of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in June 2012. In the face of escalating repression and state violence, the country has witnessed the intensification of anti-state violence in mainland Egypt, a low-level insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula, and dangerous sectarian discourse. Security forces have borne the brunt of these attacks. The government’s overbearing response has reached far beyond the militant sphere, even beyond the Islamist sphere, to quash all dissent. This escalating cycle of violence has undermined economic stabilization and produced a potent form of anti-Islamist hypernationalism. The government blames the violence on the Muslim Brotherhood and branded it a terrorist organization, but no credible evidence supports this overly broad assertion, despite the adoption of crude forms of terrorism by individual members. The graver security threat comes from jihadi groups that have capitalized on the current climate of repression to further their rejectionist aims. Egypt is now set to elect as president former military leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who led Morsi’s removal. Stabilizing Egypt is a central issue, but the state’s capacity is in doubt. It has not operated as a coherent whole since the fall of Mubarak; to the extent institutions have functioned at all, bureaucrats have furthered their institutional prerogatives instead. Sisi will find it difficult to exercise control over state organs. Despite the armed forces’ leading role after Morsi’s removal and unrivaled institutional perch, they reprised their post-Mubarak approach to governance, eschewing decision-making on critical issues and failing to exercise discipline with respect to the security sector and criminal justice system, opting instead to protect their institutional interests without squandering political capital on measures needed to stabilize Egypt. The police, judiciary, and public prosecutor have worked unhindered, recklessly egged on by hypernationalism in both state and private media. Stitching the state back together again and correcting its course will require vision and leadership not in evidence. Sisi will be in a position to begin this difficult task if he so chooses. It requires reining in abusive police; freeing thousands unjustly detained, including foreign journalists; dialing back hysteria in political discourse; and allowing dissent. Sisi could then begin to reintegrate Islamists into political life. But even at this stage, it is unclear if Sisi is willing to fight institutions on which he will rely. His platform is rudimentary, and his electioneering has been limited. Even he will face resistance from recalcitrant corners of the state if he seeks reform. It is this question of intent that remains unanswered, particularly since the current approach will not succeed in re-imposing a sustainable repressive stability. Security forces have improved their targeting, and levels of terrorist violence are not intolerable. But continued police violence, the arrest of activists and journalists, and the stigmatization of dissent should give no confidence that a course correction is being contemplated. As such, Egypt’s near-term future is likely to be as unstable as its sub-optimal present.                    

Hossam Bahgat writes about the recent verdicts against former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his sons, and how Egyptians unwittingly paid for their lavish lifestyles over the years. Aliaa Hamed muses on why Egypt’s revolutionaries are boycotting the elections. Nervana looks at the active and passive boycotts taking place in Egypt prior to the upcoming elections, and the steps being taken by the state to counter them.

Last Friday, the online version of the Egyptian daily, Al Ahram, reported that Egypt is slowing down its payments for commodities, especially food.   Apparently, because the country’s foreign currency reserves are currently about $17 billion—which means the Egyptians are coming close to the minimum amounts of reserves needed to cover imports for 3-4 months—the Central Bank has become “particularly cautious” about allocating these funds.  Upon hearing the news, one former IMF and Treasury Department official wrote to me: “So it begins…central bank has a delicate balancing act…withhold too long and it gets blamed, but it needs to slow the drain…often see this in advance of em [emerging market] crisis.” There has been some happy talk recently, most notably from IMF chief Christine LaGarde, about the state of Egypt’s finances, but it seems clear that the Egyptians are going to need additional assistance.  Their likely patrons will be the Saudis, Emiratis, and Kuwaitis who poured $12 billion in various forms into Egypt right after the July 3, 2013 coup and, in an implicit recognition that the Egyptian economy is in disastrous condition, the three Gulf states have committed an additional $8 billion.  The Gulfies may come to regret their investment in Egypt, but for now they remain unwavering in their support for Cairo.  It is true as some Emiratis have grumbled in private and stated publicly that they will not keep pouring money down a black hole, but for now at least  the assistance will continue to flow.  The funding from the Gulf is not just to keep the economy afloat but also to ensure that Egypt follows a particular political trajectory that does not pose a threat to the Saudis, Emiratis, and Kuwaitis or their common strategic interests. The Egyptians find themselves in both a potentially awkward and possibly advantageous position as a result of the assistance from the Gulf.   Since Mubarak fell, Egypt’s leaders and potential leaders—whether servants of the old regime, Muslim Brothers, military officers, neo-Nasserists, business tycoons, or whoever—have desperately sought to tie themselves to the revolution.  It is rather stunning how many non-revolutionary figures have declared their desire “to protect the revolution,” but that’s politics.  No one in Egypt at least seems willing to call them out on this or point to the fact that as these figures wax eloquently (or not) about democracy and national empowerment, Egypt has become dependent on financing from countries that do not have a very good track record supporting more open political systems.  This seems awkward, no?  Or is it just me?  Less than a year after the July 3 coup and the major Saudi-Emirati-Kuwaiti commitment, Egypt’s interim government and presumptive president, Field Marshal (ret.) Abdel Fattah al Sisi, have not paid a political price for Cairo’s relationship with the major Gulf states. Even presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahy, an avowed follower of Gamal Abdel Nasser—who basically went to war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen in the 1960s— is on record praising Riyadh and Abu Dhabi for their support.  This is likely the result of a broad recognition of Egypt’s difficult economic circumstances and the importance of the assistance in keeping the Egyptian economy afloat.  Egyptians seem genuinely grateful for the assistance.  It may very well be that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait are next on the list of external powers that have financed Egypt’s pursuit of modernization and development.  It did not end well for the Brits, Soviets, and Americans.  Perhaps it will be different in the case of the Gulf states because they are, in the words of Sabahy, “brotherly,” but I suspect that it will not. At the moment, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait may have a confluence of interests, but those interests may change or views about how best to achieve these interests may diverge over time. Egyptians also bristle at the suggestion of dependency on the Gulf.  They are quick to point out that the Saudis, Emiratis, and Kuwaitis need Egypt for their security. In an interview with Lebanon’s As-Safir newspaper, Sabahy declared: “We appreciate this [financial] assistance, but I don’t call them gifts. What pushed the Gulf to Egypt is an expression of these countries’ interests, because Egypt … by confronting the Muslim Brotherhood has reduced the danger not only to the Egyptian state but also to Arab regimes, including those in the Gulf.” These are the same sentiments that one hears from government representatives and others within the ambit of Egypt’s elite, but apparently it is not just what Egypt is doing at home that is important.   Word in Cairo is that there have been some preliminary discussions among Egyptian and Gulf leaders about how to bring Egypt into Gulf security arrangements. There is precedent for this type of thing, sort of.  In 2011 after Zine al Abdine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak were pushed from power, the Gulf states invited Jordan and Morocco to become part of the Gulf Cooperation Council sometime in the future and previously, the Gulfies sought to purchase Egyptian and Syrian military support and cooperation through the Damascus Declaration (March 1991).  The Gulf states backed away from the agreement, preferring instead to entrust their security exclusively to the United States.  It is unclear whether the Egyptians and the Gulf states are actually interested in some type of Damascus Declaration redux, but either way Egypt’s dependence on the Gulf carries considerable risk for Cairo’s foreign and security policy. There may be no explicit conditions on the financing from Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and Kuwait, but there is surely an expectation that Egypt’s positions on important regional issues align closely with those of the Gulf.  On the issues of primary importance to the Gulf states, there nevertheless seems to be an implicit understanding that inflows of assistance are dependent on a crackdown on the Brotherhood and help countering the Iranian threat.  This is the natural inclination of those currently in power in Cairo, which diminishes the potential for political pressures and strains from even unarticulated conditionality, but it is clear that the Gulf states expect something in return for their generosity.  The existence of informal conditions poses an additional risk to Egypt.  With the exception of a statement Hosni Mubarak made in 2006 about Arab Shi’a being more loyal to Iran than to their own countries during an interview on al Arabiya, Egypt has never approached regional problems and conflicts in the explicitly sectarian way that informs Saudi foreign and national security policy, in particular.  Financing from and tight strategic coordination with the Gulf may drag the Egyptians into Saudi Arabia’s seemingly pathological and one-dimensional Sunni-versus-Shi’a view of the world. This cannot be good for Egypt. The Egyptians surely confront daunting and even scary economic problems, which have driven them into the arms of Gulf states for assistance.   The United States cannot help—it has few resources and extending additional aid to Egypt is political freight that Washington cannot bear. The Egyptians nevertheless need to be cautious.  Signing up for the Saudi/Emirati/Kuwaiti team only compromises Cairo’s desire to pursue an independent foreign policy that one day will restore what many in Egypt believe to be its natural place leading the region.  

My friend, Bassem Sabry, died suddenly on April 29.  There have been many moving tributes to his memory over the last few weeks.  I do not have much to add other than the fact that Bassem was a light unto Egyptians and all his friends around the world. I have reposted his two contributions to the "From the Potomac to the Euphrates" and a tribute from his friend, Hisham Hellyer. Egypt: Her Excellency, Madame President? Why I Feel Disappointed by Egypt’s New Constituent Assembly My Friend, Bassem Sabry: One of the Good People

“My life? I don’t have one. Explosions, blast walls blocking the ways, no services. And because of all this my business has stopped.” –Firas Younis, an Iraqi retail store owner in Mosul, Iraq “They’re the same —Sissi and Sabbahi…[both men are] egoists who are obsessed with Nasser’s image.” –Reda Saad, a businessman in the Egyptian city of Fayoum “My brother had signs of torture on his body and it was clear he was beaten by those who arrested him…When he came home, he no longer had his long hair. Humiliated, he killed himself the next day.” –Khiati Bihaoui on how his brother was rounded up by police cracking down on crime in Morocco “We’ve been under pressure and under surveillance for a long time. I hope this is the beginning of something new.” –Muhammad, a Hamas supporter, on the Palestinian unity deal “Anybody who had any dealings with the Brotherhood was taken in…If you greeted a Brotherhood member ten years ago, you were arrested.” –Shabeeb, an Egyptian lawyer representing thirty of his fellow villagers who were recently sentenced to death “Slowly but surely, the economy is recovering. But overall it is going to take time.” –Ramin Rabii, director of a Tehran-based investment firm “Turkey is heading rapidly toward a totalitarian regime. One cannot speak of democracy in a country if there is no freedom of the press.” –Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) “I love President Bashar and my whole family loves him…I don’t care about the other candidates…I don’t even know their names.” –Rania, a Syrian high school student “I’ve never seen people interested in hygiene like this before.” –A resident of Jeddah on the response to the MERS virus in Saudi Arabia “Life here is very hard. People are tired and they hate everything. If you don’t close your shop during prayer time you get lashes, if you smoke you get lashed, if you say one wrong thing you can be executed. Just like that. It’s that easy for ISIS.” –Abu Ibrahim, a member of a recently formed anti-ISIS group in Syria

This article was originally published here on ForeignPolicy.com on Wednesday, April 30, 2014.  Egyptian officials will respond to the storm of criticism over the mass death sentences handed down to 683 Egyptians and the banning of the April 6 Movement -- a youth movement that was influential in the 2011 uprising -- by doing what they always do. They will insist that the country’s judiciary is independent from political forces, and that judges are merely following the letter of the law in handing down harsh sentences. Egypt, in this version of reality, is actually a country where rule of law is paramount. Top Egyptian officials are already touting their progress, despite the ominous news coming from the country. "I’m actually quite proud of the constitution -- I think by any account it’s a very significant transformation, especially on issues of civil liberties," Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy declared in Washington on the same day that the mass death sentences were handed down. "Whether they relate to gender equality, freedom of expression and religion, it is an extremely progressive framework that essentially invites Egyptians to come together." Of course, Egypt’s senior diplomat and his spokespeople are paid to put Egypt in the best light, not to wrestle with the idea that Egypt’s legal system is rigged in a way to benefit a dominant elite. This is an old story, but the recent court rulings show just how far the rule of law has deteriorated -- and how Egyptian elites have appropriated terms like terrorism, dissent, freedom, and progress for their own ends. Continue reading here...

This article was originally published here on Muftah on Tuesday, April 22, 2014.  It has been more than three years since the uprisings in the Arab world began.  The civil war in Syria, the persistent conflict between rebel militias and the government in Libya, the return of authoritarianism in Egypt, and the ongoing bloody crackdown in Bahrain all make for considerable hand-wringing among regional observers—to say nothing of Middle Easterners themselves, who once hoped for a better future. Each post-uprising election, constitutional reform, and declaration of faith in democracy by people who never previously committed to democratic ideals have not become the “turning points” that so many hoped they would be. Instead of democratic transitions, a diverse range of political systems is the most likely result of the uprisings, among which democracy seems the least probable. Some analysts believe political trends or indicators are actually moving in the right direction, and claim the region’s remaining despots cannot possibly cling to power when their citizens have become politicized and mobilized. They also see what is happening in the Middle East today as a process comparable to the wrenching emergence of democracy in Europe. These assessments, however preliminary, are based on hope and faith rather than facts on the ground.  In Egypt, the old political order—discredited long before the January 25 uprisings—remains essentially intact, which hinders the development of a new more just system.  Those who previously lent their voices and prestige to democratic activism have, after three tumultuous years, become authoritarians in spite of themselves. Continue reading here...

Fehim Tastekin wonders if Turkey is reverting to an intelligence state. Mohamed Gad, writing for Mada Masr, asks if current Egyptian Finance Minister Hany Qadry will actually reform Egypt’s subsidies. Bruce Crumley looks at the increasing involvement of European Jihadis in Syria’s civil war.