Egypt

Mai Shams El-Din looks at clashes between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood from the angle of al-Azhar, where the student body supports the Brotherhood but the leadership allies with the state. Where would the 2 million Syrian refugees, along with the 5 million Syrians who have been internally displaced, fit in the United States? This interactive shows the extent of the humanitarian crisis in Syria. Zachary Keck tells readers why Turkey is buying Chinese missile systems.

Significant Developments Syria. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons announced today that Syria had “completed rendering inoperable its chemical weapons production and assembly installations,” ahead of schedule. Late last night, a Syrian government airbase in Latakia was destroyed in a missile attack of unknown national origin launched from the Mediterranean. The airbase housed Russian surface to air missiles and a radar center. Also yesterday, President Assad’s forces launched a “Starvation Until Submission Campaign,” tightening blockades around Damascus neighborhoods and preventing the flow of food, medicine, and people in a purported effort to starve out rebel forces. Aid organizations and local medical staff have already reported an increase in water-borne illnesses and cases of severe malnutrition. The WHO reported a polio outbreak in Syria after ten cases of the disease were confirmed. Despite largely being eradicated in Syria since 1999, the easily communicable disease has undergone a recent resurgence as inoculation rates among children and general health and cleanliness standards for food and water have declined as a result of the civil war. Assad met with UN-Arab League Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi yesterday to discuss possible negotiations with Syria’s opposition in Geneva later next month. Assad said that any negotiated solution would be predicated on an immediate end to foreign intervention and support for the opposition. Egypt. Police raided al-Azhar University yesterday, firing tear gas at students following protests in which students stormed and vandalized administrative buildings. The protests were sparked in part by yesterday’s arrest of Essam el-Errian, one of the last remaining senior members of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. On Tuesday, three judges presiding over the trial of Mohammed Badie, the Muslim Brotherhood’s supreme guide, stepped down citing “reasons of conscience,” bringing the trial to an unexpected halt. Meanwhile, the military raided multiple sites in northern Sinai on Tuesday, arresting fifty-four militants as well as the confiscation of a cache of weapons and explosives. On Monday, Egypt’s Interior Ministry announced that it had arrested twenty-seven assailants responsible for the Warraq Church Iraq. Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki is slated to meet President Obama at the White House tomorrow to discuss the rising tide of violence across Iraq. In advance of the meeting, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators sharply criticized al-Maliki’s leadership in a letter to the president alleging that “Prime Minister Maliki’s mismanagement of Iraqi politics is contributing to the recent surge of violence.” The Senators also expressed concerns about the spillover effects of Syria’s civil war, the marginalization of the Sunni minority in Iraq, and the potential for civil war in Iraq. The expressions of concern come amidst daily car and suicide bombs in Iraq that killed more than thirty people this week. The United Nations estimates that seven thousand Iraqi civilians have been killed this year alone. U.S. Foreign Policy New Middle East Strategy. The New York Times reported on Sunday that National Security Adviser Susan Rice led a White House Middle East policy review this summer to reassess the nature of U.S. commitments in the Middle East. The review process, which did not include either the secretary of state or secretary of defense, reportedly redefined the administration’s goal as preventing the Middle East from overwhelming the president’s second term agenda. Notably absent from the administration’s new priorities is Egypt; the review also marks the administration’s abandonment of Middle East democracy promotion, as spelled out by the president in his May 19, 2011, major address on the Arab uprisings at the State Department. Instead, U.S. priorities reportedly now center on negotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran, brokering peace between Israelis and the Palestinians, and “mitigating strife in Syria.” Kerry to the Region. The State Department announced today that Secretary of State John Kerry will be traveling to the Middle East from November 3-11. Secretary Kerry will visit Riyadh, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Amman, Abu Dhabi, Algiers, and Rabat to discuss a range of issues, including Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, Saudi ire with Washington, and final status negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. Egypt. A number of members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee called on Tuesday for a re-evaluation of the Obama administration’s recent aid cuts to Egypt. Representative Eliot Engel expressed concerns that the recent decision to halt shipments of advanced military equipment, such as the F-16 and Apache Helicopters, has only harmed relations with a long-term ally. Assistant Secretary of Defense Derek Chollet told the committee this week that the United States wants “to see Egypt succeed in moving toward an inclusive, democratically-elected civilian government.” Acting Assistant Secretary of State Beth Jones told the same committee that the reduced aid package has not impeded the ability of the Egyptian military to secure its borders or combat domestic militants but instead made a strong U.S. statement admonishing the overthrow of the democratically elected Mohamed Morsi and the ensuing crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. While We Were Looking Elsewhere. Lebanon. President Michel Sleiman announced that calm had been restored to Tripoli yesterday following Tuesday’s army deployment there to quell weeklong clashes between pro and anti-Syrian factions that left sixteen dead and more than eighty wounded. On Monday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah accused Saudi Arabia of working to derail the Geneva II talks between the Syrian opposition and the Assad regime. Nasrallah claimed that there is no chance for a battlefield victory, and argued instead that a negotiated political solution is the only route to peace. Iran. Nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi refuted claims yesterday that Iran had temporarily halted twenty percent uranium enrichment. Sanctions and technical experts began meetings yesterday to prepare for next week’s nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 in Vienna. On Monday, Iranian deputy foreign minister Abbas Araqchi met with International Atomic Energy Association director general Yukiya Amano and offered suggestions for breaking the impasse between the UN nuclear watchdog and the isolated Islamic Republic. Tunisia. Security forces arrested five suspects last night following a suicide bombing at a Tunisian resort that coincided with several other attempted bombings yesterday. Authorities announced that the men being held were tied to Ansar al-Sharia, an increasingly active Salafist group operating in Tunisia. On Monday, twenty-one party leaders continued talks that began last week aimed at transitioning power from the ruling Ennahda party, setting new elections, and revising the constitution. According to Rashid Ghannouchi, chairman of Ennahda, “the train out of this crisis is on the tracks, and we are now on the way to finishing our transition to elections.” Israel. The Israeli government yesterday released twenty-six Palestinian prisoners convicted of killing Israelis, the second group of one hundred and four prisoners set to be released by the Netanyahu government as a good will gesture to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. Israel, however, drew international criticism for simultaneously announcing plans for an additional fifteen hundred homes in areas of East Jerusalem occupied in the 1967 war. On Monday, two rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel; one was intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system and the other landed in an uninhabited area with no injuries. In response, the Israeli military destroyed two launch sites in Gaza. This Week in History. This week marks the ninetieth anniversary of the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, following more than six hundred years of Ottoman rule. Defeat by the Allied powers in World War I dealt a fatal blow to the “Sick Man of Europe,” reducing the Ottoman Empire to a small state in Anatolia with the Treaty of Sevres in 1920. Unwilling to capitulate to Allied will, Turkish nationalists fought to depose the Sultan and forge a new, more favorable agreement which came with the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. The election of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a hero of both World War I and the resistance, as the first president brought about drastic social, political and religious changes in Turkey. The fez was banned, Latin script replaced Arabic, and by 1928, Turkey had officially gone from Caliphate to secular Republic. Ataturk moved quickly to repress opposition and consolidate power and won re-election in 1927, 1931 and 1935 until his death in 1938.

Significant Developments Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief, Bandar Bin Sultan, said on Tuesday that the kingdom will be making a “major shift” away from its close relationship with the United States. Bandar reportedly accused the United States of failing to act effectively on Syria, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, of growing closer to Tehran, and of failing to back the crushing of Bahrain’s an anti-government revolt in 2011. Following a Paris meeting between Secretary of State John Kerry and Saudi foreign minister Saud al-Faisal, U.S. officials said that while the two countries have similar goals in the region, they disagree on the appropriate methods for achieving them. Meanwhile on Monday, several GCC states and Egypt praised Saudi Arabia’s decision to decline a two year non-permanent membership on the United Nations Security Council. Saudi Arabia is the first country to flat out reject a Security Council seat, citing the inability of the United Nations to bring a peaceful end to the conflict in Syria as a principal motivator in its decision. Syria. The Friends of Syria group met in London on Tuesday to discuss possible peace talks and agreed that Bashar Assad can have no rule in any future Syrian government. Participants urged the opposition to attend the talks, but Syrian Opposition Coalition president Ahmad al-Jarba said, “We cannot take part if it allows Assad to gain more time to spill the blood of our people while the world looks on.” The Syrian opposition is set to meet on November 9 in Istanbul to decide whether they will attend the Geneva II talks that are slated for a yet to be specified date sometime in November. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced today that the Assad government had released some sixty-four female prisoners. The release was part of a three-way negotiation brokered by the Palestinian Authority and Qatar that has also freed nine Lebanese Shiites held by Syrian rebels as well as two Turkish Airlines pilots held in Lebanon. A total of 128 female prisoners are expected to be released by the Syrian government. Meanwhile, rebels yesterday fired on a gas pipeline, near the Damascus airport, that supplied fuel to a power station causing a nationwide blackout on Wednesday. Egypt. Amr Moussa, head of Egypt’s fifty-member constitution amendment committee met with interim president Adly Mansour yesterday to discuss proposed amendments to the constitution. Moussa has denied allegations that he was being pressured to grant Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi immunity, saying, “The word ‘pressure’ is misleading. There is, rather, what we call lobbying.” Other members of the committee, however, accused Moussa of dictatorial practices and of barring reserve members from meetings. Meanwhile, supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi called for mass protests on November 4 to mark the beginning of his trial. Throughout the week, security forces clashed with student groups at al-Azhar in Cairo and campuses across the country demanding the reinstatement of Morsi. Violence also continued across the Sinai where several police officers were killed on Wednesday and Thursday. A fifth victim of Monday’s Warraq Coptic church shooting, in which gunmen opened fire on a wedding, passed away yesterday at a Cairo hospital. The brazen attack raised questions about the military’s ability and willingness to protect Egypt’s minorities. Egyptian officials announced Monday that the criminal trial of former president Hosni Mubarak has been postponed until November 16. U.S. Foreign Policy Israel-Palestine. Secretary of State John Kerry and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Rome on Wednesday for seven hours to discuss the Iranian nuclear program and Israeli peace talks with the Palestinians. Prime Minister Netanyahu told reporters at the beginning of his meeting with Kerry that the two officials speak nearly every other day about the peace process. On Monday, Secretary Kerry said that Israeli-Palestinian talks have “intensified” and that “all the core issues are on the table.” Speaking at the Arab Peace Initiative Follow-up meeting on Monday in Paris, Secretary Kerry lauded the participants’ “commitment to peace.” Kerry also announced a $150 million pledge for Palestinian debt relief from the government of Qatar, and expressed hope that other Arab governments would follow suit though while stressing the need for progress on the political track. While We Were Looking Elsewhere Tunisia. The offices of Tunisia’s ruling Islamist Ennahda party were burned on Thursday in the town of Kef while the country observed a day of mourning for six police officers slain by Islamist militants on Wednesday. Secular opposition parties called for the immediate resignation of the Ennahda-led government and protested in the capital citing the current government’s inability to bolster the economy or combat extremism. Prime Minister Ali Larayedh voiced his commitment to Tunisia’s proposed political roadmap which includes his party’s resignation but opposition members termed his statements as “ambiguous.” A national dialogue that would lead to the resignation of the current government, the adoption of a new constitution, new electoral laws and set new elections was expected to commence on Wednesday but was delayed. The country has been in a state of political gridlock since the assassination of parliamentarian Mohamed Brahmi on July 25. Yemen. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula warned Yemeni officials today that any punitive action against participants in a recent prison uprising would meet a violent response. Yemeni security forces regained full control of the prison in Sana’a yesterday after a three day standoff with prisoners, following an attempted jailbreak by three hundred al-Qaeda affiliates. The prisoners attacked guards and attempted to overtake the prison on Tuesday but were repelled by security officers at the prison’s second security perimeter. Citing the growing instability in Yemen, Prince Turki bin Faisal announced on Tuesday that Saudi aid would be “on hold, until the country settles down.” Bahrain. On Wednesday, Bahraini police announced that a young man had been found dead in the predominately Shi’ite village of Bani Jamra. He was killed when a bomb he was transporting prematurely detonated. He was believed to be connected with the ongoing uprising against the government that began in March 2011. Jordan. Human Rights Watch has called upon the UN Human Rights Council to pressure Jordan to reform parts of its penal code that “limit rights to free expression, assembly, and association.” Under the oft-cited 1961 Penal Code defendants can still be charged with “lengthening of the tongue,” a broad category of offenses including insulting the royal family. Iraq. Another wave of violence swept across Iraq this week with attacks on Wednesday killing more than a dozen people and prompting Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to warn that the country faced a “war of genocide” from terrorist groups. Maliki expressed hope in the growing number of anti-al-Qaeda militias operating in the country. Other attacks late on Tuesday killed twenty-eight people, many of them members of the security forces. On Monday, gunmen and suicide bombers attacked a number of government buildings and police posts in Fallujah, killing two police officers and wounding four more. This Week in History This week marks the thirtieth anniversary of the bombings in Beirut that killed 299 American and French servicemen. On October 23, 1983, a suicide bomber drove a truck containing the equivalent of more than twelve thousand pounds of TNT into the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut and another into the barracks of French Paratroopers. Massive explosions killed 220 U.S. Marines, 21 U.S. servicemen, and 58 French Paratroopers. A multinational peacekeeping force had been sent to Lebanon the previous year to oversee the withdrawal of PLO fighters after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and siege of Beirut. Though initially seen as impartial, the U.S. forces came to be perceived as tilted towards the Christian government, with violent attacks coming from a number of Lebanese militias. In April of 1983, a truck bomb was driven into the U.S. Embassy in Beirut killing dozens. Attacks against peacekeeping forces increased and came to a head with the Marine Corps barracks bombings. The subsequent chaos and violence resulted in the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Lebanon on February 26, 1984. In 2003, a U.S. federal judge ruled that the Lebanese militia, Hezbollah, was responsible for the attacks and been assisted by Iran.

Tadamun  takes a look at one of the oldest urban communities in Cairo’s Giza governorate, Mit ’Uqba. Jonathan Tobin says that the answer to the question of whether Israel will strike Iran is not to be found in historical precedent. Mohamed el Dahshan claims that whatever suspending U.S. aid to Egypt was supposed to achieve, it has failed.

Erbil—I am in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, but the news from Egypt is never far away. There are no words for Sunday’s attack at the Church of the Virgin Mary in Warraq that killed four, including two little girls, and injured seventeen. Who does that?  Why? I’ve read in the news that the bloodshed was part of a pattern of “revenge attacks” for the July 3 coup. That’s clearly a misnomer.  This was violence for violence’s sake.  One could make a case—which I am not doing—that attempts on the life of the Interior Minister, for example, and attacks on security forces in Sinai and other places around the country are return fire for the events of July 3, July 26, August 14, and October 6, but spraying gunfire at guests gathered for a wedding celebration is both senseless and counterproductive, to say the least.  If the violence is intended to put pressure on the government to release the Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership, it is likely to do the opposite. In trying to make sense of the incident, some reports have noted the presence of Coptic Pope Tawdros II, among other notables, alongside Major General Abdel Fatah al Sisi when the military takeover was announced as a possible reason for the uptick in violence against the Coptic community. That’s a bit too neat and lets murderers off the hook with an explanation, no matter how weak. Moreover, other than the shock of children being gunned down, there is nothing all that new about the attack.  The lynching of Shi’a cleric Hassan Shehata in late June also seems to have been carried out for no apparent reason.  Shehata was a bystander in Egypt’s struggle who happened to worship God differently, and so was savagely targeted. It’s the same story with the orgy of church burnings that happened throughout the spring of 2013. Why was the al Azraa Church set ablaze in May 2011? What about Maspero in October 2011?  It was SCAF’s fault, but it was also the result of groups stoking anti-Christian sentiments.  It’s hard to fathom why this violence took place. It certainly was not vengeance. Lest anyone believe that this kind of violence is a function of Egypt’s post-Mubarak politics only, let’s go back further.  There were the murders at the Temple of Hatshepsut (aka the Luxor massacre) in 1997, the attack on Naguib Mahfouz in 1994, and Farag Foda’s assassination in 1992. For what were these payback? Because Mahfouz and Foda offended extremist Islamist sensibilities? I’ve read the extremist justifications for violence and know all about the definition of jihad.  They don’t fit.  This is nihilism—pure and simple. There are observers—better angels, I suppose—who will try to make sense of the bloodshed at the Church of the Virgin Mary.  Not excuses mind you, but explanations.  As someone interested in the way the world works, I believe there is obvious value in understanding the causes of violence.  The Luxor massacre was, it turns out, the result of a dispute within al Gama’a al Islamiyya over the potential for a cease-fire with the government.  The planners, among them Ayman Zawahiri, sought to make an accommodation impossible.  He succeeded for a time. Perhaps we will discover what complex set of events led to Sunday’s killing, but quite honestly, how does one make sense of an attack on a wedding? It is totally devoid of reason, morals, and values. My point here is not to cast aspersions on Egyptians and Egyptian society.  I come from a country with its own very significant problems with violence. Like the millions of Americans who are disgusted with the seemingly all-too-routine gun violence in our offices and schools, there are millions of Egyptians who feel the same about the senseless violence that has become part of their lives. I’ve written recently about the coarsening of the Egyptian discourse, warning that the logical outcome of this effort to delegitimize political opponents is violence.  I stand by my words, and if Mariam Ashraf Siha was anything like my eight year-old daughter, she was just beginning to grapple with the complexities of the world.  Sadly, Mariam will never know a better Egypt.  

Outsiders tend to underestimate the deep psychological impact that the last almost three years have had on Egyptians.  Not long after the exhilaration of Mubarak’s exit, Egyptians confronted the complexities of their reality.  What followed is now a well-worn story of disappointment, tragedy, more disappointment, some more exhilaration, and despair.  There are, of course, Egyptians who are looking forward to better days now that the Muslim Brotherhood experiment has been short-circuited.  Still, the uncertainty and violence have taken a toll.  For good reason, Egypt is a country collectively on-edge. Although it has avoided the general depravity that characterizes Syria—with perhaps the exception of the Sinai—the delegitimizing and dehumanizing discourse that is now common in Egyptian debates about the future makes the search, conducted mostly by outsiders, for negotiation and consensus fanciful.  Egypt has reached the stage where, despite a roadmap for reconstituting an electoral political order, the goal remains for one group or another to impose its political will on the others, just as it has been since February 2011. It is pretty clear that whichever group has the support of the military is more than likely to win this battle.  Guns matter, but so do ideas, which is why Egypt is so profoundly depressing these days.  Instead of creative solutions for a country whose problems are piling up, people seem to want to pound each other into the ground.  The rejoinder to this observation among a seemingly large number of Egyptians is, “Well, we need to pound people into the ground before we can get on with fixing the country.” This can’t end well. This all comes to mind because of an article I read a week ago and an encounter I had with some Egyptian friends in DC last week. The Muslim Brotherhood, through its official Twitter handle, @Ikhwanweb, was peddling a piece that appeared in Middle East Monitor by Badr Mohammed Badr. MEMO, as the publication calls itself, seems to be an outlet for the Muslim Brotherhood, and Badr—who formerly worked for Brotherhood tribunes al Da’wa (The Call) and al Sha’ab (The People) and a few other Brotherhood-affiliated publications offers up some standard MB fare in “Why is Israel Supporting the Egyptian Coup?” He conjures the Mossad planning the July 3 coup with the help of the Emiratis; invokes visits to Israel right after the military intervention by Brotherhood bogeymen Mohamed ElBaradei and Hamdeen Sabahi (I laughed out loud); claims the delivery of Israeli weapons to the Egyptian armed forces prior to the crackdown on Raba’a al Adawiya (thanks to Turkey’s official Anadolu Agency); quotes Noam Chomsky; and offers a series of statements by Israeli commentators and long-retired ambassadors  that are taken wildly out of context, are just plain stupid, or are simply made up. Never mind the fact that given the Muslim Brotherhood’s hostility toward Zionism, Israel, and Jews more generally, Israelis had reason to be relieved when the military dumped Mohammed Morsi last July, but that is beside the point.  Badr’s article is particularly egregious at this moment in Egypt’s struggle.  Cairo’s difficulties with Hamas aside, there has long been a deep connection between Egyptian nationalism and Palestine.  Zionism—which is to many Egyptians an expression of European colonialism—and the Palestine question crystallized at roughly the same time as Egypt’s own nationalist awakening.  As a result, resisting the British and Zionists was perceived as the same battle.  In The Philosophy of the Revolution, which was written after the July 1952 coup in order to give an intellectual patina to the Free Officers’ motives, Gamal Abdel Nasser (or his widely believed ghostwriter, Mohammed Hassenein Heikal) specifically linked Palestinian and Egyptian resistance to foreign penetration.  Opponents across the political spectrum excoriated Anwar Sadat for his abdication of Egyptian nationalist principles when he came to terms with Israel.  Hosni Mubarak’s critics cited relations with Washington, which they believed were a function of Egypt-Israel ties, as the reason for Cairo’s diminished status in the region and the world. I could go on and on with examples, but what’s important is that Badr knows his history too and he is using it in an effort to frame the terms of the debate in a dangerous way.  By tying al Sisi, the military, and their supporters to Israel, Badr is raising the question of what it means to be a good Egyptian nationalist.  If the July 3 military intervention was not the result of an eruption of popular anger at Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, but was rather a plot hatched at the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (known globally by its Hebrew acronym, Mossad) in cahoots with Abu Dhabi and treasonous Egyptians, resistance is the only adequate response for a good nationalist.  Badr’s account of the coup fits neatly into the Brotherhood’s overall narrative of victimhood shot through with the language of martyrdom and violence.  As noted above, this can’t end well. Lest anyone believe that the Brothers are the only ones guilty of peddling dangerous nonsense, just take a gander at Egyptian media, which regularly incited Egyptians against other Egyptians, notably those who support or are suspected of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.  It is bad, but an incident a few days ago drove home for me just how bad.  I had the opportunity to meet with a group of Egyptians, all of whom are significantly accomplished and educated.  They are all people whom I have known for some time and for whom I have genuine affection. My interlocutors’ anger over the state of Egypt was on one level understandable, but one another was startling and overwhelming.  It was as if the Brotherhood was not an organization with deep historical roots in Egypt and whose success in 2011 and 2012 was solely the work of a foreign hand—the United States.  What about the last three decades? Did they not exist?  Successive American administrations going back to Ronald Reagan did rely on Hosni Mubarak on to keep the canal open, maintain the peace with Israel, and keep the Islamists down.  I was told that over the course of time, something changed. That American support for Egypt wavered and then ended.  The United States, it seems, sought a Muslim Brotherhood-led Egypt because the Brothers had increasingly infiltrated the United States.  The proof?  I was told to watch noted Islamophobe Steven Emerson’s documentary, The Grand Deception.  So this is what it has come to. I never actually thought that any of my Egyptian friends or acquaintances would cite Emerson as an authority on anything, but there you have it. The United States supports the Muslim Brotherhood because Emerson says the Brothers are engaged in a plot from within to undermine the United States.  This can’t end well…

Zeinobia from the Egyptian Chronicles argues that Sisi is the new Pharaoh. Hamza Hamouchene asks, “Is Algeria an Anti-Imperialist State?” Nuray Mert gives her opinion on the reasons for lack of democracy in Turkey.

As many are now well aware, word came on Wednesday evening via a leak to CNN that the United States was cutting military aid to Egypt.  After almost a day of furious speculation on Twitter and elsewhere, the outlines of the administration’s plan have come into view, though still without the benefit of an official statement.  It seems that Washington will delay the delivery of 10 Apache helicopters, and according to press reports, dock $260 million of cash transfers to the government and pull back on plans for a $300 million loan guarantee. Here are my thoughts on the issue: 1)    Timing—Shortly after the July 3 military intervention, President Obama announced that the United States would undertake a review of its assistance programs to Egypt and the revelations this week are obviously the result.  Although clearly the product of a careful and deliberate review, the timing of the policy change is still awkward.  Perhaps it was lost on CNN’s source, but the leak came at a sensitive moment—just a few days after Egyptians celebrated the anniversary of the October 1973 Crossing of the Suez Canal.  This event is, as I have written elsewhere, central to Egypt’s nationalist pantheon. Needless to say, the timing of the leak only contributed to the offense taken in Cairo over the decision to suspend aid.  The unofficial announcement also came just a day after Egypt’s security forces were targeted in eight separate terrorist incidents.  Of course, there is context here.  The attacks were in response to the estimated 50 or more deaths and between 250 and 400 wounded at the hands of the police and the military during anti-coup/pro-Morsi demonstrations that coincided with the celebrations of the Crossing.  The fact that changes to the military aid were leaked shortly after this incident reinforces an erroneous but widely held notion in Egypt that the United States supports the Muslim Brotherhood. I am sure that critics who support the suspension of aid will argue that the United States should not be worried about offending Major-General Abdel Fattah al Sisi and other senior commanders.  There is some truth to this.  Egypt’s military officers can handle it, but if the United States wants to work with the one group in Egypt that shares its strategic interests—at least for the time being—the administration would do itself some good to avoid unnecessary slights. 2)    Limited Leverage—Suspending the delivery of Apaches and other parts of the aid package is not going to alter the behavior of Egypt’s leaders.  First, the Egyptians already have about 35 Apaches.  They may want delivery of the equipment, but the helicopters that are now delayed will not have an effect on Egypt’s overall military capabilities.  Second, al Sisi and his colleagues are not making decisions based on Washington and its assistance package, but rather they are calculating their interests and determining their political strategy based on local conditions.  To the extent that the military and its supporters believe they are in a struggle for the heart and soul of their country, there is very little that any outside power can say or do that will convince the commanders to change course. 3)    The Pakistanization of Egypt Policy—Without being an expert of Pakistan, I’m in somewhat uncomfortable territory here, but it seems to me that while the details surrounding the suspension of aid to Egypt differ from those times when Washington has docked Islamabad’s military assistance, the underlying (il)logic is strikingly similar. Like in Pakistan, the United States is delaying/suspending portions of Egypt’s military aid, but at the same time is “underscor[ing] the importance that we [the United States] attach to continuing a strong relationship with Egypt” through the continuation of counter-terror cooperation and other security and non-security-related programs.  Yet the fact that Washington is taking punitive measures against Cairo is likely to overshadow the Obama administration’s commitment to promoting economic development, public health, and governance—programs from which few Egyptians actually benefit. American officials can re-affirm their “commitment” to Egypt all they want in press conferences, but from Cairo it does not seem that way. Like in Pakistan, this approach is only going to sow mistrust. There is very little discernible upside to the decision to suspend aid, but the current controversy reflects a deeper transformation underway that few like to talk about.  The strategic rationale for ties is four decades old.  With the exception of Egypt-Israel peace, which remains of primary importance to Egyptians, Americans, and Israelis, the foundations of the relationship have weakened or disappeared, portending change.  Egypt and the United States are likely to diverge in the future for a variety of reasons—strategic, political, and even fatigue.  So even if the administration’s decision to suspend aid was clumsy and it is hard to figure out the upside, it was only a matter of time before it happened because Washington-Cairo ties are changing.  

President Obama increasingly appears to believe that Egypt’s July 3 military coup was, well, a coup. Until now, he has not wanted to say so lest it trigger an immediate across-the-board cutoff of military assistance to Egypt, as called for by the Leahy Amendment. Today’s media is filled with reports that the president will withhold almost all forms of military assistance already promised to Egypt—tanks, helicopters, fighter jets—while allowing some non-military assistance to continue to flow to Egypt. Obama appears set to still not use the word “coup” so as to retain his freedom of maneuver to resume the military aid should Egypt’s behavior improve. But in ramping down the assistance now, he is acknowledging the obvious: the military seizure of power this summer from a democratically elected, albeit anti-democratic, government has not gone very well. Administration officials may be forgiven for wanting to withhold judgment on the coup in order to give Egypt’s military a chance to demonstrate that its toppling of the Morsi government was a corrective action aimed at preserving Egyptian nascent representative politics, not harming them. With the Muslim Brotherhood apparently on a steady path of using democratic institutions to undermine the fragile institutions of the Egyptian state, Obama held his nose at the military’s intervention, and instead urged a rapid and inclusive transitional political process. But rather than offer a political role for the toppled Muslim Brotherhood, the military has gone for the kill, unleashing violence and repression on the Islamists and excluding them from politics. With the Gulf states stepping in to provide Egypt massive financial assistance (dwarfing Washington’s $1.3 billion in military assistance and whatever influence it may provide), Egypt’s military leaders felt little incentive but to continue on its hardline anti-Islamist course. The problem with the Obama administration’s approach to Egypt’s internal struggle has been the somewhat artificial distinction it has made between issues that it deems vital and those it deems principled. In his landmark May 19, 2011, speech laying out his administration’s views on the Arab uprisings, President Obama articulated it clearly: “There will be times when our short-term interests don’t align perfectly with our long-term vision for the region.” Yet such a distinction is actually artificial, and fails to recognize that adhering to our long-term principles are in our vital and even immediate interests in the region. This perceived distinction prevented the president from calling out the Muslim Brotherhood when it worked to undermine Egyptian institutions when it was in power, and it led him to shy away from calling the military’s coup by its true name. Yes, American military over flights, continued anti-terrorism efforts, and Egypt’s peace with Israel are critical American interests. Yet an approach that aims to secure these interests while largely disregarding the regime’s domestic behavior—be it that of the Muslim Brotherhood or the military—sacrifices long term durability for short term expediency. The resulting gap, between our actions and our principles, has engendered much of the anti-American sentiment we now face in the Middle East. It also calls into question the long-term viability of our efforts. Some will then say that what is being called for here is the diminution of support to our friends and allies in the region. To the contrary: friends shouldn’t let friends rule badly. Repressive and non-inclusive rule is not only wrong, it is short-sighted for all. For years, democracy enthusiasts argued that many Arab regimes were rotting from within due to their repressive and anti-democratic nature. The Arab uprisings proved that stability and freedom are not antipodes, even though the path to the latter can often disrupt the former. The challenge for the United States is to believe in its own principles and demonstrate that we really do seek to be true to our friends—both the peoples and the governments of the Middle East—that share these values.

At 2pm on October 6, 1973, operation codename “Badr” began when two hundred Egyptian aircraft—under the command of General Hosni Mubarak—screamed low over the Suez Canal on their way to Israeli airbases and command and control installations in the Sinai.  Within fifteen minutes of the airstrikes, 4,000 Egyptian soldiers aboard more than 700 rubber dinghies made their way across the Canal along five fronts to assault the Bar-Lev line. By the morning of October 7, the Egyptian military had transferred an astonishing 90,000 men, 895 tanks, and 11,000 vehicles into the Sinai and established five bridgeheads east of the Canal while inflicting heavy losses on the Israel Defense Forces. A number of Egyptian military miscalculations turned the tide of the war in the ensuing three weeks of fighting, yet by the time the guns fell silent on October 24, the Israelis had been bloodied.  The crossing of the Suez Canal was nothing less than an extraordinary feat of courage, tactics, and technical proficiency.  The very fact that the Egyptian military established a foothold in the Sinai, which was Cairo’s sole objective, altered the strategic balance between Egypt and Israel and ultimately led to the Camp David Accords of September 1978 and the peace treaty the following March. Domestically, the crossing of the Canal had a profound effect on Anwar Sadat’s political fortunes. Although Sadat had established full control of the political system with what he called the Corrective Revolution, his tenure up until October 1973 was shaky at best. The crossing erased all of the opposition and uncertainty surrounding Sadat. Suddenly, he was no longer the prevaricator, second-rate accidental president, but rather batal al ubur or Hero of the Crossing who had healed Egypt’s deep nationalist wounds that the Israelis inflicted in June 1967. That singular event was the well-spring of Anwar Sadat’s legend and, like all myths, the evidence in support of the man’s greatness is more apparent than real. Before the July 1952 coup that brought the Free Officers to power, Anwar Sadat was less a professional military officer than an itinerant agitator.  That agitation may have been in the service of Egyptian nationalism, but it included a flirtation with Nazism and an embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood.  After the coup, Sadat, who was an original Free Officer, proved himself useful to Gamal Abdel Nasser by dint of his willingness to do or say just about anything.  In 1953, he founded al Gumhuriya, which was a tribune of the new regime and became head of the Islamic Congress, an afterthought companion to the Liberation Rally the Officers established to discipline the political arena.  Sadat then served as a minister without portfolio during which he was one of three judges—despite no legal training—to preside over the Revolutionary Tribunal that meted out punishment to his former allies within the Muslim Brotherhood after the October 1954 assassination attempt on Nasser. Sadat then held relatively minor positions as deputy speaker of the United Arab Republic’s parliament during the brief and ill-fated union with Syria and subsequently as speaker of Egypt’s own People’s Assembly until he was made Egypt’s vice president in 1969.  There are a number of theories concerning Sadat’s elevation, but none of them have to do with his fitness to succeed Nasser.  Depending on who is to be believed, Nasser gave Sadat the nod either because every other original Free Officer had already served as vice president or because after the 1967 defeat, Nasser needed as much political support as possible and Sadat—despite being a hanging judge in 1954—could deliver the Muslim Brothers. After becoming president upon Nasser’s death in September 1970, Sadat successfully outmaneuvered the former president’s loyalists, which was a good thing, but de-Nasserization required a rehabilitation of the Muslim Brotherhood.  Under Sadat, the Brothers enjoyed a measure of freedom in the educational, cultural, and social spheres, which had the unfortunate effect of creating the dynamics for Egypt’s primary political pathology  of the ensuing three decades. During this time the Brotherhood was tolerated until it began to acquire too much prestige and political power after which it was repressed, radicalizing the political arena, resulting in further repression.  Yet the use of coercion, intimidation, and violence was not confined to the Brothers or its radical offshoots, but also applied to the regime’s opponents across the political spectrum. As part of undoing Nasser’s legacy, Sadat spoke of the development of a “state of institutions,” which was code for a more open, if not democratic political order.  This amounted to nothing more than a slogan, however.  De-Nasserization also had an economic component, but Sadat’s much vaunted economic infitah (opening) did not establish the institutions of a market economy, but rather concentrates wealth among a relatively small group of players connected to the regime. On foreign policy, the iconic photo of Sadat, President Jimmy Carter, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in a three-way handshake upon initialing the Egypt-Israel peace treaty sealed the former Egyptian leader’s legacy as a visionary statesman.  Reality is more complicated, however.  Peace is, of course, an unassailable good and it may not matter how Egyptians and Israelis got there, but his efforts toward that end were at least as much a function of Sadat’s deteriorating domestic political standing as they were his vision.  Deadlock with Israel over post-war arrangements in the Sinai and, in particular, the Food Riots of January 1977 weakened the Egyptian leader. Sadat’s trip to Jerusalem in November 1977 bolstered his standing in the West, but only temporarily revived his fortunes at home and weakened him in the Arab world.  Invariably described as “bold,” Sadat’s visit to Israel and tough address to the Knesset was a gamble that he lost.  By going to Jerusalem, Sadat put himself in the unenviable position of needing an agreement more than the Israelis lest he trigger his own political demise.  As a result, Sadat was forced to agree to terms that, although they resulted in an Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai—a triumph to be sure—compromised Egypt’s honor, sovereignty, and pan-Arab responsibilities from the perspective of many Egyptians. It turns out that the agreement he got only temporarily stayed the political reckoning that led to Sadat’s assassination on the eighth anniversary of the crossing. The hagiography of Sadat in the West does a disservice to an extraordinarily interesting, if deeply flawed historical figure.  The martyred Egyptian leader may have done revolutionary things, but these never actually seemed to be his primary goal.  Rather, Sadat’s cause was Sadat.

Significant Developments Syria. The Assad regime provided documents yesterday about its chemical weapons stockpile in the first day of Damascus meetings with the nineteen member advance team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The team called the Syrian government’s move “promising,” and said it hopes to begin onsite inspections and dismantling efforts next week. Initial timetables aim to destroy production equipment by November and eliminate stock piles in mid-2014. While President Assad pledged to comply with last week’s UN Resolution in an interview on Sunday, saying that “we don’t have any reservation,” Syrian foreign minister Walid Moallem addressed the UN General Assembly on Monday, claiming that the Syrian regime forces were “the ones who were targeted by poisonous gases in Khan A1-Assal, near Aleppo.” Meanwhile, six powerful rebel brigades in Syria released a statement late Wednesday calling for a cease-fire. The cease-fire proposal comes amidst an armed standoff between two armed opposition groups: the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)—an affiliate of al-Qaeda operating in Syria—and the Northern Storm Brigade based near the Bab al-Salameh border crossing with Turkey. ISIS has been advancing on the Northern Storm Brigade’s positions at the border crossing, a valuable arms supply route to rebel groups, after pushing them out of Azaz two weeks ago. According to Reuters, Saudi Arabia helped fifty armed opposition groups around Damascus consolidate on Sunday under a new umbrella coalition called the Army of Islam, a move designed to counter the strength of ISIS. Egypt. Unidentified militants fired on a military vehicle outside the Suez Canal city of Ismailiya today, killing two soldiers and wounding an officer. The attack followed a Tuesday bombing in the Sinai Peninsula that left three soldiers dead and an attack on Monday in el-Arish that killed three soldiers. Increasing violence across the country has killed over one thousand people since August. Meanwhile, an Egyptian court announced on Tuesday that it will hear an appeal on October 22 against its recent ban of the Muslim Brotherhood. A delegation of former Egyptian parliamentarians met with EU officials in Belgium earlier this week in an attempt to resolve the growing political crisis in Egypt. While members of the Egyptian delegation condemned the military’s recent crackdown, EU officials pushed for negotiation and acceptance of the interim military government. Turkey. Prime Minister Erdogan told a Turkish broadcaster last night that if his party asked, he would run for president next year in the country’s first popular presidential election. Under the rules of the AK Party, Erdogan cannot run again for prime minister in 2015. The Turkish parliament voted yesterday to extend legislation to send troops into Syria for another year, one day before their mandate was set to expire. The government proposed the extension citing a “serious and imminent” threat posed by the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons. On Monday, Erdogan announced new initiatives aimed at revitalizing the peace process with Kurdish rebels. Some components of the broad reform package still must be approved by Parliament, but if passed they would lift prohibitions on the use of Kurdish language and lower electoral barriers that limit Kurdish representation. Despite the serious criticism Erdogan has drawn from domestic opponents for being too conciliatory, some Kurdish parties have already rejected the reform package as inadequate. U.S. Foreign Policy Israel-Iran. U.S. secretary of state John Kerry said yesterday that failure to take Iran’s diplomatic overtures seriously would be tantamount to “diplomatic malpractice.” Kerry expressed hope for a deal in as little as six months, but added that “nothing we do is going to be based on trust.” President Obama hosted Israeli prime minister Netanyahu at the White House on Monday, where the two primarily discussed Iran’s nuclear program. In an Oval Office photo spray following their meeting, Obama declared that a military strike was still on the table and that his administration is leaving current sanctions in place. The following day, Netanyahu spoke before the United Nations General Assembly and urged the world not to be fooled by “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” While We Were Looking Elsewhere Saudi Arabia. Saudi officials cancelled their country’s address scheduled for Tuesday before the United Nations General Assembly. Declining to even issue a written statement, Saudi diplomats gave no explanation for the dramatic move. However, press reports indicated that the Saudis were upset both about the international reaction to the war in Syria as well as the potential warming of relations between Iran and the West. Lebanon. Caretaker interior minister Marwan Charbel met with top security officials on Tuesday to draw up a security plan for Tripoli after Hezbollah ceded control of checkpoints to the national security forces. Charbel declared that “there are no more Hezbollah checkpoints on Lebanese territory.” Hezbollah handed over civilian-manned over security checkpoints in Baalbek and Nabatieh to the Lebanese military following clashes on Saturday that left four dead. The increased security measures come in the wake of several bombings in predominately Hezbollah areas aimed at forcing the group to withdraw its forces from Syria and support for the embattled al-Assad regime. Libya. Russia evacuated its embassy in Tripoli on Thursday following an attack the previous day. While no Russian personnel were injured, two attackers were killed by security forces. According to a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry, the attack was carried out by friends and family of a Libyan pilot recently murdered by a Russian citizen. In an unrelated attack, gunmen assassinated a Libyan colonel in Benghazi on Wednesday, the second shooting in the eastern city in recent days. Iraq. A wave of bombings left as many as fifty-five people dead in Iraq on Monday in an ever escalating spate of sectarian violence. Recent figures from the United Nations show that 979 people were killed in Iraq last month alone and approximately five thousand since April of this year.  While the semi-autonomous Kurdish north has largely avoided the violence of recent years, bombings on Sunday evening in the capital of Erbil have led to questions about the stability of Iraq and spillover from the crisis in Syria. Bahrain. A Bahraini court sentenced four Shiites to life imprisonment on Thursday for detonating a roadside bomb that targeted a police officer. The move comes amidst an ongoing crackdown against the February 14th Movement in Bahrain. Ninety-one other Shiites have been given jail terms this week of up to fifteen years for crimes including detonating bombs, “terrorist crimes,” and forming a “clandestine opposition group.” The Sunni monarchy has faced increased opposition from its Shiite majority since the beginning of the Arab Spring. Yemen. Alleged al-Qaeda militants disguised as soldiers attacked a military compound in al-Mukalla on Monday, taking control of the facility and an undetermined number of soldiers. This brazen attack comes in the wake of a recent surge in violence in Yemen as the government faces a serious challenge from domestic terrorist and separatist movements. Jordan. A Jordanian official announced on Tuesday that three men were recently arrested after displaying posters voicing their support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the recently deposed president, Mohammed Morsi. The three suspects were charged with “acts the government does not approve that would harm Jordan’s relations with a brotherly Arab country,” according to a Jordanian judicial official. This Week In History This week marks the forty-third anniversary of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser’s funeral in Cairo. Nasser passed away on September 28, 1970,shortly after returning from Jordan where he had helped mediate an end to fighting between Jordanian forces and Palestinian militants. Nasser played a leading role in the Free Officer Movement that deposed King Farouk in 1952. After seizing power two years later, he enacted a broad domestic agenda focused on land redistribution, the nationalization of a large number of industries, as well as the Suez Canal and, the termination of British influence in Egypt. Internationally, Nasser became a lead figure in the non-aligned movement and attempted to unite Egypt and Syria in the ultimately failed United Arab Republic. His funeral was marked by millions of Egyptians pouring into the streets to pay their respects for the first native Egyptian leader in nearly two millennia.

London—I am wiling away time at Heathrow before my onward flight to DC.  I’ve just come in from Hyderabad, the last stop on my Indian odyssey.  The city is a very interesting place.  Hyderabad was never under Britain’s direct rule and the “Princely State of Hyderabad” only became part of the Indian Union in 1948, a year after India’s independence.  Owing to the fact that Hyderabad was under Muslim rule until it was incorporated into India— a little less than half the city’s population of anywhere between 8-9 million people are Muslim—Hyderabad has strong connections to major cities in the Islamic  world including Mecca, Medina, Istanbul, Jerusalem, and Cairo.  I had not realized that there was an Egypt connection, but apparently more than a few Hyderabadi imams have been trained at al Azhar. Yet the interest in Egypt went beyond purely religious grounds. After almost three weeks, the conversations with my Indian interlocutors began to take on a familiar pattern starting with Syria and the prospects for American intervention, from there to Palestine and Israel, and winding up with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.  Every now and again, someone who was aware of my deep and abiding interest in Egyptian political history would throw in a question about Egypt, but his or her interest was a polite and passing one.  Not so in Hyderabad.  There was a keen understanding about current developments in Cairo there.  The conversation started out typically enough with a query about why the United States allegedly supported the July 3rd coup.  I explained that many Egyptians were convinced that the United States was a patron of the Muslim Brothers rather than the officers.  There was also profound disbelief on the Indian side when I explained that under the high-stakes political circumstances in Egypt, Washington actually had very little influence over Major-General Abdel Fattah al Sisi. Speaking of al Sisi, my Hyderabadi friends believed that he and his fellow officers made a grave mistake by moving against Mohammed Morsi on July 3rd.  In an argument that quite a few observers have made previously, the Hyderabadis believed that if the military wanted to undermine the Brothers, it should have allowed them to stand for elections, which they were sure to lose.  In a withering critique of the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohammed Morsi, my interlocutors described a group that is arrogant, undemocratic, and in too much of a hurry to transform the country.  Like many others, my Indian friends discounted the Brothers’ efforts to make it difficult for anyone to contest future elections, which is an important factor in the chain of events that led many Egyptians to call for the military’s intervention.  In any event, those in Hyderabad did not have any more insight into what was going to happen in Egypt than anyone else, but they were confident that the Brothers would make a comeback, if only because al Sisi and company have made them martyrs. The other major topic of discussion among some of the Hyderabadis with whom I spoke was Turkey.  I am not sure if they read my bio and were engaging me on the issues that I know best, but like the discussion of Egypt, these guys were up-to-date on Turkey.  Not surprisingly, they regarded Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the most successful leader in the Muslim world. Yet they wondered if he could maintain his stature.  After all, they pointed out, a primary reason for Erdogan’s success has been Turkey’s economic success.  Yet as the Turkish economy slows (growth in 2012 slowed to 2.2% down from 8.5% in 2011, and is expected to improve only slightly in 2013) they suggested that the Erdogan mystique might be in trouble. I could not have said it better myself. DC bound….

Abdel Bari Atwan looks at the devastating reality of the "new" Libya. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen says that Syria is paying the price of international indecision. Nervana Mahmoud offers insight into how the Muslim Brotherhood has coped with its situation following the end of the pro-Morsi sit-ins in Cairo.