Unrest is spreading through northern Africa and the Middle East like wildfire, with a common spark – a people’s desire to have a say in their future and to be rid of oppressive regimes, in the context of economic woes. Yet that human desire for freedom is being played out against the backdrop of two other powerful forces – Islamic extremism, which represents a threat to both entrenched regimes and potential democracies – and the military, which has been responsible for keeping the established regimes in power and will be a major player, if not the puppeteer, in the formation of new governments.
According to Jonathan Schanzer, former U.S. Treasury intelligence analyst and current Vice President of Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a bi-partisan think tank that studies terrorist groups and their ideologies, “Each country has its own dynamics, but each country is advocating, or agitating, for democracy; [they] have not been allowed to breathe the oxygen of democracy for decades.”
The military responses to that push for democracy have varied. In Egypt, despite initial clashes between police and protesters, the military decided to abandon its aging dictator, refraining from firing upon its own people. Mubarak, who had ruled with an iron fist for 30 years, stepped down, and the military stepped in to fill the void. While the military’s motivations and intentions are still unclear, it appears that there has been extensive communication between U.S. military/intelligence personnel and Egyptian officers, the result of a long-term relationship. “The conventional wisdom in Washington is that [in the past] we’ve been paying off the military; the number that’s been thrown around is 1.3 billion [per year]. Total aid [to Egypt] is closer to two billion, but most of it goes to the military,” Schanzer said. “Our Department of Defense has good ties with The Officers Corps in the Egyptian military. We provide the F-15’s and M-1 tanks, the training and the spare parts, and we helped to groom their military.” That relationship, according to American officials, allowed U.S. military personnel to communicate with Egyptian military officers behind the scenes and encourage them not to fire on the Egyptian people. But that influence only goes so far. As of February 18, Egyptian military leaders were not going along with current recommendations by Obama to end emergency rule.
In Bahrain, a key strategic ally of the United States and home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, a week of protests was initially met with a fierce and bloody military response. But then the government withdrew its forces and began calling for calm.
On the other side of the spectrum, in Libya, Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi has vowed that “Libya is not Tunisia or Egypt.” His father’s 40-year reign is being defended by security forces and mercenaries that have killed over 200 people, using helicopters and aircraft to strafe and even bomb protesters. But his grip is slipping as protesters have taken control of the country’s second-largest city, Benghazi. Yemen and Algeria have also been scarred by violence.
In other areas of the Middle East the noise of revolt is muted, but there is still turbulence. “The Syrians are squeezing real hard, making it difficult for the protesters to make it into the street. The West Bank has been quiet, but the government there has just called for elections, sensing that they may be under fire just like everyone else,” Schanzer said. “Jordan is a kinder, gentler monarchy, but it’s certainly still a monarchy, and the king calls all the shots, so right now, Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is out in the region, and just had meetings with the King,” Schanzer continued. “But the King is under pressure from [Jordan’s] branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and he may have to start making reforms, but even [on February 18] there were clashes in the Hashemite Kingdom, over lack of reform.”
The activity of the Muslim Brotherhood has also been a factor in the Egyptian crisis. Its presence brings into question not only the influence of radical Islamist ideology, but also the intentions of the Egyptian military. Recently the military organized a council in order to amend the constitution, and they included a seat for the Brotherhood, a religious organization that was banned from operating as a political party under Mubarak. “They’re trying to find a place within the new Egyptian government,” Schanzer explained. “[But] I can say without exception that every time the Brotherhood has entered into a partnership, whether it is with the secular Wafd party or the socialist party or the ruling party, that relationship has ended up badly over ideological differences.” He continues, “But now the Brotherhood has entered into some sort of non-binding agreement with the military. It appears right now that the Egyptian military is allowing the Brotherhood to take more of a leading role in the creation of a new government.”
According to Schanzer there are two likely Egyptian scenarios. “The fear is that the Brotherhood has hijacked the process and you have something that looks sort of like Iran in Egypt. [However] what the Egyptians are telling me right now is that the more realistic scenario is one in which there is a relationship that builds in the short-term but is ultimately abandoned in the long-run; that is, the military could use the Brotherhood to help it shore up power but ultimately stab it in the back,” he said. Obviously, America is more concerned with the former – [the emergence of] an Iran-style government. The second scenario is better, but not that much better: a situation in which the military continues to dominate the government and uses the Brotherhood to help solidify power and then reverts to something along the lines that we saw with Mubarak, another dictatorship.”
As evidence that the second scenario, military dictatorship, is playing out, Schanzer said, “The concern that I’ve been hearing lately is that the back-channel communications between the Egyptian military and other elements of the opposition are political dealings as opposed to constitutional ones or structural ones. It doesn‘t appear they are going to revamp the entire constitution, so it looks like they are making cosmetic changes.”
In the meantime, there is also evidence that Islamic extremists have been attempting to usurp the revolutionary process in order to achieve their own ideological goals. On February 18, there was a rally attended by hundreds of thousands of people in Tahrir Square, Cairo. “It was slated as something of a thank-you march, commemorating a week after the passing of Mubarak, but in effect it was an attempt to remind the military that they are still hungry for change, a not-so-subtle hint that this is not over yet,” Schanzer said. “A radical cleric, Yusef Qardawi, who had been in exile, led prayers at this rally, ultimately hijacking the rally. When the young Google executive, Wael Ghonim, wanted to get up and speak after Qardawi, the Muslim Brotherhood barred him from speaking. That is not to say that Qardawi can dispatch terrorists tomorrow, but he is a dangerous Islamist ideologue, who had effectively silenced a secular opposition leader who was for reform. “
That event is not the only indication of extremist aspirations. “In Libya, there is a terrorist group known as the Libyan Islamist Fighting Group, an affiliate of Al Qaeda,” Schanzer said, continuing, “There have been a number of LIFG members that have been released or sprung from jail in the last week or two, so there is a sense that this group could reconstitute, and it’s something I’m keeping an eye on. In Tunisia several weeks ago, there was the return of a radical ideologue not unlike Qardawi, Rashid Ghannoshi, who was exiled in London. Since his return, people have been chanting Islamist slogans, the Islamists have threatened to raid the red light district in Tunis, and they have chanted outside of synagogues. So we’re seeing the rise of Ghannoshi’s movement, called ‘Nahdah,’ which means renaissance.” In fact, in the days after our February 18 interview, the raid by Islamist extremists on the red-light district became a reality, with a rapid response from military helicopters and security forces.
So in the end, will these popular uprisings lead to real democratic reform, or just new forms of oppression and dictatorship? There is one precedent in the area which has been perceived as positive. “The Turkish scenario is the one that everyone has been basing all of their models on. The government fell in 1980, and shortly thereafter the military stepped in and presided over a peaceful transition to a democratic government; within two years they rewrote the constitution, and in 1983 they had democratic elections,” Schanzer explained. For now, however nobody knows what will happen in the region. Only time will tell.
(Side-bar) Saudi Arabia According to Jonathan Schanzer, “The big elephant in the room is Saudi Arabia. Things [there] have been eerily quiet. But don’t forget, the Saudis are furious with us. They perceive that the United States threw Mubarak under the bus, so you’ve got the Saudis now saying, ‘If you did this to Mubarak, what’s to say that you won’t do this to us?’ And I wonder how that is going to impact our security relations with [them].” He continued, “[In Washington, they’re asking] ‘How did we let Egypt go down, and how can we prevent this happening to other governments, which are as bad if not worse?’ The Saudis are certainly not a free society; they export radical Islam. In many ways you could argue that they’re worse than Egypt,” he said. “And the Saudis purportedly have a “kill switch” that will destroy all of their wells and reserves. I can’t verify this, but the reports are that they can just shut down the whole system. We’re seeing spikes in oil as it is, you can just imagine what would [happen] if unrest began in Saudi.”
We recommend:
Stateside Associates knows that government affairs consulting requires constant professional evoluti
One Small Lobbying Firm Works With Politicians of All Stripes to Help Businesses Thrive Across the C
The numbers are in, and the costs are staggering. How much have Americans really sacrificed in the n
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
