Less ‘Engagement,’ More Democracy

By ELLIOTT ABRAMS

THE revolt in Tunisia has thrown both that nation’s dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, and the Obama administration’s democracy-promotion policy onto the ash heap of history. The revolt undermined — indeed, destroyed — two years of effort in Washington to move toward a policy of “engagement” with hostile and repressive regimes.

The price for this policy has been paid by men and women from China to Russia to Iran to Egypt to Venezuela, who had expected a louder voice and a firmer helping hand from the United States. Now, watching the Tunisians try to move from a rapacious dictatorship to a stable democratic system, the president should say that in Tunisia, and everywhere else, we will side with those working to build democracies.

The president needn’t admit error — he can stick with the old “engagement” trope — but he must shift his focus from sclerotic regimes to movements, parties and brave people seeking political freedom. Mr. Obama should give an account of the visit last week by President Hu Jintao of China that explains why he, the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner, accorded every possible honor to the jailer of the 2010 winner, Liu Xiaobo. Clearly, the only moral defense would be a statement allying himself henceforth with the Chinese people and their century-and-a-half-old struggle to combine modernization with freedom. This isn’t a matter of official dialogues about human rights with Chinese officials, but of constant pressure.

President Obama has also talked of a desire to “reset” relations with Russia. He should start by acknowledging that its rulers seem determined to roll back every gain in freedom made since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The president should also clarify that our ultimate goal for Iran is not a nuclear deal with the ayatollahs but freedom for its people under a government they choose in honest elections. Mr. Obama should explain that a stable peace is not the product of deals with dictators but of free peoples working for common goals. He must get over his allergy to what George W. Bush called the freedom agenda, for it has been the agenda of many presidents of his own party as well.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood

The Muslim Brotherhood (known in Arabic as al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen) is Egypt's oldest and largest Islamist organization. Founded in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna, it is widely considered the world's most influential Islamist organization, with numerous branches and affiliates. It is "the mother of all Islamist movements," says Shadi Hamid, a Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution's Doha Center. The group has emerged as Egypt's biggest opposition movement. Many analysts expect the Brotherhood to play a larger role in the country's future, following the anti-government protests of 2011 in which hundreds of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets to call for political and economic reforms and the ouster of autocratic President Hosni Mubarak. "Without the Muslim Brotherhood, there's no legitimacy in whatever happens in Egypt anymore," says Ed Husain, a senior fellow at CFR. But there are concerns over the group's aim to establish a state ruled by sharia or Islamic law, questions over its support for the Mideast peace process and its policy toward Israel and the United States, and ambiguity over its respect for human rights.

A History of Violence
The Brotherhood's original mission was to Islamize society through promotion of Islamic law, values, and morals. An Islamic revivalist movement from its early days, it has combined religion, political activism, and social welfare in its work. It adopted slogans such as "Islam is the solution" and "jihad is our way." It played a role in the fight against British colonial rule and was banned for a short time in 1948 (BBC) for orchestrating bombings inside Egypt and allegedly assassinating Prime Minister Mahmoud al-Nuqrashi. It then experienced a short spell of good relations with the government that came to power through a military coup, which ended British rule in 1952. But following a failed attempt to assassinate President Gamal Abdul Nasser in 1954, the group was banned again.
At this time, Sayyid Qutb, a prominent member of the Brotherhood, laid down the ideological ground for the use of jihad, or armed struggle, against the regime in Egypt and beyond. Qutb's writings, in particular his 1964 work Milestones, has provided the intellectual and theological underpinnings for the founders of numerous radical and militant Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda. Extremist leaders often channel Qutb to argue that governments not ruled by sharia are apostate and, therefore, legitimate targets of jihad.

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The Brotherhood has spawned branches all across the globe. These organizations bear the Brotherhood name, but their connections to the founding group vary. Detractors of the Brotherhood argue that the group continues to have some links to Hamas, an organization termed as a terrorist group by the United States, European Union, and Israel, and originally a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestinian territories. But other analysts argue the nature of links is not entirely clear. In addition, some of the world's most dangerous terrorists were once Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members, including Osama bin Laden's top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
But CFR's Husain says it is wrong to make the Muslim Brotherhood "responsible for the actions of all of its intellectual offspring." Since 9/11, prominent members of the Brotherhood have renounced violence publicly and tried to distance themselves from al-Qaeda's violent practices. The Brotherhood's foray into electoral politics has also widened the schism between them and groups like al-Qaeda. Zawahiri had been openly critical of the Brotherhood's participation in 2005 parliamentary elections.
But like other mass social movements, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is hardly a monolith; it comprises hardliners, reformers, and centrists, notes terrorism expert Lydia Khalil. And some hardline leaders have voiced support for al-Qaeda or use of violent jihad. For instance, as recently as 2006, Khalil points out, a member of Brotherhood elected to parliament, Ragib Hilal Hamida, voiced support for terrorism in the face of Western occupation. Instances like these raise questions over the group's commitment to nonviolence.

Toward Pragmatic Politics
The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has more than three hundred thousand members and runs numerous institutions, including hospitals, schools, banks, businesses, foundations, day care centers, thrift shops, social clubs, and facilities for the disabled.
Since the 1970s, the group has not engaged in violent activity and though officially banned, the Egyptian government has allowed it to operate within limits, keeping it in check with frequent arrests and crackdowns. In the last three decades, it has increased its advance into the political mainstream through alliances with other opposition parties and through members running for parliament as independents.
Some analysts say the group has evolved to become more moderate and embrace democratic and liberal principles such as transparency and accountability. Analysts Samer Shehata and Joshua Stacher point out in this 2006 Middle East Report how the group has "settled on a strategy of political participation." Brotherhood-affiliated candidates first participated in local and parliamentary elections as independents in 1984, and its most successful electoral showing was in 2005, when its candidates won eighty-eight seats, or 20 percent of the legislature.

"They care about Islamic law but they don't really know what they mean by that." -- Shadi Hamid, Brookings Institution
"The Ikhwan followed the path of toleration and eventually came to find democracy compatible with its notion of slow Islamization," wrote Middle East experts Robert S. Leiken and Steven Brooke in a 2007 Foreign Affairs article. But they note that many analysts "question whether the Brotherhood's adherence to democracy is merely tactical and transitory--an opportunistic commitment" to electoral politics.
A further sign of the Brotherhood's pragmatic politics (RFE/RL), some experts say, came early in the 2011 protests when the group voiced support for the secular Nobel laureate and former International Atomic Energy Agency chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, as opposition leader. Hamid points to the group's low profile in the protests, too, as signals of the politics of compromise and survival. "They know the world is afraid of the rise of Islamists in Egypt, and they don't want to give the regime a pretext to clamp down on the protestors," he says. He says that "at its core, the Muslim Brotherhood is a pragmatic organization" and to continue its social and charity work with relative freedom of movement, the group studiously avoids all-out confrontation with the Egyptian regime. In March 2007, the Mubarak government amended the constitution to ban political parties based on religion, a move that Washington-based watchdog group Freedom House says ensures "the continued suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood (PDF)."

An Islamic State?
Establishing an Islamic state based on sharia is at the center of the Muslim Brotherhood's ideology, both in Egypt and among the group's many offshoots abroad. But the Brotherhood in Egypt has often said it is committed to gradual and peaceful Islamization and only with the consensus of Egypt's citizens. In recent times, some leaders have dismissed the idea of an Islamic state and expressed commitment to work with other secular and liberal parties. The group's leaders have begun to deemphasize their focus on sharia in recent years but as this Backgrounder notes, there is still great ambiguity in how they would legislate Islam if given the chance. "They care about Islamic law, but they don't really know what they mean by that," says Hamid. There is similar ambiguity in their call for greater human rights, especially with regard to women's rights.
The specter of the 1979 Iranian revolution looms large for many in the West, who fear an Islamist regime in Egypt if the Muslim Brotherhood comes to power. CFR's Steven Cook notes how Mubarak has used the organization as his bogeyman for three decades to "stoke the fears of successive American administrations and, in turn, secure Washington's generous diplomatic, political, and financial support." These concerns rose to the surface again in the West following the 2011 public protests in Egypt to remove Mubarak. Israeli leaders too, feared a replay of 1979. Meanwhile, Iran's clerics and officials hailed these protests, attempting to paint them as a rallying call for Islamism (Guardian) with their origin in Iran's revolution.
Some analysts dismiss these fears (ReligionDispatches), pointing to the differences between a powerful Shia clergy in Iran and a Sunni Muslim Brotherhood. "Sunni Muslims don't have a doctrine of owing implicit obedience to their clergy, and the clergy are not as important in Sunni religious life as the Shiite Ayatollahs are in Iran," writes Juan Cole, a history professor at the University of Michigan. Also, experts point out that the Muslim Brotherhood is hardly the most important religious group in the country. The Quietist Salafist movement and Sufis are part of the main religious groups in the country.
However, CFR's Husain says Egypt going the Iran way is a genuine fear. "Then, secular democrats triggered a revolution only to be brushed aside by fundamentalists. Today, ordinary Egyptians lead demonstrations, but the Brotherhood waits in the background (FT); an indispensable force in national life." He says the United States must begin to engage the Muslim Brotherhood today.

Implications for the United States
Egypt is an important strategic ally of the United States in the region, specifically in the pursuit on an Arab-Israeli peace process. As this 2011 Congressional Research Service report notes, since 1979, Egypt has been the second-largest recipient, after Israel, of U.S. foreign assistance (PDF). For the United States, its most important foreign policy goals in Egypt are: Egypt's peace with Israel, U.S. access to the Suez Canal, and general bilateral military cooperation. And therefore, Washington would like a government in Cairo that is supportive of these goals.

"It would be delusory to take the MB's democratic protestations at face value." -- Leslie Gelb, President Emeritus, CFR
The Muslim Brotherhood's stance on many of these issues makes U.S. concerns regarding the group legitimate, say most analysts. "It does not share America's view on the security architecture in the region, says Hamid, adding "It is strongly anti-Israel . . . and does not support the peace processes." The movement has also said it would hold a referendum on the 1979 Camp David peace accords with Israel if it comes to power.
Leslie Gelb, CFR's president emeritus who has served as a senior official in the U.S. State and Defense Departments, says if the brotherhood rose to power in Egypt, it "would be calamitous for U.S. security (Daily Beast)." He adds: "It would be delusory to take the MB's democratic protestations at face value." Former CIA Officer Bruce Riedel, an expert of Middle East and South Asia, adds: "living with it won't be easy, but it should not be seen as inevitably our enemy." He recommends: "We need not demonize it nor endorse it."
But some analysts point to changing realities on the ground to advocate engagement with the organization. Isolation of the group, some argue, means Washington would lose leverage with any future governments the Brotherhood is a part of. CFR's Husain cautions Washington should neither isolate the group nor strengthen them unwittingly. Engagement, he says, must be based on issues. "Pluralism, human rights, and Israel must therefore be at the heart of talks with Egypt's Islamists."

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Why U.S.-China Relations Will Get Tougher

Should Indians care about America's strategic choices with China? You bet, especially since so many perceived a tilt unfavourable to India during US President Obama's first two years in office.

What a difference two years makes. The US and China are deeply interdependent, with trade in goods reaching a whopping $366 billion in 2009. Yet, a growing number of stakeholders on both sides find that reality deeply disquieting.
Structural changes are afoot that are sure to make the next several years more difficult. Even when the two sides share interests, divergent threat assessments and countervailing interests too often obstruct efforts to fashion complementary policies.
It is instructive, in that light, to take a hard look at President Hu Jintao's just-concluded visit to Washington. The visit cleared the air in some areas while yielding symbolic initiatives in others. Hu received 21 cannon shots on the White House south lawn. And his visit yielded $45 billion in new commercial deals — a striking contrast, perhaps, with the important (but rather less hefty) $10 billion touted during Obama's November visit to India.
Yet the central challenges in US-China relations are increasingly structural. For one, many, both in and out of China's government, want to test what Beijing's growing weight might yield. They are confident of China's growing strength and relish the opportunity to, at minimum, make Washington work harder for China's support of ostensibly shared objectives. Some wish to see whether and how Washington will accommodate a wider array of Chinese interests.
For their part, many in Washington have been chastened by China's choices of the past year. Beijing has proved less accommodating than many in the Obama administration had hoped of US preferences on issues from climate, to the pace of renminbi appreciation, to coordinated action in response to North Korean provocations. There were successes — for example, mutual support for Iran-related sanctions in the United Nations Security Council. But China's deliberate, self-interested approach did not mesh in many areas with American exhortations and expectations.

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Will Pakistan Follow Egypt's Example?


Pakistan may be even more vulnerable than Egypt (The News) to popular discontent, with higher inflation, unemployment, and external debt, much of it exacerbated by the devastating flood of 2010 that crippled an already teetering economy. Many Pakistanis are sympathetic (PressTV) to the anger over corruption, surging food prices, and lack of jobs driving Egypt's protests.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani rules out the likelihood of an uprising such as those in Egypt and Tunisia. "Our institutions are working and democracy is functional," Gilani says (Daily Times).
Huma Yusuf, a Pakistan scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, says it is unlikely Pakistanis will unite against a common cause. "Decades of manipulative politicking under military regimes have fractured civil society (Dawn) and factionalized politics," she writes. "We will always see ourselves through an ethnic, sectarian, or socio-economic lens before we see ourselves as Pakistani." The murder of Pakistan's Governor Salman Taseer by his own security guard in January, and support for Taseer's assassin among many Pakistanis, exposed some of these growing divisions.
Like Egypt, Pakistan is an important strategic partner whose stability matters even more for U.S. national security interests, in neighboring Afghanistan as well as in U.S. efforts to confront al-Qaeda. But U.S.-Pakistan relations have been strained following the detention of a U.S. diplomat on possible murder charges. The Washington Post reports the Obama administration has suspended all high-level dialogue with Pakistan.
Pakistanis did offer an example of people power in 2007, when the country's lawyers spearheaded a popular movement against former military ruler and president Pervez Musharraf. Democracy was finally restored in 2008 following general elections. In this, though, Pakistan may offer a cautionary tale to Egyptians hoping for democracy to improve their lives. The government led by Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardari, like past elected governments, is accused of corruption, political infighting, and failure to strengthen civil institutions or provide basic services.
As in Egypt, where the army remains a dominant institution (FT), Pakistan's army is also the country's most powerful institution, as this Crisis Guide explains. This limits civilian capacity to bring change in Pakistan, say some analysts. In fact, the specter of a military takeover looms large in Pakistan where the army has ruled for half of its history. Ian Bremmer and David Gordon of the Eurasia Group argue in Foreign Policy that "further social and ethnic turmoil in the heart of the country might push the military to argue that urban unrest and terrorism are undermining national unity -- and that political change has become an urgent necessity." However, CFR's Senior Fellow for Pakistan, Daniel Markey, cautions that the "Egypt example reaffirms the fallacy that repressive governments are more capable of bringing stability to countries over the long term, including in Pakistan."

Whether or not Pakistan experiences Egypt-style protests, it will certainly be affected by a rise of Islamism in the Middle East. Pakistan, the world's second-largest Muslim country, has many religious organizations working within the political system and outside it, and both civilian and military governments have allowed religious extremist organizations to flourish in the past, and used them as instruments of state policy. CFR's Isobel Coleman told CNN: "If more democratic political systems do emerge from this unrest, however, expect Islam to play a larger role in government." These kinds of movements have the potential to give confidence to other Islamists, says Markey.
Egypt and Pakistan also have raised questions over U.S. aid policy. Some experts say U.S. development aid policies to Pakistan and Egypt have historically tolerated corruption and human rights violations. David Rieff of the New Republic writes development aid only succeeds when the ruling elite of a country like Egypt or Pakistan creates widespread economic opportunity. In Pakistan's case, the Obama administration has pledged to expand U.S. support to the country from just military cooperation to strengthening Pakistan's democracy and has offered a total of $7.5 billion in economic and civilian aid over five years. But as an official U.S. government assessment notes (WSJ), the civilian aid program has "not been able to demonstrate measurable progress."

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This Week at War: The Pakistan Scenario

This week's battle between pro- and anti-Mubarak supporters for control of Cairo's Tahrir Square only deepened the mystery over where Egypt's latest revolution is headed. Mubarak has promised to step down after presidential elections in September, though it remains to be seen if he'll have to make an exit much sooner than that. What will follow, no one can say. The U.S. government has long granted a generous foreign assistance package to Egypt in order to maintain Mubarak's support for critical interests in the region. Regardless of what form the new, post-Mubarak government takes, the financial price the United States will have to pay to keep Egypt on its side will almost certainly go up.


Whether the next government is authoritarian or representative, the street protests of the past two weeks will force it to do more than Mubarak ever did to reflect popular will. The Mubarak government was as pro-American as U.S. policymakers could reasonably hope for; its successor will almost certainly be less so. Its level of dependence on the United States will start out the same, but its level of antagonism will very likely go up. At the same time the new Egyptian government will also have important leverage over the United States. Since 9/11, Pakistan's leaders have shown how leverage and antagonism can be combined into a money machine financed by the U.S. treasury. Obama and his officials should expect the new Egyptian government, whatever form it takes, to quickly apply the same formula.

According to the Pew Global Attitudes Project, the populations of both Pakistan and Egypt have rock bottom opinions of the U.S. government. With popular will now out on the streets, political leaders in post-Mubarak Egypt will profit from burnishing their anti-American credentials. A less cooperative bilateral relationship with the United States will likely result. As is currently the case with Pakistan, U.S. officials will soon have to deal with counterparts in Cairo who will face a limited ability to cooperate with U.S. objectives due to popular resistance.

In spite of this antagonism, U.S. officials will still have to seek Egyptian government cooperation on critical U.S. interests in the region. These include Egypt's continued support for U.S. military activities in the region, its peace treaty with Israel, its active support of counterterrorism, and its continued adherence to a policy of nuclear non-proliferation.

These policies would seem largely to be in Egypt's interest as well. However, that does not mean that Egypt will agree to deliver on these U.S. interests for free. Pakistan has shown how to combine leverage over the United States and popular anti-American sentiment into a method of extracting ever more foreign assistance from the U.S. government. U.S. policymakers may grumble that the Pakistanis have delivered little on al Qaeda in many years or that it harbors the Afghan Taliban or that it is rapidly expanding its nuclear weapons arsenal. Given the leverage Pakistan has over the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan, it seems that the less Pakistan cooperates, the more foreign assistance it receives from the Washington; according to the State Department, U.S. foreign assistance to Pakistan has gone from $727 million in 2007 to a request of $3.05 billion in 2011. Similarly, Yemen has used its tepid support for U.S. counter-terrorism goals to vault its annual U.S. foreign assistance from $19.4 million in 2008 to a request of $106.6 million this year.

The post-Mubarak government could very well follow Pakistan's lead in combining Egypt's inherent anti-Americanism and the U.S. government's critical interests in the region to form a powerful lever to pry more cash out of the U.S. treasury. Although some may view such payments to "frenemies" as unsavory, most U.S. policymakers likely view them as a bargain when compared to the alternatives. Mubarak's pro-American approach yielded $1.56 billion in assistance this year. With a little bad behavior, the next Egyptian government should be able to do much better than that During an interview he gave just prior to retiring as the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Air Force General Kevin Chilton asserted that if the Pentagon wants to use deterrence to defend its interests in cyberspace, at some point it will need to put on an intimidating display of just how much turmoil it can inflict online. "[I]f we're going to use cybercapabilities to deter, that's going to beg for some demonstration of that capability," Chilton said. "There's no plans for anything that would demonstrate a [cyberattack] capability at this time. But I think, if we're going to think about deterrence, which we do at Stratcom, these are the kinds of challenges for the future for us."

Chilton is no doubt using Cold War nuclear deterrence as a model for dissuading potential cyber adversaries. Images of massive mushroom clouds over the Nevada desert or Bikini Atoll were presumably enough to convince Soviet decision-makers to think long and hard about making potentially provocative moves. But how would the U.S. government actually go about making a similar display of cyberpower? And is Cold War deterrence even the appropriate model of conflict in cyberspace?

The most difficult problem regarding cyberdeterrence is attribution, knowing who the attacker is, where to find him, and what assets he values that are vulnerable to retaliation. Chilton asserted that attribution "is more difficult in this domain but it's not impossible," and that Stratcom is getting better at it. A policy of deterrence through the threat of retaliation won't be credible until Stratcom reliably solves the attribution problem -- attackers won't fear Stratcom cyberretaliation as long as they know that Stratcom can't find them. And until Stratcom finally does solve the problem, a demonstration of offensive cybercapability would be diplomatically damaging and would unnecessarily reveal capabilities that best remain inside an adversary's imagination.

While the Pentagon's computer engineers work on those problems, the government's attorneys have some cyberwork of their own to complete. Writing in the New York Times, Richard Falkenrath, a former deputy commissioner for counterterrorism for the New York Police Department and deputy homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush, says that it is unclear what legal authority a U.S. president has to conduct offensive cyberoperations. Under his commander-in-chief powers, a president presumably has the authority to employ cyberweapons in support of a military campaign against foreign adversaries. But in the cyber world, the U.S. government's offensive cyberoperations may run through or target assets or persons inside the United States. Just as it is highly questionable whether a president has legal authority to order Predator drone strikes inside the United States, according to Falkenrath a president's authority to employ cyberweapons at or through U.S. cyber infrastructure is currently ambiguous and should be resolved with a statute from Congress.

Is Cold War deterrence even the appropriate model of conflict in cyberspace? Rather than looking to the nuclear standoff against the Soviet Union for lessons, a better model might be the Pentagon's more recent experience chasing down anonymous insurgents who hide within the non-combatant civilian population. If cyberadversaries are insurgents who hide among the world's computer servers, as the counterinsurgent, the Pentagon would need to persuade those servers (and their owners) to be on its side of the conflict. Just like counterinsurgency in the physical world, winning that struggle in cyberspace will take diplomacy and a whole-of-government approach

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Introducing The Palestine Papers

Over the last several months, Al Jazeera has been given unhindered access to the largest-ever leak of confidential documents related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are nearly 1,700 files, thousands of pages of diplomatic correspondence detailing the inner workings of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. These documents – memos, e-mails, maps, minutes from private meetings, accounts of high level exchanges, strategy papers and even power point presentations – date from 1999 to 2010.

The material is voluminous and detailed; it provides an unprecedented look inside the continuing negotiations involving high-level American, Israeli, and Palestinian Authority officials.

Al Jazeera will release the documents between January 23-26th, 2011. They will reveal new details about:

•the Palestinian Authority’s willingness to concede illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem, and to be “creative” about the status of the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount;

•the compromises the Palestinian Authority was prepared to make on refugees and the right of return;


•details of the PA’s security cooperation with Israel;


•and private exchanges between Palestinian and American negotiators in late 2009, when the Goldstone Report was being discussed at the United Nations.
Because of the sensitive nature of these documents, Al Jazeera will not reveal the source(s) or detail how they came into our possession. We have taken great care over an extended period of time to assure ourselves of their authenticity.

We believe this material will prove to be of inestimable value to journalists, scholars, historians, policymakers and the general public.

We know that some of what is presented here will prove controversial, but it is our intention to inform, not harm, to spark debate and reflection – not dampen it. Our readers and viewers will note that we have provided a comments section in which to express opinions. In keeping with our editorial policies, we reserve the right to excise comments that we deem inappropriate, but all civil voices will be heard, all opinions respected.(AL JAZERA)

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National Post: Obama’s Carter-esque foreign policy deployed to Egypt


In November, 1979, Richard V. Allen, Ronald Reagan's foreign policy advisor, commended a just-published magazine article to his boss's attention. “What you gave me to read was extraordinary!” Reagan told Allen. “Who is this guy Jeane Kirkpatrick?”
The “guy,” a political science professor at Georgetown University and a Democrat of the muscularly anti-Communist school, went on to become President Reagan's ambassador to the UN.
Jeane Kirkpatrick's influential Commentary magazine article, “Dictatorships and Double Standards,” assessed Jimmy Carter's hypocrisy in foreign affairs, a hypocrisy that led to a betrayal of America's real interests. She viewed Carter as the quintessence of a romantically cosmopolitan mentality that wrongly perceives all change as progress toward a happy ending. Re-reading the article last week, I found that if I substituted the word “Islamism” for “Communism” and “Obama” for “Carter,” much of Kirkpatrick's insightful essay is helpful to understanding the current situation in Egypt.

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What the Muslim Brothers Want


THE Egyptian people have spoken, and we have spoken emphatically. In two weeks of peaceful demonstrations we have persistently demanded liberation and democracy. It was groups of brave, sincere Egyptians who initiated this moment of historical opportunity on Jan. 25, and the Muslim Brotherhood is committed to joining the national effort toward reform and progress.

In more than eight decades of activism, the Muslim Brotherhood has consistently promoted an agenda of gradual reform. Our principles, clearly stated since the inception of the movement in 1928, affirm an unequivocal position against violence. For the past 30 years we have posed, peacefully, the greatest challenge to the ruling National Democratic Party of Hosni Mubarak, while advocating for the disenfranchised classes in resistance to an oppressive regime.

We have repeatedly tried to engage with the political system, yet these efforts have been largely rejected based on the assertion that the Muslim Brotherhood is a banned organization, and has been since 1954. It is seldom mentioned, however, that the Egyptian Administrative Court in June 1992 stated that there was no legal basis for the group’s dissolution.

In the wake of the people’s revolt, we have accepted invitations to participate in talks on a peaceful transition. Along with other representatives of the opposition, we recently took part in exploratory meetings with Vice President Omar Suleiman. In these talks, we made clear that we will not compromise or co-opt the public’s agenda. We come with no special agenda of our own — our agenda is that of the Egyptian people, which has been asserted since the beginning of this uprising.

We aim to achieve reform and rights for all: not just for the Muslim Brotherhood, not just for Muslims, but for all Egyptians. We do not intend to take a dominant role in the forthcoming political transition. We are not putting forward a candidate for the presidential elections scheduled for September.

While we express our openness to dialogue, we also re-assert the public’s demands, which must be met before any serious negotiations leading to a new government. The Mubarak regime has yet to show serious commitment to meeting these demands or to moving toward substantive, guaranteed change.

As our nation heads toward liberty, however, we disagree with the claims that the only options in Egypt are a purely secular, liberal democracy or an authoritarian theocracy. Secular liberal democracy of the American and European variety, with its firm rejection of religion in public life, is not the exclusive model for a legitimate democracy.

In Egypt, religion continues to be an important part of our culture and heritage. Moving forward, we envision the establishment of a democratic, civil state that draws on universal measures of freedom and justice, which are central Islamic values. We embrace democracy not as a foreign concept that must be reconciled with tradition, but as a set of principles and objectives that are inherently compatible with and reinforce Islamic tenets.

The tyranny of autocratic rule must give way to immediate reform: the demonstration of a serious commitment to change, the granting of freedoms to all and the transition toward democracy. The Muslim Brotherhood stands firmly behind the demands of the Egyptian people as a whole.

Steady, gradual reform must begin now, and it must begin on the terms that have been called for by millions of Egyptians over the past weeks. Change does not happen overnight, but the call for change did — and it will lead us to a new beginning rooted in justice and progress

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Egypt's Military-Industrial Complex

ll eyes turned to Egypt's military as protests shook the regime and President Hosni Mubarak's grip on power. Described again and again as the most trusted and stable of the country's institutions, it is, at the same time, one of the most mysterious and veiled. It is also one of the most powerful and untouchable. While the Cabinet and ruling party were revamped, the military portfolio remained the same. Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi remains both Defense Minister and Minister of Military Production, which makes him, in effect, CEO of a vast military-run commercial enterprise that seeps into every corner of Egyptian society.
It's hard to overstate how entrenched the military is. It is universally hailed for its heroism fighting against the colonial British, and later against the Israelis. Virtually all Egyptian families have contributed officers or conscripts to its ranks, which number nearly half a million soldiers in uniform and about the same number in reserves. The military also fields and sponsors several of the country's most popular sports organizations. And, during recent bread riots, it helped mollify angry crowds by ramping up production from its own bakeries.
(See pictures of the confrontation on Tahrir Square.)
But despite the military's predominant role, the Egyptian public knows remarkably little about how the military actually operates. That's because writing about the military has long been off-limits to the press. The secrecy begins with the military budget, which Jane's estimates to be about $5 billion. However, one independent researcher has calculated that actual military expenditures could be four or five times larger. Part of the budget is made up of U.S. military assistance of $1.3 billion annually that provides financing for Egypt's major weapons systems. (The funding must be spent on U.S. goods and services and is therefore effectively a subsidy for U.S. defense contractors.) As for the parliamentary committee responsible for overseeing those expenses, it is stuffed with police and military officers; the prospects for meaningful civilian oversight anytime soon are dim.
Then there is the military's role in the economy. Military factories first sprang up in the 1820s to produce uniforms and small arms. Their role expanded with the state-led economy from the early 1950s and was consolidated when the military needed to place hundreds of thousands soldiers downsized after the peace agreement with Israel. (At that point, the active military had numbered about 900,000.) Now, military-run firms hold strong positions in a wide range of key industries, including food (olive oil, milk, bread and water); cement and gasoline; vehicle production (joint ventures with Jeep to produce Cherokees and Wranglers); and construction, in which it benefits being able to deploy conscripts during their last six months of service. Another source of the military's untold wealth is its hold on one of this densely populated country's most precious commodities: public land, which is increasingly being converted into gated communities and resorts. The military has other advantages: it does not pay taxes and does not have to deal with the bureaucratic red tape that strangles the private sector. (The military's corporate reputation is mixed: one of efficient management but with a Soviet-style focus on meeting production quotas vs. generating profits.)
(See TIME's exclusive pictures of the clashes in Cairo.)
There are widely divergent estimates of the size — and quality — of the military's business empire. Anthony Cordesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies says it is proportionately smaller than that played by the People's Liberation Army in China. He also says it has shrunk in recent years. But Paul Sullivan, a National Defense University professor who has spent years in Egypt, says it is huge, probably accounting for 10% to 15% of Egypt's $210 billion economy.
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The revenue streams from its various holdings help the military maintain the lifestyle its officers have grown accustomed to, including an extensive network of luxurious social clubs as well as comfortable retirements — all of which helps ensure officer loyalty.

This structure of economic power and patronage came under threat from the attempts of Gamal Mubarak, the President's son and heir presumptive, to reform Egypt along lines that skirted the generals. The military was particularly incensed that a key ally of Gamal's, Ahmed Ezz, was able to snap up state-owned steel assets, strengthening his commanding position in the industry. Not only was the military interested in the same firms, but as a major buyer of steel it would be vulnerable to Ezz's ability to impose near monopoly pricing.

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paesh

Egyptian Military's Moment of Truth

Despite the jubilation in Tahrir Square and elsewhere, when Egyptians wake up on Sunday to begin the process of building a political system, they will ponder the same question they have been asking since the armed forces appeared on the streets of Cairo and Alexandria on January 28: What will the army do? To be sure, there is an enormous sense of relief that the senior command finally determined--they had been loyal to a fault--that Hosni Mubarak was a liability whose intransigence threatened to engulf the country in chaos.

Thus far, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi and the Supreme Military Council, which now runs the country, seem to have said all the right things. In the second statement of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the senior command vowed to "lift the state of emergency once the current situation ends; adjudicate electoral challenges and the resulting procedures; introduce necessary legislative amendments; and hold free and fair presidential elections under the agreed constitutional amendments."

That statement tracks rather closely to the commitments Mubarak made in his three previous addresses to the nation. Of course, the military's statement came before Omar Soleiman announced Mubarak's resignation and the dissolution of parliament, and the military has not issued any additional communiqués. But it suggests that while the officers may have finally come to the conclusion that their supreme commander had become a burden, at least initially, the military command seems to support Mubarak's overall approach to returning stability to Egypt. It is uncertain whether Egyptians are willing to accept from the Supreme Military Council what they clearly believed was a Mubarak manipulation.

The Egyptian high command now finds itself in an awkward position. Since the dark days following the shattering June 1967 defeat in the war with Israel, they have remained in the barracks. Field Marshal Tantawi, the chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Sami Enan, and their colleagues now must contend with the unfamiliar and difficult world of Egyptian politics. The opposition has demonstrated enormous staying power and unity, but there is a possibility that these disparate groups will split now that Mubarak has relinquished power. How the military--an organization devoted to stability, order, and the status quo--responds to these challenges will be decisive in shaping Egypt's future trajectory.

American officials should watch carefully how the military approaches the political problem Mubarak left in their collective lap. Will a single military officer rule directly? Will the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces assume a tutelary role? How will they supervise elections? Each of these issues poses potential problems and pitfalls for the officers that could threaten the unity and coherence of the armed forces, which could lead to a non-democratic outcome.

So far, Egyptians have put their faith in the fact that the officer corps watched the extraordinary events of the last two weeks and would not dare undermine the democratic demands of millions of fellow citizens. They may very well be correct that the army can become a democratic force despite serving as the pillar of a non-democratic system for the last sixty years. There is great hope that the political dynamics in Egypt have now changed in such profound ways that it would be impossible for the military to do anything but help midwife Egyptian democracy. Observers can only step back and hope that Egyptians are correct.

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paesh