Egypt is not Iran

Some pundits are comparing the situation in Egypt to the dilemma faced by President Carter when Iranians suddenly brought down the Shah in a revolt that virtually no one saw coming.   At that time there was pressure on President Carter to support the Shah, even though the protesters wanted freedom and democracy, not oppressive dictatorship.

Iran, however, was a pillar ally to the US in the region.  Bordering the Soviet Union, it was the regional power, receiving massive amounts of US military aid.  It protected Persian Gulf oil from the Soviets or anyone else who might want to control or disrupt the oil fields.  Iran is not Arab, and though Islam is the primary religion, the Shah was anti-religious, thinking only the weak minded needed such a crutch.   As such he brutally put down religious extremists, and was a good friend to Israel.   Losing Iran meant that suddenly Persian gulf oil was vulnerable and the regional powerhouse upon which US Mideast foreign policy depended became a potential adversary.

We know what happened next.  The Shah fell, and the Ayatollah Khomeini, the most prominent face of the opposition, became leader.    The Iranians stormed the US embassy and took the Americans there hostage.   Khomeini used anti-Americanism to grip power even tighter (one of the first things the Obama Administration did when Egypt fell into disarray is to greatly reinforce security at the US embassy in Egypt).   In 1980 Iraq under Saddam Hussein invaded Iran, and that sealed the deal.   The religious fundamentalist government could say “you may disagree with us, but we have to come together to defeat the Arab invaders.”  In the eight years that war went in, the clerics coalesced power and shaped what we now know as the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In Egypt there is another foreign policy priority at stake: Mideast peace.   When Israel was formed in 1948 the Arab peoples were angry.  They didn’t mind Jews living there, but they didn’t want what they considered to be Arab land taken and turned into a Jewish state.  Four wars and 25 years later Israel had expanded its borders, and was occupying the West Bank (formerly controlled by Jordan), Gaza and the Sinai pennisula (formerly held by Egypt).  At that point Egyptian President Anwar Sadat decided that just or not, Israel existed and that fact could not be overturned with military power.  Rather than to condemn young people to continual (and pointless) war he made a deal: peace for land.  Egypt got the Sinai back, Israel promised to work on a deal for the West Bank and Gaza, and Egypt formally recognized Israel and became an ally.

Since Egypt was the dominant Arab military, this made another Arab-Israeli war impossible, ending that cycle of wars.  Israel couldn’t annex the occupied territories because that would give Arabs a majority in the Jewish state — they could vote it out of existence.  But they haven’t been able to figure out what to do, and the situation has festered for nearly 45 years.

The alliance with Egypt took pressure off Israel to make a deal over the West Bank and Gaza.  In the ensuing years frustration at being occupied and denied basic rights turned into anger, hate and violence.    Groups like Hamas formed against the corruption in the Palestinian authority, and neighboring Syria joined with Iran to back the Lebanese group Hezbollah, creating new dangers for the Israeli state.   Suicide bombers terrorized Israelis, as Palestinians lashed out against their occupation.  But as long as Egypt and Israel are allies, total war is impossible.   For 35 years Israel and Egypt have gotten the lion’s share of US foreign aid, most of it military.  This year’s share for Egypt is $1.5 billion.

As was the case with Iran, there is an Islamic fundamentalist opposition in Egypt.   In Egypt it is Islamic Brotherhood.   Started in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, it sought to promote the creation of a pure Islamic state.   Islam was not a strong political force in the early days.   Egypt’s first President, Abdul Nasser, came to power by joining other military officers in overthrowing King Faruk in 1952.  He espoused a kind of Arab Socialism, a non-Marxist non-aligned ideal of promoting Arab values.   He died in 1970, and replaced by Anwar Sadat.  Sadat was assassinated by an Islamic extremist in 1981 because of his deal with Israel.  Hosni Mubarak has been in power ever since.

Most foreign policy elite are used to the Egypt of Sadat and the early days of Mubarak.   Egypt’s government allows people to live relatively free lives and do business as long as they do not threaten political instability.   The Muslim Brotherhood was banned (though some members do run as independents and get into the parliament).    Most citizens were satisfied that elections were being held, and though dominated by the ruling National Democratic Party, some opposition was allowed.   But in the last election, in 2005, the NDP got 80% of the votes and Mubarak near 90%.   Effective opposition is not allowed.

The demographic trends I talked about two weeks ago conspire with the increasing ease of gaining information and organizing opposition to make this Egypt very different than the one foreign policy elites are accustomed to.  This is a new generation, a new century.  They are not satisfied with relative stability, and given rising food costs and increasing poverty (in part because of the population growth), there is a desire for change that goes far beyond groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.  Mubarak’s government — like those in much of the rest of the Arab world — has become obsolete.   Obsolete governments can hang on, sometimes for quite awhile, but sooner or later reality gets to them.   Trying to maintain the status quo by helping Mubarak will at best succeed for only a short time.

Yet the idea that Muslim Brotherhood will come to power like the clerics in Iran and set up a radical Islamic state is not a probable outcome.  Egyptians do not want to be like Iran, or like Saudi Arabia, and there is no reason to expect that the Muslim Brotherhood can do there what the Ayatollahs did in Iran.   Sunni Islam has a different sense of politics than does Shi’ite (Egyptians are Sunni, the Iranians are Shi’ite), and the Muslim Brotherhood does not provide the ‘face  of the opposition’ by Khomeini did.  Indeed, the protesters are mostly unaligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.  Moreover, Iran has oil, it had the resources to be more independent.   Any new government in Egypt has to deal with the problems of poverty and economic weakness.   The US and the EU will be in a position to make deals that the Egyptians cannot simply reject.

If one reads the alarmists, something which I labeled in my last post a “worst case scenario” gets put forth as if it’s likely.   War will break out, oil prices will skyrocket, a new Islamic state will emerge and further radicalize the Arab world!  Perhaps, but not likely.   Those who want to fear Islam see the worst case scenario as more likely than it is, just as those who yearn for change in Egypt see the best case scenario as more likely than it is.

Egypt is not Iran.   History has yet to be written.  The US can’t shape events, but how we and our allies react to them will help guide the trajectory of history.  So far the Obama administration has done the right things and adopted the right tone — President George H.W. Bush’s former Secretary of State James Baker made that point publicly.   The test, however, is yet to come.  As protesters and “pro-Mubarak thugs” fight it out in Tahir square, the diplomats have to get ready to be creative and innovative as they move into uncharted territory.  That’s probably something they’ll need to get used to.

What Next in the Mideast?

We still don’t know where the protest movement in Egypt will go.   Word is that the Obama Administration doesn’t think Mubarak can last, but also doesn’t want American fingerprints on the transition.   They are taking a wait and see approach, as is the world.   People are drawing comparisons to the Iranian revolution in 1979, and some say that the US should take a stand to support Mubarak or Obama will have “lost Egypt.”

This is no longer the 20th Century.   The idea that the US can prop up dictatorships and treat third world states as pawns in power political games is obsolete.    That simply won’t work.    As I noted last week, demographics and the information revolution make change in the Arab world inevitable. So what if this is a start of a great transformation in the Mideast, the start of a process of modernization that at some point could yield democratic, modern societies?  How will this unfold?

Alas, just as the US can’t simply prop up Mubarak and hold back the change, neither can the US or anyone wave a magic wand and dictate that Egyptians will peacefully go to the polls and vote in a reasonable moderate government.   Forces of Islamic extremism, secular modernism, moderate Islam and democratic human rights advocacy co-exist.  They may unite against Mubarak, but will fight with each other.

Moreover, if Egypt is a canary in a coal mine, the first of the authoritarian post-Ottoman states to throw off the shackles of an oppressive government (Iran was never part of the Ottoman Empire), what will happen if this spreads?  Already Jordan and Yemen have growing protests, while tensions exist in Saudi Arabia.   The Saudis’ oil money can buy them support Mubarak could not afford, but no government will likely last.   Much as Communism fell virtually overnight in Eastern Europe, change may come more swiftly than people realize in the Arab world.  What will it be like?

If Europe’s modernization process is any guide, it may be very messy.    To be sure, the Europeans modernized at their own pace, with no one ahead of them either pushing them faster than they wanted to go, or showing them the way with aid and advice.   The Arab world is modernizing in a global interdependent system which itself is undergoing transition.  When Europe modernized there was blowback.  The Church fought capitalism and modernism, ideologies like communism and fascism emerged to offer new threats.   There were civil wars, holocausts, purges and ultimately two world wars engulfing Europe, taking countless millions of lives, before the Europeans found something that works — a stable cooperative economic and political arrangement known as the ‘European Union.’

A new political culture needs to emerge; a new set of norms, understandings and shared values upon which a stable political system can be built.   There is no “right” political system or government, only ones which work because the underlying culture fosters values that promote stability.   To build that from an authoritarian state where dissent is violently repressed is very difficult and usually follows a rocky path.

This opens the real possibility that this wave of protest could unleash a war against Israel fought not by Arab armies easily defeated by the IDF, but rather waves of terrorism and fighting by young people — again, the population of the Arab world is almost half under 23 and the population keeps growing.    One can imagine Iran challenging the Arab world and a potential war between the Arabs and the Persians, this time with Iraq as a battleground (and host to a civil war).

A best case scenario would be for Egypt to model a kind of “government of national unity” that would forge compromises between the various groups.   Moderate elements of the Muslim Brotherhood would need to have considerable influence to make that happen, though there is evidence that even Muslim fundamentalists are dubious of the violence and desire for conflict against the West that drives groups like al qaeda.   In a “best case” scenario, Egypt’s turmoil convinces other states to proactively reform, trading power for a comfortable future (no violent overthrow, but instead protection of wealth in exchange for giving up power).

The US and the West walk a tightrope.   Intervention and support for dictators makes it more likely the extremists can exercise influence by playing the anti-Americanism card.   If the West is generally supportive and non-interventionist, letting events work themselves out as they will, a quiet role of helping create stability could be played.  This would be at the invitation of Arab governments, not through a forceful desire to create “regime change.”

If it weren’t for two issues — Israel and oil — the West could probably just sit this out and let that region change on its own.  The Israelis were shocked by the 2006 war with Hezbollah.  Hezbollah’s continuing strength in Lebanon along with the possibility of a resurgent, nuclear Iran, has already unnerved the Israelis.  The possibility that their Egyptian ally could totter likely brings them close to panic.   The good news is that confronted with the possibility of all out war with a nuclear Israel, the Muslim Brotherhood, which contains moderate elements, might join Hamas to hammer out a peace deal with Israel.  The logic of this view rests with the fact that right now Israel has no reason to truly compromise, they are in a position of relative strength.  If that changes, then perhaps Israel will be forced to compromise in ways that can lead to an effective solution.

Another possibility is all out war — with Israel’s survival in doubt.  When these changes sweep the Arab world, something will give in the Israeli-Arab conflict.  Either there will be war, perhaps involving nuclear weapons and the end of the Israeli state, or there could be a move towards peace.    It’s impossible to accurately set the odds for either outcome.  If there is war, then oil supplies will likely suffer dramatic cuts.  Even if there is some turmoil in Saudi Arabia oil prices will rise.   This could usher in another recessionary wave, perhaps bad enough to push the global economy into clear depression.

So the stakes are high, yet the US is not and can not control how things develop.   We are in a position of having to react.   Iraq taught us the limits of our military power, Iran in 1979 showed the impact of being too closely associated with the former dictator, and though President Obama has restored some prestige to the US in that part of the world, we are mostly spectators in this historical transformation of the Mideast.

And what if Mubarak pulls through, and the protests die out?   That will mean that the leaders in the Mideast have been served notice — there is a storm brewing below them if they don’t make clear and consequential changes.   I get the sense that something big is starting, something that will shift the course of history in ways we cannot yet know.