<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Occupied Palestine | فلسطين]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[occupiedpalestine]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/author/hajarhajar/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[ei: The danger to Egypt&#8217;s revolution comes from&nbsp;Washington]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p><span class="text14">Ali Abunimah, <em>The Electronic Intifada,</em> 6 February 2011</p>
<p><span class="content"> </span></span></p>
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<td><span class="text11">Protesters stand in front of grafitti calling on the US government to stay out of Egypt&#8217;s affairs, 2 February. (<a href="http://www.justimage.org/">Matthew Cassel</a>) </span></td>
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<p><span class="text14"><span class="content"><br />
The greatest danger to the Egyptian revolution and the prospects for a  free and independent Egypt emanates not from the &#8220;baltagiyya&#8221; &#8212; the  mercenaries and thugs the regime sent to beat, stone, stab, shoot and  kill protestors in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities last week &#8212; but  from Washington.</p>
<p>Ever since the Egyptian uprising began on 25 January, the United States  government and the Washington establishment that rationalizes its  policies have been scared to death of &#8220;losing Egypt.&#8221; What they fear  losing is a regime that has consistently ignored the rights and  well-being of its people in order to plunder the country and enrich the  few who control it, and that has done America&#8217;s bidding, especially  supporting Israel in its oppression and wars against the Palestinians  and other Arabs.</p>
<p>The Obama Administration quickly dissociated itself from its envoy to  Egypt, Frank Wisner, after the latter candidly told the BBC on 5  February that he thought President Hosni Mubarak &#8220;must stay in office in  order to steer&#8221; any transition to a post-Mubarak order (&#8220;<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12374687">US special envoy: &#8216;Mubarak must stay for now&#8217;</a>,&#8221; 5 February 2011).</p>
<p>But one suspects that Wisner was inadvertently speaking in his master&#8217;s  voice. US President Barack Obama and his national security establishment  may be willing to give up Mubarak the person, but they are not willing  to give up Mubarak&#8217;s regime. It is notable that the US has never  supported the Egyptian protestors demand that Mubarak must go now. Nor  has the United States suspended its $1.5 billion annual aid package to  Egypt, much of which goes to the state security forces that are  oppressing protestors and beating up and arresting journalists.</p>
<p>As <em>The New York Times</em> &#8212; always a reliable barometer of  official thinking &#8212; reported, &#8220;The United States and leading European  nations on Saturday threw their weight behind Egypt&#8217;s vice president,  Omar Suleiman, backing his attempt to defuse a popular uprising without  immediately removing President Hosni Mubarak from power.&#8221; Obama  administration officials, the newspaper added, &#8220;said Mr. Suleiman had  promised them an &#8216;orderly transition&#8217; that would include constitutional  reform and outreach to opposition groups&#8221; (&#8220;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world/middleeast/06egypt.html">West Backs Gradual Egyptian Transition</a>,&#8221; 5 February 2011).</p>
<p>Moreoever, the <em>Times</em> reported, the United States has already  managed to persuade two of its major European clients &#8212; the United  Kingdom and Germany &#8212; to back continuing the existing regime with only a  change of figurehead.</p>
<p>Suleiman, long the powerful chief of Egypt&#8217;s intelligence services, has  served &#8212; perhaps even more so than Mubarak &#8212; as the guarantor of  Egypt&#8217;s regional role in maintaining the American- and Israeli-dominated  order. As author Jane Mayer has documented, Suleiman played a key role  in the US &#8220;rendition&#8221; program, working closely with the CIA which  kidnapped &#8220;terror suspects&#8221; from around the world and delivered them  into Suleiman&#8217;s hands for interrogation, and almost certainly torture (&#8220;<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/01/who-is-omar-suleiman.html">Who is Omar Suleiman?</a>,&#8221; <em>The New Yorker,</em> 29 January 2011).</p>
<p>High praise for Suleiman&#8217;s work has also come from top Israeli military  brass. &#8220;I always believed in the abilities of the Egyptian Intelligence  service [GIS],&#8221; Israeli General Amos Gilad told American, Palestinian  Authority and Egyptian officials during <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11756.shtml">a secret April 2007 meeting</a> whose leaked minutes were recently released by Al Jazeera as part of  the Palestine Papers. &#8220;It keeps order and security among 70 millions &#8212;  20 millions in one city [a reference to the population of Egypt,  actually closer to 83 million, and to Cairo] &#8212; this is a great  achievement, for which you deserve a medal. It is the best asset for the  Middle East,&#8221; Gilad said.</p>
<p>The notion that anyone, let alone US officials, could believe that  Suleiman would lead an &#8220;orderly transition&#8221; to democracy would be  laughable if it were not so sinister. Much more likely, the strategy is  to try to ride out the protests and wear out and split the opposition,  consolidate the regime under Suleiman&#8217;s ruthless grip with the backing  of the Egyptian army, and then enact cosmetic &#8220;reforms&#8221; to keep the  Egyptian people politically divided and busy while business carries on  as usual. Under any Suleiman &#8220;transition&#8221; political activists,  journalists and anyone suspected of being part of the current uprising  would be in grave danger.</p>
<p>From the American perspective, the strategy can be likened to what  happened in the summer of 2008 when the house-of-cards international  financial system started to collapse. Think of the Tunisian regime of  deposed dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali as the investment bank Lehman  Brothers. When a run on the bank began, the United States government  refused to provide it with financial guarantees to bail it out, and it  quickly went bankrupt.</p>
<p>But when the panic spread and even larger &#8220;too big to fail&#8221; financial  firms including massive insurance company AIG began to see their  positions suddenly deteriorate, the United States government stepped in  to bail them out with hundreds of billions of dollars.</p>
<p>The Egyptian regime is the AIG of the region and what we are seeing now  is an American attempt to bail it out. If Egypt goes under, the United  States fears that the contagion would spread as Arab publics realize  that the US-backed despots who rule them can be replaced, and that the  toppling of these regimes whose only promise to their people has been  &#8220;security&#8221; is not the end of the world but the start of renewal.</p>
<p>Of course, no analogy is exact. Whereas, allowing Lehman Brothers to  collapse was a calculated decision, the United States did not see the  revolution in Tunisia, or the uprising in Egypt coming. &#8220;Our assessment  is that the Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways to  respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people,&#8221;  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton infamously declared on 25 January,  the day the anti-regime protests broke out (&#8220;<a href="http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE70O0KF20110125">US urges restraint in Egypt, says government stable</a>,&#8221; Reuters, 25 January 2011).</p>
<p>Clinton&#8217;s cluelessness is reminiscent of her predecessor Condoleezza  Rice&#8217;s famous words (&#8220;didn&#8217;t see it coming&#8221;) in relation to Hamas&#8217;  victory in Palestinian legislative council elections in 2006.</p>
<p>According to <em>The New York Times</em>, Obama himself is unhappy with US intelligence failures in the Arab world (&#8220;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/world/middleeast/05cia.html?hp">Obama Faults Spy Agencies&#8217; Performance in Gauging Mideast Unrest, Officials Say</a>,&#8221; 4 February 2011). For close watchers of the United States, this obliviousness is no mystery.</p>
<p>As Helena Cobban has observed, the Israel Lobby, &#8220;AIPAC and its attack  dogs,&#8221; have conducted such a thorough &#8220;witch-hunt&#8221; over the past quarter  century &#8220;against anyone with real Middle East expertise that the US  government now contains no-one at the higher (or even mid-career) levels  of policymaking who has any in-depth understanding of the region or of  the aspirations of its people&#8221; (&#8220;<a href="http://justworldnews.org/archives/004137.html">Obama&#8217;s know-nothings discuss Egypt</a>,&#8221; 28 January 2011).</p>
<p>But it is even worse than that. The US &#8220;policy&#8221; establishment seems only  capable of viewing the region through Israeli eyes. This is why for so  many officials and commentators the concerns of Israel to maintain a  brutal hegemony trump the aspirations of 83 million Egyptians to  determine their own future free from the shackles of the regime that has  oppressed them for so long.</p>
<p>And different futures are possible. On the minds of many observers is  the &#8220;Turkish model&#8221; of constitutional democracy, economic resurgence and  foreign policy independence, all under the rule of a &#8220;moderate&#8221;  Islamist party. Turkey, once closely in the orbit of the United States,  started to break out with its refusal to allow the US to use the  country&#8217;s bases for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.</p>
<p>In recent years, Turkey has developed a deliberate &#8220;360 degree&#8221; foreign  policy doctrine which includes maintaining relations with Europe and the  United States, while restoring close ties with all its neighbors among  them Iran and Arab countries, and assuming a greater regional mediating  role. Since 2009, Turkey&#8217;s once close alliance with Israel has  deteriorated sharply, even though ties have not been cut. These shifts,  along with its ubiquitous consumer and cultural products have given  Turkey enormous regional influence and appeal.</p>
<p>Turkey has its own specific history and is no more perfect than any  other country. But the bigger point is that subservience to the United  States and Israel is not Egypt&#8217;s only option. The worst case scenario  from the American viewpoint is to have three major regional powers,  Iran, Turkey and Egypt, that are not under Washington&#8217;s control.</p>
<p>Of course Turkey is carving out its own path and Egyptians are  struggling to go their own way which may be very different. There&#8217;s no  reason either to believe that Egypt would become &#8220;another Iran&#8221; as  ceaseless Israeli propaganda suggests. But given a free choice, Egypt is  not likely serve the &#8220;interests&#8221; of the United States and Israel the  way the Mubarak regime has.</p>
<p>One example is that Egypt might dispense with US aid and still come out  ahead by simply selling its natural gas on international markets <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10710.shtml">rather than to Israel at what is reported to be a deep discount</a>.  Another is that a truly independent Egypt would eschew serving as  Israel&#8217;s proxy in enforcing the criminal siege of Gaza and stoking  intra-Palestinian divisions.</p>
<p>By coming to the streets in their millions, by sacrifing the lives of  some of their very finest, the Egyptian people have said that they and  they alone want to decide their nation&#8217;s future. Mubarak as a person is  already irrelevant. The confrontation is now between the Egyptian  people&#8217;s desire for democracy and self-determination on the one hand,  and, on the other, US insistence (along with its clients in Egypt and  the region) on continuing the old regime. Let us offer whatever  solidarity we can from wherever we are to help the Egyptian people to  win.</p>
<p><em>Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, author of <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/store/548.shtml">One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse</a> and is a contributor to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1568586418/theelectronic-20">The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict</a> (Nation Books).</em></p>
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