www.jewishworldreview.com
03 June '11
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0611/glick060311.php3
What the West's intoxication with the myth of the Arab spring has already sprung
The coverage of recent events in Egypt is further proof that Western elites cannot see the forest for the trees. Over the past week, leading newspapers have devoted relatively in-depth coverage to the Egyptian military authorities' repressive actions in subduing protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo, particularly during their large protest last Friday.
That is, they have provided in-depth coverage of one spent force repressing another spent force. Neither the military nor the protesters are calling the shots anymore in Egypt, if they ever were. That is the job of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The proximate cause of last Friday's mass demonstration was what the so-called Twitter and Facebook revolutionaries consider the military's slowness to respond to their demand for ousted President Hosni Mubarak's head on a platter. The military responded by announcing that Mubarak and his sons will go on trial for capital crimes on August 3.
Beyond bloodlust, the supposedly liberal, young sweethearts of the Western media are demanding a cancellation of the results of the referendum held in March on the sequencing of elections and constitutional reform. Voting in that referendum was widely assessed as the freest vote in Egyptian history. Seventy-seven percent of the public voted to hold parliamentary and presidential elections in September and to appoint members of a constitutional assembly from among the elected members of the next parliament to prepare Egypt's new constitution.
The protesters rightly assert that the early elections will pave the way for the Muslim Brotherhood's takeover of Egypt since the Brotherhood is the only well-organized political force in Egypt. But then, the liberals said they wanted popular rule.
The Facebook protesters demanded Mubarak's immediate removal from power in January. They would not negotiate Mubarak's offer to use the remainder of his final term to shepherd Egypt towards a quasi-democratic process that might have prevented the Brotherhood from taking over.
In their fantasy world — which they inhabit with Western intellectuals — the fates of nations are determined by the number of "likes" on your facebook page. And so, when they had the power to avert the democratic Islamist takeover of their country in January, they squandered it.
Now, when it is too late, they are trying to win through rioting what they failed to win at the ballot box, thus discrediting their protestations of liberal values. Their new idea was spelled out last week at an EU-sponsored conference in Cairo. According to the Egyptian media, they hope to convince the military they protest against to stack the deck for the constitutional assembly in a way that prevents the Brotherhood from controlling the proceedings. As Hishan El-Bastawisy, a former appellate judge and presidential hopeful explained, "What we can push for now is that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has to put some guarantees of choosing the constituent assembly in the sense that it does not reflect the parliamentary majority."
So much for Egypt's liberal democrats.
As for the military, its actions to date make clear that its commanders do not see themselves as guardians of secular rule in Egypt. Instead, they see themselves as engines for a transition from Mubarak's authoritarian secularism to the Brotherhood's populist Islamism.
Since forcing Mubarak to resign, the military junta has embraced Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. They engineered the Palestinian unity government which will pave the way for Hamas's victory in the Palestinian Authority's legislative and presidential elections scheduled for the fall.
Then there is the Sinai. Since the revolution, the military has allowed the Sinai to become a major base not only for Hamas but for the global jihad. As Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned on Monday, Egyptian authorities are not asserting their sovereignty in the Sinai and jihadists from Hamas, al Qaida and other groups are inundating the peninsula.
Last week's move to open Egypt's border with Gaza at the Rafah passage is further proof that the military has made its peace with the Islamic takeover of Egypt. While the likes of the New York Times make light of the significance of the move by pointing to the restrictions that Egypt has placed on Palestinian travel, the fact is that the Egyptians just accepted Hamas's sovereignty over an international border.
Many in the West argue that given Egypt's increasingly dire economic situation, there is no way the military will turn its back on the US and Europe. By all accounts, Egypt is facing economic collapse. By summer's end it will be unable to feed its population due to grain shortages. By November, its foreign reserves will have dried up.
But rather than do everything they can to convince foreign investors and governments that Egypt's market is safe, the military junta is taking steps that destroy the credibility of the Egyptian market. To please both the Mubarak-obsessed protesters at Tahrir Square and the Muslim Brotherhood, the military refuses to reinstate natural gas shipments to Israel.
Not only is Egypt denying itself hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues by cutting off gas shipments to Israel, (and Jordan, Syria and Lebanon). It is destroying its reputation as a credible place to do business. And according to the New York Times, it is also making it impossible for the Obama administration to assist the Egyptian economy.
The Times' reported this week that the US tied President Barack Obama's pledge of $1 billion in debt forgiveness and $1 billion in loan guarantees to the Egyptian authorities asserting sovereignty in northern Sinai. Presumably this means they must renew gas shipments to Israel and fight terror.
The fact that the military would rather facilitate Egypt's economic collapse than take the unpopular step of renewing gas shipments to Israel ought to end any thought that that economic interests trump political sentiments. This situation will only get worse when the Muslim Brotherhood takes over Egypt in September.
And make no mistake. They intend to take over. As they did in the lead up to March's constitutional referendum, the Brotherhood is using its mosques as campaign offices. The message is clear: If you are a good Muslim you will vote for the Muslim Brotherhood.
When Mubarak was first overthrown in January, the Brotherhood announced it would only contest thirty percent of the parliamentary seats. Last month the percent rose to fifty. In all likelihood, in September the Brotherhood will contest and win the majority of the seats in the Egyptian parliament.
When Mubarak was overthrown, the Brotherhood announced it would not run a candidate for president. And when Brotherhood Shura governing council member and Physician's Union leader Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh announced last month that he is running for president, the Brotherhood quickly denied that he is the movement's candidate. But there is no reason to believe them.
According to a report Thursday in Egypt's Al Masry al Youm's English edition, the Brotherhood is playing to win. They are invoking the strategies of the movement's founder Hassan al Banna for establishing an Islamic state. His strategy had three stages: indoctrination, empowerment, and implementation. Al Youm cites Khairat al-Shater, the Brotherhood's "organizational architect" as having recently asserted that the Brotherhood is currently in the second stage and moving steadily towards the third stage.
Now that we understand that they are about to implement their goal of Islamic statehood, we need to ask what it means for Egypt and the region.
Sunday Brotherhood Chairman Mohammed Badie gave an interview to Egyptian television that was posted on the Muslim Brotherhood's English website iquwanweb.com. Badie's statements indicated that the Brotherhood will end any thought of democracy in Egypt by taking control over the media. Badie said that the Brotherhood is about to launch a public news channel, "with commitment to the ethics of the society and the rules of the Islamic faith."
He also demanded that state radio and television begin broadcasting recordings of Banna's speeches and sermons. Finally, he complained about the anti-Brotherhood hostility of most private media organs in Egypt.
As for Israel, Badie was asked how a Brotherhood-led Egypt would react if Israel takes military action against Hamas. His response was honest enough. As he put it, "The situation will change in such a case, and the Egyptian people will have their voice heard. Any government in power will have to respect the choice of the people, whatever that is, like in any democracy."
In other words, the peace between Israel and Egypt will die of populist causes.
So far, Israel's responses to these strategically disastrous developments have been muted and insufficient. Wednesday the Defense Ministry announced that Israel is speeding up construction of the border fence between Egypt and Israel. The 210 km long fence is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2012.
While this is an important move given Gaza's effective fusion into the Sinai with the border opening, it does not address the looming threat from Egypt itself. It does not address the fact that with Mubarak's ouster, a previously all-but unthinkable outbreak of hostilities with Egypt has now become eminently thinkable.
Facing the prospect of a Muslim Brotherhood ruled Egypt in September, Israel's government must begin preparing both diplomatically and militarily for a new confrontation with Egypt.
The West's intoxication with the myth of the Arab spring means that currently, the political winds are siding with Egypt. If Egypt were to start a war with Israel, or simply support Hamas in a war against Israel, at a minimum, Cairo would enjoy the same treatment from Europe and the US that the Hizbullah-dominated Lebanese government and army enjoyed in 2006. To block this possibility, the government must begin educating opinion shapers and political leaders in the West about the nature of the Muslim Brotherhood It must also call for a cut-off of US military aid to Egypt.
Militarily, the government must increase the size of the IDF's Southern Command. The Egyptian armed forces have more than a million men under arms. Egypt's arsenal includes everything from F-16s to Abrams tanks to first class naval ships to ballistic missiles to sophisticated pontoon bridges for crossing the Suez Canal.
The IDF must expand its draft rolls and increase its force size by at least one division. It must also begin training in desert warfare and develop and purchase appropriate conventional platforms.
With the Iranians now apparently moving from developing nuclear capabilities to developing nuclear warheads, and with the Palestinians escalating their political war and planning their next terror war against Israel, it serves to reason that no in the government or the IDF one wants to consider the strategic implications of Egypt's reversion from peace partner to enemy.
But Israel doesn't get to decide what our neighbors do. We can only take the necessary steps to minimize their ability to harm us.
It's time to get cracking.
JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post, where her column appears.
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