Egypt: Civil War May Be in the Offing

Events in Egypt have begun to spiral out of the control of the government or any political party.  On Wednesday, military units clearing out the demonstrators who were sitting in to protest Mr Morsi’s removal as president killed at least 638 people and possibly over a thousand.  Most of these killings were probably unnecessary but the intensity of the demonstrator’s resistance to being removed has not been described.  It is quite likely that the Islamists sitting in tried to provoke lethal violence against themselves by the military.  Whether that involved the use of firearms (technically illegal in Egypt) or simply physical resistance is unknown, but it is likely that the Islamists obtained whatever firearms they were able to lay their hands on.

Trying to resist a fully armed military unit with a few civilian small arms sounds like a suicidal proposition, and that is exactly what it was.  According to Islamic belief, if one is killed fighting in a “jihad” (“holy war”) one immediately goes to Heaven.  Whether a man receives the services of seventy two virgins is controversial and probably an inaccurate translation; it is not recorded what rewards a woman is to receive on ascent to Heaven.

Therefore, the followers, foot soldiers, of the Islamic Brotherhood, are committed to a suicidal policy while their leaders are relatively safe in prison.  The leaders will benefit greatly from the deaths of their followers.  It is an open question whether the massacre will cause the general population of Egypt, the non-Islamists, to turn on the military government.  I think it is unlikely that many other than Mohamed el-Baradei will desert the military.

I am proud of Mr el-Baradei for his resignation from the post of vice president that he had been appointed to less than two weeks ago.  He said, essentially, “Violence only begets more violence” and he could no longer support the military if they engaged in deliberate violence.

Unfortunately, his resignation will have no effect on the situation because the military will now be forced to defend itself against an all-out assault by the Muslim Brotherhood, including propaganda, street violence, and attacks against defenceless minorities like the Coptic Christians.  Many Coptic churches have already been burned in the last few days.  What relationship the Coptics have with the military is completely conjectural; the only possible connection is that the Coptics are members of those minorities that a good government, democratic or otherwise, must protect if it is to maintain legitimacy in the eyes of the world.

Coptic Christians have been blamed for the military coup by Islamists but they had nothing to do with it; their only real offence was in not condemning the coup strongly enough to suit the Islamists.  Coptics have been refugees from Egypt for many years; it is likely that even more will emigrate soon, and most will come to the US.

Those remaining in Egypt will become more and more polarized as the Islamists display their fanaticism and the military displays its ability to kill civilians wholesale.  It is difficult to support the present government of Egypt since the massacre, but it is impossible to support the Islamists.  Neither party has displayed democratic inclinations recently.

The Islamists have refused to negotiate at all; their initial demand to come to the table is the reinstallation of Mr Morsi as president, a completely impossible proposition.  If one truly is interested in negotiation, it is impermissible to make demands before sitting down at the table.  The Palestinians until recently have displayed a similar intransigence, refusing to sit down at the negotiating table until all settlement activity has been stopped.  Years have been wasted, with consequent increase in the advantages of the Israelis, who have been building settlements all along and “changing the facts on the ground.”

If the Palestinians were half smart, they would at least sit down at the negotiating table without any preconditions.  The Israelis have offered to negotiate without preconditions, and their recent release of some Palestinian prisoners seems to have helped.  Unfortunately, the settlement activity that the Palestinians want stopped is not completely under the Israeli government’s control; fanatical Zionists have been building illegal settlements and defending them with similar tactics as the Islamists in Cairo.

Ultimately, however, Egypt’s problems are based on their population growth over the last hundred years.  They do not have enough good land to feed themselves, and locally grown wheat is of such poor quality that it has to be mixed with imported wheat to make an edible bread.  Currently, Egypt is bursting with young, educated professionals who cannot find a job.  There just are not enough jobs for the people because the economy is so distorted.

Egypt’s economy was dependent on tourism, but that has collapsed since President Mubarak was deposed.  Tourism will not recover until the civil unrest is over, and that appears to be unlikely over the next two or three years.  Currently, Egypt’s economy is being propped up by donations from other countries, mainly Saudi Arabia and a couple of other rich Sunni Arab states.  The European Union will likely withdraw its aid and Denmark has already done so; fortunately, this aid is mostly symbolic.  The United States is under pressure to suspend aid but we are not the major donor by far; our 1.3 billion a year pales in comparison to Saudi Arabia’s recent offer of eight billion.

Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries who know they have a vested interest in the stability of Egypt.  It is critical to the Saudis to relieve unrest wherever it pops up in the Middle East because unrest breeds jihadis who threaten to attack the Saudi government.  The Saudi government, although it is a highly conservative (Wahabbi) Islamist state, cannot tolerate any significant jihadi activity because it always turns against them.  In addition, the Saudis have a strong interest in supporting the United States, one of its best oil customers.

Unfortunately, the size of the Saudi offer to support Egypt’s government is a reflection of the danger that the Saudis perceive of civil war: they feel it is very likely and needs to be fought against with all available resources.  Thus, the Saudis will be asking us to help as well and they would be disappointed if we were to suspend our aid.

In addition, our aid is essentially a “quid pro quo” to Egypt for not repudiating the peace treaty with Israel that gave Egypt back the Sinai peninsula, and for which Anwar Sadat was martyred.  The fact that the government of Egypt is clearly the result of a military coup is, in our law, to be punished by a mandatory suspension of aid with no presidential review.  Thus, the White House has avoided using the word “coup”, but that doesn’t fool anyone.

The problem is that we can’t, for humanitarian as well as practical reasons, suspend aid to Egypt, regardless of who is running the country.  The law that requires suspension of aid must be rescinded or, at least, ignored.  Loss of aid would only make the situation in Egypt worse.

The only path towards peace involves sitting down to negotiation, and as long as the Islamists refuse to negotiate there will be war between them and the military government that controls Egypt.  The young, secular, democratic, humanist professionals will be caught in the crossfire and will suffer the most.

There is no surprise that the young liberals feel forced to support the military government: there is no alternative but to seek their protection and wait until elections are arranged.  No matter how many Islamists the military kills, most of the young liberals will stick with them for their own protection.  Mohamed el-Baradei’s symbolic resignation only means that he can’t tolerate holding an official position in a military government; it doesn’t mean that he wants to meet with, much less support, the Islamists.  They would kill him.