M D Nalapat
In case the 1979 example of the Shah of Iran being deserted by the
United States and West Europe - after having been their security
surrogate in the region for fifteen years - was not sufficient to
educate West Asia's rulers about the fair-weather nature of the
relationship with these chancelleries, Egypt has provided fresh evidence
of this reality.
To promote its geopolitical interests, the West finds champions
in-country. In Sri Lanka, it encouraged General Sarath Fonseka to stand
against Mahinda Rajapaksa in the 2010 Presidential polls in Sri Lanka.
At the time, Fonseca had direct command of the Sri Lankan military – the
force which the same global community believed had committed grave
violations of human rights in the final stage of the campaign against
the Tamil Tigers. This time around, in Egypt it is Mohammad El Baradei,
the former chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency and Nobel
Laureate, seen as the white knight riding to the rescue of US-European
Union interests. This, in a country where both Iran as well as the
Muslim Brotherhood have been at work for years cultivating the
underclass that had been ignored by the Egyptian elite and their
international backers.
This time, though, there are more than Western interests at play and the outcomes could be more unpredictable than anticipated.
First, there is the regional activity of Iran. For the Khameini
regime in Iran (which the West mistakenly calls the "Ahmadinejad"
government when it is the Supreme Leader who controls key swathes of the
administration, including foreign, security, education and economic
policy), events in Egypt are a comeuppance for the US and the EU, which
backed the losing side in protesting against what was once again a
rigged election in Iran in 2009.
Since that time, Teheran has greatly boosted its clandestine
capabilities and activities in the region, with the intention of
promoting chaos, should there be an attack on the regional Shia
superpower by the US, the EU or Israel. Most of the effort has gone into
assisting those in favour of the collapse of regimes that side with
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) against Iran, and which have
most recently been outed in Wikileaks.
In a way, this effort by Iran is akin to the Central Intelligence
Agency’s boosting of the military capabilities of religious extremists
across the western half of Asia in the jihad against the former Soviet
occupation of Afghanistan. Just as there has been a huge blowback for
the US from that particular adventure, there is likely to be blowback
across Iran from the current policy of giving clandestine support to
"pro-democracy" forces.
US President Barack Obama and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo in 2009.
Then there are the actions and policies of the other regimes of West
Asia. Within the region, both the Saudi Arabian as well as the Qataris
ruling structures have adopted a policy of hedging their bets, backing
both NATO as well as the opposition to NATO.
In the case of Saudi Arabia, this is represented by Wahabbi
International, which has turned "multiculturism" on its head by using
the freedom of belief, lifestyle and speech in modern democratic
societies to enforce a clear separation between its own followers and
the rest of the community in countries such as Germany, France and even
the UK. These days, such exclusivist (self-ghettoizing) trends are also
becoming evident in Canada and in parts of the US. Of course, within the
countries where it is dominant, such as Saudi Arabia, North Sudan or
Yemen, the Wahabbi International makes short shrift of the freedoms that
it demands for its practitioners in democracies. In such a double-faced
reaction, it shares several characteristics with its Khomeinist twin in
Iran.
In Qatar, this duality is represented by the Al Jazeera news channel,
which despite the huge presence of British nationals within its
newsrooms, has made no secret of its being a vehicle for the promotion
of "Muslim" interests. In the case of Egypt, the channel has been a key
force multiplier for the manifestations of public discontent against the
moribund regime of the 83-year old Hosni Mubarak. The latter is
increasingly looking like the ancient Indian King Dhritharashtra in the
Mahabharata, who placed the interests of his own family at the core of
governance, a failing that is not uncommon in the "democracies" of South
Asia.
Given the loyalty shown by President Mubarak to the strategic and
other interests of NATO over the decades, it would have been reasonable
for him to expect support from the US and the EU for his refusal to flee
Egypt the way Tunisia's Ben-Ali did. Instead, influenced by the
sophisticated Cairo diaspora within their boundaries (the way
Bush-Cheney had been seduced by the Iraqi diaspora during 2002-2003,
before launching the war that has cost the US the global primacy that
it enjoyed since 1945), the Clintonistas within what ought to have been a
Barack Obama administration, had their way.
Playing to "liberal" and other galleries, the Clintonistas once again
followed what may be termed the "NGO route" in foreign policy, relying
more on the glands than on the brain in crafting a response to a
situation. Similar episodes included siding with former Pakistani Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif against current President Asif Ali Zardari in
Pakistan and bringing back Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudhury in 2009, at a
time when President Zardari was readying himself to act against Army
chief General Ashfaq Kayani. Had the Pakistan military come under
civilian control, it would have been feasible to begin denuding it of
the jihadi elements that are strangling NATO in Afghanistan. However,
this chance was lost, and the Army has once again established its
complete supremacy over the civilian establishment – but this time with a
difference: unlike Musharraf, Kayani is far more loyal to Beijing than
to Washington.
Another instance was the constant sniping against Afghan President
Hamid Karzai throughout 2009, thereby weakening him and in the process,
strengthening not the (largely inconsequential) "liberals" so beloved by
the Afghan diaspora in the US and the EU, but those demanding a return
to a Wahabbised society in Afghanistan. Of course, such policies -
although disastrous for longer-term US security interests - played well
in the Op-ed pages of the Western press, which seems to be the primary
cockpit of interest for the Clintonistas. The public severing of ties
with Mubarak is only the latest in this March of Follies – with
disastrous consequences.
The Obama administration followed the major European powers in
jettisoning Mubarak for El Baradei. While the former International
Atomic Energy Agency chief has much to commend him, his naïveté in (for
example) accepting the promises of good behaviour of the Muslim
Brotherhood would ensure that they enter a system that is so riddled
with rot that within years, the Brotherhood would become the sole master
of what has been a broadly secular country for millennia.
Post-Mubarak, although an effort may be made to cobble together an
administration under vice president Omar Suleiman, such a regime is
likely to be rendered ineffectual by those elements of the Muslim
Brotherhood within the middle and lower rungs of the Egyptian
bureaucracy. Once the ranks of the military get fully infused with the
belief that only a Wahabbi state can rescue Egypt from its current
state, Suleiman ( or El Baradei) would disappear. Instead, would begin
an Iran or Pakistan-style era, where the army and the religious elements
band together.
Only a 1989 Tiananmen Square type of action against the protestors in
Tahrir Square, followed by the effective handover of powers by Mubarak
to his deputy and his taking of leave until the September polls "on
health grounds", would have staved off what seems to be an Iran-style
march of the religious establishment towards formal authority.
The diaspora elements now so visible on television screens can be
expected to flee back to their nests in Europe and North America, once
the religious establishment begins to call the shots in Cairo. Rather
than abandon Mubarak in indecent haste, the way it has happened these
past two weeks, the NATO powers would have been best advised to have
adopted a policy of public neutrality during the current manifestations,
stating simply that the governance of Egypt is entirely a matter for
Egyptians to decide, and that foreigners have no role in it. Instead, by
pandering to the fantasies of the diaspora, the way it did in Iraq, the
Obama administration has invited ridicule on the US.
Those who have been fed for years on a diet of anti-Americanism are
not going to change their minds because of a few remarks made by
Presidential Spokespersons, the Secretary of State, or even President
Obama himself. Ironically, while the 2009 award of the Nobel Peace Prize
to him may have boosted his cachet with the Egyptian diaspora, such an
honour may be toxic to the Arab underclass, which sees the Nobel
Committee (however improbably) as yet another face of the "International
Zionist Conspiracy". The award of a Nobel Prize to President Obama
would therefore have vindicated those who regard his country's first
African-American President as being just a face behind which the usual
suspects continue their depredations.
As this essayist has pointed out for more than a decade, there is a
difference between the Arab "street" and what may be called the Arab
"supermarket", and all too often, media outlets in the NATO countries
have mistaken the second for the first.
And lastly, a major factor behind the present unrest has gone wholly
unreported in the media - even by those outlets located in West Asia
which are sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood or to the Khameinists.
This is the fact that commodity speculation in Chicago, New York and
London has resulted in sharp spikes in the prices of items of common
consumption, including food grains and meat products. Because they have
been given a second life by the post-recession largesse doled out to
them first by US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and then by his
successor, Timothy Geithner, the bigger commodity speculators have been
active in driving up the prices of a miscellany of items that are
critical to mass consumption, including petro products and food items.
Since the later years of the Clinton administration, successive US
presidents have given a license to large-scale speculation that has
unsettled commodity markets worldwide and sharply increased societal
instability across the globe.
Rather than deciding on whether El Baradei or Omar Suleiman or some
unnamed general would be the best ruler for Egypt, both Barack Obama as
well as British Prime Minister David Cameron need to assist German
Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicholas Sarkozy in
criminalizing the sort of speculation that has led to worldwide price
spikes. The activities of the few who were bailed out during 2008-2009
have brought the international financial system to the point of
collapse. Their resumption of such activity is playing the lead role in
the generation of anger within populations worldwide.
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