Egypt’s Descent in to the Heart of Darkness

Madness, power, and no good outcome on immediate horizon.

The military’s removal of President Mohammad Morsi opened up a can of worms from which the Egyptian polity is not likely to recover from anytime soon.

Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood had been busy attempting to impose its socio-political will on a nation that was largely unwilling to go along with their agenda. The military was even more reluctant since it saw Morsi’s actions as destabilizing.

So, instead of waiting until new elections, the military did what it’s done repeatedly over the past 60 years. It’s deposed the existing regime and supplanted it with one favorable to its own agenda. After all, Nasser came to power in a coup. Sadat came to power from a coup. Mubarak came to power with the assent of the military, and the military then deposed Mubarak. Now, they’re facing an organized and militarized threat in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood is not backing down and yesterday’s clashes with police and security forces left more than 500 dead and thousands injured.

It’s only going to get worse from here because the Brotherhood’s leadership now believes that they have no other options in the political arena. The military’s effort showed the Brotherhood that they will not be allowed to wield political power, and that’s infuriating to the group, which actually won the right to govern in the historic elections following the coup that deposed Mubarak.

But what the Brotherhood doesn’t understand is that their heavy-handed wielding of political power was not without consequences. It was tremendously unpopular with a majority of Egyptians who saw it as an effort to impose social restrictions at a time when the economy continued to suffer from the very problems that led to Mubarak’s ouster.

The Brotherhood wasn’t dealing with the underlying economic and social conditions that led to an anemic economy, high unemployment, food shortages, and high costs for fuel and food.

The military’s brutal crackdown against the Brotherhood’s protest camps across Cairo forestalls any kind of reconciliation as the lines in the sand have been drawn. The Brotherhood isn’t going to trust the military or attempts to bring it back into a political process, when their leader remains arrested and out of power. The military is losing in this as well, given that they overthrew a sitting government.

Worst of all, Egyptians are losing out because the political chaos is exacerbating the economic chaos and conditions are only going to get worse. Extremists are going to take advantage of the situation.

All of this presents huge challenges for foreign countries in trying to deal with the chaotic situation in Cairo. For the US, it means trying to remain above the fray but condemning the violence and a need to return to a political dialog. Critics of the Administration claim that it lost Egypt, but that ignores that the Brotherhood and the Egyptian military are the ones who brought this crisis upon itself. The US has little influence to play here, except perhaps as a mediator. The one area that the US has influence is on providing foreign assistance and military aid - withholding that aid could get the military to buy into reconciliation talks. But the Brotherhood isn’t going to go along with a deal that doesn’t end with Morsi back in the presidency.

So, until the sides see the futility of the continuing violence and shrink away from an open civil war, they will continue to run up the body count

Syrian Civil War Update: Rebels Again Attack Assad's Security Compounds

Despite a relentless pounding from Syrian military and loyalist militias, the rebel forces continue to more than hold their own against a better equipped force. The rebels have once again attacked security compounds in Aleppo and also along the border with Iraq:

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday that one of the assaults in Aleppo sparked a firefight that killed and wounded a number of government troops. It gave no figures.

Last month, rebel forces took control of parts of Syria's commercial hub, sparking fierce fighting there.

Also Friday, the monitoring group said government troops and rebels were locked in battle north of the capital, Damascus, and in Albu Kamal, on the Iraqi border. Internet video appeared to show fighting in Homs, Daraa and Damascus.

The fighting continues to inflict casualties on civilians and the war of words over Assad's backers continues as well. Egyptian leader Mohamed Morsi again attacked Iran over its support for the Assad regime during the meeting for nonaligned nations taking place in Tehran. Iran subsequently attacked Morsi for his calls for the nonaligned nations to act to bring the civil war to an end. Iranian officials have remained steadfast in their support of Assad.

Part of that reason could be that Assad thinks that he's winning. Despite Assad losing control of significant portions of the country, he thinks his military has the upper hand against the rebel forces. That could be due in part to delusions of grandeur, his military leaders telling Assad what he wants to hear rather than what the situation on the ground really is, or that he believes that the crackdown is working to rid himself of the rebel threat via a meatgrinder.

Turkey is calling for a safe haven, which seems to be a step towards establishing a no-fly zone to protect Syrians from the onslaught of air attacks.

UN Secretary General called on Assad to stop using heavy weapons against civilian populations. The call will go unheeded, as Assad has repeatedly shown that his only interest is preserving his power, not human rights or arranging some form of power-sharing with the opposition.

France is looking at ways of funneling aid to those parts of Syria that are controlled by the rebel forces.

Egypt Continues Sinai Offensive

The Egyptian government is continuing to go after those responsible for a series of attacks on Egyptian security posts in Sinai. It's the largest Egyptian military operation in Sinai since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Hundreds of military vehicles and personnel are involved.

Egypt's President Mohamed Mursi - whose Islamist background in the Muslim Brotherhood has been eyed with suspicion by Israel since he was elected in June - on Wednesday fired the region's governor and country's intelligence chief in response to public anger over Sunday's attack. No one has claimed responsibility for the assault, in which the assailants seized two armored vehicles to storm an Israeli border crossing. One made it through before the attackers were killed by Israeli fire. Israel says militants based in Sinai and Palestinian hardliners in neighboring Gaza pose a growing threat to its border. It says Palestinians use illegal tunnels to smuggle in guns and travel across to join those on the Egyptian side. Israel has also been wary of Mursi's ideological affinity with Hamas, the Islamist group ruling Gaza, fearing he would take a softer position on Palestinian militancy than Mubarak. Mursi has brushed aside accusations that his politics would make it difficult for him to take a strong stance against violent groups sworn to Israel's destruction. His response to Sunday's attack, which happened during the evening "iftar" meal which breaks the daytime fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, may also be underpinned by public anger over the deaths of the border guards. In Egypt, there is wide respect for rank-and-file soldiers who are often poorly paid conscripts working in isolated places far from their families. Comments suggesting outgoing intelligence chief Mourad Mwafi had been aware of a threat but took no action fuelled that anger - despite suggestions he had been used as a scapegoat. "...we never imagined that a Muslim would kill his Muslim brother at iftar," Egypt's state news agency MENA quoted Mwafi as telling his Turkish counterpart.

Mursi is in a no-win position with the Islamists. On the one hand, he gained power because of support from the Muslim Brotherhood. On the other, attacking the Egyptian military cannot go unchallenged. The situation is being eyed warily in Israel, as the have to address the ongoing threats along Israel's southern border all while monitoring events in Syria.

Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi Declared President of Egypt

A new chapter in Egyptian politics has dawned. Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate, was announced as the next President of Egypt in a disputed election over former Mubarak Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik.

A gathering of secular-leaning politicians criticized on Saturday what they said was U.S. meddling on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood. Other secularists stood behind the Islamist group preceding the initial announcement, calling it the best hope in the current circumstances against continued military domination of the country. The dispute preceding the vote highlighted how the country has been split into deeply polarized camps since the June 16-17 runoff vote between Morsi and ousted leader Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, whose campaign had also said he had won by a narrow margin. Many Egyptians rallied behind Morsi as a chance to finally rid the country of the old Mubarak regime, while others supported Shafiq as the best bet to counter Islamists and restore order after a year of protests, economic hardship, and fear about crime and continued instability.

Egyptians faced the option between bad and worse - giving those involved in the Mubarak regime another shot at power, or handing power over to the Muslim Brotherhood, which has not exactly shown itself to be interested in freedom of religion or expression, let alone preserving the Camp David Accords with Israel. For Israelis they're going to warily watch events unfolding in Egypt and how the government proceeds. The military junta continues to control the apparatus of government and has superseded the acts of the parliament while limiting the powers of the presidency.

Egypt's Military Moves To Block Impact of Islamist Elected President

Egyptians faced a choice between bad and worse when they had to choose from an Islamist aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood and the former foreign minister from Hosni Mubarak's old regime. Turnout was anything but strong, but the Islamist, Mohamed Morsi, won the election.

The military, however, has a different plan. They're now acting to minimize the impact of the election, and are once again acting in their own interests rather than allowing the popular will to decide.

In a two-hour news conference, members of the ruling military council made no reference to the election results that by early morning showed Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood had defeated Ahmed Shafik, a former Air Force general and Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister, in the runoff to choose Egypt’s first democratically elected president. The ballots were counted in front of television cameras and party observers in polling places around the country to preclude fraud, and independent observers concluded that Mr. Morsi had won by a margin of about 4 percentage points, or about a million votes.

The election officials will not formally confirm the results until later in the week, however, and Ahmed Sarhan, a spokesman for Mr. Shafik, insisted on Monday that the general was the true winner and the Brotherhood had “terrorized” voters. He offered no evidence, and both the state-run and unofficial media reported that Mr. Morsi had a decisive lead in the vote count.

The ruling generals had stunned Egyptians on the eve of the vote by dissolving the Brotherhood-dominated parliament and claiming all legislative power for themselves in an apparent attempt to foreclose the possibility that Islamists control both the presidency and the legislature.

Though they acted under the veneer of a court ruling rushed out last week by a panel of Mubarak-appointed judges, their power grab erased their promise to turn over all power to elected civilians by the end of this month, and both liberals and Islamists denounced the move as a military coup. The court ruling dispirited Brotherhood supporters, energized Mr. Shafik’s backers, and led many Egyptians to expect that either the psychological effect of the takeover or more direct intervention would push Mr. Shafik to the presidency.

In the aftermath of Mr. Morsi’s victory — - considered an upset by many, despite the Brotherhood’s proven popularity and political clout — - the generals sought Monday to reassure the public that they had no intention to re-establish another military-backed autocracy, although they did not back away from their effective seizure of legislative power.

“Trust the armed forces,” two representatives of the military council, General Mandouh Shahin and General Mohamed el Assar, repeated many times over the course of the news conference. “We don’t want power,” both also said repeatedly, citing the presidential election as proof of their good intentions.

Despite their seizure of the parliament, they promised a grand celebration at the end of the month to mark their formal handover to the new president.

They insisted that the legislative authority they had claimed for themselves was “restricted.” Although they acknowledged that they would have a monopoly on all lawmaking powers and control of the national budget, they said that the new president — presumably Mr. Morsi — would retain a veto over any new laws. The president will also name the prime minister and other cabinet officials.

The generals insisted they regretted shutting down the elected parliament, which they described as one of their proudest achievements since they took power at the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak. They were forced to close the legislature because of the court’s ruling, the generals said.

It's a situation that Egypt has seen before. It's how Gamel Nasser came to power and it's how power was retained under both Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak.

Popular election of the government simply isn't tolerated. The military will allow a veneer of democratic institutions, put the ruling junta is seeing to it that power will remain in the hands of the military.

I can understand the apprehension of allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to hold power considering their interests in expanding Islamic law and revisiting social and political decisions ranging from the rights of women to the Egypt-Israel peace accords.

However, the military should be subordinate to the civilian control. As it stands, Egypt's military is acting just as any other junta would do. They're acting to preserve their own power and that actually increases the chances of another round of violence.

The military is doing itself and the Egyptian country a tremendous disservice, even as it acts to minimize the power of the Muslim Brotherhood. The actions to limit the Brotherhood's power will backfire and lend the group legitimacy it is undeserving. It would be far better to allow the group power in the interim, with civilian governmental institutions to protect the rights of all Egyptians than to try and block the group's impact.

At the same time, the military needs to do more to stabilize the security situation in Sinai, from which another deadly attack on Israel was launched. One Israeli Arab who was working on a security fence were killed and several others were injured. Israeli military forces then responded to the attack and engaged terrorists in a gunfight.

A force from Golani immediately arrived at the scene, a gun fight ensued and a bomb carried by one of the terrorists exploded. Two terrorists were killed in the gunfight and the IDF believed that a third terrorist was also involved in the clash, who they believed to be in Sinai.

Following the attack and fearing additional attacks, the IDF moved a number of Merkava tanks up to the border to help protect against additional infiltrations. The tanks were removed immediately after the IDF confirmed that all of the terrorists had been accounted for and none remained inside Israeli territory.

The decision to move the tanks up along the border was done in consideration of Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt which forbids the deployment of Israeli tanks in the area. IDF sources said that the deployment was done as the attack was still unfolding and that it was part of a defensive posture.

The deploymnet of tanks to the border is a technical violation of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, which prohibits tanks in the border zone without consultation, and that was just as likely the goal of the terror attack as the deaths of as many Israelis as possible.

The disintegrating security situation in Sinai is yet another threat to Israel's security as much as it harms Egypt's economy by reducing the tourism dollars that flow to Egypt's coffers.

Egyptian Runoff Election Will Pit Ancien Regime Against Islamists

For most Egyptians, this will be a contest between the old guard versus the Islamists and they will have to choose the lesser of two evils. Hosni Mubarak's former prime minister versus a candidate for a party banned by Mubarak for decades.

It was clear as early as Thursday night that a plurality of votes went to Mohamed Morsi, the American-educated engineer nominated by the Brotherhood, the secretive 84-year-old revival group that became the wellspring of political Islam around the world and already dominates the Parliament.

But only Friday morning did it appear that second place would go to Ahmed Shafik, a former Air Force general who briefly served as Mr. Mubarak’s last prime minister. A late entry into the race, Mr. Shafik was a dark horse campaigning on promises to use a firm hand against the protests and lawlessness that have prevailed since Mr. Mubarak’s ouster. He presented himself as a strong check on the rise of the Islamists. Of all the candidates in the race, Mr. Shafik came closest to promising a restoration of the old order and aroused vocal support and threats of a “second revolution” if he should win.

Mr. Shafik’s law-and-order message resonated with voters, helping him to overtake the two candidates previously considered, along with Mr. Morsi, to be the front-runners. One was Amr Moussa, a former foreign minister under Mr. Mubarak and former head of the Arab League, who had offered a softer but similar message. In the final weeks of the race, Mr. Moussa’s support appears to have all but collapsed in favor of Mr. Shafik.

Ahmad Sarhan, a spokesman for Mr. Shafik, said voters had rallied to the candidate because he promised to “save Egypt from the dark forces,” referring to the Brotherhood and more militant Islamists.

The leading candidate with a plurality of the votes was Mohamed Morsi, who was one of the Muslim Brotherhood's candidates. He will face off against Ahmed Shafik.

Do Egyptians want a clean break with the old Mubarak regime and all that baggage or do they want to give power to the Muslim Brotherhood, who had been banned and persecuted by Mubarak for more than 30 years. The Islamists have said that they would not impose strict Islam on the country, but there are many inside the country who have their doubts. These same people have no love for the old regime and its former officials.

So, what will Egyptians do? Hold out hope that Morsi delivers on economic improvements and keeps the promise that the Muslim Brotherhood wont impose Islamist doctrine on Egyptian society, or will they vote for Shafik so as to deny the Muslim Brotherhood that possibility all while giving the old regime a new breath of life by turning over power to the former Prime Minister.

For most Egyptians, this is a no-win scenario considering that they have to choose between the possibility of an Islamist regime or the old regime, which was incapable of dealing with the economic crisis and that attempted to brutally suppress the protests against Mubarak.