Page 1 of 2 Egypt as bellwether for Middle East map
By Chris Zambelis
As the United States continues to take stock of the implications of the death
of Osama Bin Laden and the viability of al-Qaeda on the heels of the 10th
anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks, revolutionary political change
continues to unfold throughout the broader Middle East.
In pursuit of its self-defined concept of stability, the United States has
typically viewed the broader Middle East through the narrow prisms of security
and oil interests. The American fixation on al-Qaeda in particular has also
overshadowed far more important political and social trends impacting the
region.
The ripple effects emanating from the numerous expressions of dissent from the
Maghreb to the Gulf, however, have shaken
deeply entrenched conceptions of Arab politics and society to their very core.
The dramatic sequence of events set off by Muhammed Bouazizi's self-immolation
on December 17, 2010, an act of desperate protest against the injustices he
endured in the otherwise nondescript town of Sidi Bouzid in his native Tunisia,
has served as a rallying cry for his countrymen and tens of millions of Arabs
toiling under similar conditions in their own countries to rise up.
Most have emphasized the domestic grievances underlying the rebellions: popular
discontent toward the regimes presiding over societies personified by
repressive politics, corruption, unemployment, poverty and a deep malaise,
especially among the region's youthful population, it is often argued, served
as the initial impetus behind the decision of millions of Arabs to assert their
agency for a better future.
At the same time, the uprisings have also allowed for the airing of anger over
the role of the United States in the region and, by extension, the foreign
policies of the embattled regimes. United States support for authoritarian
regimes, and the complicity of those regimes in preserving a regional paradigm
underpinned by alliances with friendly dictators such as former Egyptian
president Hosni Mubarak and the Saudi royal family as well as a hegemonic
Israel, sit atop the list of Arab grievances - a fact that has gone largely
unnoticed in Western media narratives of the ongoing tumult.
Though many continue to express bewilderment over the developments of recent
months, there is no shortage of evidence demonstrating that widespread anger
over US foreign policy, in addition to popular discontent over the state of
domestic affairs in the region, helped incite the uprisings.
It is therefore no surprise that the spontaneous exhibition of rebellion that
hastened the ouster of two despots in Tunisia and Egypt and sparked subsequent
"days of rage" across the region sounded alarm bells in Washington about what
lies ahead.
The storming of the Israeli Embassy in Cairo by demonstrators on September 9
demonstrates the role of foreign policy in the current uprisings in Egypt and
beyond. Among other things, protesters called on Egypt to sever relations with
Israel while expressing solidarity with the Palestinians.
Intensifying anger over the death of five Egyptian police officers killed by
Israeli forces during attacks targeting alleged militant positions along the
Israel-Egypt border launched in response to an August 18 terrorist attack in
Israel's southern port city of Eilat added another layer of tension to the show
of strength outside the Israeli Embassy.
Any attempt to divine the precise outcome of the political turmoil in the
Middle East may seem like a fool's errand. As it currently stands, the
political transitions in Tunisia and Egypt are almost certainly likely to
produce a climate of political intrigue. As Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi's
fate has been effectively sealed, the post-Gaddafi era is about to begin in
Libya.
Meanwhile, resilient displays of dissent persist in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen
amid comparatively quieter but nevertheless significant rumblings of protest in
Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Oman. Amid this uncertainty, however, one
thing is for sure: the aura of invincibility surrounding sitting Arab
dictatorships, particularly US allies, has been erased.
With the durability of the reigning regimes in doubt, the trajectory of recent
events portend the rise of a vastly different Middle East strategic landscape,
in essence, a new Middle East chessboard, a trend that will have a
transformative impact on US power in the region. Of all the countries
experiencing unrest, the path Egypt takes may prove to be the most telling as
far as providing a glimpse of future trends across the region.
The American pharaoh falls
The fall of Mubarak after nearly three decades of ruling Egypt is rightfully
being touted as a monumental juncture in the modern history of the Middle East.
In light of the upcoming former president's criminal trial and the persistent
protests across Egypt over the country's future course, Mubarak's fall
represents the most significant event amid the ongoing revolutions to date.
Judging by the public statements out of the White House in the midst of the
revolt, the Barack Obama administration was deeply concerned about the
transpiring events in Egypt.
While the new reality on the ground in Tunisia was eventually accepted by
Washington, albeit reluctantly, when it became apparent that Tunisian president
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was finished, Mubarak's demise, and the manner in which
he was deposed, continues to be met with unease in Washington.
Though enjoying friendly bilateral relations and cooperation on a range of
issues, Tunisia, ultimately, lies on the periphery of US strategy in the
region. In this regard, for the US, Ben Ali's ouster and, with that, any
ensuing instability that may arise in Tunisia represented a crisis that could
be contained and managed, with negligible residual impacts on US interests.
In contrast, the fall of Mubarak brought with it a series of challenges that
threaten to undermine the US position in the Middle East. With over 80 million
inhabitants, Egypt is the most populous Arab country. Notwithstanding its
marked decline over the years, Egypt remains a regional powerhouse; a
trendsetter, Egypt is, in many respects, the political and cultural center of
gravity of the Arab world.
Egypt was formerly the wellspring of Arab nationalism and a force in the
Non-Aligned Movement under president Gamal Abdel Nasser. Its tilt toward the
US-led alliance bloc composed of conservative Arab regimes, led by Saudi
Arabia, and Israel, under president Anwar Sadat, was an about-face in posture
exemplified by its signing of the Camp David Accords in 1978 and establishment
of diplomatic relations with Israel. This marked a watershed victory for US
foreign policy, cementing Washington's position in a region of critical
strategic importance.
Despite the oratory from Washington outlining its commitment to advance freedom
and democracy in the Arab world, including, presumably, in autocratic allies
such as Egypt, with Obama's June 2009 speech in Cairo picking up where his
predecessor's freedom agenda toward the Muslim world left off, Washington has
had little to show for its words.
In its search for an antidote to the brand of radical Islam that wrought the
September 11, 2001, attacks, the George W Bush administration announced its
intention to eradicate the conditions that gave rise to al-Qaeda. In doing so,
the US pointed to the persistence of authoritarianism in the broader Middle
East as a critical factor in nurturing the spread of radical Islam.
Recognizing that a regional status quo marked by despotism and illegitimate
governments was unsustainable and incapable of meeting the most basic demands
of its people, the Bush administration seemed to reverse, at least in rhetoric,
the longstanding US stance that compliant autocracies in places such as Egypt,
Jordan and Saudi Arabia - allies that have tended to ignore public opinion in
favor of maintaining close ties with the United States, as well as overt (or
covert) relations with Israel - served as bulwarks against the spread of
violent extremism and guarantors of the free and unhindered flow of oil to US
and global markets.
Though the United States adopted a discourse of freedom and democracy to
justify its military adventures, most notably in Iraq, and in criticizing its
opponents in the region, such as Syria and Iran, in practice, there is no
evidence to suggest that the US under both the Bush and Obama administrations
ever seriously considered abandoning its alliances with its friends in Cairo,
Amman and Riyadh, among other places, in favor of seeing the emergence of
genuine freedom and democracy.
This was the case even as a range of observers saw al-Qaeda's rise as a
response to US actions in the broader Middle East, especially its support for
autocratic regimes.
In a region where ingrained hostility to US foreign policy is the reality among
the overwhelming majority, including opposition to the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan and other US military operations as well as seamless American
support for Israel while it continues to occupy Palestinian land, the rise of
free and democratic societies would empower Arabs to shape and influence the
foreign policies of their respective countries.
In most cases, this would mean elevating various strains of Islamist and
nationalist political parties and movements to positions of authority. This
reality holds especially true in countries with a history of close cooperation
with the US and, in the case of Egypt, with Israel, namely though its adherence
to the broadly detested Camp David Accords, collusion in the siege of Gaza, or
sale of Egyptian natural gas to Israel for below market rates, as was the case
under the Mubarak regime.
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