The Egyptian crisis rolls on

I've written before about recent events in Egypt, and the danger they pose to world peace. I'm not seeing very well-informed comment from most sources in the United States, but Israel is taking the crisis very seriously indeed. Commentators there are growing seriously alarmed at the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood on events in Egypt. To cite just one example, the Jerusalem Post reports:

The precedents are fresh and obvious. Yet the US government seems intent on ignoring them.

In Iran in 1979, leftist and other secular forces, central to the rising pressure that ousted the Shah, were duped and then outflanked by Islamist supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini, who took power and have cemented it for 32 years since. The Islamists achieved this despite having constituted only the most marginal of forces just a couple of years earlier.

In the Palestinian territories in 2006, the US insisted on pressing ahead with elections that, in part because of Fatah’s corruption and disorganization, saw the underestimated Islamist Hamas terror group gain a parliamentary majority, which it then exploited to violently take over the Gaza Strip a year later.

In Lebanon over the past few weeks, the Iranian-inspired, controlled and financed Hizbullah out-maneuvered the hapless prime minister Sa'ad Hariri, to complete what amounts to a gradual, highly sophisticated takeover of the country.

In Turkey in recent years, confidence that such secular bulwarks as the army and the judiciary would prevent growing Islamic domination of the national agenda has proved increasingly misplaced, again via the subtle and protracted marginalization of these former establishment pillars. Turkey, champion of Hamas, nemesis of Israel, is now drifting inexorably out of the western orbit.

Washington’s apparent disinclination, as it now tries to influence the process of Hosni Mubarak’s replacement, to internalize the dangers highlighted by the Iran, Gaza, Lebanon and Turkey disasters, and thus do everything in its power to prevent the Muslim Brotherhood presiding over a similar process in Egypt, is incomprehensible.

And it could prove immensely threatening for Israel.

. . .

Far from learning the lessons of the Islamists’ skilled subversion of other pro-democracy movements, working with potential leaders of an Egyptian transition to minimize the risk of such a process recurring, and making publicly plain that there will be no ongoing American alliance with an Egypt in which an unreformed Islamist movement has even a marginal role in government, the White House seems to be actively encouraging a transitional outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood.

National Security Council official Dan Shapiro told Jewish leaders on a conference call Wednesday that the administration would not deal with the Brotherhood. But White House spokesman Robert Gibbs had two days earlier urged the inclusion of "important non-secular actors" in a more democratic Egypt - a statement that was widely seen as relating to the Muslim Brotherhood. And the Administration’s proposal for the immediate transfer of power calls for the transitional government to include the Muslim Brotherhood, the New York Times reported Friday.

. . .

Some commentators made much of the fact that the Brotherhood kept a low profile early in the uprising, interpreting this as evidence of disorganization and/or a lack of ambition. But the restraints have come off since then: Islamist rhetoric has become more prominent, and Brotherhood spokesmen are now ubiquitous in the media.

Experiences elsewhere have demonstrated the patience that Islamist organizations can exercise, building and gaining power and influence over years, over decades. Yet the absence of the Brotherhood from the protest frontlines for a matter of mere days - an astute tactic to ensure the watching world was not alienated and to maximize domestic support for the uprising - was apparently widely misread as proof of its irrelevance.

A much-cited - though not always accurately - Pew Research Center of Muslim attitudes, published only two months ago, indicates how frighteningly fertile the ground is for the Islamists in Egypt: 82% of Egyptian Muslims favor stoning people who commit adultery; 77% favor whipping/ cutting off of hands for theft and robbery; and 84% favor the death penalty for people who leave the Muslim religion, it found. By way of comparison, the comparable percentages in Turkey, even as it submits to growing Islamist influence, were just 16%, 13% and 5% respectively.

The same survey found that among Egyptian Muslims who see a struggle between those who want to modernize their country and Islamic fundamentalists, a striking 59% side with the fundamentalists and only 27% with the modernizers.

Pew also found that 54% of Egyptian Muslims believe suicide bombings can be justified often (8%), sometimes (12%) or rarely (34%), as against 46% who said they could never be justified.

The Pew poll did not ask a follow-up question about precisely when such bombings could be justified, but a Muslim Brotherhood spokesman from Cairo, also interviewed on CNN, offered an insight in this context.

Mohamed Morsy, who in the course of the conversation on Thursday refused to commit his movement to maintenance of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty or to recognition of Israel, and stressed its opposition to Zionism, insisted that the Muslim Brotherhood opposed the use of violence. Without missing a beat, however, he went on to say that what was going on in Palestine was "resistance". And "“resistance", he said, "is acceptable by all mankind. It is the right of people to resist imperialism."

There's more at the link.

I can't find a single falsehood in the Jerusalem Post's analysis. I don't think any knowledgeable, objective observer of the Middle East could do so. That being the case, why is the United States engaged in pie-in-the-sky, Kumbaya-singing efforts to 'support democracy' in Egypt? On the basis of history, and what we've learned from it, the outcome of the revolution currently being fomented in Egypt is most unlikely to bear any resemblance to democracy whatsoever! (Unless you count Iran as a democracy, of course . . . and if you do, there's a bridge in Brooklyn, NYC I'd like to sell you. Cash only, please, and in small bills.)

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) is a conservative Israeli source, and must therefore be read with caution, and allowance made for potential bias when reading what it has to say. Nevertheless, it continues to provide accurate translations of Palestinian and fundamentalist Muslim texts and speeches that make the aims of Israel's enemies - and those of the Western world - extremely clear. It's just published a translation of a book by Mustafa Mashhur, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt from 1996-2002. It's the fifth volume in his series 'The Laws Of Da'wa', and it's called 'Jihad Is The Way'. These quotations are drawn from PMW's translation of the book (link is to an Adobe Acrobat document in .PDF format).

Islam has dedicated much attention to the issue of Jihad and militancy and recruiting the nation and gathering it all in one line in order to defend the truth with all its might; it [Islam] has rendered Jihad a religious duty for every Muslim, which no [Muslim] can escape, and has aroused the will towards [performing] Jihad to the greatest degree; It has greatly increased the rewards for the Mujahidun (Jihad warriors) and the Shahids (Martyrs), and has threatened the procrastinators and those who avoid Jihad with the most terrible punishments ...

. . .

Jihad for Allah's sake has been forcing itself upon the Islamic region in recent years, and has become tangibly noticeable in parts of the Islamic world. In other parts of the Islamic world, there is a tide of preparation for Jihad and a sense that it is unavoidable, and is the only way to retaliate against the aggressiveness of Allah's enemies, and to liberate Islamic land from its occupiers and invaders. It has become a widespread and convincing opinion, that the way of negotiation and peace-treaties with Allah's enemies instead of Jihad is surrender in the name of peace.

Additionally, without Jihad and the preparation towards it, the obligation cast upon every Muslim to establish an Islamic state and the Islamic Caliphate and to consolidate this religion, will not be realized ...

. . .

Today we witness the [Muslim] Brothers joining their brothers, the Mujahideen (Jihad warriors) in Afghanistan, and fighting against the infidel and repressive regime in Syria.

. . .

It should be known that Jihad and preparation towards Jihad are not only for the purpose of fending-off assaults and attacks of Allah's enemies from Muslims, but are also for the purpose of realizing the great task of establishing an Islamic state and strengthening the religion and spreading it around the world ...

. . .

My young Muslim Brother,
Prepare yourself and your household members to obtain the honor of Jihad for Allah, and equip your soul with everything that shall help it in that path, in order to continue the process until victory or the Shahada (Martyrdom) ...

My young Islamic Brother, on the path of the Jihad,
Prepare yourself and train in the art of warfare, and embrace the causes of power. You must learn the ways and manners and laws of war. You must learn them and embrace them and adhere to them, so that your Jihad will be the one accepted by Allah.

Again, there's more at the link.

That hardly seems ambiguous, does it? Israel certainly doesn't think so. The outgoing Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army has delivered a blunt warning to his nation.

Given recent changes in the Middle East, Israel must prepare for a battle in several theaters, outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said Monday at the Herzliya Conference.

"The connection between the different players requires us to contend with more than one theater," he said.

The radical camp in the Middle East is gaining strength, Ashkenazi warned, adding that "the moderate camp among the traditional Arab leadership is weakening." He also made note of what he characterized as the "fascinating phenomenon" whereby power is shifting to the people of the region thanks to online social networks.

The army chief said that in the wake of the growing threat of radical Islam among Israel's neighbors, the defense budget would have to be boosted in the coming years. The main change faced by the army is the widening spectrum of threats, he said.

"Because of this spectrum, we must prepare for a conventional war ... it would be a mistake to prepare for non-conventional war or limited conflicts and then expect that overnight the forces will operate in an all-out-war," he said.

. . .

"I do not underestimate Hamas or Hezbollah, but they cannot take over the Negev or Galilee," he said.

Hezbollah and Hamas understood that encountering the IDF on the classic battlefields is lethal, and are therefore fighting out of urban areas, the army chief added.

Read the rest at the link.

Stratfor offers an interesting perspective on the need for Israel to reconsider its strategic priorities and imperatives. It doesn't see the Muslim Brotherhood as being a serious threat right now, in contrast to other views. This excerpt from 'Egypt, Israel and a Strategic Reconsideration' is republished with permission of STRATFOR.

Since Egypt is a Muslim country, the West freezes when anything happens, dreading the hand of Osama bin Laden. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was once a powerful force, and it might become one again someday, but right now it is a shadow of its former self. What is going on now is a struggle within the military, between generations, for the future of the Egyptian military and therefore the heart of the Egyptian regime. Mubarak will leave, the younger officers will emerge, the constitution will make some changes and life will continue.

The Israelis will return to their complacency. They should not. The usual first warning of a heart attack is death. Among the fortunate, it is a mild coronary followed by a dramatic change of life style. The events in Egypt should be taken as a mild coronary and treated with great relief by Israel that it wasn’t worse.

Reconsidering the Israeli Position

I have laid out the reasons why the 1978 treaty is in Egypt’s national interest. I have left out two pieces. The first is ideology. The ideological tenor of the Middle East prior to 1978 was secular and socialist. Today it is increasingly Islamist. Egypt is not immune to this trend, even if the Muslim Brotherhood should not be seen as the embodiment of that threat. Second, military technology, skills and terrain have made Egypt a defensive power for the past 33 years. But military technology and skills can change, on both sides. Egyptian defensiveness is built on assumptions of Israeli military capability and interest. As Israeli ideology becomes more militant and as its capabilities grow, Egypt may be forced to reconsider its strategic posture. As new generations of officers arise, who have heard of war only from their grandfathers, the fear of war declines and the desire for glory grows. Combine that with ideology in Egypt and Israel and things change. They won’t change quickly - a generation of military transformation will be needed once regimes have changed and the decisions to prepare for war have been made - but they can change.

Two things from this should strike the Israelis. The first is how badly they need peace with Egypt. It is easy to forget what things were like 40 years back, but it is important to remember that the prosperity of Israel today depends in part on the treaty with Egypt. Iran is a distant abstraction, with a notional bomb whose completion date keeps moving. Israel can fight many wars with Egypt and win. It need lose only one. The second lesson is that Israel should do everything possible to make certain that the transfer of power in Egypt is from Mubarak to the next generation of military officers and that these officers maintain their credibility in Egypt. Whether Israel likes it or not, there is an Islamist movement in Egypt. Whether the new generation controls that movement as the previous one did or whether they succumb to it is the existential question for Israel.

There's more at the link.

I'm not seeing most news media or commentators in the United States picking up on these elements, probably because they're so far away that they don't seem of immediate interest to an American audience. However, if things go badly wrong in Egypt, and lead to a renewed outbreak of war in the Middle East, things are likely to become of 'immediate interest' to us very, very quickly . . .

Peter