» posted on Tuesday, February 1st, 2011 at 3:16 pm by Andy D
Time to Pay Attention to Egypt
If you have watched any of the international news over the last week, then you know there are riots and protests going on in Egypt. What you may not know is that these riots have the potential to really affect life here in the United States, and to change the face of the world.
What’s going on in Egypt?
Starting on January 25th, people took to the streets to protest the current government in Egypt. This government, though an ally of the United States, is a very heavy handed government. As of this writing, Hosni Mubarak is the president of Egypt. He has honored a peace with Israel, and has worked to keep arms from flowing into terrorists hands. However, he is a brutal dictator, and citizens of Egypt want a better President with free elections.
What changed?
Somewhere around Friday, the Muslim Brotherhood and radical elements within Egypt tried to take control of the protests. If you are not familiar with the Brotherhood, you should know that it is possibly the grandfather of today’s terrorists groups including Al-Queda. Hamas has also been at work inside Egypt. Since these two groups set up and took notice, the protests have become riots. The current official death toll lists 97 dead with thousands more wounded. There is an estimated 60% of police stations that have been set on fire. “Civilians” wielding knives and machetes have taken to the street to provide their own “police”. Rumors are circulating Egypt that a few thousand Brotherhood members from prison have been set loose by sympathetic police.
What about this Mohamed ElBaradei guy?
A number of reports (across CNN and Fox News) hinted over the weekend that perhaps ElBaradei could be the guy to step in and take over the country. ElBaradei is the former UN weapons inspector from Iran. He has been accused of accepting money from Iran to show them how to hide their nuclear weapon program. He is on the record denying the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. The last thing we need in power in Egypt is someone who is sympathetic to both the Brotherhood and Iran. If ElBaradei gains power in Egypt, the situation may be no better for the citizens of Egypt, and would be much worse for the United States.
How can this affect us?
Egypt is one of our largest allies in the Middle East. Egypt and Jordan are the only two Middle Eastern countries to enter into long treaties with Israel. Egypt also can control the Suez Canal. This is an important shipping channel. If it were to close, prices for many things would instantly jump.
The protests and riots closely resemble the riots that took place in Iran when President Carter was in office. If the Muslim Brotherhood was able to get someone sympathetic to their cause (such as ElBaradei) in power in Egypt, we could see the development of an “Iran-like” regime in Egypt. This coupled with an empowered Brotherhood could greatly increase terrorist activities throughout the world.
In a true doomsday scenario, if Egypt were to become fundamentalist, there is a chance it could band together with Iran to create a new Islamic caliphate. I don’t think this is as much of a danger given the religious differences between Shiite and Sunni. However, it is one more reason to keep an eye on the situation.
What should the US do?
This is a tough situation for the United States. I support freedom everywhere. That means I would prefer a free and open society in Egypt. However, if “elections” were held tomorrow, more than likely the Brotherhood would be able to intimidate enough voters to get into power. This isn’t a free election any more than the elections that are currently being held in Egypt. The United States is currently applying a lot of pressure to the Egyptian government. There are two steps the United States could take that would greatly improve the situation in Egypt in the long term.
First, the US should pressure Egyptian President Mubarak to step down, but not immediately. There are elections scheduled for September. President Mubarak should announce that he will not be on the ballot in September. I think this would give a big victory to the protesters, and would allow some stability in Egypt. {To show how fluid the situation is in Egypt, President Mubarak is now rumored to be ready to announce he will do this.}
Secondly, we should work with pro-freedom movements within Egypt. There is a difference between this and pro-democracy movements. We want a free and open society in Egypt. If pro-freedom groups are given the chance to flourish, it will make it more difficult for terrorist groups and fundamentalist groups to gain power. A pro-democracy group may not have that same distinction.
filed under Egypt · freedoms · Uncategorized | 6 comments
MK Chang said:
Feb 03, 11 at 3:34 pmHi Andy,
Excellent post. I found it very informational, and your explanation of the situation was easy to follow–probably because you provided some background information too. I’ve always wanted to go see the pyramids but I guess that will have to wait, huh?
Thanks for stopping by at my Real Life Musings blog. I appreciate your comment.
MK Chang
http://reallifemusings.blogspot.com
Political Friends Blog | Bad News in Egypt said:
Feb 03, 11 at 8:19 pm[...] few days ago, I wrote about the recent developments in Egypt. You can read it here, if you aren’t following this story very closely. In that post, I gave some recommendations [...]
Andy D said:
Feb 04, 11 at 4:09 amM K Chang,
Thanks for the kind words! If you like this one, I hope you enjoy my new post on Egypt!
Gerrit said:
Aug 10, 11 at 7:05 amI think it’s not the role of the US to help other countries how to govern themselves. No nation should police the world. No country should try to enforce their own political views upon another nation. Hence my answer to “what should the US do?” would be “stay out of it”. My answer would be identical when asked what we (the European Union) should do. Let countries govern themselves the way they wish to be governed. If there were a war going on, the UN should be involved as being the “court” surveilling the world’s politics. I would say we should work towards a more efficient functioning of the UN, rather than let a few countries try to monitor the rest of the world. I won’t say the UN is functioning perfectly as it is, but this is where we should focus on, rather than laying the international monitoring in the hands of a handful of countries.
pack04 said:
Aug 10, 11 at 10:05 amGerrit, I have been reading your comments thanks to Andy’s nice “New Comments” section. So I have picked up on a trend from you.
You want government to protect the poor, regulate big business, have one entity provide equal things for all, get involved with and regulate religious decisions. Those ideas are all basically allowing one entity to enforce their own views on the many. However, when that same principal is expanded to a country level you say no, one entity should go away and not enforce their views on another. It does not matter if a country does not allow itself to be governed the way they wish to be governed. If I remember correctly, Egyptians wanted this guy out, he wanted to stay, that does not sound like a government that people wanted. That sounds a lot like big business treating their employees wrong. In previous posts you believe that if a CEO makes 10x what a janitor makes the government should take over that business and nationalize it. Murbarak had a life that was probably at least 10x better than his lowest subject, but you are right we should just let that be, no need to protect those lowly unfortunate people that wree just unlucky to be born in that country and that position in life.
Plus if the US backs off all their International actions, we could save tons of money. Then we would be able to pay for the free health care that is not really free cause I have met very few doctors and nurses that want to work for free, or drug companies that want to give their stuff away for free.
Sorry if this goes past the friendly conversation. I stand up for my country and hypocritical attacks against it sort of get me fired up. I know we don’t do everything perfectly but I am really tired of the damned if we do, damned if we don’t comments directed at us.
Gerrit said:
Mar 05, 12 at 10:43 amI missed this post back when it was posted, since it was directed at a post of mine I’ll react anyway rather than pretend to not have noticed.
I am not saying the damned if you do, damned if you don’t. I indeed applaud the government to regulate the economy, surveil big businesses and step in when a wage gap gets too wide, provide healthcare and education for free to all citizens with abolition of private schools and clinics involved.
This is my ideology which I would apply to whatever country I would be residing in.
I however also do think that it is not up to any country to tell any other country what to do. This means: each country should resolve its own issues, rather than count on the interference of other nations. Unless the situation gets cross-border and other nations or international peace are in danger ; at that moment it is still not up to any specific other country to step in, but for the UN to step in. As long as the UN doesn’t do this and leaves it up to whatever countries want to, then who decides which country should get involved with which conflict? The UN has not been created for no reasons.
I think my post has been clear from the start: my ideals include a strong government that controls the economy, assures the salary gap remains small, and is the sole provider of healthcare and education (for free for all citizens). It is however not their task to regulate another country, but to assure things are done well within its own borders. If the situation in another country escallates, the UN has to be alarmed and step in. It is not up to any random country to suddenly interfere with another nation’s affairs.
And obviously nothing is really FREE ; healthcare and education provided by the state have to be paid through government money, from taxes for example. The important thing is that the government is the one providing the service and not charging when you consult a doctor or enrol in a university. By doing that, every single citizen has access to the services the government provides, as opposed to privately run services where only those with enough money in the wallet have access to. The latter is unfair IMO and hence I indeed do think the government should nationale all healthcare and education services. But it is up to each government to do this, it isn’t up to one country to have the burden of the entire world and step in in each internal conflict. I see a lot of things going wrong here in Europe and if another nation with a strongly socialist system would step in, I do think I’d like that. However, at the same time, that country would thereby risk to jeopardize its provisions for its own citizens. Hence, I am realistic that the struggle has to be done by the citizens here, without relying on another nation coming to right the wrongs.