Posted by
Bill Crawford on Saturday, February 12, 2011 1:12:28 AM
You know current events are confusing as hell when even ground reporters can't maintain any focus. Many people I've talked to have expressed eternal confusion about what is happening there, and for good reason. The reason is, there are a whole host of narratives happening simultaneously, and they are not all directly related to each other.
I will try and unhash this the best I can. To do that, I will have to break it into it's varying themes.
What started all this? The most popular rolling theory extant is that the recent uprisings in Tunisia sparked it, which I see no reason to dispute at this time. There may be an underlying military factor, but there is no information out there at this time to back that. I know there are military coup rumors already flying, but none of them are coming with solid information yet.
Our own intelligence sucks There is good reason for this, but that is an off-focus narrative, and isn't open to rapid summary. I'll take this one up in another blog soon.
The global flow of oil This is the underlying subject of most of the world's agida over Egypt. If they fell into unstable hands, or became another Iran, it would threaten both the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz. This could easily lead to $200+/bbl. oil and you would be choosing between eating and driving for at least a year. Nobody on the planet wants this, not even the Soviets, who thrive on Mideast instability to keep their own oil prices high.
The eternal Isreal question Even though Mubarak has supported Isreal haters at every pass, Egypt is a very large country that has essentially given up directly challenging Isreal militarily since they got their butts kicked in seven days in 1973. The army trains for action against Isreal all the time, but it has become a wargame staple and not much else. A change in leadership in Cairo could change all this overnight, and the Knesset is presently overdosing on Excedrin.
The army factor This is the central part of this story, as well as the most fascinating. Even before the Cold War ended, their military stopped being trained by the Soviets and started matriculating in our military colleges. Mubarak has done his level best to keep churning and rotating the top echelons over the years to prevent a power challenge to himself, but the end result is that the army there is about as pro-Western as you will see in that region. When the demonstrations started, Mubarak asked the army to put them down, and they refused. They have been in charge of the situation ever since. Without their tacit support, this would have been Teheran 2009 all over again. It was the military positioning that forced Mubarek to resign, not the demonstrations. No good Strongman falls for a PR stunt, no matter how many TV cameras are on. Unfortunately, this also means that what happens in the next few months is also in the army's hands, and I personally am not really comfortable with that.
The Strongman factor Mubarak's reason for not resigning was one of stability, and he had a point. He just didn't realize that his army was the new power. Remember Yugoslavia? The Croats, Muslims and Christians have been going at it since the 1300's, except for the 40 years that Marshal Tito sat on all of them. They still shoot at each other all the time, taking breaks only when the winter temperatures don't allow them to use their artillery and small arms.
The Muslim Brotherhood factor This one is the great unknown. They are widely acknowledged to be the most organized opposition factor on the ground. Like Hamas and Hezbollah, they love passing out cash and foodstuffs to buy public support. Hamas has parlayed this into government power in Lebanon. While I love to see them responsible for picking up the trash and making the power grid function, they still are terrorists. If democracy in Egypt allows the Brotherhood a tangible piece of a coalition, there will be hell to pay down the road. They are not simply community organizers, folks.
Whither Democracy? This gets more hopeful and realistic when the government either can't or won't control the international media. Mubarak tried shutting off the internet, and eventually realized he couldn't. Facebook and twitter are all part of the new revolutionary toolbox, and the Western world has long since come to terms with it. Rumor has it that one of the last nails in the Soviet coffin was it's inability to control the news of Chernobyl in '86. It certainly wasn't their first major reactor incident. The control of information is critical to any dictatorship. If you can't do it, you have to let up. This is where China has been for over a decade.
If you want't to follow along on this story, events will force you to follow all these narratives. It kind of makes it harder to focus. It's like a reality show with twenty writers. It sure is hell on the brain sometimes.