What I’ve noticed from reading history is that democracy where it has taken root earliest and in its most stable forms basically takes a long time to grow. You have to start with a pseudo-democracy and work up from there.
Before we broke away from the United Kingdom, both the UK and the thirteen colonies all had some form of somewhat democratic representative government. It wouldn’t pass the sniff test of real democracy today, but it wasn’t autocracy and there was genuine input from concerned citizens of a restricted electorate–and there were elements of monarchy and inherited power as well.
The UK and the US slowly became more democratic and in the case of the UK slowly removed power from their hereditary nobility and monarch. A few other European countries followed similar molds. Then you have cases like the French who go from an almost absolute monarchy to a radical democracy that quickly collapses into despotism and then back to monarchy and then much of the 19th century France’s government seemed to change every five days.
Germany became democratic almost overnight, but it only lasted about 10 years before falling into very bad despotism.
I’m not convinced it’s really ideal to go from unfree to free, instead I think history suggests some sort of gradual reduction in power where a smaller group of elites run things is a good intermediary system.
According to the BBC and AJE the Brotherhood has instructed its supporters to protest non-violently with sit-ins and the like. I think this is a positive, I have my fingers crossed for the people of Egypt.
OTOH it does seem that the Army is arresting high level MB members and preparing to charge them in relation to killings of protesters, this is probably not a good turn.
That’s exactly what I was telling some friends today. Bottom line, if the economy sucks, the people are going to be miserable.
Note that Obama will not call this a “coup” because if there were a coup. we’d have to cut off aid to Egypt, per the statute written concerning aid to that country. Heard this discussed on NPR this AM. We have to keep paying Egypt off in order for them to keep peace with Israel. Realpolitik is alive and well.
My guess is that the Islamist (whether part of the MB or not) are going to resort to violence and terrorism if they are not in the driver’s seat, politically. Not good times ahead, I’m afraid.
I don’t think it is so much keeping Egypt at peace with Israel in the formal sense. A war with Israel simply isn’t in the cards for Egypt. They haven’t the resorces for it. Wars are expensive and Egypt is beyond broke.
The real problem is a complete breakdown of civil order within Egypt, which may create the sort of instability in which subnational groups take the opportunity to stir the shit by making a slap at Israel - that being a symptom, rather than a cause, of disaster (except of course for the Israelis affected).
From the US perspective, the real issue is: continue to subsidize the military, hoping a US-subsidized military is a force for the stability that Egypt so sorely requires to avoid a massive disaster (the worst of which would affect Egyptians, but part of which may spill over in the form of attacks by militant groups on Egypt’s neighbour); or is an overmighty Egyptian military (fueled by US subsidies) conversely part of the problem, what with its willingness to turf civilian governments, and elected governments at that?
Looming like the proverbial 800 pound gorilla in the room is the fact that Egypt heavily subsidizes basics such as food and fuel; in a country as rife with povery as Egypt, removing those subsidies, which Egypt cannot afford, would result in massive hardship and instability.
I don’t think Israel right now is overly worried about actual war with Egypt - for the reason you stated. The bigger problem would be if there is serious instability in Egypt, the Gaza-Egypt border controls would effectively cease to exist, allowing all kinds of weaponry into Gaza that would be a huge headache for Israeli military. If that instability happens, I wouldn’t be surprised if Israel again takes control of the Philadelphi corridor to prevent such flow.
My impression is that the Gaza-Egypt border was pretty permiable at the best of times, that you could get pretty well whatever you wanted in Gaza if you could pay the tolls to the tunnel-makers.
Wasn’t there an article about someone in Gaza ordering takeout KFC in Gaza, delivered from Egypt?
Israel doesn’t much care about takeout KFC. They do care about anti-aicraft and anti-tank weapons, and missiles. Those were basically impossible to smuggle when Israel was controlling the Philadelphi, and are pretty hard to smuggle when Egypt cares to control the border. When Egypt doesn’t care to control the border, it becomes easier, and if Egypt deteriorates, it will become a cakewalk. I don’t believe Israel will allow it to get to that point.
I suspect the point here is that the same tunnels that can be used for KFC can be used for military supplies as well (assuming they are small enough to fit). Though again, I do not know, except from third-hand accounts, whether it is a case of Egyptians turning a blind eye to KFC while carefully vetting the smugglers, or (to my mind, more likely) not having much control at all.
Arguably. I just hope whatever civil government emerges from this makes it a top priority to gradually downsize the Army, and shake up its command structure and clean up the corruption, to make future coups both impossible and unthinkable.
Sounds to me like there has been a bit of a crackdown on the tunnels by the Egyptians - but not as if it amounts to a complete interdiction; much less that it is something the Israelis can exactly count on to keep military hardware out of Gaza.
What I’ve heard is that Egyptian enforcement ebbs and flows, but is nowhere a complete stoppage. This seems consistent with that theory: “… we’ll find something else”.
Not likely. Remember this is not an ‘army’ as we understand it. Like in Pakistan it is a faction of society that owns and controls a huge part of the economy. It owns businesses, factories, etc etc etc.
It has its own interests as a societal actor and it has lots of guns. It is playing its own long game in all of this - aimed at retaining as much of the old order as it can. Just look at who they’ve made Interim President.
Exactly. And the existence of an army like that is incompatible with a democratic republic. Look at how iffy is Turkey’s status as a democracy, let alone Pakistan’s.
The army are tough targets for the MB whereas the Copts are relatively vulnerable and it’s easy to stir up anti-Copt feeling in Egypt. Might be an easy outlet for MB frustrations.