EFTA02401793.pdf

From: Office of Terje Rod-Larsen Sent: Monday, February 4, 2013 4: Subject: February 3 update Articl= 2. chttps://mail.google.com/mail/./0/html/compose/static_filesiblank_quirks.html#b> SADA - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace <http://carnegieendowment.org/> Egypt's Hard Economic Choices Mohammed Samhouri <http://carnegieendowment.org/.013/01/31/egypt-s-hard-economic-choices/f7ib> Articl= 4. dittps://mailgoogle.com/mail/q0/html/compose/static_filesiblank_quirks.htmIttd> Salon Can Elliott Abra=s be stopped? chttp://www.salon.com/20=3/02/02/can_elliott_abrams_be_stoppedh Jordan Michael Smith <http://www.salon.com/writer/j=rdan_michael_smith/> Articl= 6. chttps://mail.google.com/mail/./0/html/compose/static_files/blank_quirks.html#f> The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs An Interview with James A. Baker, =ormer Secretary of State Forum Staff <http://www.fletcherforum.org/=uthor/forum-staff/> Ar=icle 1. The Economist Egypt: to the=barricades, again EFTA_R1_01438652 EFTA02401793 Feb 2nd 2013 -- WIT= angry crowds across the nation baying against him, Egypt's president wa=ged his finger at the people in a late-night televised speech. He declared=a curfew for some cities, he called for support for the police, he deployed the army to the streets. Seemingly as =n afterthought, he added a conciliatory call for dialogue with his politic=l opponents. As on January 28th =011, so on January 27th 2013. As with President Hosni Mubarak, so with Pre=ident Muhammad Morsi. And in both cases to little effect. After both telev=sed addresses vast throngs gleefully defied the curfew, freshly deployed soldiers ignored the revellers and the=head of the army warned of a collapsing state, prompting rumours of an imm=nent coup. Opposition leaders demanded a government of national unity. Ord=nary citizens braced for the unknown. The drama that has =een unfolding since January 25th, the anniversary of the beginning of the =prising which toppled Mr Mubarak two years ago, would have looked peculiar=y familiar even without the eerily precise coincidence of the dates. Some are tempted to see the similarities=carried through to the outcome, hoping that Mr Morsi, a stalwart of the Mu=lim Brotherhood and Egypt's first freely elected president, will soon fa=l too. "It is amazing how history accelerates," was the catty remark of a prominent defector from the Brot=erhood. "Morsi has got to the point Mubarak reached after 30 years in ju=t six months." Forbidding ways of =ustom But though the situ=tion may seem similar, the country itself has changed a great deal since w=at was at the time seen as a revolution (many shy from the term today). Eg=pt's economy has foundered dangerously in the absence of firm government policy. Politics has polarised between a= ostensibly empowered Islamist camp and a disgruntled, alienated or outrig=t hostile minority that includes much of the educated, urban elite. Amid t=is mess, fearful for the future and dispirited by haggling politicians, most Egyptians have little appetit= for another big upheaval. The army, which stepped in to shunt Mr Mubarak =side and then lingered too long, is reluctant to dirty its hands again. The young hotheads =t the heart of today's protests might like nothing more than to see Mr M=rsi forced into an ignominious, Mubarak-like exit. But the broader demand =s for him to change, not to go—to act more like a leader for all Egyptians and less like a front man for the Mus=im Brotherhood. The Brotherhood has shed much of the appeal that won it va=ious recent elections and tentatively protected it against doubts, not lea=t among foreign powers, about Islamist rule. At home its cult of secrecy, hazy pan-Islamic agenda and sense that =t rules by entitlement now provoke suspicion and resentment even among man= fellow Islamists. Whatever its specif=c focus, the mounting unrest presents an increasingly dangerous challenge =o Egypt's battered and creaking state. There would have been protests to=mark the anniversary anyway, but the sentencing to death of 21 football fans from Port Said on January 26th wou=d them up to a new level of intensity. Football fans have been among the m=st eager activists; the judgment on the fans from Port Said, who were held=responsible for the deaths of 72 people at a game in Cairo last year, sent a crowd swarming to the prison w=ere they were kept. Panicked police opened fire, killing 30 people. They f=red again at the mass funeral of those victims, killing yet more. The mix =f seemingly twisted justice—the people of Port Said think their fans are being scapegoated—brutally unac=ountable police and haughty disdain for working-class provincials revived =recisely the rage that fuelled revolution two years ago. Rioters have disrup=ed trains and traffic. Arsonists have attacked buildings used by the gover=ment and the Brotherhood. Three big cities on the Suez Canal, Egypt's pr=me strategic asset, are in a state of defiant, if largely peaceful, insurrection. Radical Islamists and seculari=ts accuse each other of forming armed militias, an ominous development. The country is send=ng Mr Morsi a loud message about the need for political inclusiveness. The=question is whether Mr Morsi and the Brothers are listening. 2 EFTA_R1_01438653 EFTA02401794 Two years, two stor=es When Egyptians of a=l classes and persuasions united against their dictator of three decades i= 2011, the call was for bread, freedom and dignity. The results under all =hree headings have been mixed and each gain has come at a price. The brief unity is long since gone; accounts of =hat happened to it, and to the country, depend strongly on who is telling =hem. The version favoure= by Islamists is a saga of success. Founded in Egypt in 1928, the Muslim B=otherhood endured decades of suppression. Drawing inspiration from a wide =ange of hierarchical institutions, from the Boy Scouts to the Communist Party, the Brothers worked assiduousl= to spread a culture of resistance to Western influence. Their message, expo=nded by a disciplined network, resonated more and more under Mr Mubarak. F=ith provided solace and strength in the face of poverty and political repr=ssion. And Mr Mubarak allowed the Brotherhood just scope enough to spook Western powers, who could reliably be worried b= Islamist bogeymen. This cynical ploy gave the Brotherhood a level of poli=ical experience no other opposition to Mr Mubarak could match. The temporary milit=ry rulers who followed Mr Mubarak saw the Brotherhood as a partner capable=of harnessing the Egyptian "street" while subject to the sort of disci=line with which military men feel comfortable. They took its advice when crafting their transition plan—which, promoted=by Islamists as a vote for the faith, was passed with a thumping 77% major=ty in March 2011. This plan deferred the drafting of a constitution, calli=g first for parliamentary elections: parliament would then select a constituent assembly to write a constitutio=. Once that had been written, Egypt could hold a presidential election. Aware of its electo=al advantage, the Brotherhood initially promised to run for only a third o= parliamentary seats. But it changed its mind, and the elections of Decemb=r 2011 to January 2012 gave the Brothers 47% of seats. To widespread surprise Salafist parties, representing an eve= more conservative Islamist tendency, claimed nearly a quarter of the vote=. "We have tried socialism and capitalism," was the simple refrain voi=ed widely in Egypt's sprawling slums and villages, "so why not try Islam?" In many constituencies voters ha= no other choice. Secular parties had little reach outside cities, and cou=d certainly not match the Islamists' provision of charity, cheap goods a=d useful services. They scarcely bothered to compete for seats in the Shura Council, the weak upper parliamentary ho=se, which was elected on a tiny turnout in February 2012. Understandably, the=lslamists saw parliamentary elections as a vindication of their claim to r=present Egypt's silent majority. But as the new parliament, well stocked=with what many educated Egyptians regarded as bearded yokels, fell into bickering and grandstanding, a backlash began=to build. The generals, still in power until the June 2012 election of a n=w president, began to share fears, felt deeply by Egypt's Christian mino=ity and also by the country's entrenched establishment, that the Islamists' agenda could prove dangerously divisi=e. Courts dismissed the parliament's first choice of a 100-person consti=uent assembly, ostensibly on technical grounds but really, it appears, bec=use it was seen as insufficiently representative of non-Islamists. Though the constitution was delayed, the army decided pr=sidential elections should go ahead regardless. When the Brotherhoo= broke an earlier promise not to run a presidential candidate, the army-ap=ointed elections board disqualified its first choice, Khairat al-Shater, a=businessman seen as the group's intellectual strongman. Mr Morsi, its reserve candidate, was a professor of engineering=known for unquestioning loyalty to the Brotherhood's "guidance bureau=94. Despite the Brother=ood's powerful and well financed machine, Mr Morsi garnered just 25% of =he vote; more than any other candidate, but a lot less than expected. Over=ll, non-Islamist candidates captured a slim majority. But the one among them with the most votes, and thus Mr M=rsi's second-round opponent, was Ahmed Shafiq, a suave air-force officer=and a minister under Mr Mubarak—a past that many non-Islamists could not=stomach. Their votes were crucial in giving Mr Morsi his eventual narrow win. To soothe their fears, Mr Morsi r=signed from the Freedom and Justice 3 EFTA_R1_01438654 EFTA02401795 Party, the Brotherhood's political f=ont. He pledged to represent all Egyptians fairly, promised a just constit=tion, and appointed a largely technocratic government. He also cultivated ties with the army, punctiliously attending=its parades. Some lurking right<=span> Since then Mr Morsi=has ratcheted up his power with two bold moves. The first came in August. =e took a terrorist attack in Sinai as grounds to purge the high command of=Mr Mubarak's top generals on the basis that the army should have been better prepared. This boosted the president=92s stature without terminally alienating the troops, who felt the old men=at the top had been overdue retirement. But his popularity has waned as he=has become ever more closely identified with the Brotherhood. Mr Shater, a heavy-=et veteran of Mr Mubarak's prisons, is widely seen as more powerful than=the prime minister. The Brothers' chief foreign-affairs spokesman, Essam=Haddad, in effect bypasses the foreign ministry to conduct international relations. Their most senior economist, =assan Malek, a rich businessman, exercises a powerful influence on economi= policy behind the scenes. Mr Morsi has inserted Brothers as provincial go=ernors and ministerial under- secretaries while seeking to widen his powers of appointment in the courts, the state-=wned banks, and the trade unions. At the same time he has needlessly offen=ed other constituencies, for example by neglecting to attend the enthronin= of a new Coptic pope. Even natural allies=express doubts. "It's become clear that the Brothers seek to control a=I the gears of state," complained Nader Bakar, spokesman of the Nour Par=y, the largest Salafist group, in a recent television interview. Secular critics fear a state as powerful, corrupt an= undemocratic as Mr Mubarak's. On the other hand<Apan> The revolution's =escent into a power grab is the other way of telling the story of the past=two years. This counternarrative to Islamist triumphalism is often ascribe= to "secular opinion", but it is more broadly held than that phrase would imply. People who see things i 111 WO -IT-4 LI. 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