Category Archives: Egypt

Arab Politics, Egypt, GCC, Iran

President Morsi to Skip NAM Tehran Summit, will Tantawi Attend?………..

   

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                       Neck of the woods
“Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Ramin Mehmanparast expressed Iran’s hope that Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi attend the upcoming Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in Tehran, describing him as a principal guest in the event. Egypt currently holds NAM’s presidential seat. Press TV, an Iranian channel, quoted a statement made by Mehmanparast to Iran Daily Saturday that confirmed the invitation, mentioning that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had personally invited Morsi to the summit via telephone earlier this month. Mehmanparast said it is natural for Egypt to be concerned with the movement at this time of change in its history…………..”

Morsi (or Mursy, wtf) is technically the president of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) now. It is a NAM meeting in Tehran, not an Iranian meeting. I could never figure what are they Non-Aligned about anyway? There is no more cold war, no two nuclear camps. Unless they are non-aligned between the Iranian camp and the Saudi camp. Or maybe nonaligned between the Sunni camp and the Shi’a camp? Possibly nonaligned between the Hatfields and McCoys.
Back to Morsi: he has to decide whether to attend the summit and anger the Saudis and the Qataris and the al-Nahayan and the Salafis and the Muslim Brothers who basically got him elected OR not attend. I guess he will not attend: so far he has not shown much guts in the face of our Gulf potentates or the Saudis (he groveled at the Saudi embassy when there were protests outside in support of detained Egyptians, and he groveled to the princes in Riyadh two weeks ago).
Joke of the day: will Tantawi attend?

Cheers
mhg
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Arab Counterrevoltion, Cairo, Egypt

Egypt under Military Rule: Zombies of the Nile, a Pyrrhic Victory…….

    

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                       Neck of the woods
“The message sent by the military council that rules Egypt was simple: “Don’t mess with Egypt’s armed forces.” The message received by the activists who flooded Tahrir Square 18 months ago: “Egypt’s revolution, which began with a bang, is ending with a whimper.” With several decrees, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces — a body of 20 generals – moved to neuter civilian authority and give itself unprecedented powers. It got some help from the Supreme Constitutional Court. The timing was hardly coincidental. The candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood was running strongly in the final round of the presidential election against a former Egyptian Air Force general. [Read more about the candidates]. What many observers are calling a “constitutional coup” has serious implications not only for the prospect of democracy in Egypt, but also for the future of the Arab world and for the close relationship between Washington and Cairo……….”

That is not the true message: it is that democracy is never given. It is taken. Egypt’s SCAF military junta (aka the Zombies) is following a soft version of the Algerian model. It closed the elected parliament (just like the Algerian regime did in 1991) but MAY allow an opposition president to be elected to a weakened office. Maybe.
Why
 the pretended surprise about the SCAF coup? We have known that since last year: the coup has been happening since Mubarak was deposed. A gradual coup that was designed to keep Tahrir Square empty even as it aborted the revolution, gutted it of any meaning. And it was allowed to happen because the Egyptian people did not want to anger the military enough to have it abort the “revolution”. Even though everybody knew that was exactly what the military was doing.
Delaying publishing the election results is also part of this coup. The military may surprise us all and announce the victory of Mohammed Morsi against their own favorite candidate, General Ahmad Shafiq. A Pyrrhic victory they hope will keep Egypt effectively under military rule for another generation or two. That may explain why Omar Suleiman, Mubarak’s chief spook and only vice president, and his family have departed for the United Arab Emirates this week.
Either
 way, the military may win its victory for a while. The next revolution, whenever it comes, may be a real one, not a remake of the old regime.
Cheers
mhg
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Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, Saudi Arabia

The Saudi Regime Dodged a Bullet: Nasser’s Missed Great Chance…………

 

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                                             Neck of the woods

“In 1958 he wrote a proposed constitution for Saudi Arabia which would have created a constitutional monarchy and expanded civil rights. He began to assemble an elected advisory committee, but his ideas were rejected by the king, and religious leaders in Saudi Arabia issued a fatwa declaring his constitution to be contrary to Islamic law. In 1961 the kingdom revoked his passport and attempted to silence him, but he expatriated to Egypt and declared himself a socialist. There, influenced by Gamal Abdel Nasser, Talal continued to push for reform and criticise the leadership of the Kingdom. In 1964 Talal agreed to temper his criticisms in exchange for permission to reenter Saudi Arabia. He is now a successful businessman and prominent philanthropist. Though a senior member of Al Saud, his past political forays may have diluted any hopes of a future claim for the throne, though he denies it. Prince Talal resumed his push for reform in Saudi Arabia in September 2007, when he announced his desire to form a political party (illegal in Saudi Arabia) to advance his goal of liberalizing the country……………..”

The Egyptian media in the Nasserist era called them the “free princes”, a name similar to the Free Officers who overthrew the Egyptian monarchy in July of 1952. Talal and his supporters escaped to Egyptian exile for a few years, under the protection of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Of all the Arab regimes of the 1950s, the Saudi regime was the least endangered by the Nasserist tide. The secret was in the ‘people’: the Saudi people at that time were easily among the least educated and least open Arabs (possibly less than Oman or Yemen but it was a toss-up). They were also shackled then, as they are now, by the ideology of the Wahhabi sect which warns that disobedience to the ruler, no matter how corrupt he is, is a sacrilege and would send you to the “other” hell beyond the current Wahhabi hell. Maybe Nasser got too busy and did not try hard enough to overthrow the al-Saud dynasty. His involvement in Syria and Yemen probably distracted him. That was a pity: overthrowing the Saudi clan would certainly have been Nasser’s greatest gift to Arabs and Muslims.

As it happened, the plots and counter-plots continued in the House of Saud. In 1964 crown Prince Faisal plotted and succeeded in overthrowing his brother King Saud, who also went on to spend some time in Egyptian exile. The story does not end there: in 1975 King Faisal himself was shot and killed by one of his nephews. That nephew wanted to avenge the death of his father who had been killed during a previous uprising against the al-Saud regime. You can bet the farm that there are many plots and counter-plots these days among the princes of the ruling regime. There are fights over turf, eventual power, and money that rightfully belongs to the people.
Talal bin Abdelaziz is still a little bit of a rebel among the tight al-Saud princes. That is partly because he knows he has been passed for top jobs like Minister of Defense or Interior and that he has no chance of ever becoming crown prince or king. Yet being a prince, he is not doing too shabbily, nor is his son al-Waleed. With these people, liberalism goes only so far, they can mouth rhetoric about openness and moderation but they are as corrupt as the rest of them, and as despotic.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Politics, Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Middle East Women, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Election Debates, Wild Women Drivers, the Mufti and a Catholic Riyal…….

 

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Egypt held its first ever presidential debate this week. I watched part of it on the internet. Many Arabs watched, fascinated by this very first election debate in any Arab state. The excitement was so widespread that many Saudis wished they could have their leaders debate before they take whatever office they inherit.
The so-called “liberal” wing of the al-Saud dynasty were also excited. So-called “liberal” because they think that eventually women should be able to drive cars, as soon as the king and the mufti agree that: (a) they have enough brains to handle it (I know women in the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf region have more or better brains than men: that is why university requirements are much lower for men), and (b) that they have enough sense not to have intercourse with the first driver who blows his horn at them on the road, they all hasten to add.
Meanwhile it is possible that the princes are discussing borrowing the Egyptian experience by having them debate each other to decide who gets what job (king, first prime minister, second prime minister, minister of defense, interior, etc etc). The idea is that the princes would debate each other behind closed doors, that ordinary mortal folks will not get to watch their betters vie for the jobs they were born to get. If no one is voted to have won a debate, rival princes being rival princes, they would flip a riyal coin (head or tail) to decide the winner. The Mufti (Shaikh Al Al Shaikh) would flip the coin according to Wahhabi tradition, just to make it all legit and kosher.

(The Mufti Al probably hasn’t a clue as to the infidel origins of the Riyal. He probably doesn’t know that the “Riyal”, as well as the “Rial” come from the Spanish “Real” meaning “Royal”. He probably rather not know that the coin of the Wahhabi realm bears a Catholic name, that it refers to one or two of their Most Catholic Majesties of Spain (could even be Fernando y Ysabel).
Cheers
mhg


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Egypt, Iran, Muslims, Religion, Turkey

History: al-Nahayan Take Aim at al-Afghani and Mohammed Abdu and British Intelligence and the Grinch……

 

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Shaky (at best) analysis from someone in the UAE aiming at the current ‘enemies” of the al-Nahayan rulers of Abu Dhabi: the Muslim Brothers and the Iranians. He is tying the Muslim Brotherhood to Jamaliddeen al-Afghani (who resided in Cairo for some years) and al-Azhar and Mohammed Abdu (of Egypt) and British intelligence and the Grinch who stole Christmas and the Wicked Witch of the East and the al-Nahayan (at that time they were busy killing each other for power).
He claims that al-Afghani was hiding his Shi’ism, which can be true but is unlikely at the time. In those days (late 19th century) people were not as sectarian as today, mainly because the al-Saud and al-Khalifa did not have access to the vast media they have now to spread their sectarian poison across the Muslim world (actually I believe the al-Saud were exiles in Kuwait at the time). It is true that al-Afghani and Egypt’s Mohammed Abdu influenced the later creators of the Muslim Brotherhood, but their teachings and writings are also claimed by some to have influenced Salafi thought (I doubt this assertion: I had thought these came from the Wahhabi doctrine. But what do I know, I am just an economist).
This piece is political (like my blog postings) and is aimed at ‘discrediting’ the Muslim Brotherhood (M by tying them to Shi’as and to British intelligence (who created the UAE) because the fundamentalist MB are having a dispute with the UAE rulers these days. Personally I don’t care for either one, but this is a transparent attempt by an al-Nahayan pen-slinger. Besides, he is accusing al-Afghani and Mohammed Abdu of being British agents at a time when the whole of the Omani Coast and its sheikhdoms, including the al-Nahayan, were under British control. As I said, the UAE itself was created by the British in 1971 (not necessarily a bad idea). (Speaking of which, whatever happened to the foreign mercenary brigade formed last year by the al-Nahayan brothers from Blackwater veterans and Colombians and Australians and white South Africans and other foreigners?)

Jamal-ad-Din Asadabadi (a k a al-Afghani), was an influential but mysterious character (both Iran and Afghanistan claim him) who resided in Iran, Egypt, India, Iraq, and Istanbul, among other places (including Europe where he visited London and Paris but most likely avoided the Moulin Rouge in Pigalle). He traveled for learning at a young age and influenced Islamic thought and the response to Western expansion and imperialism. Apparently he had a beef with Western materialism although he was not a fanatic like the Salafists or some of the Gulf Muslim Brothers of today. Whether he was an agent of British intelligence or the Russian Tsarist Okhrana or the Knight Templars or the Nabati Poets Diwaniyya ديوانية شعراء النبط, I have no idea. Interestingly the Jewish Virtual Library has a good but brief biography of him:

“Journalist, reformer. A founder of modern Muslim anti-colonialism, he advocated a religious and cultural revival to counteract European influence. Jamal al-Din Afghani is considered to be the founding father of Islamic modernism. …….”
Cheers
mhg


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Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Congress, US Foreign Policy

Allawi and Omar Suleiman and the Princes: Seeking GOP Help in Washington againt Obama………..

    

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“In a surprise move that could cast doubt on the nomination, Allawi attacked McGurk as being “biased” and “unfit” for the position, warning that members of his Sunni-dominated Iraqiya bloc could boycott the new American envoy. Allawi, whose Iraqiya bloc is entangled in a turbulent crisis with Al-Maliki, said he had sent a letter to the US Congress urging the American legislators to bloc McGurk’s nomination on the basis that he was backing the Iraqi Shia leader. Allawi previously led the Iraqi National Accord in his US exile, a group which played a key role in making the case for invading Iraq in 2003 and toppling the Sunni-dominated regime led by former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein…………”

Allawi is the Saudis’ second most favorite man in Iraq. Okay, he is the favorite Shi’a of the Saudi princes and even the Wahhabi mufti might accept him in he has to. Hence, no doubt his opposition is coordinated with the House of Saud, who are also undoubtedly pissed at McGurck for the same reasons.
Allawi is playing the Netanyahu game: he is trying to provoke the U.S. Congress to act against the President of the United States. Only Allawi, being a Ba’athist, is playing dirtier, addressing the Congress directly to block a president’s nominee.
Come to think of it, Allawi to the Saudis is like Omar Suleiman of Egypt to the Saudis. They are/were both the favorite candidates of the princes to rule in Iraq and Egypt. In Iraq the plot to reinstate the former Ba’ath Party failed because of the divisions within Iraq, and it looks like it will also fail in Egypt.
Cheers
mhg


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Ali Khamenei, Egypt, Iran, Terrorism, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Suicidal Iranians: Another Dastardly Terror Plot in the Suez Canal……….

    

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“The Egyptian authorities claim to have foiled an Iranian attempt to blow up Israeli vessels in the Suez Canal, a government-linked newspaper has reported. Details of the alleged plot are likely to escalate tensions between Israel and Iran, who are locked in a stand-off over Tehran’s nuclear programme that many fear could trigger a new war in the Middle East. Israeli officials were unable to confirm the details, but said it was significant that the report had been published in Al-Ahram Weekly, a semi-official newspaper. Quoting state prosecutors, Al-Ahram said Egyptian police were holding two Egyptian nationals who are charged with receiving orders and payment from Iranian agents to blow up an Israeli ship. The two allegedly offered a third suspect, Mohammed Zakri, £5.1m to carry out the attack. Mr Zakri was reportedly told that he would be “paid by the Shiites”, apparently a reference to Tehran.…………..”

Oh oh, this is now an epidemic. Yet another Iranian plot surfaces, this time in Egypt, just two days after the last one, which was about four days after the one before it, which was just days after the one preceding………
And the suspect in Egypt knew just the exact words to say to the police; “paid by the Shiites“. He sounds so sincere, he almost sounds like a Salafi that equates Shi’as with Iranians (the way I often equate Salafis with a Saudi fifth column). There hasn’t been an Iranian plot against Egypt since they tried to take over the country with the help of Hizbollah about two months ago, as reported by Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat. A couple of months before that the Iranians were plotting with al-Qaeda to take over Egypt again, for the second time in 25 centuries (according to the same Saudi daily). Before that, some two years ago, they had tried to convert all 80 million Egyptians to the Shi’a sect, but Hosni Mubarak and the Shaikh of al-Azhar saved the day.
This new plot is uncovered exactly one day after an Iran-Hizbollah-Hamas plot was exposed by Ambassador Gerald Feierstein to take over Yemen, barely two days after the plot in New York to take photos of tourist sites. I am not even going to list all the other plots exposed so far, leaving their masterminds, the Iranian mullahs, in a state of un-consummated frustration.
Apparently the (extremely stupid) Iranians are itching to be bombed and have their infrastructure destroyed by Israel and the United States. Preferably with the blessings of the UN Security Council (they already have all the al-Saud and Salafi blessings they need). The mullahs must be disappointed with nothing to show for their efforts: that their country is still standing on its feet after all the previous plots they concocted and tried to execute all around the world. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei must have called in the chief of the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and given his a dressing down:  ”If you are so smart, then why are our cities, out command and control centers, our ports and our oil infrastructure still standing?”
What must be frustrating for the mullahs is that all their terror plots consistently fail. From the Persian Gulf to Egypt to Georgetown to New York to Asia, not one of these dastardly plots has been consummated. Maybe the best thing for the West to do about their nuclear program is to leave it alone. Just let them botch it up like all their other plots.

(Humor and wit side: it is possible, just possible, that the Iranians, some faction of them, are behind all these wild worldwide plots that we read about almost every other day now. Some of them, besides Jack the Texan and his Mexican drug cartel pals, may have had a grudge against the Saudi ambassador. But in that case which faction is it? An internal Iranian faction or an external Iranian faction?)
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria

Year of the Baathists: Iraq and Syria, Nasser and the Kings………….

 

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“On the surface, in fact, the Syrian affair was much milder and less bloody than most Arab revolts. In the past 15 years, the Middle East has been continually shaken like a kaleidoscope, constantly falling into new patterns. There have been two sizable wars and fully two dozen armed uprisings and rebellions………  It was quite clear last week that the latest shake of the kaleidoscope resulted in new patterns and alignments overwhelmingly favorable to Gamal Abdel Nasser. The Syrian revolution was the third in six months by rebels pledged to make common cause with Egypt. Flights of new leaders poured into Cairo for tear-stained embraces with Nasser and nightlong conferences on the future course of that misty concept called Arab unity. Nasser stands at the pinnacle of prestige, if not of power, and the shadow he casts has never been longer. Today, it falls over the entire Arab world from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean………….For the first time in 500 years, the three key Arab states of Egypt, Iraq and Syria have a similar political posture and are on close and friendly terms……….  The monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Jordan—close friends of the West but hated enemies of the Arab nationalists—face the threat of uprisings at the hands of powerful local friends of the man in Cairo…………”


The Iraqi Ba’athists had a taste of power for the first time that year, but it did not last. They were kicked out of the government by their allies, the  Aref brothers who established their own dynasty. The Arefs had been pardoned by leader of the 1958 revolution, Za’eem (General) Abdel Karim Qassim after they had tried to overthrow him. He saved their lives from the executioner, but they went on plotting against him in freedom. He was overthrown by a Ba’athist and Aref alliance that initiated its own bloodbath in Iraq. Aref did not return the favor to Qassim but had him machine-gunned without a trial. Soon he managed to get rid of the Ba’ath, and when he died in a helicopter crash (a favorite way for Iraqi potentates to die) his brother took over until 1968. The second Aref was overthrown by the Ba’athists who killed off almost anybody who could challenge them and they ruled until April 2003.
The Syrian Ba’athists never lost power after March 1963. They had several strongmen who led the Party that ruled Syria. Bashar al-Assad’s father was the last one and the strongest of them, and he arranged for his son to take over when he died. What will happen to Bashar? We shall see: the consensus in the West and among many Arabs was that he was a gonner, but that was last month. The outlook may have changed these past two weeks. The era of the absolute Arab dictator is finished, soon to be followed by the end of the absolute tribal monarch (do you hear me, your majesties?.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, Libya, North Africa, Syria

From Libya to Syria: Tribes and Sects with One Flag…………

 

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“Tribal leaders and militia commanders in oil-rich eastern Libya have declared their intention to seek semi-autonomy, raising fears that the country might disintegrate following the fall of Muammar Gaddafi. Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC), the interim central government based in the capital Tripoli, has repeatedly voiced its opposition to the creation of a partly autonomous eastern region, warning it could eventually lead to the break-up of the North African nation. Thousands of representatives of major tribal leaders, militia commanders and politicians made the declaration on Tuesday in a ceremony held in the eastern city of Benghazi. They vowed to end decades of marginalisation under Gaddafi and named a council to run the affairs of the newly created region, extending from the central coastal city of Sirte to the Egyptian border in the east. Al Jazeera’s Nicole Johnston, reporting from the capital Tripoli, said the announcement was only the beginning of a process………...”

That is what happens when the façade of ‘nationhood’ that Qaddafi violently maintained collapses. Yet oil, petroleum, is the one item most likely to keep Libya from breaking apart now.
Most Arab states are basically a balance of tribal, ethnic, and sectarian interests. Egypt is famously the one exception. Egypt is not a tribal society and it has historically accepted a multi-ethnic culture (contrary to common belief, Egyptian people have roots from all around the Mediterranean and the rest of the Middle East). The Christian Copts were never an “issue” until the Mubarak regime started to dismantle the secular state that was initiated in the days of Mohammed Ali (Pasha not Clay). Egyptian Jews were not an “issue” until after the first Palestine War of 1948 (what Arabs call the Nakba, catastrophe, and Jews call Israel’s War of Independence). In Egypt, Shi’as are a tiny minority that the Mubarak regime magnified and built up into an illusory threat, no doubt under Saudi Wahhabi pressure. Now, with the political system of Egypt Islamized, with the Salafis effectively sharing parliamentary power with the Muslim Brotherhood, all bets are off.
 
In Syria also sectarian, tribal, and ethnic divisions are coming out into the open. Except Syria has more of these divisions, deeper divisions, longer suppressed than either Libya or Egypt. And Syria has been under the Ba’athist rule since 1963, under effective Ba’athist ideological political influence since the late 1940s. A very long period of the denial of divisions, of sweeping things under the rug. And Syria is surrounded by states that perceive their own national interests in Syria, and they are beginning to interfere and intervene.
Cheers
mhg


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Cairo, Cinema, Egypt, Muslims, Salafi, Saudi Arabia

Egypt: a Fateful Salafi Nose Job, Catholic Riyal and Princely Saksooka…………

 

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“Egypt’s Islamist Salafist al- Nour party has dismissed one of its parliament members from its ranks after he received a rhinoplasty surgery he claimed was meant to cover up an operation on his nose. Salafist member of the People’s Assembly Anwar al-Balkimy claimed that he was robbed and beaten on the Cairo-Alexandria desert highway and that he sustained injuries and bruises on his face that required an operation. The state-run MENA news agency confirmed that masked gunmen attacked Balkimy on the Cairo-Alexandria desert highway and robbed the MP of 100,000 Egyptian pounds. Balkimy told MENA he was surprised when five masked people in a black Jeep stopped his car and stole the money. They wanted him to step out of the car but he resisted, so they beat him, he said………… A doctor in a beauty hospital in Cairo reportedly notified the authorities that after an operation Balkimy insisted to leave the hospital without the hospital’s clearance………..”

That Salafi son of a gun. He probably had matrimonial plans: third or fourth wife or maybe trade in one of the older models. Celebrating his new political fortune. A nose job: that won’t make him look like Joan Rivers. Must have cost a bundle of Saudi Riyals. At least the Saudi princes aren’t into nose jobs, not yet, not from the looks of them hooked Hollywood-style noses; straight out of Central Casting. Not a one of them has a nose like Joan Rivers, not yet. Somehow the hooked nose goes with the jet-black dyed goatee (a k a saksooka).
FYI: did you know that the Riyal (or Rial) comes from the Spanish “real” meaning “royal”? Very Catholic of the Saudis and Qataris and Omanis and Iranians to honor Torquemada in such a fruitful monetary way. Back to the Egyptian Salafi and his nose……
Cheers
mhg


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