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05 February 2011
By Nicola Nasser The
Arab world is the beating heart of the overwhelmingly
Muslim Middle East, and the Arab masses are angrily
moving for a change in the status quo, practically
dictated by the military, economic or political
hegemony of the United States, which in turn is
whipped by the regional power of the Israeli U.S.
strategic ally. But any change in the regional status
quo would place the Middle East at a strategic
crossroads that is not expected to be viewed
tolerantly by the U.S. Israeli alliance, a fact
which expectedly would warn of a fierce struggle to
come. Despite the U.S. rhetorical defense of the
"universal rights" in the region, it is still
premature to conclude that this hegemonic alliance
will allow the Arab move for change to run its course,
judging by the historic experiences of the last
century as well as by the containment tactics the
United States is now adopting to defuse whatever
strategic changes might be created by the revolting
Arab masses. The
U.S. war on terror has preoccupied U.S. decision
makers and embroiled regional rulers in their
preoccupation to overlook the tinderbox of the double
digit unemployment rate among Arab youth, double and
in some cases triple the world average, according to
the most conservative estimates, which under the U.S.
supported authoritarian regimes has been a ticking
time bomb for too long. Now, the "demographic tsunami
to the south of the Mediterranean," as described by
Swedish Foreign Minister, Carl Bildt, has overtaken
the west, but in particular the U.S. Israeli
alliance, by surprise, sending shock waves across the
Middle East, shaking the pillars of what this alliance
has taken for granted as a guaranteed geopolitical
stability reinforced by the Israeli 34 year old
military occupation of the Palestinian territories,
the Syrian Golan Hights and parts of southern Lebanon
and the U.S. invasion then the ongoing occupation of
Iraq. But "the Arab world's
Berlin moment" has come and the U.S. supported
"authoritarian wall has fallen," professor of Middle
Eastern Politics and International Relations at the
London School of Economics, Fawaz Gerges, told
Reuters.
Unlike in Tunisia, the U.S. regional strategy cannot
afford a strategic change of regime in a pivotal
regional country like Egypt. U.S. senior officials'
appeals for President Hosni Mubarak to respect the
"universal rights" of the Egyptian people and their
right in "peaceful" protests, for reforms that should
be "immediately" undertaken by the ruling regime, and
their calls for "restraint" and non-violence by both
the regime and protesters are all smoke-screening the
fact that the United States is siding with
what President Barak Obama
hailed as "an ally of ours on a lot of critical
issues" and his spokesman, Robert Gibbs, described as
"a strong ally" - - which Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton wishfully described his government as "stable"
on Wednesday,
despite the roaring demands on the streets for its
change - - at least because "a more
representative government drawn from the diversity of
Egypt's political opposition will be much more
inclined to criticize American and Israeli policies,"
according to Bruce Riedel, a former long-time CIA
officer and a senior fellow of the Saban Center at the
Brookings Institution, on January 29. The
U.S. posturing as neutral, "not taking sides," could
appease and mislead American public opinion, but to
Arab and especially to Egyptian public opinion even
neutrality is viewed as hostile and condemned in the
region as a double standard when compared with the
U.S. siding with similar moves for change elsewhere in
the world, let alone that this neutrality contradicts
the western highly valued democratic values at home. On
Friday night, Obama called for "a meaningful dialogue
between the (Egyptian) government and its citizens,"
who insist on staying on the streets until the regime,
and not only its government, is changed and Mubarak
leaves. On January 28, Vice President Joe Biden told
PBS NewsHour that Mubarak should not step down. When
asked whether time had come for Mubarak to go, he
said: "No. I think the time has come for President
Mubarak to begin to move to be more responsive to
some .. of the needs of the people out there." Nothing
would be more clear cut, but nothing would be more
counterproductive to both Egyptian and American
interests on the background of footages on the screens
of satellite TV stations showing protesters condemning
Mubarak as a "U.S. agent" or showing live bullets or
"made in U.S.A." tear gas canisters, reported by ABC
News, which were used against them. It
seems the en masse Arab popular protests in Egypt that
no party in the opposition could claim to be the
leader are confusing the senior officials of the Obama
administration who "have no idea of exactly who these
street protesters are, whether the protesters are
simply a mob force incapable of organized political
action and rule, or if more sinister groups hover in
the shadows, waiting to grab power and turn Egypt into
an anti-Western, anti-Israeli bastion." in the words
of the U.S. commentator Lesli e H. Gelb, the former
New York Times columnist and senior government
official.
The U.S. confusion is
illustrated by the stark contradiction between the
realities on the ground in Egypt, Algeria, Morocco,
Jordan, Lebanon and Yemen and, for instance, what the
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern
Affairs, Jeffrey Filtman, told Josh Rogin of Foreign
Policy: "What happened in Tunisia strikes me as
uniquely Tunisian. That the events that took place
here over the past few weeks derive from particularly
Tunisian grievances, from Tunisian circumstances by
the Tunisian people." How farthest cut off from
reality a senior U.S. official could be! "The White
House will have to be forgiven for not knowing whether
to ride the tiger or help put him back in a cage,"
Gelb wrote. White
House Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, said the U.S., in
view of the protests, will "review" its two billion
annual assistance to Egypt. This "threat" is
understood among Arab and Egyptian audiences as
targeted not against Mubarak to pressure him on
reforms, but against whatever anti U.S regime might
succeed him.
Arab en masse protests,
especially in Egypt, are cornering the United States
in a bind, tortured between maintaining "an ally" and
respecting his people's "universal rights" in
expressing their "legitimate grievances," according to
Obama. What message would the United States be sending
to the majority of Arab allied or friendly rulers if
it opts to dump the most prominent among them? Would
AIPAC and other American Jewish and Zionist lobbyists
allow their government to facilitate the ousting of
the 30 year old guarantor of the Egyptian peace
treaty with Israel? It's almost a forgone conclusion
that Obama's decision is already made to once again
give priority to the stability of U.S. "vital
interests" in Middle East while in public giving lip
service to Americans' most cherished democratic
values.
This translates into a
naοve American recipe for preserving the status quo by
some cosmetic reforms. But "Those who stick to the
status quo may be able to hold back the full impact of
their countries' problems for a little while, but not
forever," Clinton warned in Qatar on January 13,
otherwise, she added, the foundations of their rule
will be "sinking into the sand," but she did not
announce the fears of her country that the pillars of
the U.S. hegemony would be then crumbling too, anti
Americanism exacerbated and in turn fueling the only
alternative to democracy in the Arab Middle East, i.e.
terrorism. Egyptian former head of the International
Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, whom some of
the protesters have chosen to head a delegation to
represent them on Sunday and who is seen as a
potential presidential challenger to Mubarak, warned
in Newsweek before his return to Egypt last week, that
it was too late to believe reforms were still possible
under the 82- year-old Mubarak, who has held "imperial
power" for three decades and presides over a
legislature that is a "mockery."
Similarly, Israel was taken
by surprise. On Tuesday, January 25, the Egyptian
popular tsunami flooded the streets of Cairo on the
Police Day. The coincidence was highly symbolic. The
U.S. supported police state was unable to honor its
police and within a few days police simply
"disappeared," army was called in to protect vital
state and public property while protection of private
property and safety was left to the "popular
committees," which sprang up of nowhere. On the same
day, the new chief of the Israeli Military
Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, was telling the
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the
Egyptian President's rule was not under threat, his
regime was stable and Mubarak was able to rein in the
protests. In no time Kochavi was proven wrong.
Ordering his government's spokepersons to shut up on
Egypt and, like Obama, holding urgent and high level
meetings with his senior security and intelligence
officials, Israeli Prime Minister sent a clear and
brief message on January 30: Israel will "ensure" that
peace with Egypt "will continue to exist."
The Egyptian shock waves
have already hit Israel and the Israeli possible
reactions are potentially the most dangerous. "An
Egyptian government that is less cooperative with
Israel .. could make Israel more prone to
unpredictable unilateral actions, creating greater
instability throughout the region," warned Jonathan
Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Israeli mainstream media is already crying wolf. "If
Mubarak is toppled then
Israel will be totally isolated in the region,"
said Alon Liel, a former director-general of the
Israeli Foreign Ministry and a former ambassador to
Turkey. "Without
Egypt, Israel will be left with no friends in Mideast,"
a story in Haaretz was headlined. Similarly, "Israel
left all alone,"
Itamar Eichner headlined his column in the Yadioth
Ahronot online. The Egypt Gaza Strip borders is now
under Israeli spotlight. The Egyptian army which was
called into cities west of the Suez Canal could not
deploy in Sinai east of it, especially on those
borders, restricted by none other than the peace
treaty with Israel; the Egyptian security vacuum in
the last few days was no evident more than in Sinai.
The statement by the Hamas government on January 29
that the borders between Egypt and the Israeli
besieged Gaza Strip, already declared an "enemy
entity" by Israel, were unilaterally and "fully under
control" was not good news in Tel Aviv. Hence the
Israeli media reports about a possible Israeli
reoccupation of the Gaza Egypt borders. On
the surface, the Arab world representing the status
quo is no less confused and undecided; its heart is
with the Egyptian regime, but, like its U.S. ally, it
has to speak with tongues. Example: "The Saudi
government and people stands with the Egyptian
government and people," the Saudi Press Agency (SPA)
quoted Saudi King Abdullah as telling President
Mubarak in a phone call; earlier the king told U.S.
President Obama there should be no bargaining about
Egypt's stability and the security of its people,
according to SPA. In view of the U.S., Arab and
Israeli thinly veiled determination to save the moment
in Egypt, it was a forgone conclusion that Mubarak
will cling to power, thus setting the stage either for
a long battle of instability with his own people that
for sure will deplete the country's meager resources
or cutting this battle short by a bloody crackdown
that would make the repression which created the
present people's uprising look like a mercy. *
Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in
Bir Zeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied
Palestinian territories. |
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