-
Best Defense
Robots: Killing Our Warrior Spirit?
-
The Cable
Whistleblower: I'm Being Bullied By State Dept.
-
Passport
Syria: Is It the Sunnis' or Shiites' Fault?
Posted By Stephen M. Walt
Sunday, February 6, 2011 - 3:08 PM
Share
President Obama is reportedly angry with the U.S. intelligence agencies for failing to anticipate the upheavals in Tunisia or Egypt. His irritation is silly, because there's a well-founded social science literature (by Timur Kuran, Susanne Lohmann, and Marc Granovetter, among others) explaining why it is nearly impossible to predict the onset of a revolutionary upheaval. You can identify countries where the government is unpopular or illegitimate, and thus were a rebellion might occur, but that doesn't tell you if or when a popular uprising of the sort we have been watching will occur.
As I explained before, the reason is because an individual's willingness to rebel is essentially private information, and nobody is going to tell you what they really think in an authoritarian society. Furthermore, an individual's willingness to march openly against the regime depends on what he or she thinks others will do, and that cannot be ascertained in advance either. But when conditions are right and some triggering event occurs (which can be almost anything), then you can get a rapid and unexpected revolutionary cascade, as more and more people decide that it is safe to express their previously-concealed resentment and that doing so is likely to succeed.
Instead of being angry with the U.S. intelligence agencies, therefore, Obama should be reserving his ire for his foreign policy advisors, who have been screwing up U.S. Middle East policy for over two years now and who may be in the process of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory yet again. If the news reports I've seen are correct, the United States is now getting behind a political transition that will be orchestrated by the new Vice President Omar Suleiman, a close Mubarak associate. It's not even clear if the United States now thinks Mubarak has to step down. Instead, Secretary of State Clinton seems to be suggesting that we need to help VP Suleiman "defuse" the street demonstrations, which would remove most of the impetus for change.
An unnamed "senior U.S. official" has also suggested that the Obama administration is dead set against a substantial political role for the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed, the official reportedly suggested that what the United States wants is a purely "secular" government in Egypt (i.e., one with no Islamist influence) as if that's even possible in a country that is overwhelmingly Muslim.
It's early days, of course, and as FP's Josh Rogin reports here, there is a potential legal nightmare trying to revise Egyptian law in ways that would permit a genuinely "free and fair" election. But I worry that the Obama administration is about to repeat the same mistake that the Bush administration made in the Palestinian legislative elections of 2006. After insisting that the elections be held, the United States simply refused to accept the results of the elections when we didn't like the winner (Hamas). Are we now going to keep our thumb discreetly on the scale in Egypt, to make sure that a post-Mubarak government continues to dance to Washington's tune? When will Washington learn that you cannot simultaneously proclaim your commitment to democracy and freedom and then insist on dictating who is allowed to win?
The other problem is that Suleiman doesn't have much (any?) credibility as a steward of democratic change. I suggested a couple of days ago that one way he could bolster his position would be to help push Mubarak out (and to make it clear that he is doing so), and to openly declare that he (Suleiman) will serve only as a caretaker and not run for office himself in the next election. I'm not at all sure that these measures would work, however, and the anti-government forces might well see him as no different than Mubarak himself. That certainly seems to be their reaction thus far. And if subsequent reforms are mostly cosmetic and individuals or groups associated with the old regime end up retaining power in a subsequent election, they are likely to have no more legitimacy than Mubarak has right now. And the U.S. image in the region, which is bad enough already, will take another big hit.
So the United States has two long-term challenges. The first is to make sure it is not once again perceived as working to quash a genuinely representative government in Egypt. The second is get ready to accept the results of that process, even if the people we might prefer don't win.
For more analysis along these lines, check out Asli Bani and Aziz Rana's article "The Fake Moderation of America's Moderate Mideast Allies," from Foreign Policy in Focus, here.
EXPLORE:ARAB WORLD, MIDDLE EAST, DEMOCRACY, DIPLOMACY, EGYPT, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM, HILLARY, U.S. FOREIGN POLICY 
Excellent commentary: its good to get a running bigger-picture commentary on the ME developments.
What momentous developments -- it feels like a rerun of 1989. We messed up then and look in danger of repeating, Tragic.
Intel is probably a touchy subject w/him due to Hasan & Xmas bomber misses.
Ignatius said Obama's thoughts were "you can't put this back in the box now"; not realist enough? I can't recall if he mentioned the Muslim Brotherhood or not during his statements. Israel is pitching a bitch & has to be engaged w/daily by the WH according to NYT blog. The Israeli papers mention the Brotherhood every sentence so they could be garbaling the message?. Obama did invite them to his speech in Cairo so I think he knows they will have input.
Why don't you ask Marc Lynch these questions? I read he was at the WH last week with an Egypt group.
Ignatius is completely captured by the CIA or whomever his contacts are. He gets spun by Washington/Foggy Bottom group think as badly as anyone. His reports should be viewed as the Washington consensus. He is aware of conflicting information, but he refuses to believe his eyes, preferring to fully accept the picture his handlers describe for him.
Eric Margolis named Suleiman as Mubarak's Washington groomed successor back in April of last year. Don't waste your time reading Ignatius, you will get all his insights through osmosis, seek out Margolis.
There wasn't much Bush really could do over Hamas and Palestine*. Though I'm of the opinion that our refusal to accept it hasn't helped our position at all and may have actually damaged our credentials at the time of the Palestinian elections (and even now) there was no way that the public would accept us recognizing a semi-terrorist group/semi-political party as the winners of an election. At least not a group that fires rockets at Israel. I'll admit that Bush probably never really considered recognizing them, but even if he had public opinion would have prevented him from doing so.
* This may be one of the few times where I could feel sympathy for him.
I disagree with your characterization of Hamas, but despite that, simple polling would suggest that Hamas was likely to carry any elections BEFORE Bush insisted on elections there. In fact, if memory serves he accelerated elections in the Occupied territories. No sympathy. You don't ask a question (seek a vote) when you don't know the answer/or worse, when you know the answer will hurt your agenda. That assumes elections in foreign lands are our purview anyhow.
Characterization? It's confirmed fact that Hamas (by their own statements) has launched terrorist attacks (as we consider terrorist attacks) in Israel. It's also a fact (self evident) that Hamas has stood for elections and has made an effort to provide police and services to the population. That certainly sounds like a mix of a terrorist group and a regular political party to me. I'll admit that in a good deal of the Middle East, Asia and Africa violence and regular politics are interchangeable but I don't feel comfortable simply calling Hamas a political party when violent resistance is part of their platform.
In any case as far as I can tell Hamas really wasn't expected by outside powers to make the wins that it did. The initial stunned reaction from the Bush administration followed by a heavy handed response certainly seems to suggest that they thought Fatah would keep more power than it did. It was a bad call based on bad data.
When will Washington learn that you cannot simultaneously proclaim your commitment to democracy and freedom and then insist on dictating who is allowed to win?
So much for the Cairo speech.
In this "unexpected revolutionary cascade" the people stop making rational decisions and plunge into the passions of the popular movement. And nobody's quite sure where this movement's going to go, right? But it's likely not to get more moderate and less violent.
But we got Wash. DC brainpower focused on "rational" policies to insure "stability" and "continuity." So they delude themselves thinking that what's happening in Egypt can be rationally and intelligently managed. Maybe they should read Gustave Le Bon's La Psychologie des Foules before they get their heads too deep in Management and Control of Social Revolutions in other countries.
It is one thing for a social scientist to offer a theoretical argument that revolutions are unpredictable, and another thing for a man who spent two years getting elected as the most powerful man in the world to accept it. .From Obama's, or for that matter Bush's point of view, he didn't go through the process of becoming elected President to herd cats.
On the other hand, everyone in the U.S. seems to be mesmerized by Egypt. In Pakistan a US "diplomat", armed with a gun, shot two other people., claiming self defense. There was some uncertainty about his status. Anyway, things have reached the point where according to Dawn, the US has frozen out Pakistan's ambassador to the US, and the wife of one of the dead guys tried to commit suicide because her husband's murderer will be returned to the US.
This may hurt the Zardari government significantly, and thus our relatonsjip with Pakistan. But all the reporters are in Cairo:-).
I have more at my bog;
http://rememberjenkinsear.blogspot.com/
Thanks,
The United States is a majority Christian country. But if a group calling itself "The Christian Brotherhood" took part in a regime change it would cause a lot of people, both in the "international community" and U.S, to freak out. As long you've got double-standards for the third world, why spout universalist democratism?
Haven't you been paying attention? It's the Tea Party, The Evangelical Christians, The Millenialists, Mike Huckabee, etc. In other words, what the Republican Party has become.
Thank you for making my point.
The revolts may be put off by a caretaker until September. But if (and thats a huge IF) there are free elections then, a non-American (read: non-Mubarak) will be formed. In that case, the US will try to intervene just as hard as in 2006. Egypt is just too important to Israel to let them be free.
One te reason these events took so many by surprise is they are not solely about Egypt and although they are manifest there the roots spread much wider and the phenomenon might have developed in any number of places.
Human society has ever consisted of those who make decisions, and produce nothing, and those who do the work and whose labours finance the system. The origin of this, of course, is the innate greed of human nature which obliges societies to select leaders to pursue new revenue streams while defending them against similar minded incursions from others. Aside from those like Attila, who had no compunction acknowledging his greed, these activities have ever tended to be obfuscated by tortuous religious, legal or moral contentions.
The fact is that the Western, predominantly US, pursuit of revenue streams from the Middle East has now combined with a number of disparate factors to ignite resistance from the victims of the system who, while not having any deep knowledge or perhaps even interest in its details, have now had enough of paying for it.
Can resistance to this maze-like exploitive system really be magicked away through the offices of Omar Suleiman, one of its most dedicated architects? The condition of the populace might perhaps have been ameliorated sufficiently for the situation to come off the boil if it were confined to Egypt, but it isn’t.
There is no reason why the US could not have navigated more sagely through the last 60 years or so, avoiding this tumult by practising an equitable degree of benevolence towards the people whose resources it needs instead of being seduced and diverted by those Hebrew religious delusions to which Presbyterianism is so susceptible.
PS Among myriad other arrangements appears to be the supply of Egyptian gas to Israel below 12% of the going rate, http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10710.shtml, presumably offset by the billion and half dollars the US gives the Egyptian army to spend on US manufactured armaments. How does that help the Egyptian people? No wonder the supply pipe got blown up.
Since I penned the above, anti-American banners, very neatly penned in English, have appeared among the protestors, while US warships are gathering off the Egyptian coast, so everything seems to be working to a plan.
So what is your evidence for this assertion? :
"while US warships are gathering off the Egyptian coast,"
yes??? Several searches do not turn up anything. How about providing a link?
Sorry, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2011/02/egypt-pentagon-moving-warships-preparing-for-possible-evacuations.html
@Wibberley
Thanks for the link.
Presence of the Enterprise nearby also makes one
wonder if more than safe evacuation of US citizens was in the mix.
Actually you can declare a commitment to democracy and keep a thumb on the scale. That is what the US did in the post-WW2 Europe when communists were likely to win democratic elections in France and Italy. The US did keep its thumb on the scale, Italy remained a capitalist democracy and it worked out fine.
"The fact is that the Western, predominantly US, pursuit of revenue streams from the Middle East has now combined with a number of disparate factors to ignite resistance from the victims of the system who, while not having any deep knowledge or perhaps even interest in its details, have now had enough of paying for it."
Nick, you're projecting here. They know exactly what's happening, they see it all, it's their life. WE are the ones, "not having any deep knowledge or perhaps even interest in the details." Now, we've had enough paying for it, but you know we don't even begin to grasp this. Europe knows it and sees, what's going on as to the Egyptians and others. The Algerians know that LNG tankers are carrying precious cargo, they know the F-16s they fly overhead are hard to square with few urban services. You're usually right on track but think you got a bit sloppy here.
You are doubtless right but during the early days these things were not mentioned by the guys on the street nor did I hear or see evidence of any anti-US or anti-Israel sentiments, though both now appear to have been awakened, largely one imagines by Obama’s recent efforts to support Suleiman who has ever been Israel's preferred successor to Mubarak. I should add that I follow the events on both Al Jazeera and Iran's Press TV, with side glances at the Russian, Chinese and French English language broadcasts.
“When will Washington learn that you cannot simultaneously proclaim your commitment to democracy and freedom and then insist on dictating who is allowed to win?” Professor Walt asks above and I just found an interesting response by Clovis Maksoud, the former Arab League Ambassador to the UN, to an obliquely similar question:
“There must be a distinction. The American system of judicial values seeks to protect the revolution from the oppression that Mubarak pursues, because they do not want to crush the revolution. That is very clear -- and very obvious -- and should be understood.
On the other hand, the pivot of the strategic objectives of the United States, in the Middle East region in particular, wants to frustrate the resistance movement against American hegemony in the region”.
I know you're well informed, Nick. It's just that we tend to think of our average dullard Americans and assume that everyone abroad is equally fat and lazy. The Arabs suffer defeatism, no doubt. I'm always amazed at the great awareness foreigners have about our history, our political structure... especially when compared with the idiocracy we have here. (In 2000 I was trying to explain to Gore supporters that they don't get to vote for Gore (in Texas. There was no way Gore would win Texas so they might as well vote for Nader or whomever their conscious would dictate. But, explaining the electoral college was like explaining quantum physics to an 18th century Newtonian.)
I have been watching Iran’s Press TV coverage of these events this afternoon. Of course such a channel is biased, pure objectivity is an abstract concept that cannot be replicated in the material world, but the channel does not make things up. It does, for instance, report every US led NATO Forces’ casualty and the downing of every drone but it does not fabricate them. Anti-US/Israeli sentiments are beginning to manifest in this Egyptian issue, not among the protestors but among some of the ‘annalists’. This is interesting because we are accustomed to renegade activists infiltrating peaceful demonstrations and turning them violent and this looks much like a similar phenomenon but with an anti-US/Israel agenda. I am not sure quite how real it is but it does not appear to come from the grassroots. On the contrary, in an interview with an extremely calm and cogent young man, it appeared that the youthful movement has a deliberately horizontal organisation with only four demands and they have not changed; Mubarak’s departure, the dismissal of parliament, the lifting of the emergency, and the restoration of media freedom. No negotiation or debate with anyone is on the table and those who go to meet with Suleiman or whoever carry no authority. A vertical command structure has no real way to deal with one that is organised horizontally because there is no one who can be wined and dined, or assassinated for that matter. The Women’s Lib. movement used something like this, and it is one of the difficulties US forces face in Afghanistan.
Not only do the protestors pray together, but they are watching large TV screens and listening to lectures. There was even a wedding in Tahrir Square the other day. Cairo is not Reno, and such a thing does not just happen in Egypt but must have been carefully planned. By whom? Were I a betting man I would go for something quite unexpected happening in the next three days. Think Lysistrata?
A real danger is that if anti-US/Israel elements are encouraged to appear significant, they will tend to justify interventions that none of us would like to see.
RE: what the US wants is a purely "secular" government in Egypt
I wish they would do something about the pernicious influence of the Christian fundamentalists on the government here in this country! They should start by eliminating elected officials' participation in National Prayer Day.
participation in National Prayer Day
@ dickerson
Amen to that!
Some of the worst dictators in the world have been invited participants in this event, BTW,
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.
Read More
May/June 2013
-
Profile
-
FP Power Map
-
Think Again
Follow us on Twitter | Visit us on Facebook | Follow us on RSS | Subscribe to Foreign Policy
About FP | Meet the Staff | Foreign Editions | Reprint Permissions | Advertising | Writers’ Guidelines | Press Room | Work at FP
Services:Subscription Services | Academic Program | FP Archive | Reprint Permissions | FP Reports and Merchandise | Special Reports | Buy Back Issues
Privacy Policy | Disclaimer | Contact Us
11 DUPONT CIRCLE NW, SUITE 600 | WASHINGTON, DC 20036 | Phone: 202-728-7300 | Fax: 202-728-7342
FOREIGN POLICY is published by the FP Group, a division of The Washington Post Company
All contents ©2013 The Foreign Policy Group, LLC. All rights reserved.
(26)
HIDE COMMENTS LOGIN OR REGISTER REPORT ABUSE