Hopes in the wider world that Egypt would have settled down, and be on the way to settling a new constitutional system after the overthrow last February of President Mubarak’s quasi-military regime, have been dashed by the widespread rioting commencing last week. It has been obvious for some time that the Egyptian military, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which has been in de facto control of the country, has been reluctant to actively pursue a return to constitutional government. They have proposed postponing presidential elections to 2013, leaving only parliamentary elections scheduled to take place next week. And there is much suspicion that the present crackdown, resulting in over 20 deaths and 1500 injured up to Monday, may be intended to facilitate a postponement of those elections too.
The NATO powers, and in particular the United States, which have always considered Egypt, under whatever political regime, the strategically critical power in the Middle East, were relieved at the beginning of the year when the military stepped in, secured the removal of Mubarak, and promised a return to constitutional rule. The hope will surely have been that a smooth and timely transition to constitutional and civilian government would have pointed a way to other countries characterized by turmoil in recent months, and in particular Yemen, where President Saleh continues to resist both domestic and regional pressures to resign.
The Armed Forces, however, seem to have two things in particular in mind. The first is to seek to ensure that no one social or political entity dominates a new political system. And foremost in their minds would appear to be the well-organised and longstanding Muslim Brotherhood organization which has over the years seen itself as the legitimate inheritors of power in post-Nasserist Egypt. Egypt has never really demonstrated a Muslim extremism, including in its historic make-up various social and religious tendencies, such as the followers of the Christian Coptic faith, a minority, but influential in Egyptian intellectual and bureaucratic-political life. It will be recalled that former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a Copt, served as Minister of State and then Deputy Prime Minister for Foreign Affairs between 1977 and 1991 under what were, in effect, the nationalist and secularist regimes initiated by Gamal Abdel Nasser.
The Muslim Brotherhood has been pressing for national elections, along with more liberal and nationalist political forces, including that led by the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed el Baradei who returned to Egypt before the Tahrir Square uprisings and announced his intention to run for the presidency of the country. El Baradei has been calling for a “government of national unity” to ensure proper arrangements for elections and a return to constitutionalism, conducted by a civilian administration rather than the military. For other political groupings too, it is important that a civilian administration in the interim, and then a subsequent constitutionally elected one, pursue the ongoing judicial trials of officials of the Mubarak government, rather than the military which was itself the crucial underpinning of the former President’s rule.
But the military are keen to have a critical say in the manner in which the turn to constitutionalism is arranged, as well as the terms of the constitution, particularly in relation to its own status and powers in any future system. So, against the resistance of civilian elements it has been insisting that any new constitution should make provision for some degree of military oversight of the governmental-political system, allow for its intervention on certain terms, and provide for the military to approve legislation which would affect its own status and powers. These provisos are not welcomed by the civilian political groupings which note that President Mubarak himself is being judged by a system set up by his own peers who had themselves become the underpinning of the long survival of the regime, and who moved against him only under severe pressure and the fear that the whole system might be swept away by popular pressure.
The hesitations of the military will not be welcomed by the United States either. At a critical moment in the uprising, on February 1 of this year, President Obama felt the need for the American government to publicly intervene, signalling his country’s view that the Mubarak regime had become illegitimate and also presumably, negative for American and NATO interests. As he told President Mubarak, “the status quo is not sustainable and… a change must take place,” a defining statement from a country which had been for many years a critical foreign aid donor to Egypt. Obama’s statement had indeed followed similar, though less direct, sentiments made on a visit to Egypt in June 2009, in which he remarked that he was speaking at “a time of tension between the United States and Muslims around the world” and called for “a government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people.” That, at a time when the Mubarak government based on military strength, was widely regarded as having become a kind of massive family kleptocracy.
With the continuing turmoil in Syria, and with the resistance of President Saleh in Yemen to a popular uprising against his regime, the United States is, however, conscious of the fact that there is an unwillingness on the part of Middle Eastern states to go for direct intervention; and, secondly that they prefer, in its stead, persistent regional mediation, even when assisted by countries external to the region. This course of action is particularly characteristic of a leading regional country like Saudia Arabia, and has been evident in the continuing efforts of the Arab League to mediate a solution in Syria in spite of the hesitations of the regime there. This approach persists in Yemen and in the still somewhat unsettled Bahrain. From the perspective of the current US administration, it is obvious that the uprisings in various countries are part of a new populist trend in which the long reigns of regimes originally coming to power even on the basis of nationalist, and national democratic principles, are coming to an end. And in spite of the posturings of the European NATO powers over their liquidation of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, it seems clear that it is not the favoured approach of the Obama administration, at least where the US is required to play a dominant role.
What the Americans seem inclined to want to ensure, is that a resumption of populist opposition does not reach, in Egypt, the proportions that it has already attained in Syria. Much diplomatic, and other non-military pressure seems likely to be placed on the Egyptian military by the Obama administration to advance the pace of democratization and a return to some form of constitutionalism. No doubt the Americans will be hoping that in the short run, some civilian combination will emerge that can create sufficient pressure on the Supreme Council to yield with deliberate speed to a popular revolt still willing to play along the constitutional path. No doubt they will be telling the Supreme Council that the choice is likely to be between a deliberate and measured change within an agreed timetable, or continuing chaos in which military power, shorn of any post-Nasserist nationalist credentials, will lose the little legitimacy that it presently possesses.
