Weissman writes: "Popular uprisings pose tough questions, as in the spat over whether Egypt had a coup or a revolution. The answer requires a close look at the agendas of contending leadership groups and how they differ from the aspirations of the mostly nonviolent participants in the anti-Morsi protests, with whom many on this website tend to identify."
Israeli fighter jets. (photo: Reuters)
20 July 13
opular uprisings pose tough questions, as in the spat over whether Egypt had a coup or a revolution. The answer requires a close look at the agendas of contending leadership groups and how they differ from the aspirations of the mostly nonviolent participants in the anti-Morsi protests, with whom many on this website tend to identify.
In Egypt, millions of protestors expressed a wide range of very real grievances. They want jobs and good economic management of their country, with the promise of a decent life for the poor. They want "dignity." They want security in the streets and justice for anti-government activists killed during and after the January 2011 uprising. They want competent government, preferably democratic. And most, whether secular or Muslim, want freedom from the dictates of Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. They want what many would call a much-needed revolution.
Tamarod, the group that organized the petition and protests against Morsi, was fighting for all that as well. But Tamarod leaders were also building popular support for the Egyptian military to take renewed power, which the generals have now done. This is why most commentators without a dog in the fight speak of a military coup. As further proof, Egypt's new "civilian government" has just named the leader of the coup - General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi - as its deputy prime minister and defense minister.
Three other gaps between the masses and their manipulators make the coup even more obvious. Most of the protestors, and many in Tamarod itself, appeared distinctly anti-American. The anti-Morsi petition even blamed him for "following in the footsteps of the U.S." Many had left-leaning economic views. Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel prize-winning spokesman for Tamarod, even favored "social democracy similar to Scandinavian political systems." And most of the protesters appeared anti-Israeli.
Compare these to the direction the coup is now taking. No one in Washington or Tel Aviv expects the new military-led government to do anything of substance to disturb the long-standing military alliance with the United States, the peace treaty with Israel, or the neo-liberal direction of the Egyptian economy, which will help a few Egyptians become very rich while leaving only tidbits to trickle down to the poor.
This is what Obama and his shadowy government agencies paid for. This is why they supported Google's Jared Cohen, the Serbian Otpor/CANVAS, and others who trained the Tamarod leaders. And this is why none of the bunch can admit that they used the protesters to build support for "a coup," a label that might have risked the $1.5 billion a year pay-off to the Egyptian military itself.
The c-word would also reveal an imperial face of U.S. foreign policy that Latin Americans once knew too well, and might know soon again if Obama chooses to chastise them for their continuing support of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and other transgressions.
As we learned last week from Reuters and the International Crisis Group, Morsi's apparent backing for an Islamic Jihad in Syria proved "the tipping point" that led the Egyptian military to oust him, while AP reports a year of acrimonious relations between Morsi and the army. Al-Sisi viewed Morsi as "dangerously mismanaging a wave of protests early in the year that saw dozens killed by security forces," wrote the Israeli daily Haaretz, drawing on the AP report.
"The military also worried that Morsi was giving a free hand to Islamic militants in the Sinai Peninsula, ordering al-Sisi to stop crackdowns on jihadis who had killed Egyptian soldiers and were escalating a campaign of violence."
"The degree of their differences suggests that the military had been planning for months to take greater control of the political reins in Egypt," Haaretz concluded. "When an activist group named Tamarod began a campaign to oust Morsi, building up to protests by millions nationwide that began June 30, it appears to have provided a golden opportunity for al-Sisi to get rid of the president. The military helped Tamarod from early on, communicating with it through third parties, according to the officials."
The nurturing of Tamarod - and the group's widely reported support from so many former backers of Hosni Mubarak - suggests that the generals (and their American backers) had their eye on at least the possibility of making a coup for some time. They would have had no problem coming up with any number of public rationales for retaking power.
Whatever the immediate motive, the risk would be the same. Excluding the Muslim Brotherhood from the more-or-less democratic game in Egypt will lead increasing numbers of Islamists to take up violence, and much of that will make the Sunni-Shia conflict even bloodier in Syria and beyond.
Which is precisely what the war in Syria does not need. Despite Obama's announcement that he would supply light weapons and ammunitions to the Sunni rebels, members of the House and Senate intelligence committees remain divided on the idea, fearing that the arms might fall into the hands of radical Islamists and draw the U.S. into "another Middle East quagmire." Other members of NATO also appear to be holding back. This leaves the openly feuding Saudis and Qataris to furnish weapons, possibly with logistical help from the CIA, as in the past. In the meantime, Sunni rebel groups are killing each other, while President Bashar al-Assad and his Shia allies from Hezbollah and Iran are winning on the ground. As General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate panel Thursday, "Currently the tide seems to have shifted in his favor."
One other factor may be changing the picture. As several U.S. officials told CNN, Israeli fighter jets struck the Syrian port of Leticia on July 5, two days after the Egyptian coup. They were targeting Russian-made Yakhont anti-ship missiles, which can carry a 250-kilogram warhead some 300 kilometers. The missiles were equipped with advanced radar to make them more effective.
Haaretz had reported three previous Israeli air attacks on Syria this year. "In January, Israel struck a convoy carrying weapons evidently meant for Hezbollah while it had stopped at a Syrian research center on the outskirts of Damascus. Israel attacked twice more, over the course of one weekend in May, targeting a shipment of advanced surface-to-surface missiles at the Damascus international airport."
The fourth attack suggests an escalation and a closer alliance with the Sunni nations backing the war against Assad and his Shia allies. While Israeli leaders have found Assad little problem in the Golan heights and have vowed to stay out of the war except to deny sophisticated weapons to their long-time enemy Hezbollah, the destruction of the anti-ship missiles benefits the larger Sunni war effort against Assad. Russian television reports that the Israeli jets took off from the Turkish airbase in Incirlik, which the Turks stoutly deny. The Israelis deny the attack completely, but scold the U.S. for leaking the story to CNN.
A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France, where he is researching a new book, "Big Money: How Global Banks, Corporations, and Speculators Rule and How To Break Their Hold."
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
