Mubarak’s last laugh

My friends at the New York Times are repeating their call to cut off military aid to Egypt in response to yesterday’s “madness” (and proposing cancellation of military exercises as well).  Until now I’ve opposed cutting off aid, but the time has come.  Washington should suspend both military exercises and aid, while sustaining civilian assistance, pending return to civilian rule.  Doing anything less will signal approval of a murderous and unjustified attack by the Egyptian security forces as well as the military’s continuing hold on power.

I hasten to add that it won’t do much good.  As Eric Trager has noted (unfortunately behind the Wall Street Journal paywall, so don’t expect a link), the Egyptian army regarded the Muslim Brotherhood challenge to the military coup as an existential one.  Our $1.3 billion just does not outweigh an existential challenge.  General Sissi has surely calculated that he would lose this money if he cracked down.  He went ahead anyway.  No one should expect him to have any regrets.  He is far more likely to denounce the US for hypocrisy for not supporting his war on terror and to look for additional support from the Saudis, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, Gulf states that have already ponied up pledges of well over $10 billion.

What lies ahead?  A long, dark tunnel would be my guess.  The Egyptian army will try to restore law and order, using more brutality than due process.  The Muslim Brotherhood will respond with increasingly violent tactics.  Some worry this will degenerate into civil war, by which I suppose they mean something like what is happening in Syria.  Who can rule it out?  But I doubt it, because most Egyptians will not take up arms.  More likely is a long war between the security forces and more extreme Islamist elements, one in which many Egyptians will feel themselves forced to choose tacit support for an army whose behavior they deplore over extremists who threaten their existence.  Some will liken this to 1990s Algeria, which isn’t far off the mark.

Vice President ElBaradei, who resigned yesterday in protest of the crackdown, deserves a lot of credit.  He won’t get it from Egyptians.  The Brotherhood regards him as a secularist liberal enemy, which he is.  The military will regard him now as a traitor who didn’t have the stomach for what was necessary.  Any credit he gets will come from foreigners, which will make ElBaradei even less popular in Egypt.  I’m afraid he is condemned to that small corner where men of principle stand.

Democracy now seems a long way off in Egypt.  The  military has appointed officers as governors of all 19 provinces, imposed a state of emergency and a curfew.  If the United States wants to see Egypt an open society, it will need to play a long game.

That means support for civil society, democratically oriented political parties (including Islamist ones), and free media.  That will be difficult–the Egyptian government is still prosecuting Americans and Egyptians for democracy-promotion efforts in the past.  But we owe it to ourselves to demonstrate real commitment to a democratic outcome.  Our remaining non-military assistance should be refocused entirely on democracy, leaving the all too necessary economic assistance to those with deeper pockets (the Gulf states and the international financial institutions).

Another of my friends, former ambassador to Egypt Frank Wisner, was on NPR last night (I’m still trying to find the link) justifying the crackdown as necessary to restore law and order.  Five hundred or more dead?  That is not riot control.  That’s mass atrocity.  And it will have consequences for many years.  Hosni Mubarak always claimed his rule was a bulwark against extremism and chaos.  Now he is having the last laugh.