Politics: Egypt's Future?
This weekend, in a first, Egypt sent presidential son Gamal Mubarak to Washington D.C. in the slot normally occupied by President Hosni Mubarak.
Jackson Diehl, in a Post op-ed, wrote about the fairly safe belief that Mubarak the elder was positioning his son as heir apparent. This is tricky in a so-called democracy.
I don't know why, but my instinct is to think the worst about this. I've not been impressed with Bashir Assad in Syria or King Abdullah in Jordan, and I don't expect to be impressed with Mubarak.
But in any case, Diehl left out the true hitch of Egypt's so-called democracy: The Mubaraks' plan is already a go because if/when Gamal Mubarak runs because there won't be any meaningful opposition. It's sort of a Chinese puzzle (the sort of which US policymakers encounter and generally ignore all the time): Take the badly-elected next guy and hope for the best or take the badly-elected current guy and hope he repairs the election system so he's the last badly-elected guy.
The problem with Egypt is that we've taken the current guy for ever and ever, and he's taken about 2 billion bucks a year for as long (that's not an exaggeration, of the $8.7 b of US aid expended in an average year, Egypt gets about $1.9b.) So we lose the opportunity to judge him, and that generally pushes us onto the next guy.
The other point Diehl misses here is that the US doesn't really care if Egypt has a democracy. He makes the mistake of seeming to link 'democracy' with what they really want. What they really want is economic openness, compliance with various international trade agreements and 'safety,' which is code for a happy populace and a government's willing participation in the US's role in the region. Mubarak the younger may provide that, and in exchange we won't mind him ruling under less than ideal democratic conditions. We do it now a million times a day in several dozen countries. Our best pal in Pakistan is a military dictator who staged a coup and made himself president. We have staggeringly low standards sometimes.
There may be a chance that Gamal (incidentally, that's also Nasser's first name) Mubarak will make Egypt a free, open, economically viable partner for the United States in the Middle East. But I wouldn't bet on it.
This weekend, in a first, Egypt sent presidential son Gamal Mubarak to Washington D.C. in the slot normally occupied by President Hosni Mubarak.
Jackson Diehl, in a Post op-ed, wrote about the fairly safe belief that Mubarak the elder was positioning his son as heir apparent. This is tricky in a so-called democracy.
I don't know why, but my instinct is to think the worst about this. I've not been impressed with Bashir Assad in Syria or King Abdullah in Jordan, and I don't expect to be impressed with Mubarak.
But in any case, Diehl left out the true hitch of Egypt's so-called democracy: The Mubaraks' plan is already a go because if/when Gamal Mubarak runs because there won't be any meaningful opposition. It's sort of a Chinese puzzle (the sort of which US policymakers encounter and generally ignore all the time): Take the badly-elected next guy and hope for the best or take the badly-elected current guy and hope he repairs the election system so he's the last badly-elected guy.
The problem with Egypt is that we've taken the current guy for ever and ever, and he's taken about 2 billion bucks a year for as long (that's not an exaggeration, of the $8.7 b of US aid expended in an average year, Egypt gets about $1.9b.) So we lose the opportunity to judge him, and that generally pushes us onto the next guy.
The other point Diehl misses here is that the US doesn't really care if Egypt has a democracy. He makes the mistake of seeming to link 'democracy' with what they really want. What they really want is economic openness, compliance with various international trade agreements and 'safety,' which is code for a happy populace and a government's willing participation in the US's role in the region. Mubarak the younger may provide that, and in exchange we won't mind him ruling under less than ideal democratic conditions. We do it now a million times a day in several dozen countries. Our best pal in Pakistan is a military dictator who staged a coup and made himself president. We have staggeringly low standards sometimes.
There may be a chance that Gamal (incidentally, that's also Nasser's first name) Mubarak will make Egypt a free, open, economically viable partner for the United States in the Middle East. But I wouldn't bet on it.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home