I blew it.  There is no other way of putting it.  The following two sentences from a CFR “Expert Brief” that I posted on May 21^st are, without a doubt, my Scott Norwood moment:

The declining fortunes of the Brothers’ presidential candidate, Mohamed Morsi, who is trailing badly in the polls, signals the group is paying the price for the decision to run a candidate despite earlier commitments not to do so. Although Egyptians supported the Brotherhood in parliamentary elections, the Brothers’ about face on the presidential elections clearly evokes the hypocrisy of the Mubarak era.

My only consolation is that I am in pretty good company.  A variety of polls (which can be read here and here), news reports ( such as these from the Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal ) and expert commentary all came to the conclusion that Morsi was going to lose badly.  To be sure, a number of keen observers—all friends—got it right ( such as the Sandmonkey and Elijah Zarwan). Still, the fact that so many well-informed observers were “wide-right” on the elections speaks to the perils of prediction.

So what went wrong? Israel’s President Shimon Peres allegedly once said, “Polls are like perfume, beautiful to smell, but poison to drink.”  Peres never won an election in his own right and may have ignored too many polls, but his underlying point remains valid.  Take the results of polling, especially if you don’t have access to the methodology and a full picture of the questions, with a healthy dose of caution.  Indeed, when it came to Egypt’s first round, many observers gave the pre-election polling a bit too much credibility.  Clearly, we should have known better.  Some of my colleagues have commented on the small sample size in some of the pre-election polling, but I am not sure that is the problem.  In general, the sample sizes of the Egyptian polls I looked at were less than a 1,000 people, but that is not much smaller than public opinion polls conducted in the United States.

The more likely problem is Egypt’s precarious political environment and the challenges this presents to pollsters.  First, the political dynamics have changed so much over the course of the last 16 months it is hard to get a baseline understanding of Egyptian public opinion. Although the political lines in Egypt’s ongoing political struggle (sorry!) are clear, identified voters are likely a minority.  That great reservoir of average Egyptians is likely being pulled along with events, whipsawed like the rest of us by the twists and turns of the political arena.  This is the kind of environment where people are constantly changing their minds as developments unfold.  Second, it is clear that polling is unreliable not only under authoritarian political systems, but also during political transitions.  People lie or tell pollsters what they want to hear, which is the same thing.

Polling wasn’t the only problem, however.  Just like the idée fixe of the decade before the January 25^th uprising that pitted Gamal Mubarak against Omar Suleiman to be the president of Egypt, somewhere along the line the notion that Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh and Amr Moussa were the frontrunners became embedded in the minds of observers.  I’d love to do an archaeology of ideas to figure out how this impression came into being.  If I had to guess, I would say it was a combination of those unreliable polls, the notion that Moussa had carried over the popularity he enjoyed when he was foreign minister, and the idea that former Brother Aboul Fotouh was drawing support from younger members of the Brotherhood, liberals, Salafis, and some revolutionaries that placed those two candidates in the top slots.  The fact that they debated live on national television to the exclusion of Morsi, Ahmed Shafiq, and Hamdeen Sabahi, the three actual top vote getters, further reinforced the idea that it was a two way race between Moussa and Aboul Fotouh.  Given the unpredictability of Egyptian politics, the Moussa-Aboul Fotouh prism obscured more than it revealed.  It was a mistake to take their front-runners status at face value.

So what should I/we have done differently?  Looking back over the last couple of weeks, it is now clear that Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh had too many constituencies.  Since last May, observers have heard over and over again that large numbers of younger Brothers were gravitating to Aboul Fotouh, but clearly not enough.  In the week before the election, the alleged liberal Islamist drew the support of the al Nour party, but it was never clear if the party was going to throw its weight and organizational capacity in favor of Aboul Fotouh.  That question should have been an important signal that Aboul Fotouh’s support may have been more apparent than real.  The smattering of liberals and revolutionaries who supported Aboul Fotouh in the belief that he could be “Egypt’s Erdogan” was too small to make a difference.

Moussa flopped because if Egyptians were going to vote for a fel (singular of felool)—remnant of the old regime—candidate they were going to vote for Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak’s last prime minister and a former air force commander. Shafiq ran on a platform that essentially called for a restoration of the previous political order and taking down the Islamists.  Moussa, in contrast, ran away from his association with Mubarak, though he did hold himself out as a restorer of stability and order.  In retrospect, it is not all that surprising that Shafiq’s message resonated with about 25 percent of the people who cast a ballot.  The situation in Egypt is precarious:  There is an economic crisis, much uncertainty, periodic spasms of violence, and there are many people afraid of the rise of Islamists.  The residual effects of my romance with the barricades from my brief moment in Tahrir in January 2011 clearly clouded my judgment.  I could not fathom that people would want a return to something approximating the old order.

Finally, never underestimate the Muslim Brotherhood.  As I wrote after the parliamentary elections, the Brothers have developed a sophisticated mechanism of political mobilization through their provision of social services, they have had an 80 year head start on everyone else, and importantly, they have a vision of Egyptian society that apparently resonates with large numbers of Egyptians no matter who is the messenger.

The important thing now is for those analysts who got it wrong not to over-correct.  I stand by my claim that the Brothers will have a hard time imposing their will on Egypt.  The demonstrations in Tahrir on Monday and today against Morsi (and Shafiq) are a clear indication that even if the Brothers assume the chair, running Egypt is not going to be easy.

Mahmoud Salem, also known as The Sandmonkey, rejects the prevailing narrative about Egypt’s top presidential candidates, days before the results appear.

Elijah Zarwan writes on Foreign Policy about Egypt’s presidential election, the resurgence of hope that it brings to the country, and the challenges that the new leader will face.

Baheyya takes a look at presidential hopeful Sabahi’s campaign efforts and its resonance with Egyptian citizens in the days leading up to the election. Sabahi is currently battling with Ahmed Shafiq for second place in the polls, but at the time of posting, trails him by 7 percent.

Below is my take on Egypt’s presidential elections, scheduled for May 23, originally published here on CFR.org. I hope you find it interesting. 

Over the last sixteen months, Egypt has experienced wrenching economic problems, continuing street protests, spasms of violence, and a noticeable deterioration of state authority. Yet these challenges have not, as some have warned, undermined the promise of Tahrir Square in the eyes of many Egyptians. To be sure, the revolutionary activists have lost their luster, the liberals have proven themselves too fragmented to be an effective political force, and the labor movement–a potentially potent bloc–has yet to make a full impact on the political arena.

This leaves Egypt, on the eve of presidential elections, with a seemingly familiar struggle between Islamists and the defenders of the Egyptian state–the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). The political dynamics of the country, however, have changed radically. Egyptian politics operate under a set of entirely new principles indicating that whoever is elected president, the age of the pharaoh is finally and clearly over.

The next president of Egypt will likely be subject to a new kind of politics in which demands from below can no longer be deflected, bribed, or beaten into silence. This new environment, in which the president of the Arab world’s most populous country faces a host of pressing domestic challenges, will likely keep Egypt on the foreign policy sidelines as Egyptians focus on building a new political system.

The Empowerment of Egyptians

Perhaps most important is the change in the national discourse about power, authority, and legitimacy in the political system. No doubt, Egyptians were asking these questions in the years before the January 25, 2011 uprising, but since Mubarak’s departure, activists, politicians, journalists, bloggers, and newly mobilized citizens have asked the same questions in new ways and often with previously unthinkable results.

Despite polling data demonstrating that a clear majority of Egyptians continue to hold the military in high regard, far fewer support a military-dominated political system, making it harder for the officers of the SCAF to manage their exit from day-to-day governance with their prestige, economic interests, and powerful position in the political system intact.

The outcry last fall over the so-called “Selmi principles,” which would have granted the armed forces significant autonomy from elected civilian officials, is a prime example of how notions of authority and who has the right to exercise it in the new Egypt are contested. Street protests in Tahrir Square also forced the military to limit the application of the State of Emergency–a hallmark of the authoritarian order that Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat, and Hosni Mubarak presided over.

The Brotherhood Stumbles

The Muslim Brotherhood has also been unable to impose its will on the political arena. Although the Brothers hold the most seats in the parliament, control a vast organization, and espouse a compelling vision of Egypt’s economic future, they have stumbled unexpectedly. The organization is split and the ability of the Brotherhood’s Guidance Council to discipline its members, especially younger ones, has diminished since the uprising. The fact that Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh was expelled for his decision to run for president against the will of the Guidance Council, and that large numbers of Brothers are supporting his candidacy, speaks to the difficulty the Brotherhood is having in asserting its authority.

The declining fortunes of the Brothers’ presidential candidate, Mohamed Morsi, who is trailing badly in the polls, signals the group is paying the price for the decision to run a candidate despite earlier commitments not to do so. Although Egyptians supported the Brotherhood in parliamentary elections, the Brothers’ about face on the presidential elections clearly evokes the hypocrisy of the Mubarak era. The Muslim Brotherhood’s troubles indicate that in Egypt’s more open political environment, citizens are determined to assert their voices more forcefully. This is among the most important achievements of the uprising. Egyptians are not only now demanding accountability of their leaders, which they have done for a long time; they are leveraging the principles that brought so many people to Tahrir Square–accountability, rule of law, and personal and political rights, to name just a few.

An enduring misconception about the Egyptian uprising is that economic grievances motivated people to take to the streets. To be sure, difficult economic circumstances helped create an environment of misery in the years before January 25, but Egyptians were demanding freedom, justice, and dignity when they brought Hosni Mubarak down.

One of the great ironies of contemporary Egyptian politics is the triumph of liberal ideas at the expense of liberals. Still, the fact that these ideas and principles are important to virtually all of Egypt’s political actors–indeed, representatives of the Salafist al-Nour party strain to demonstrate how their interpretation of Islamic law is compatible with liberal concepts–will make it difficult for any future president or group to seek authoritarian solutions to Egypt’s problems. That may prolong Egypt’s messy transition, but it does indicate that Egyptian politicians and would-be leaders will need not only to espouse liberal ideas and principles, but also give them meaning. If they do not, they will likely continue to confront demands from society to close the gap between principle and practice.

Dynamic Political Islam

The rise of new political groups is also having an important effect on the exercise of power and authority in the new Egypt. Much has been written about the Salafists, who enjoyed the quiet support of Mubarak in the last years of his reign to drain support away from the Muslim Brotherhood in the erroneous belief that Salafis, by their very nature, are politically quiescent.

It is unclear whether Mubarak’s policies had anything to do with the success of the al-Nourparty–which represents some Salafists–but it does present a challenge to the Brothers in the competition over who speaks for Islam in the Egyptian political arena. In addition to al-Nour, the Sheikh of al Azhar has also offered to restore the prestige of his position and the mosque and university that he leads.

The consequence is considerable dynamism on the Islamist end of the political spectrum that will likely preclude any one group from imposing its worldview on Egyptian society. Still, given the importance of religion in Egyptian political discourse, the new Egyptian president will likely have to navigate between and negotiate among these different groups. This will not be an easy task. For example, reformulating the relationship between religion and the state will be central to the success or failure of a new constitution.

Also, Egyptian politics has not yet experienced the full force of organized labor, but it has the ability to play an influential role. After all, this was the sector that Mubarak feared most, knowing that large-scale and unified worker opposition could pose a threat to the security of the regime. If Egypt’s labor movement can re-emerge as a dynamic force in the new Egypt, it will help drive economic and social policymaking, which will in turn force any Egyptian president to think before pursuing anything that resembles the neo-liberal reforms of the late Mubarak period.

Egypt’s presidential elections do not represent the end of the country’s transition, but rather an intermediate step in building a new political order. Regardless of the outcome, it is clear that the nature of authority in Egypt has changed. Although a new president will likely want to hold onto as much power in the political system as possible, he will likely confront a challenge from the parliament, the military, and average Egyptians who are no longer willing to endure the injustices associated with a rigged political system.

The Arabist discusses the Algerian exception.

Jeremy Keenan says that Algeria’s election was a fraud, ending hopes for democracy in the country.

Nabila Ramdani examines Algeria’s position in the Arab Spring.

My colleague Laurie Garrett and I wrote this piece on the threat of foot and mouth disease in Egypt, which can be read in full here on The Atlantic. I hope you find it interesting.

Lost in the recent political jockeying and protest violence leading up to Egypt’s May 23 presidential elections is the unfolding public health disaster there. Avian flu and foot and mouth disease are running rampant, killing people and livestock as well as inflating the price of food. It’s a serious health and economic issue, but it has potentially much larger implications for Egypt, and this little-discussed crisis is beginning to resemble those that occur in failed states.

The Egyptian state, which was not particularly well-prepared for public emergencies even before the February 2011 revolution brought it into near-chaos, has little capacity to cope with the outbreaks threatening not only Egypt, but also Sudan, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Jordan. Egypt’s public health infrastructure barely functions. The sort of social service that groups like the Muslim Brotherhood have provided over many years, it falls far short of what is needed to combat the current crisis. Cairo does not have the money to throw at the problem, having burned through more than half of its foreign currency reserves in the 15 months since Mubarak’s fall.

Ground zero for Egypt’s public health emergency is Libya, where last year, in the midst of civil war, foot and mouth disease swept through the country, killing more than 10 percent of its sheep and cattle. Smugglers subsequently brought infected sheep across the Libyan border, setting off a foot and mouth disease (FMD) wildfire that Egyptian officials have been unable to slow.

CFR’s recently released Independent Task Force on Turkey, co-chaired by Madeleine K. Albright and Stephen J. Hadley, and directed by Steven A. Cook.

Mehmet Ali Birand outlines the AKP’s plan for the role of the Turkish Armed Forces in the country’s potential new constitution.

The Sandmonkey offers his thoughts on Egypt’s recent Abbasiya fiasco.

Over the course of the last month, I have had a fascinating conversation with Adam Garfinkle, the editor of The American Interest, about Egyptian politics and society.  Below please find an excerpt.  You can read a transcript of the entire conversation here.  

Adam Garfinkle: Your new book on Egypt certainly is timely, but we both know that the lead-time to produce a book of this kind, one with history, with real substantive analysis, is quite long. I am of course hereby distinguishing what you have written from the “snap” book of the instant-expert journalist, who is most times no expert at all. So tell me please what you had in mind when you conceived the project, and how events in Egypt and the rest of the region shaped the project as it was being brought to completion.

Steven A. Cook: That’s a terrific question. Thank you for asking it because some people see the title and cover photo of the book and assume it was written in the year since the Egyptian uprising. In fact, I began working on The Struggle in earnest in late 2008 and 2009. I began writing in January 2010 and finished the first draft exactly a year later.

One of my mentors once said to me that there is no point in writing a book unless there is some kind of radical underlying message that an author wants to convey to the reader. For me, there are two such themes that I wanted to emphasize in the book, both of which stemmed from my general dissatisfaction with the prevailing (at the time) narratives about Egyptian politics. Over the course of the past ten or fifteen years, Egyptian politics was portrayed as essentially a two-dimensional struggle between the regime and the Muslim Brotherhood. This was certainly true, but this picture obscured the ideological richness and dynamism of Egyptian politics. To be sure, the Brothers were and still are a major factor, but the political ferment of the past decade is more closely associated with labor, the Left, old-school Egyptian nationalists and, importantly, liberal activists, including bloggers and journalists, who were at the forefront of social and political critiques of the late Mubarak period. In many ways, these groups spoke out about issues that the Brotherhood—fearing the wrath of the regime and wanting to ensure its longevity—never dared to tread.

This brings me to the second radical message of The Struggle, which is that the struggle for Egypt has been going on for some time and will likely continue. Speaking of radical message, this is where my graduate school reading of Antonio Gramsci had an impact on the book. Egyptians have never been able to agree on a narrative about their country. They have never been able to answer critical questions—about what kind of government they want, what kind of society they want, the relationship between religion and state, what Egypt stands for, what its place is in the region and the world beyond—in a way that makes sense to a vast majority of Egyptians. As a result, the political and social arenas remain very much contested. Nasser tried through what we now call Nasserism; and he was successful for about a decade between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s, when the claims he made about social mobility, expanded educational opportunities, economic development and Egyptian power in the region came closest to peoples’ objective reality. Sadat, for his own parochial political interests and the apparent failure of Nasserism after the June 1967 war, sought to “correct” the excesses of the Nasser period by answering Egypt’s antecedent identity questions through what he called the establishment of a “state of institutions”, infitah(economic opening) and a realignment of Egyptian foreign policy. Yet Sadat never intended to actually open the political arena as the phrase “state of institutions” implied. Infitah only befitted a very small group of people, and strategic relations with the United States made no sense to many Egyptians, given that the regime Sadat led was founded on a rhetorical, if not entirely scrupulous, commitment to Egyptian nationalism. As a result, by the time of Sadat’s assassination, Egypt was more contested than ever.

Mubarak, having come of age during the era of the Free Officers and having witnessed Sadat’s assassination first-hand, saw the problems associated with trying to resolve Egypt’s underlying identity questions through some bold ideological vision, and opted for a strategy that he hoped would bind people to the regime through economic and social development. By official measures, Mubarak achieved a lot during his almost thirty-year reign. The World Bank data shows impressive results. The problem is that ideas matter. For Mubarak it was all about “stability for the sake of development” and anyone who dissented from his conception of stability was beaten into submission until they—along with a lot of others who felt the same way but were afraid to speak out—refused to be intimidated. That’s how you got January 25. This was not an uprising about economic grievances, though they played an important role in creating an environment of misery. Rather, people rose up because they wanted social justice, representative government and national dignity. Not surprisingly, these are common themes throughout late 19^th-, 20^th-, and early 21^st-century Egyptian politics.

The question now is whether Egyptians can answer the important identity questions that I raise throughout The Struggle. The quality of Egypt’s recent polling, the presidential election, the handover from military to civilian control will not matter all that much in the grand scheme of things if Egyptians are unable to develop a narrative that makes sense to most of them. Indeed, if they don’t, the struggle for Egypt will continue.

Itamar Rabinovich says the United States is substituting symbolic action for real action in Syria–at the detriment of the Syrian people.

Aboubakr Jamai explains the Moroccan “miracle” of mild authoritarianism.

Sultan al-Qassami breaks down the Saudi-Egyptian relationship.

I remember in 2008 sitting in the office of Abdel Monem Said Aly who at the time was the director of the Al Ahram Center for Strategic Studies when the subject of the Sinai came up. It was a few months’ time after Hamas had blown a hole in the wall that separates Gaza from the Egyptian frontier, resulting in thousands of Palestinians rushing into the Sinai to buy supplies and seek medical care.  Abdel Monem was not unmoved by the plight of the Palestinians, but he was clearly worried about Egyptian security.  He asked me what I thought would happen if a Palestinian extremist group were able to infiltrate Israel from the Sinai and carry out some sort of deadly attack.  “How would Israel respond?” Abdel Monem asked rhetorically.  He knew that the Israelis would respond, but how, where, and to what extent were unknowns that clearly unsettled him.  At one end of the escalation ladder, the Israelis military might try to push into the Sinai much like the Israel Defense Force’s periodic advances in Lebanon or the Turkish military’s incursions into northern Iraq.  This would no doubt put the Egypt-Israel peace treaty and thus Egyptian security in jeopardy. Perhaps the Israelis would use some other tactic, but either way this would create a terrible security dilemma for Egypt’s leaders.  The Egyptians could absorb the blow and be forced to confront additional opprobrium of their people or they could respond and risk a conflict with Israel that they would likely lose.

Abdel Monem later became the chairman of the board of the government-controlled al Ahram Foundation and was thus by definition part of the regime.  He was pushed out of that lofty position after the uprising, though he continues to have a column at the daily newspaper, al Ahram.  Abdel Monem is a member of the widely detested felool—remnants—but he was and still is a very good strategic analyst.   Why the meditation on a meeting that happened four years ago?  You would never know it from the msm, twitter, or anywhere else, but Abdel Monem’s Sinai scenarios could become a reality soon.  On Wednesday, the IDF mobilized six reserve battalions (an additional 16 were authorized and will be mobilized, if necessary) as a precautionary measure given the potential for instability in the Syria and Egypt to affect Israeli security.

This issue has been simmering for since last summer, but it seems to be heating up now.  On April 24, the Israeli prime minister called the Sinai the “Wild West.”  Netanyahu was responding the bombing of the el Arish –Ashkelon pipeline—the fourteenth—but Israel’s concerns run deeper than a commercial deal that is now in jeopardy.  As I wrote last August, the Sinai is a haven for drug smuggling, human trafficking, gun running, and extremists of all types, ranging from Egyptian takfiris and Palestinian jihadists to al Qaeda sympathizers.  The obvious answer to the problem of security in the Sinai is to deploy more Egyptian forces in the area, a step that is subject to Israeli approval under the Camp David Accords and the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.  The Israelis have actually been forward leaning on the issue, giving the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces the green light for Operation Eagle last summer and Israel’s Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, signaled that Jerusalem might be willing to revisit the restrictions on Egyptian forces in the Sinai.

So if the problem is not necessarily the Israelis, what is it?  In a word, Egypt. The reason for Israel’s mobilization is not only because the IDF does not believe that the Egyptian armed forces are up to the task of cleaning up the mess in the Sinai, but the Egyptian military happens to share that view.  By all measures, Operation Eagle failed and the Egyptians have no capacity to plan and execute a sustained military effort in the Sinai that would improve the security environment there.  As a result, Israeli leaders have clearly determined that if the next rocket to land on Eilat kills someone, they are going to have to deal with the problem themselves.  The Israelis have every right to defend themselves, but an Israeli attack on Egypt soil would not end well for anyone.  I guarantee it.

For I don’t know how many months, I have been counseling policymakers to take a “less is more” approach to post-Mubarak Egypt. The Sinai is the one area where the opposite is the case.  The peace treaty is a pillar of U.S. policy in the Middle East and as a result, it is incumbent upon Washington to do everything it can to mitigate anything that could result in violence between Egypt and Israel. What’s needed now is a full-court diplomatic press.  To start, the Multinational Force Observers (MFO) contingent in the Sinai need to be bolstered politically and Washington should grant it a higher profile in coordinating between Israelis and Egyptians even if the IDF and the Egyptian armed forces already enjoy pretty good military-to-military relations. The MFO, a contingent of 1,656 personnel from 12 different countries, is there to observe the peace treaty and ensure that no one violates its terms.  (As an aside, I am glad that no one listened to Donald Rumsfeld in 2002 when he proposed withdrawing U.S. support and personnel from the MFO in the Sinai.  Of course, he didn’t know that Mubarak would fall and the durability of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty would be thrown into question.)

Next, the United States should actually engage in some Sinai-related contingency planning.  I understand there are some pro forma scenarios floating around, but no serious “what if” planning.  I know the gears of the U.S. government are not all that well-greased, but it is time to get on it, as they say.  Third, the President needs to send some trusted additional advisors with good Egypt-Israel credentials out to Cairo and Jerusalem for some extended hand holding.  Ambassadors Anne Patterson (Cairo) and Dan Shapiro (Tel Aviv) are extraordinarily talented and by all measures they handled last August’s violence along the Egypt-Israel border with the kind of professional cool you want.  It would, however, signal the seriousness with which the United States takes this situation if the president dispatched some envoys to bolster his ambassadors.  There is clearly mistrust between the United States and Israel, but that does not mean Washington cannot work with the Israelis on something as critically important as Sinai security and the maintenance of the peace treaty.  Remember, George H. W. Bush and Yitzhak Shamir could barely be in the same room with each other, but the United States was able to convince the Israelis of the strategic benefit of holding their fire in the face of Saddam Hussein’s Scud attacks in March 1991.  Finally, the United States needs to get down to business and help Egypt clean up the Sinai.  The Egyptians may be resistant and slow to alter their war fighting doctrine, but it’s in their long-terms interests to stabilize the Sinai.

If the United States does not wake up to the danger that the Sinai poses and the Israelis are forced to respond to a terrorist attack from the Sinai, the Egypt-Israel peace treaty is over.

Egypt continues to be extraordinarily interesting.  As I write, we are expecting a cabinet reshuffle, there are rumors that Mohamed Morsi—the Muslim Brotherhood/Freedom and Justice Party candidate for president—will pull out of the race if the Brothers get a place in the new government, the Salafi al Nour party endorsed Abdel Monem Aboul Fotouh for president, and Mohamed ElBaradei has returned to the political arena with the formation of the Constitution Party.  All this occurred in a single weekend, which really isn’t the astonishing thing about these developments.  Rather, it is astonishing that Egypt has had more than a few weekends like this since Hosni Mubarak’s flight to Sharm El Sheikh in February 2011.  The last four weeks or so, in particular, have been a real barnburner as Egyptians gear up for the presidential election slated for May 23.  Throughout the ups and downs and twists and turns of Egyptian politics during the last 16 months observers—including myself—have held fast to a number of assumptions that form the basis of what’s become a standard narrative about the future of Egypt.  Yet, it is entirely unclear after all that has happened since the promising days and weeks after the uprising that these ideas reflect reality.

For example, consider the issue of a new constitution.  In March 2011, 76 percent of Egyptians voted yes in a referendum that altered a number of articles of the constitution, deleted another, and set a timeline for elections as well as for drafting a new constitution.  During the Mubarak era everyone in the opposition and foreign Egypt-watchers understood the need for a new constitution.  The document, which was initially drafted and approved in 1971 with major amendments in 1980, 2005, and 2007, concentrates power in the executive at the expense of the legislature and the judiciary.  As long as Mubarak dominated Egyptian politics and it seemed that there would be a smooth transition from him to another regime-related figure, the constitution was an excellent political issue that the opposition—across the political spectrum—could use against the country’s authoritarian leadership.  Consequently, it is reasonable to assume that Egypt’s main political actors want a new constitution and that they will approach the matter in a way that corrects the central defect of the existing document.

Yet circumstances have changed considerably since 2010, March 2011, and even two weeks ago.  Why should observers still believe that Egypt’s political forces want a new constitution that rebalances the distribution of power in Egypt’s political system? Because they said so a few months or years ago? Because they showed up for the Constituent Assembly before the Egyptian courts dissolved it? That’s a thin reed.  I am perfectly willing to believe that the Muslim Brotherhood, leftists, liberals, Salafis, and whoever else want a new constitution, but we should critically examine their incentives to write one before we proceed from this assumption. Some months ago, I tweeted that for the “winners” in Egyptian politics, a powerful executive might not be such a bad thing.  Only those politicians and parties who do not have much of a chance at winning the presidency have an incentive to write a new constitution that sets out a more even distribution of power among the branches of government.  Surveying Egypt’s political arena, the array of liberal groups and social democrats have a clear interest in this change.  In addition, they are liberals so—contrary to contemporary debates in American domestic politics—they believe in limiting executive power as a matter of course. I would probably include the Left in this group if only because despite its enormous potential to move Egyptian politics, it is fragmented and clearly fighting below its class.

I am not so sure whether the Muslim Brotherhood, for example, wants a new constitution that limits the power of the executive, however.  It certainly depends on the circumstances.  Some rumors suggest that the Brotherhood’s presidential candidate, Mohamed Morsi, may be on his way out of the race.  The twittersphere has all but declared Morsi’s candidacy dead in light of endorsements the former Brother, Abdel Monem Aboul Fotouh, received from the al Nour Party, al Gama’a al Islamiyya, and Wael Ghonim.  If Morsi loses or withdraws, it is clear that the Brothers will want a constitution that maximizes the power of the People’s Assembly, where they hold 45 percent of the seats.  Then again, maybe not.  If nothing else, the Muslim Brotherhood is patient.  Morsi is an apparatchik who can lose or withdraw without much damage to the organization, setting the Brothers up for a serious run at the presidency next time around.  If that is the case, why diminish the power of an office you expect to hold eventually?

I harbor doubts about most of the scenarios that seem to be the product of sheer speculation as well as the polling coming out of Egypt.  With everything that has happened, it is hard to predict anything about Egypt with any certainty other than the fact that there will be traffic, the koshari will be good, and the Nile will continue to flow north.  There is a lot of time between now and May 23 when the polls open.  The Muslim Brotherhood could win, making Morsi Egypt’s next president.  Over the course of 84 years, the Brotherhood has made important, long-lasting marks on Egyptian politics and society.  Yet holding the presidency would provide the organization with an unprecedented opportunity to advance its agenda.  It doesn’t seem like a propitious moment to reduce their own power through constitutional limits on the executive.

A lot of Muslim Brotherhood experts out there will tell me that I am wrong, that the Muslim Brotherhood will be good to its word (like not running for president?) and the organization is a force for democratic change. Or they will say it doesn’t matter because the Brothers are doomed.  Those are certainly ways of looking at the Brothers, but, in fact, we don’t know what will happen. Either way, observers should be more careful when drawing conclusions about what the Brotherhood will do with power based solely on what the Brothers say.  Thus far, it is an empirical question, but we can glean some insight based on their incentives, which suggest that the Brothers aren’t going to work very hard to write a new constitution that levels the playing field between the branches of government.  Maybe the Brothers will preside over writing a new constitution, but the outcome will likely serve their interests.  It is important to recognize that institutions—rules, laws, regulations—are the result of political struggles and as a result, they tend to reflect the interest of the winners of those battles.

I have no idea what the outcome of the presidential election will be, but it is probably a good idea for analysts to start interrogating their assumptions about the constitution (and other important matters). After all, even if there is a new constitution, it may very well look a lot like the old one.

A compilation of reactions to Mona el-Tahawy’s controversial piece, “Why Do They Hate Us?”.

Quinn Mecham writes a policy brief for POMED on a strategy for sustained engagement with Islamist parties.

The first in a four-part series on Israel’s wall from +972 Magazine.

Since January, I’ve written a few posts on fascinating developments in Turkey’s civil-military relations.  It is a critical and evolving story that will have long-lasting effects on Turkey’s political development.  Please let me know what you think.

The arrests of military officers and retired senior commanders continued last week with the detention of former Deputy Chief-of-Staff Çevik Bir and a number of other officers for the “28^th of February Process” (also known as the “post-modern coup”) of 1997.  The arrests, combined with the detention of hundreds of other officers for plots against civilian governments going back to the 1980 military intervention, as well as the simultaneous resignation of four members of the General Staff last summer, have altered the balance of power between civilians and military officers in Turkey. Yet have the trials “pretty much resolved” the threat of future military interventions as one former U.S. government official who served in Turkey blithely declared recently?

The answer is no.  This seems wildly counter-intuitive, but it is important to dig below the surface and get beyond the now routine perp-walks of officers (both former and currently serving) to understand that civil-military relations in Turkey remains fraught.  The political reforms that the AKP began in 2003 and 2004 represent critical first steps in bringing Turkey’s autonomous officer corps under civilian control.  Particularly important were changes to the National Security Council, known as the MGK, which was one of the primary channels through which the General Staff influenced Turkish politics.  Under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party, the number of civilians on the MGK was increased so that they outnumbered officers, the frequency of its meetings was reduced, the MGK secretariat was prohibited from initiating “national security investigations,” its leadership was placed under a civilian, and the MGK’s budget was placed under the control of the prime ministry.  Most importantly, the AKP changed article 118 of the Turkish constitution, which directed the government “to give priority consideration to the recommendations” of the Council.  In the context of Turkish politics and the past patterns of civil-military relations, this was tantamount to a direct order.  In addition, officers were removed from the Higher Education Board and the Radio and Television Broadcasting Board.  These panels existed, in part, so that the military and its civilian allies could police Turkish academia and media to ensure Kemalist orthodoxy on religion and nationalism.  The AKP-dominated Grand National Assembly was also able to wrest some aspects of the military budget from the General Staff’s control.

Overall, the 2003-2004 reforms seem to have set civil-military relations in Turkey on a healthier trajectory, though they are incomplete.  Indeed, the military made a bid to upend Turkish politics in May 2007 when the General Staff sought to prevent then-foreign minister Abdullah Gul from becoming president.  In a replay of the 1971 “coup by memorandum” set in the early 21^st century, the commanders posted a statement opposing Gul on the General Staff’s website.  The commanders failed, but it was abundantly clear that more needs to be done on civil-military relations.  For example, although the AKP—along with the Republican People’s Party—has floated the idea of overhauling the internal service codes of the armed forces, which justify the military’s intervention in politics, they have yet to do anything about them.  Also, the curricula at military academies and staff colleges have to change.  Officers in Turkey are socialized to believe in the superiority of the armed forces and the legitimacy of the military’s place in the political system.  It may very well be that the multitude of cases against Turkey’s commanders will force younger officers to rethink the military’s traditional role, but these cases may, in fact, make the opposite impression on captains, majors, and colonels.

Indeed, the way the AKP has gone about subordinating the officer corps through criminal prosecutions can actually undermine the party’s laudable efforts to eliminate the officers’ capacity for political mischief.  It seems that the government’s strategy has shifted the 2003-04 effort to bridle the military through institutions—rules, laws, decrees, and regulations—to establishing what Samuel Huntington and civil-military relations scholars after him referred to as “subjective control” over the armed forces.  This is when one particular group of civilians seeks to maximize their control over the armed forces and in the process undermines the professionalism of the armed forces.  In fact, there can be no professional armed forces under subjective control.  In Turkey, this holds the prospect of damaging the corporate coherence of the officer corps that has been a hallmark of the armed forces since the 1960s coup d’etat.  This is not to suggest that the officer corps does not debate issues behind closed doors, but under present circumstances, the AKP’s efforts could produce a politicized and factionalized military.  Younger officers who are now seeing their commanders in the dock were educated and socialized in a system that identified them, in the words of then-Chief of Staff General Kenan Evren, as the “essential element of the nation [that] will continue to fulfill the honourable tasks befalling them tomorrow, just as they are doing so today, under Ataturk’s inspiration.”  It is true that fewer and fewer Turks believe this narrative about the military, but what is important is what the officers believe.

Instead of subjective control, Turkey needs “objective control” of the armed forces.  Incidentally, this has little to do with the institutional changes outlined above, though those are critically important.  Huntington defines objective control as the militarization of the military, making the armed forces a professional force through the clear definition of a specifically military sphere and leaving officers to develop their professional competences while limiting their ability to interfere in civilian affairs.  This was the path that the AKP had been traveling until the wave of arrests that began in 2010.

Turks who support the trials of officers for a variety of misdeeds committed during coups or plotting against the governments that the military was sworn to uphold will quite rightly ask, what should have been done?  This is a very good question to which there is no satisfying answer other than that civil-military relations requires a balance and the public prosecutor’s current path is a potentially dangerous one.  Turks have every right to demand justice, but they must do so in a way that ensures both that the responsible officers answer for their crimes without destroying the integrity and cohesion of the armed forces.  If they don’t heed that warning, there will be more Kenan Evrens and Çevik Birs.

Mohamed Abdel Raouf encourages renewable energy and green jobs in the Arab world.

The Arabist sheds light on the potential war between the Sudans.

Adel Al Toraifi unpacks the Iranian-Emirati relationship.

My dear friend, Nervana Mahmoud, an Egyptian-born doctor in the UK, is a keen observer of events in Egypt and the Middle East.  Her post on Islamic law and constitutions in the region is extraordinarily interesting.  Enjoy….

I once asked a Salafi acquaintance what he thought of Bouazizi. He paused for a moment then said: “He committed a major sin; he deserves the punishment of hell.” Then he added, “God has made from his bad action, something good.” I later asked a Muslim Brotherhood supporter the same question and his reply was roughly the same, except that he added “probably” to his verdict, showing slightly more sympathy and understanding.

Bouazizi, the Tunisian fruit vendor, did not just inadvertently unleash a wave of revolts throughout the Arab world; he also indirectly rekindled a heated debate about the compatibility of Islamic Sharia law and democracy. The debate is ongoing in Tunisia following the Islamic Ennahada party’s decision to rule out Sharia as a basis for the country’s new constitution and in Egypt where the Muslim Brotherhood asserted that implementing Sharia law is the group’s aim and final objective.

The fundamental goals of Sharia, known in Arabic as maqasid, aim to preserve the five essential elements of Islamic society: religion, life, intellect, lineage and property. These broad categories are in tune with basic human values, and they do not contradict the principles of democracy. However, for Sharia to be a viable model for constitutional law, its interpretation has to be reformative, meaning that it must achieve moral and spiritual virtues by incorporating a balance between rights and rules.

For example, in the classical maqasid, in order to establish religion, spirituality needed to be maintained and protected by following the divine law, as mentioned in the Koran and Hadith, and by adhering to Islamic rituals. This raises the question of enforcement: what about the freedom to leave religion altogether, which many scholars consider apostasy? Would the constitution include clear legislation to protect people’s individual choice of religion? Will a maqasid-based constitution punish people who opt not to fast or who avoid paying zakat (alms-tax)? Mandatory zakat was an idea floated by some Brotherhood members, only to be denied later.

The second maqasid is aimed to preserve life. The way to protect it is through the enforcement of prescribed penalties provided by the divine law. For example, murder, adultery, false accusation, and suicide are prohibited in Islam. Again, how will an Islamic constitution deal with adultery, honor killings, and female genital mutilation? During their visit to Washington, the Muslim Brotherhood delegates were very defensive when asked about clitoridectomy.

The third maqasid is aimed at protecting the intellect, namely against anything that hinders the intellect’s ability to function properly. In this regard, alcohol or any similar substance should be prohibited. With this in mind, how far would the “Islamic” government go to impose an alcohol ban, and what would the penalty for breaking this law?

The list of questions goes on. For example, how would a Sharia–based constitution define “morality,” and how would an Islamic government impose it? Regarding the economy, how would the future Islamic government reform the banking system? How would non-Muslims fit in? Would they be forced to accept the same legislations?

There were several attempts to view maqasid in a modern perspective, starting with Muhammad al-Tahir Ibn Ashur in 1946 who expressed the need for an objective-based approach to Islamic law in light of modern realities. Other works by Gamal Attia and Jasser Auda even advocated reform and the idea that the maqasid should be viewed as a dynamic, rather than a static, process.

Sadly, in the current polarized atmosphere in Egypt, the interpretation of maqasid varies drastically, with many parties still resisting any liberal or dynamic interpretation, preferring a cut and paste version of the sixth century model. This is precisely why my Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood acquaintance viewed the Almighty as a bureaucrat who would doom Bouazizi to hell. Ironically, both applauded Sheikh Qaradawi’s fatwa that sanctioned suicide in order to kill Jews in Palestine.

Adopting maqasid as a road-map for the new Egyptian constitution is not as easy as the Muslim Brotherhood makes it out to be. What the Prophet Muhammad presented to the world in the sixth century was a clear, progressive enlightened project that was far more advanced than what Arabs had before. In order to achieve the same results in the 21^st century, Islamist parties should provide a new platform that is neither ambiguous nor regressive. This platform should maintain the delicate balance between the rights of individuals and their duties within  “Islamic” society in order to prevent hypocrisy, underground decadence (such as physical relations outside the realm of marriage and consumption of alcohol), and religious bipolar behavior that currently plagues many Muslim societies.

The Muslim Brotherhood still has a long road ahead to convince the public that its renaissance project is the way to go. Sticking to general slogans of justice and morality is simply not enough. As the parliamentary majority, the Brotherhood has a duty to engage the public in a debate about the interpretation and implementation of Sharia law in society. This debate may be awkward, difficult, and daunting, but the dialogue is essential to ensure that Bouazizi and the thousands of revolutionary martyrs who dreamed about freedom, equality, and justice did not die in vain.

Turan Kayaoglu argues that, despite opinions to the contrary, there is a way in which secularism is actually thriving in the AKP’s Turkey.

Ahmed Al Attar describes the  looming Pandora’s box of extremism in Syria.

Ahram Online’s obituary for Algeria’s first president, Ahmed Ben Bella, who passed away on Wednesday this week.

It is fair to say that Omar Suleiman’s bid to be Egypt’s next president is one of the most unexpected developments in post-Mubarak Egypt.  The last time anyone had seen or heard from Suleiman, he appeared on Egyptian television and declared:

Citizens, in these difficult circumstances the country is going through, the President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak has decided to leave his position as president of the Republic, and has entrusted the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to administer the nation’s affairs.

With those 41 words, Hosni Mubarak’s almost three-decade rule came to an ignominious end.  Since then Omar Pasha has been a ghost.  In the giddy moments and considerable confusion after Mubarak’s flight to Sharm el Sheikh, there was an assumption that the intelligence chief and two-week vice president would be taking a seat on the SCAF.  It didn’t happen.  He surfaced ever so briefly during Hosni Mubarak’s trial.  In a pretrial investigation Suleiman reportedly told prosecutors that the former president “knew of every shot fired” during the uprising.  So much for loyalty.  In between and since, Suleiman was apparently holed up in his home in Heliopolis. There were rumors in the late fall/early winter of 2011 that he was back at work at the headquarters of the General Intelligence Service, supporting his successor Major General Mourad Muwafie on the Israel-Palestinian file.  This was perhaps wishful thinking among the felool—a sign that despite their electoral drubbing, a restoration was possible.

As of Sunday with the spectacle of Suleiman delivering his presidential candidate registration papers (with more than three times the 30,000 required signatures appended to his petition) to the High Election Commission, the restoration seemed not just possible, but maybe even imminent.  Suleiman’s decision to contest the presidency was a dramatic twist in a drama filled week in which the Muslim Brotherhood’s number two and widely regarded to be the most powerful man in post-Mubarak Egypt—Khairat al Shater—announced his own run for the presidency and it was revealed that Salafist presidential candidate Hazem Salah Abu Ismail’s mother held an American passport.  Yet Omar Suleiman’s emergence eclipsed all others.  Immediately, the conjectures, rumors, and theories attempting to make sense of al Shater’s candidacy gave way to intense speculation about who and what is behind Suleiman’s run.

There is any number of competing explanations for the return of Omar Pasha:

1. Let me caveat before I even begin. I don’t think too many Egyptians actually believe this one, but I’ve heard it and read it so it deserves some attention.  Here goes:  Omar Suleiman is the Muslim Brotherhood’s solution to the Muslim Brotherhood’s Muslim Brotherhood problem.   Not expecting the buzz saw of internal and external criticism resulting from their nomination of Khairat al Shater for president, the Brothers have struck some sort of deal with Suleiman, calculating that the former intelligence chief and vice president will win.  This will relieve the Brothers of the responsibilities and risks of controlling parliament, the presidency, and likely the government.  This argument hinges on the fact that during the uprising Suleiman sought to negotiate with the Brotherhood’s senior leadership rather than the revolutionaries who instigated the demonstrations.  Although Suleiman’s outreach to the Brothers during those eighteen days of national upheaval demonstrated his inability to grasp the political dynamics of that moment, it was a stunningly accurate assessment of which group would likely play an influential role in Egypt’s future.  Be that as it may, it seems unlikely that the Brotherhood would seek a solution to their political problems through a deal with Suleiman.  Why enable even a partial restoration of the previous regime against which the Brothers have been agitating since the 1950s, especially when power seems to be well within the Islamists’ grasp? Once more, the ferocious rhetorical response to Suleiman’s candidacy from Brotherhood figures including Khairat al Shater who warned that the former vice president was a “New Mubarak” suggests that the Brothers see Omar Pasha as a grave threat to their political project.  Things are not always what they seem to be and there is a lot of “game playing” going on in Egypt as one informant told me recently, but there is no reason to put any stock in the MB-Omar nexus theory.

Rating:  Nonsense

2. Omar Suleiman’s candidacy represents the Egyptian intelligence community’s bid for supremacy in post-Mubarak Egypt.  Not only possible, but also entirely plausible. It is important to remember that throughout the uprising and the transition, politics, street demonstrations, and periodic spasms of violence have buffeted and taxed the ministries of defense and interior, which are rivals anyway.  Yet the General Intelligence Service and Military Intelligence have, to the extent that one can see into these opaque organizations, remained intact and more than capable of carrying out their functions, which include both domestic and foreign intelligence.  In many ways, the uncertainty of post-uprising Egypt is an environment in which intel operators well-versed in the dark arts of manipulation, denial and deception, as well as intimidation, thrive.  The GIS has its own organizational  interests, views, and goals that may conflict with Egypt’s other primary political actors—the SCAF, parliament, Muslim Brotherhood, and the revolutionary groups who may not command the authority and resources necessary to challenge intel’s bid for leadership.

What about the military intelligence?  One of the great myths of Egypt’s transition is that the SCAF is in control of the country, its ministries, and all of the branches of the military.  Field Marshal Tantawi et al certainly wanted Egyptians and observers to believe that. Throughout the transition, however, the Ministry of Defense has found itself at odds with the Ministry of Interior, demonstrated an inability to compel civilian politicians to comply consistently with its orders, and utterly failed to provide order, coherence, and leadership to the transition.  Under these circumstances, it is entirely possible that Suleiman, his former employees at GIS, and the officers from his former branch of service may believe now is a propitious moment for the intelligence people to make a move and secure “the chair” for one of their own, given how the SCAF has made a mess of things.

Rating:  Possible and Entirely Plausible

3. It has become accepted wisdom in certain circles, particularly the media, that Omar Suleiman is the SCAF’s candidate.  There is reason to believe this.  He is a military officer with the rank of Lieutenant General.  He saw combat in Yemen and Sinai in both 1967 and 1973.  As noted above, Suleiman’s statements during the Mubarak investigation/trial demonstrated some political deft and deference to the SCAF, letting the military off the hook. This stood in stark contrast to the former president who, in a deposition before trial, claimed that the military was responsible for events in Egypt beginning the evening of January 28, 2011 (the Day of Rage), which would make Tantawi culpable for the more than 800 deaths during the ensuing two weeks.  Most importantly, if the SCAF wanted to put forward a military figure with political experience, a potential reservoir of popular support, and a history of keeping the Islamists in their place, Omar Suleiman is their only choice.

Yet there is something too neat about the “Suleiman is the military’s candidate” theory.  True, he is an officer, but he hasn’t worn a uniform in decades, was not in the chain of command, and was noticeably left off the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, though that may be a political asset at this point.  There are also persistent, but never verified, rumors that military officers targeted Suleiman in an unsuccessful assassination attempt during the uprising.  In addition, why would the military want Omar Pasha?  Ostensibly, he is one of them and will protect their interests, but he seems to have a base of power independent of the Ministry of Defense.  The officers can’t control Suleiman and he likely has a file on everyone in uniform from colonel to the Field Marshal.  Mubarak was more dependent on the military than many suspected and acted that way, working hard to ensure their senior command’s parochial concerns like the flow of aid from the United States and core interests in stability and the military’s place in Egypt’s political system.  As much as the NDP became the vehicle for the Mubaraks and their immediate cronies, it was, according to one of Mubarak’s top lieutenants, “a circus.” It sounds cliché, but the military is the backbone of the regime—the political system that was founded in the 1950s after the Free Officers’ coup.

Finally, if the fix was in for a military officer to fill the presidency, why did the military wait so long before Suleiman was put forward?  Likely because he is not their candidate.  Ahmed Shafiq—Mubarak’s last prime minister and a former air force officer is more likely the military’s preferred candidate.

Rating: Plausible, but not as much as everyone thinks

So why is Omar Suleiman running?  Perhaps there is no better explanation than blind ambition and opportunism.  Suleiman is somewhat different than the caricatures of him.  For example, he is more thoughtful on foreign policy than one might suspect, but unless he had a change of heart over the last 15 months, he is hardly a progressive on domestic politics.  He was, in part, responsible for Egypt’s alleged stability during 18 of Mubarak’s 29 years 3 months, and 28 days in power.  Suleiman, no doubt, believes that he can return stability and security to Egypt’s streets, providing a critical component for an economic recovery, but can he?  No matter where they stand on the important issues, it seems that many Egyptians have rejected Omar Pasha’s methods, which, if the uprising was any measure, proved to be largely ineffective against millions of people who desperately wanted change.

Last Wednesday was a big day in Turkey. General Kenan Evren, the leader of the September 12, 1980 coup d’etat, was charged in an Ankara courtroom with “acts against the forces of the state” during the military’s three year intervention that ended in 1983.  This development may not be as earth-shattering as the fall of Middle Eastern dictators or Syria’s collapse into civil war, but most Turks and observers of Turkey never thought they would see the likes of Evren in the dock.   True, the Turkish government has spent the better part of the last two years prosecuting a bevy of army officers for crimes—both real and imagined—against the state, but Evren seemed untouchable.

Evren is held in high-esteem in some quarters in Turkey.  It is important to remember that the coup rescued the country from further bloodshed and instability  after a  long spiral of left-right political violence during the 1970s.  Yet 30 years later Turks tend to equate the coup with a constitution—written at the behest of the junta that Evren led—that protects Turkey’s republican system at the expense of rights and freedoms for its citizens.  Also, within the document, which was approved by 92 percent of Turks in a November 1982 referendum, the General and his collaborators made sure there was a series of clauses and articles that granted them immunity from prosecution for any crimes during the period they held power, until now.  The most important of these was Provisional Article 15 (abolished in 2010), which stated that, “No allegation of criminal, financial or legal responsibility shall be made, nor shall an application be filed with a court for this purpose in respect of any decisions or measures whatsoever taken by the Council of National Security” [i.e., the officers who undertook the coup].

There are many Turks who must be happy to see Evren get his due given what is now known—or what people think they know–about the military’s intervention, but the immunity built into the 1982 constitution was extraordinarily farsighted.  The Egyptians should follow-suit.  This isn’t an effort to be provocative just to be provocative, though I have been known to do that.  As much as Turks may (quite rightly) desire a new constitution, the articles and provisions that gave Evren a free pass all these years contributed to Turkey’s democratic development.  I wouldn’t call Turkey a democracy just yet and there are a variety of worrying signs about the AKP’s backsliding that I have documented here and here. Still, were it not for the escape hatch that the generals essentially gave themselves, Turkey’s political trajectory may have been quite different. That’s not to suggest that all was well in Turkey between 1983 and the present.  There were, of course, the matters of the “28^th of February Process” (aka the post-modern coup) and a series of unstable coalition governments, but one can imagine a messier, more unstable, and less democratic Turkey had Evren not been able to enjoy the safety of retirement in Armutalan.

It is a tough sell to Egyptians, but they need to let Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi and other members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces slink off to retirement without fear of retribution.  If they don’t, what you see in Egypt is likely to be what you are going to get.  Yes, the SCAF’s ability to impose its authority has weakened considerably over the last fifteen months, but the officers are intent on ensuring their corporate and parochial interests.  This may be the rationale for a deal between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood that has led to the nomination of the Brothers’ number two, Khairat al- Shater, for the presidency.  Admittedly, I am an outlier on this issue, but if the officers are looking to make a deal, the Muslim Brotherhood is the obvious place to go.  Regardless, the underlying logic of immunity should be clear; it can help smooth out a transition by removing the incentive for the officers either to hold onto power or fight to re-engineer institutions in a way that precludes democratic change.  Once more, as we have seen in Turkey and Chile as well as other countries where the military once dominated , the legacies of authoritarian rule tend to wither over time.  It is true that justice delayed is justice denied, but it is hard to see how Egyptians move beyond their current impasse if they don’t follow the Turkish example here.  Let Tantawi et al. go and live out their days. The stakes are too high this time to stand on principle.  And who knows, perhaps if Egypt makes some gains—hard to imagine at this moment—Field Marshal Tantawi will follow in the footsteps of Kenan Evren.  That’s a Turkish model I can get behind.

The Mosireen Collective, an Egyptian video project, recently nominated for “Best Video Channel” category of the distinguished Deutsche Welle International Blog awards (The BOBs)

Zeinab El Gundy for Ahram Online interviews some of the most influential Twitter users during Egypt’s revolution, getting their opinions on the role of the social media network going forward.

The website Women Under Siege, an online tool that seeks to document cases of sexualized violence in Syria, where obtaining information is difficult, to display the exigency of the country’s crisis and appeal to the international community.

This article was originally published here on ForeignPolicy.com on Monday, April 3, 2012. 

On March 21, Haaretz correspondent Ari Shavit wrote a powerful op-ed in the New York Times that began with this stark and stunning claim: “An Iranian atom bomb will force Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt to acquire their own atom bombs.” Indeed, it has become axiomatic among Middle East watchers, nonproliferation experts, Israel’s national security establishment, and a wide array of U.S. government officials that Iranian proliferation will lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. President Barack Obama himself, in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) last month, said that if Iran went nuclear, it was “almost certain that others in the region would feel compelled to get their own nuclear weapon.”

Multiple nuclear powers on a hair trigger in the Middle East — the most volatile region on earth, and one that is undergoing massive political change — is a nightmare scenario for U.S. and other security planners, who have never before confronted a challenge of such magnitude. But thankfully, all the dire warnings about uncontrolled proliferation are — if not exactly science fiction — further from reality than Shavit and Obama indicate. There are very good reasons for the international community to meet the challenge that Iran represents, but Middle Eastern nuclear dominoes are not one of them.

Click here to read more.

My research associate, Alexander Brock, and research intern, Jessica Cusano, have written the below profile of newly nominated Egyptian presidential candidate Khairat al-Shater, affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party. I hope you find it useful.

 
Egypt’s latest addition to the pool of presidential candidates, Khairat al-Shater, is one that should come as no surprise. Al-Shater has been a prominent figure in Egypt due to his successful business endeavors in the furniture, textile, and software industries as well as to his position as the second in command and financier for the Muslim Brotherhood. An engineer by training and a socialist during Nasser’s presidency, al-Shater, who prefers the moniker “the Engineer,” is a multi-millionaire businessman and considered a frontrunner in the Egyptian presidential elections.

The Muslim Brotherhood has always wanted to implement principles of Islamic governance in Egypt and al-Shater bases his political agenda on the notion that Islam and the state are intrinsically linked. In a New York Times interview, al-Shater said he was drawn to the group because of its “comprehensiveness” that touches all aspects of society. In his view, the Muslim Brotherhood is an organization that interacts with Egyptian society through charity work, cultural programs, political outreach, and a strong economic presence.

The candidate stated in the same interview that results from the recent parliamentary elections prove that the Egyptian people want an Islamic state. He does not, however, believe this is incompatible with a democratic political system. Al-Shater appeals to the Islamic concept of shura (consultation) as a means of grounding representative democracy within an Islamic framework. The Engineer elaborated on this saying that democratic processes should be used to settle disputes, but that particular policies need to draw on Islamic principles. Liberal elements of Egypt’s political scene remain unconvinced and view this as mere posturing. They claim that the Brotherhood has already made moves to monopolize all the decision-making in post-Mubarak Egypt, making their interpretation of Islam the only acceptable one. They point to al-Shater’s part in ousting the reformist Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh from the group (ironically for announcing his intention to seek the presidency).

Renaissance and Reform
At a conference last July, al-Shater also proposed ways to usher in a new era of freedom. This transition, which he calls a renaissance, must begin with building a state based on Islam, a task requiring the participation of all elements of society to succeed. Its first phase focuses on solving the economic challenges and the inchoate political system. The next phase involves citizens and local communities building alliances to rid society of its divisions, making their efforts more effective. The final phase is for the collective action of all the diverse elements of Egyptian society, once united in common purpose and sharing responsibility, to undertake political, social, and economic reforms. Al-Shater recognizes that this comes farther down the road, taking up to thirty years to bring to fruition.

Gender Equality
Al-Shater claims that the Brotherhood allows for and encourages more representation for women than any other similar organization (presumably Salafist organizations, although he does not name any group in particular). In July, 2011, he attended a women’s conference for the Muslim Sisterhood, the first of its kind in nearly 60 years, in which he encouraged women’s advancement in society, using Islamic principles as a guide.

The FJP’s party platform states that it will support women to ensure a “balance between their duties and their rights,”  as consistent with Islamic teachings. The FJP advocates female political participation in the election process and is also committed to implementing programs for divorced and widowed women, policies on which the candidate has yet to elaborate.

However, al-Shater is also a board member for a conservative Islamist study group that implements such rigid gender segregation rules as barring women from talking on cell phones with men other than family members. Members of the Brotherhood defend the candidate’s membership in this group, contending that he sits on the board without necessarily endorsing the group’s views. His position serves to create a direct line of communication with Islamist party members, speaking to the presidential hopeful’s political savvy.

Education
Recognizing that Egypt’s youth played an integral role in starting the uprisings that ultimately ousted Mubarak, the FJP aims to improve the well-being of Egypt’s youth through revamping the education system. Al-Shater will likely seek to implement the FJP’s plans to boost Egypt’s educational system by doubling its allotted budget over time and increasing scientific research (ultimately up to 2.5% of total GDP). Within the next five years, the party aims to combat Egypt’s rampant illiteracy by increasing the number of kindergarten classrooms allowing for larger overall enrollment.

Part of the candidate’s educational platform appeals to restoring a healthy balance between job opportunities and level of education. A disincentive for pursuing a university education for many Egyptians is that it does not necessarily translate into gainful employment. Al-Shater is likely to promote educational reforms that tailor higher education to the practical skill-set that is necessary for the work force.

In a recent interview, the Engineer reiterated that Al-Azhar, as the traditional head of Sunni Islamic education, should be the ultimate reference point for moderate Islamic thought not only in Egypt but across the world. He also said Al-Azhar should exert a more overtly political role and should openly express its political views because “Islam is religion and state.”

Foreign Policy
In response to questions regarding FJP’s foreign policy, al-Shater articulated two guiding principles: first, that the FJP is open to cooperation with international groups across the political spectrum, as long as such cooperation is based on mutual interests and respect. In this regard, he has called on Western countries to assume the burden in helping Egypt rebuild because he views their historical role in the country as overwhelmingly negative. He stated, however, that foreign policy emphasis will be placed on Egypt’s relationship with its neighbors in the Middle East in an attempt to return Cairo to its traditional role as regional leader. On that point al-Shater said in an interview with the French publication Le Figaro, that Egypt’s responsibility as an Arab country is to support the Palestinian people in expressing their will, adding that he would put “pressure on Western nations who support Israel unconditionally” for what he sees as the latter’s continual violation of international law.

Second, despite his expressed solidarity with the Palestinian cause the former deputy supreme guide insists that his party is committed to all legally-binding international conventions, treaties, and obligations in Egypt’s portfolio. Of particular concern is the party’s view on the peace treaty with Israel, in addition to the controversial natural gas exporting deal with Israel. Al-Shater’s view is that amendments to either of these agreements would require a motion from the appropriate institutional channels, such as a referendum put to parliament. Absent any such motion, he says that his party is dedicated to upholding the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, an important policy stance that will weigh heavily in the election.

The presidential candidate’s discussions of foreign policy display an intimate connection between cultivating strong international relations and the party’s plans for reviving the economy. In his search for solutions to Egypt’s economic woes, al-Shater says that over the past year he has met with more than 30 ambassadors from all over the world, developing strong relationships with potential foreign investment partners.

On the diplomatic level,  the Engineer noted in an interview on the al-Jazeera  program ‘Without Borders’ that visits from and talks with western European countries have remained largely on the level of “getting to know” the Muslim Brotherhood. In contrast, countries like Japan, he says, seemed to be more understanding of and sensitive to the culture of the Egyptian people. This allowed for more productive talks. He noted that the Muslim Brotherhood is looking to benefit from studying countries such as Japan, Brazil, Korea, Turkey, and Indonesia to see how these countries were able to create an economic boom at home in less than a decade. Al-Shater would likely favor close ties with such countries, perhaps seeking to formalize economic relations between them on a government-to-government level as well as through private sector business endeavors.

Foreign NGO Presence
Al-Shater has also expressed his commitment to allowing foreign NGOs freedom to operate if he is elected president. During the recent row between Egypt and the United States over allegations that foreign NGOs were operating illegally, he and the Brotherhood released a statement to U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina reassuring the lawmakers that the Brotherhood would uphold this position. The FJP’s stance on NGOs is to set limits on foreign aid money so that it does not interfere with the sovereignty of the community but allows the NGOs enough flexibility to operate.

Economic Policy
Privatization
Undoubtedly, the economy will be the central component of al-Shater’s campaign and platform, given the crippling state of the Egyptian economy and the former deputy supreme guide’s strong business background.

Al-Shater has been the architect behind the economic policy of the Freedom and Justice party. He will in all likelihood continue the Mubarak regime’s policies of privatization, even though these policies have long, in the eyes of the Egyptian people, been tainted by the corrupt business practices and cronyism that were rampant under the deposed president.

Strong emphasis on the private sector, however, is likely to perpetuate problems of wealth distribution, resulting in continued high unemployment rates and a large portion of society living below poverty lines. The Brotherhood’s presidential candidate, in line with the FJP’s platform in general, seeks to address this problem by highlighting the importance of charity efforts, grounded in the Islamic concept of zakat (roughly, “charity”) and the institution of waqf (an endowment kept in a trust for charitable purposes). The party will also bolster the use of Islamic bonds (interest-free bonds), coupled with augmented investment in industry, agriculture, and information technology.  The money generated through them will focus on cultivating people’s skills in particular crafts, enabling them to join the workforce.

Indeed, an economic revival in Egypt provides the entire foundation for the chapter on social justice in the FJP’s platform. Al-Shater advocates free market capitalism as the best system for generating wealth in the country.  According to al-Shater, this kind of capitalism differs from typical “westernized” forms of capitalism because there is a link between generating wealth on the one hand, with obligations to social justice on the other.

Foreign Investment
A central component of the Engineer’s economic platform will be the contribution of foreign investment in the private sector. Bloomberg reported in late January that al-Shater held meetings with 14 European, American, and African investment managers, in which he sought to allay concerns surrounding the Freedom and Justice party’s economic policies. The article also notes that the meetings were set up through the Egyptian EFG-Hermes investment bank, whose private equity subsidiary has connections to Gamal Mubarak through his 18% ownership.

Despite the impression that such dubious connections might create, al-Shater seems unconcerned, insisting that policies of privatization, and the central role for foreign investors in such policies, are the best way to resuscitate the Egyptian economy. Their failure under Mubarak was not due to the policies themselves, but rather the way in which the system was rigged to benefit only the ruling family and those close to it.

The Engineer does not support the current cabinet’s negotiations with the IMF to secure a $3.2 billion loan stating, “We will only succeed if we depend on ourselves as Egyptians in building a strong economy for Egypt,” also pointing to the fact that details surrounding the terms of the loan remain vague. This will be difficult to reconcile, however, with his desire to attract foreign investors who are unlikely to inject capital into the unstable Egyptian economy. This theme of autonomy and self-reliance is evident in the FJP’s proposed solutions for the economic crisis in Egypt, in which “achieving self-sufficiency in strategic commodities, particularly of wheat and cotton” tops the list. The platform also calls for the review of the export subsidy program, which has benefited foreign recipients and placed the financial burden on Egyptians themselves.

The Sandmonkey takes a step back from the Egyptian political scene and looks at the country’s real problems and some possible ways to start fixing them.

Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou says Libya should learn lessons by looking at Iraq, or else it risks going down the same path.

The Institute for Middle East Understanding features an interview with the first Palestinian woman elected to the Knesset from an Arab party’s list, Haneen Zoabi, discussing the annual Palestinian Land Day protests.

My friend, Bassem Sabry, weighs in on Egypt’s recently selected constituent assembly, the body charged with drafting the country’s next constitution. Bassem blogs at An Arab Citizen.

As I regard the final list of the 100 members of Egypt’s constituent assembly for the constitution and the dominance of two hegemonic political powers over it, I cannot help but experience a bitter feeling. All I see is another potentially glorious moment squandered by a nation that’s in desperate need of one.

While I acknowledge the well-earned majoritarian leadership of the FJP and Al-Nour in parliament, as well as their right to exercise the power that comes along with such a majority with regard to policy issues, I remain convinced that the constituent assembly and Egypt’s next constitution are matters that transcend parliamentary party lines.

This constitution is intended to represent all of Egypt, in all its political and ideological diversity. It is hoped to be a perfect document, though a constitution never is, and amendments will always find their way in by force of time, evolution, and trial and error. But it is crucial that this constitution, of all constitutions, carry the equal weight of Egypt’s entire political spectrum behind it.

First, this will be the first free constitution to be drafted in the history of Egypt. While I do accept that SCAF’s influence tarnishes the “freedom” of this constitution, the document has the chance to become the purest work of democratically-elected Egyptian hands– not colonial, monarchical, or dictatorial forces. Furthermore, the constitution will be drafted after a revolution that was the first of its kind for the nation, in which countless lives were sacrificed, and continue to be, for the honor and the right as citizens of the nation to chart our own future. Perhaps it might not end up being an entirely freely-drafted constitution, but it should at least end up being our freest ever.

Second, most of the parties that participated in the parliamentary elections were new parties that had been founded less than one year ago, whose members and candidates did not have sufficient, if any, electoral experience, and/or did not have the grassroots network or finances that would allow them to campaign effectively. As a result, while FJP and Al-Nour probably would have received the most votes regardless, the weight of such a majority could have been significantly different had the new parties been better prepared. I acknowledge that this might bring to mind the phrase “sore loser,” but I am sincere in my convictions.

The phase of “post-revolution politics” was characterized by non-partisan rhetoric and more active and sincere efforts at national reconciliation, coalition building, and group decision-making. This is the kind of politics we needed to see in this constituent assembly and in the processes leading up to it. Instead, we ended up witnessing the usual, divisive “partisan politics” wherein each side tries to get as much as it can. It was neither the time nor the place for such division. I realize the naive idealism of what I am writing, but revolutions are founded upon a degree of idealism. And, well, we actually did just have a revolution.

While there are many respectable and unsurprising names on the final list of members of the constituent assembly, I reiterate that all elements of the political spectrum should have more equal representation in the group of men and women charged with the task of drafting Egypt’s future. This was my position in February 2011 right after the revolution, it remained my position last October right before the elections, and it continues to be my position as I write these words.

And while we’re on the subject of “men and women drafting the future of Egypt,” there should have been more women.

A look at gender equality within the controversial Gulen movement’s educational institutions in Turkey.

Barak Barfi discusses realistic goals for Libya’s Transitional Council.

Abubakr al-Shamahi suggests using national dialogue to boost Yemen’s economy.

There has been a fair amount of media attention devoted to Egypt’s upcoming efforts to write a new constitution as well as a few stories here and there about the Libyan government’s plans to form a constitutional committee.  Both projects deserve whatever attention they are getting and much more given how new constitutions will shape the trajectory of Egyptian and Libyan politics.  There is another constitutional exercise going on in the region that has received far less attention.  Indeed, Turks convened a constitutional commission last October, keeping with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s promise to scrap the 1982 constitution, which was written at the behest of the military junta that took over the country in September of 1980.   The drafting of the constitution will unfold in four stages and is supposed to be complete at the end of 2012. The lack of attention—even in the Turkish press—is no doubt a function of both editorial decisions and the sense that Turkey is a good story, already a democracy, and even a model for those countries in the Arab world undergoing transitions.

It is true that Turkey is more democratic than it was a decade ago, yet it is not a democracy.  I hear all the time from both Turks and Western analysts that Turkey’s transition to democracy happened in July of 1947 when Ismet Inonu—Ataturk’s successor— recognized the Demokrat Partisi, which four renegade members of the Republican People’s Party had established. Over the following six decades there was a dizzying array of coalition governments, contested elections, actual parliamentary prerogatives, but there were also four coups d’etat and innumerable other military interventions in politics.  Once more, despite the fact that the junior officers who carried out the 1960 coup oversaw the drafting of a relatively liberal constitution, they also set the stage for future military interventions by upgrading the status of the National Security Council, which was established around the same time as the multi-party system.  The 1971 “coup by memorandum” ordered the government to tighten up the more liberal aspects of the 1961 constitution. And the 1982 version represented a full-blown effort on the part of the officers to protect the state rather than, for example, the rights of individuals as one might expect in a democratic political system.

Despite the AKP’s reforms in 2003 and 2004, which were good enough to get the Turks a formal invitation to begin EU membership negotiations, virtually everyone in Turkey agrees that it is time to dispose of the 1982 document and start over.  The matter is particularly urgent given recent Turkish backsliding on political change—why are there ninety-four journalists in Turkish jails?—and serious concerns about Prime Minister Erdogan’s health.  The prime minister has revealed illiberal tendencies in recent years, but the fact remains that he is the sun around which the Justice and Development Party as well as Turkish politics revolve.  Should he become incapacitated or worse, it would throw the whole constitutional process into question.

As the committee goes about its works there are 4 areas that need careful attention.

1. Basic freedoms—Too often in the “new Turkey,” the government has resorted to authoritarian tactics to undermine personal freedoms.  This is a legacy of the past and while the AKP is not responsible for the misdeeds of previous governments and military officers, the party has been all too willing to use undemocratic rules, decrees, and laws to go after its political opponents.  When questions are raised about freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and freedom of expression—the notorious article 301 of the penal code, which makes it a crime to insult “Turkishness” comes to mind here—all too often, the answer from Turkish officials is: “It’s the law. It isn’t us.”  Now there is an opportunity to rid Turkey of the authoritarian anachronisms that were developed to ensure Kemalist orthodoxy.

2. Minority Rights—Turkey cannot fairly consider itself a democracy without any change to the status of its Greek, Armenian, and in particular Kurdish minorities.  Although there are Kurds who are well integrated in Turkish society, as a community they are marginalized and under threat.  This does not excuse the violence of the Kurdistan Workers Party, but it does provide a context for it.  This will be a heavy lift as they say for Erdogan and the AKP given the realities of Turkish nationalism, the prime minister’s diverse constituencies, and the likely resistance of the opposition Republican’s People Party and Nationalist Movement Party.  Still, Erdogan and the AKP garnered 49.95 percent of the vote in the June 2011 elections.  It is time that the prime minister, whose policy toward the Kurds has been purely reactive since the launch of his  ”Kurdish opening” in 2009, use his mandate and lead on this issue and enshrine safeguards into the new constitution that do away with the connection between ethnicity and rights in the Turkish Republic.

3. Civil-Military Relations—It has become an accepted fact that Prime Minister Erdogan finally resolved the problem of civil-military relations in Turkey last July when four of the five most senior ranking officers in the Turkish Armed Forces resigned en masse.  Erdogan moved quickly and appointed new military leaders without a major showdown.  With so many other officers in jail awaiting trial for allegedly plotting against the government, the Turkish military as a political actor seems to have gone out of business after eight decades.  Turkish and foreign observers have applauded efforts to tame the Turkish armed forces, especially the 2003 constitutional reforms that made critical changes to the Milli Guvenlik Kurulu (National Security Council), but more recent developments have swung the civil- military balance so far in favor of the AKP, to the point that the government risks destroying the Turkish armed forces.  Turkey’s constitution writers would be wise to finish the job of subordinating the military to elected civilian leaders through the formal regulations, decrees, rules, and laws that ensure both that the military cannot intervene in politics and also respect the traditions and honor of the officers.

4. Power of the presidency—On the eve of Turkey’s parliamentary election last June, there was considerable buzz that Prime Minister Erdogan whose victory was all but certain would want to use his new mandate to write a new constitution with enhanced presidential powers that would be his when President Abdullah Gul’s term ends in 2014.  This was a sure sign to the prime minister’s opponents that he was less interested in transforming Turkey into a democracy than transforming Turkey to aggrandize his own personal power.  The debate was, as is often the case when the stakes are high, rife with hyperbole, but it did touch on an important deficiency in current Turkish politics—the lack of reliable checks and balances.  That is why some Turks and some Western observers lament the passing of the old days when the Turkish military was an alleged “moderator” of the political system.  Turkey needs to change the way it chooses its judges, which currently provides opportunity for court packing, better parliamentary oversight, and clearer safeguards against any particular branch of government from accumulating too much power.  If these changes are accomplished in conjunction with new responsibilities for the presidency, they would likely be a positive development for Turkish democracy.

The narrative about Turkish democratic change aside, the need for a new constitution is as critical as ever given recent backsliding on reform that are reminiscent of the old Turkey.   The ingredients for this new document are no secret—the protection of basic freedoms, ensuring the rights of minorities, subordinating the military without destroying it, and establishing clear checks and balances among the branches of government.  Without these critical factors, Turkey risks becoming an illiberal democracy, which is essentially what it was before the AKP came to power.

Makram Rabah looks at the possible effect of Syria’s revolution on Lebanon.

The Project on Middle East Democracy’s report: The Campaign Against NGOs in Egypt.

Manar Al Hinai sheds light on the new abaya fashion world.