Yonatan Zunger’s Blog

So, after all of the excitement, I haven’t posted an update in a few weeks. Apologies; daily life intervened. Quite a bit has happened; not as much as you may think on some fronts, and more than you may think on others.

Let’s start with Egypt. Mubarak stepped down, the Army has stepped in. Democracy in action, right? Well, maybe. So far, the Army seems to be saying the right things – elections in 6 months, new constitution early next week – but several things remain to be seen. First, who will be running in these elections? It’s not like opposition parties have been able to get amazingly well-organized under Mubarak. (But honestly, I think this one will resolve itself; unlike many other dictatorships, this one didn’t completely grind any potential political opposition into dust, it simply kept them from doing anything. People like el-Baradei can exist in Egypt in a way that they never could in, say, Syria) Second, will the Army follow through, or will it try to hold on to more power for itself? (Which is how we’ve gotten most of our secular dictatorships in the past) Some role for the Army isn’t a disaster, necessarily; if Egypt follows the Turkish example, with the Army viewing itself as the guarantor of secular democracy (and if you do anything they think threatens that, they’ll shoot you) you can end up with something at least basically functional. On the other hand, if they follow Mubarak’s example, well…

The big question still on the table in Egypt is the economic one. Revolutions don’t happen in a vacuum, and pervasive poverty, unemployment, lack of opportunity, and so on are rampant; and they didn’t go away when Mubarak did. As a result, protests have been continuing (although not at quite a frenetic pace as the ones from a few weeks ago); the risk is that these could turn into lots of general strikes, and during this interim phase when there’s not much central government, that could start to destabilize a lot of local-level “keep-the-trains-running” sorts of government, which could make things fall apart badly and open the game up for (e.g.) the Army or another dictator to take power.

But that said, I’m still guardedly optimistic about Egypt’s future. The prevailing attitude appears to have been one of the people getting together to fix things, which I think is one of the best predictors of a successful revolution.

For an example of a different attitude, let’s go to the eastern side of the Arabian Peninsula, over to Bahrain. Here the protests have gotten violent, with the BDF (the local army) opening fire with live ammunition against demonstrators early today. (I listened to audio recordings from journalists; they were definitely firing freely, and by all accounts aiming low and with live ammo.) No good estimates of casualties yet, but the violence is brewing fast. On the other hand, there are angry counter-protests in favor of the local absolute monarchy. Why? This is a pattern that’s very common in the eastern Middle East (the various emirates, Kuwait, Iraq, etc) with a large, and fairly poor Shi’ite majority being ruled over by a small and fairly rich Sunni minority. The tone of the rhetoric in Bahrain is very different from that in Egypt; it’s sounding like it’s all about the ethnic* anger here, and this could quickly manifest as a bloodbath.

Two things which further complicate Bahrain: the US and Iran. The US Navy has a major base in Bahrain, which is the headquarters of the Fifth Fleet and CENTCOM. This is a key, key location and not one which the US is likely to give up. (It’s the major logistical support point for all activity from the eastern coast of Africa all the way to the Pacific, which therefore also means logistics for Iraq and Afghanistan) The US made deals with the monarchy in order to set up shop there, and so it has a vested interest in the place staying stable.

Iran, on the other hand, learned some very important arts of infiltration and subversion from the Soviets. Every country with a significant Shi’ite population – and several areas without one, such as Gaza – has been set up with a fairly deep penetration by Iranian intelligence, which sets up, trains, supplies and supports local “organizations.” When it’s convenient (as it recently was, e.g., in Lebanon and in Gaza) those organizations take over the local government and set up satellite Iranian regimes. This one looks awfully convenient for Iran, and they would have to be fools not to make a play for it. (And needless to say, an Iran-backed regime would not be friendly to a US naval base, nor vice-versa)

So we have a major regional power and a (possibly overextended) superpower both with serious, and conflicting, stakes in a local revolution which could easily slip into ethnic bloodshed, with all sides having very large volumes of armaments sitting around in the region.

Meanwhile in Libya, it’s even harder to get information on what’s going on, but what we can tell for sure is that there have been large demonstrations in the two largest cities, Tripoli and Benghazi, and the government has cracked down with great force. The numbers I’m hearing (although unconfirmed) are dozens of dead, hundreds wounded, and the situation is escalating rapidly. The “good” news is that this is unlikely to act as a tinderbox for anything else in the region; its three Middle Eastern neighbors are Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt, all of which are already part of the situation.

And what about the calls for protests in Syria? They largely didn’t happen, because the military turned out in force, and the Syrians have figured out by now that the al-Assad family isn’t exactly gentle about the way it handles dissent. The Palestinian Authority, Hamas, and the Jordanian government have all managed to keep protest levels fairly low without resorting to quite as much violence, but it’s pretty clear (especially in the case of Hamas) that violence is most certainly an option if needed. Yemen continues its violent protests, and my guess is that the already-weak government will collapse; this is probably the biggest boon to the preexisting rebels (nothing whatsoever to do with the current run of protests, much more to do with Islamist terror groups) who will be able to firmly grab control of… well, whatever they decide to grab control of.

So looking at the map, my current estimate is:

• The more peaceful Middle Eastern countries – Egypt, Jordan, Morocco – will probably fare the best, with either mostly peaceful regime changes or with existing regimes remaining in power and making varying amounts of concessions. These will be the bastions of stability.
• Less stable countries which don’t have a deep background of ethnic instability, such as Libya and Yemen, will see more violence, and if their governments collapse the results are likely to be long-lasting and strongly favor the most brutal groups around. At the best they’ll trade one dictator for another; at the worst, they’ll dissolve into failed states.
• States with sufficiently brutal governments, such as Syria and Iran, will remain quite stable, because anyone who tries anything will rapidly end up disappearing. Along, possibly, with their entire neighborhood. Some less stable countries may decide to copy a page from their playbook in order to keep their status quo.
• States with a deep background of ethnic tension, especially ones with a deep Sunni-Shi’ite split, will likely fare the worst. Their governments will likely follow the brutal route, but the likelihood of Iranian intervention, and the likelihood of pent-up tension erupting far beyond anyone’s control, will remain high. If the dam breaks in such a country the result is likely to be similar to Iraq in 2004-5, or Bosnia in 1992-5, with localized “ethnic cleansing” (gods, what a euphemism for genocide) and equilibration only after the country has ended up effectively physically segregated.
• Places with a lot of money (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, etc.) or with key strategic value (Bahrain) are likely to play out a much more complicated game, because outside forces have a lot more reason to intervene, whether they want to or not. Bahrain in particular looks like it could be the first flashpoint for many things, and the way it plays out could easily determine the fate of the eastern Middle East. Serious violence there could easily and rapidly spread up the coast of the Arabian Peninsula, into Kuwait, and thence back into Iraq in an unpredictable way.

Oh, and just to make it more fun? Iran is asking permission to send some warships through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean. Where they would be in an excellent position to support Gazan and Lebanese forces in an attempt to hold on to power. Or in an attempt to invade, oh, I dunno, someone…

Remember when I said the protests in Egypt could turn out very, very badly for the Middle East as a whole? I really wasn’t kidding.

* I really need to make a post sometime about the relationship of ethnicity, language, religion and tribe in the Middle East.

Well, it looks like things are going to get much hotter. A roundup of what I think are the key developments:

• Serious violence in Egypt: Cairo has devolved into major violence, as Mubarak’s supporters went on the offensive. The security services appear to be coordinating their operations, and have particularly targeted foreigners and journalists. The party line is that “foreign elements” are responsible for all of these protests, which is traditional but honestly, isn’t it a bit silly to be saying that at this point? Surely the Egyptians aren’t likely to take that even a little seriously? al-Jazeera has been a major target.
• The opposition has declared Friday (i.e., tomorrow) to be Mubarak’s “day of departure,” saying that they’ll storm the presidential palace that day if he isn’t gone before.*
• The US appears to be working on a deal to get rid of Mubarak, although some rumors suggest that the deal would put his newly-named VP Omar Suleiman in power over a “transitional regime” to last until September. I would guess that the odds of the Egyptian public accepting Mubarak’s hand-picked successor from the security forces to be less than great.

Beyond Egypt, even more news:

• In Yemen, President Saleh has agreed not to run again for the presidency in 2013. (He’s been in power for 32 years) Protests continue, but they don’t seem nearly as angry as Egypt’s.
• In Jordan, King Abdullah II sacked the government and replaced it with a new one, led by Marouf al-Bakhit as the new PM. al-Bakhit has a reputation for honesty, and this move was specifically aimed at public anger over corruption. He’s also agreed to meet with the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood. Protests are happening, but the King appears to be moving fast to head off popular anger by making at least some reforms.
• In Algeria, President Bouteflika has ended the 19-year-long state of emergency following protests.
• Major protests in Syria, which is likely to turn really nasty – President-for-life al-Assad is not a nice fellow. Opposition promises major protests on Friday.
• No news of major action in Lebanon, but Hezbollah has just formally taken power.
• No clear info yet out of Saudi, but I’m particularly interested in that.
• In Pakistan, the case of Raymond Davis, an American accused of killing two Pakistanis, seems to be heating up, and it’s a strange one. He says that they threatened his life, he drew his pistol and shot both; an (American) SUV rushed to his aid, hitting and killing a third Pakistani. He then has claimed diplomatic immunity, which the US is backing.** The Pakistani courts have just remanded him over to keep him in jail; the procedure was apparently done without any trial, lawyers, or even translators. The main reason for that is that anti-US sentiment has been boiling up lately, and radical elements have been turning this case into a cause célèbre; there are angry mobs in the streets calling for Davis’ blood. The situation is mostly decoupled from Egypt but not really; the rate of terrorism in Pakistan seems to have just shot up over the past two years, and the whole country seems ready to blow. The schedule, however, is hard to estimate, and may depend on how the effects from Egypt radiate outwards.

So in summary, the situation across the entire Middle East has heated up considerably, and more and more countries are being forced to act fast. It looks like Mubarak is reaching the end of his regime, but has decided to go out in a blaze of violence. Expect the shit to really hit the fan all over the place on Friday mideast morning if it hasn’t before that. (Which means in just a few hours…)

To those of you with friends and family in Egypt, my thoughts are with you.

* Explanatory note: this means Friday after morning prayers. This is common across the Islamic world; after everyone goes to Friday prayers (and sermons!), the large crowds come out of the mosques, and this is traditionally the time most likely to turn into a mass protest. Marking Friday as the day is basically saying that people will come out of the mosques in unified force, which is pretty likely true. NB also that mosques are deeply immune in a conflict like this – were Mubarak’s forces to storm mosques directly on Friday in an attempt to head this off, they would very possibly be shot by their own men.

** Fascinating questions, answers unknown: What kind of diplomat is he? What does he do? Why is a US diplomat travelling armed through the streets of Lahore? Nobody is talking. My conclusion: probably someone from the intel or military community, very possibly US special forces or ex-special forces. Possibly one of the civilian “contractors,” which is what the mob seems to think – and if you think that Blackwater has a bad reputation in the US, that’s nothing compared to their reputation in the rest of the world.

Good update on how the US has started to make its diplomatic move in Egypt. The cautious phase is now over; strong condemnation of Mubarak’s government for the violence today, and a statement that the political has to begin “now” – and “‘Now’ started yesterday,” said the President’s press secretary.

It’s pretty obvious at this point that Mubarak is on his way out, that the changes sweeping Egypt are going to be sweeping far more broadly across the Middle East, and that there’s going to be a major realignment; it’s a lot less clear what this realignment will look like. My post earlier today covered what might go wrong, but I’m still optimistic – the Egyptian people seem very determined to stand up for their rights in this, and the craziest fundamentalist elements seem to be finding themselves on the sidelines rather than driving the whole thing.

So: odds of Mubarak leaving Real Soon Now going up; clear transitions going on in Yemen, Jordan, Tunisia; and I’d say good odds of something big shifting in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, and maybe even Syria over the next few months. And who knows, Qaddafi may decide to reinvent himself as the champion of the people and lead democracy marches through the streets of Tripoli.

This is the companion post to the one from a few days ago on how things could go well in Egypt — given the changes of the past few days, it’s worth taking a look at how things could go badly in Egypt as well. I should say that at this point I’m not betting either way; but it’s worth seeing the factors which are pointing in each of the various directions in order to try to imagine what the future could look like.

So what are features which militate against a happy outcome? Largely, they’re forces which would encourage either mass violence or dictatorship.  And there are a few significant ones.

One of the biggest threats for violence happens if there’s prolonged uncertainty about government, a de facto power vacuum. This seems to have started to set in; the past week’s relatively peaceful protests have turned violent, with an apparently organized group of pro-Mubarak demonstrators riding in to Tahrir square yesterday. One of my first question is who these Mubarak supporters are; I wasn’t under the impression that he had a sufficient street-level power base remaining, and his support came more from those in power. I think that we’ve started to hit a critical point; if there isn’t a transition to a new government within a few days — which looks increasingly unlikely, as Mubarak seems determined to hold on to power — violence will rise to much higher levels. The possibility of a “velvet revolution” will pretty much go out the window.

If violence kicks in, the biggest risk is always if it will expose deeper underlying rifts. (e.g., between Muslims and Christians, or between city Arabs and Bedouin, or between various tribes with long-standing grudges) Once exposed, such things have a tendency to persist, and if large enough groups get involved either pogroms or long-lasting civil wars become a possibility. The latter could lead to Egypt becoming unstable in the long term.

If this is somehow mitigated or averted, any delayed power transfer (such as Mubarak’s proposal that he serve out his term and a new election be held in September) increases the odds of dictatorship. A long run-up to handover gives everyone a chance to organize, but the people best able to capitalize on that are what you might politely call Unsavory Elements: people who have become powerful under Mubarak’s rule, key members of the security services, provincial governors who are real sons of bitches, the Muslim Brotherhood. Even in a perfectly fair election it’s quite possible that anti-democratic forces will quickly seize power; but if people like provincial governors are in play, the odds of a fair election start to go down considerably. (I would keep an eye in particular on people like Samir Farag, the governor of Luxor province. He’s smelled to me for a while like someone getting ready to make a bigger power play)

Now with that said, let’s look at the longer-term consequences of transition in Egypt. I think that the biggest thing to remember is that Egypt is seen by the Arab world as a powerful bellwether, and anything that happens there is likely to be emulated far and wide. It serves as the western counterweight to Iran, who is trying to spread its influence as far as possible through the Islamic world, often through puppet organizations and fifth columns. Egypt hasn’t been installing friendly regimes so much as providing the huge economic and military backstop to vaguely secular dictatorships; the Saudis have in effect been their partners in this, providing the cash backing. (NB the difference: Egypt and the Saudis are backing dictatorships who favor some sort of stability, and bankrolling radical religious elements to stay quiet, whereas Iran backs those radical elements into taking power themselves, and sets up revolutionary Islamist dictatorships. Don’t you love the Middle East?)

If a genuine democracy were to emerge from this week’s events, the consequences could be profound. I would guess that several countries would feel immediate pressure to follow suit — Jordan, Yemen and Oman first, perhaps. The more powerful monarchies or oligarchies wouldn’t feel the same impetus, since they’re small enough that their aristocracies are a decent-sized portion of the population, but they would now find themselves operating against the backdrop of democratic neighbors. OTOH, it’s hard to tell who would come into power in such a democracy. Israel fears that it would allow radicals to come to power through the ballot box, as Hamas did a few years ago in the Palestinian Territories. I suspect that the answer would be country-dependent, although one could count on Iran to play KGB-style games and back their parties of choice in every country. In Kuwait (which would probably come under pressure to democratize soon after) this could mean a Shi’ite ascendancy, with uncertain consequences for its foreign and domestic policy, but a real possibility of some Bad Shit to go down. In Egypt, that would probably mean a sharp (further) radicalization of the Muslim Brotherhood as its more extreme elements found themselves with greater financial support. So there’s a real possibility for nefarious actors to spread via democracy, but there are also possibilities to mitigate that, especially by backing relatively sane people like el-Baradei with international support.

(And NB that international support shouldn’t simply take the form of cash, military aid, and the like. It has to be support for Egypt being a functional democracy, not for any particular ruler or party, and would most effectively take the form of things like free trade agreements and further pulling Egypt into the broader international community. That helps cement the vested interest that the Egyptian people have in preserving their freedom, by making it also in the interest of those in power to preserve that freedom rather than curtail it to maximize their own longevity in office.)

If a new secular dictatorship emerges, which I think is unlikely, we’d see a reversion to the status quo ante. If an Islamist dictatorship emerges, the exact effect depends on who is ultimately bankrolling it: a Saudi one would probably be more quiet (but potentially in the long term, an even bigger factory of trouble) than an Iranian one. I would note that such a dictatorship would of necessity be much milder than the Hamas variety, because of the critical importance of tourism to Egypt’s economy; think Saudi Arabia + increased use of medieval law codes rather than Afghanistan. But the hit to Egypt’s economy would be intense nonetheless; fundamentalist regimes generally aren’t great at encouraging large numbers of visitors, or other kinds of large-scale trade and innovation. This could exacerbate existing problems of poverty and food shortages and lead to recurring political instability down the road. One could easily imagine Egypt turning into a much larger, and less stable, version of Jordan in this case. (Economically, that is, not socially) There are other alternatives, of course; e.g., some kind of pan-Islamic “nationalism” leading up to an attempt to form a broader empire of alliances. I can’t imagine this actually working, but it would lead to some spectacular upheavals in the area.

If short-term but intense violence were to occur, the results would be bloody but (alas!) would probably have no more long-term effect than to more deeply cement the tensions already in the region, before proceeding on to one of the other solutions. One crazy wild card could be if significant Muslim-Christian violence would occur; that could cause American Evangelicals to suddenly put sharp pressure on the US government to intervene more directly, even militarily, and all sorts of shit could hit the fan. I’m going to pass over this briefly, not because it isn’t important, but because we presumably all know what this sort of thing looks like. And it’s bad.

If long-term civil violence were to occur, that’s probably the worst result of all. Tribal warfare could make the area dangerous for decades to come, essentially ending tourism and forcing the area to revert to its dwindling agricultural economy. In the long term, geography would rule: Egypt is basically a long, narrow strip of land, with its cities all clustered in the north and the absolutely critical Aswan dam infrastructure in the far south. A handful of key cities such as Luxor sit in between. Cairo and Alexandria would naturally fall into a single political domain; Aswan would naturally fall under the domain of whoever controlled the nearer cities to it, with Luxor probably being the natural base for that. The Sinai peninsula could be under Cairene control, or it could revert to Bedouin control, or Israel could preemptively reoccupy it as a buffer. One could easily see Egypt falling into such a partition in the medium- to long-term; here the problem is that the individual countries would be desperately short on resources and unable to coordinate. Effects such as desertification of the Nile valley would likely accelerate, leading to even worse problems in the long term.

So in conclusion, there are quite a few ways in which the Egypt situation could go extremely wrong at this point. My instinct is that the sooner the situation is resolved, the better for all concerned; a peaceful transition of power is still possible for the next few days, but after that the odds will start to get rapidly worse, and the chances that the ultimate result will be civil war, dictatorship, or mass poverty increase. The fastest way to end this would be for Mubarak to (peacefully!) leave the country; if any such negotiations are going on, as they presumably are, I can only wish them Godspede.

Just some random blurbs. The situation in Egypt continues to develop slowly; lots of marches, Mubarak has told his new VP to negotiate with el-Baradei, while presumably he himself is negotiating with various other countries for asylum.

Interestingly, King Abdullah of Jordan just dismissed his entire government and appointed Marou al-Bakhit as prime minister. Looks like a move to head off similar trouble in his country. That’s reasonably likely to work; while it’s not exactly a bunny-rabbits-and-kittens sort of regime, his government seems to be viewed as considerably less repressive than that of most of his neighbors.

Side thought on Jordan: The country is incredibly poor; it has two cities, a small strip of villages, and a great deal of open desert. Along with Israel and Lebanon, it’s one of only three countries in the Middle East not to have any oil. (“Dear God. You couldn’t have put the Holy Land somewhere else?”) In terms of population, it’s got three major groups: Arabs (dominant in the cities and the villages), Palestinians (which have largely been kept in giant refugee camps ever since 1967 — the government doesn’t really want them) and Bedouins. (Who live in the desert) It’s a constitutional monarchy, but with emphasis on the “monarchy” part. The city Arabs and the Bedouins both see themselves as the ones who are really the upper class. The villages — I have no idea how they actually survive or eat there. It’s not like the land is suitable for agriculture. But the relatively low overall population, and the attention that the government has paid to “security,” seems to make it a better bet than most countries in its area to maintain a stable regime. All told, this isn’t so bad.

Fatah and Hamas, meanwhile, have found one thing they agree upon — allowing absolutely no protests, clamping down on news, and so on. Unlikely that this will actually work, but they’re hoping to avert a popular uprising. My guess is that Fatah is much more vulnerable to this than Hamas, even though both are highly corrupt, because Hamas has a much more effective security apparatus. (Which is a euphemism for “secret police”)