Sunday, January 30, 2011

Waiting and Watching Egypt

By Alan Caruba

Today we watch events unfold in far off places often in real time. What we lack, however, is context. Most Americans and, I suspect, others in Western nations are frequently at a loss when it comes to knowing anything about the culture and history, past and recent, of nations in the Middle East, Africa, or Asia.

What we do know about the Middle East is that, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran along with the rise of al Qaeda and other jihadist organizations, things have not gone well for American and Western interests.

How different everything might have been if U.S. troops had occupied Tehran in 1979 and demanded the return of our diplomats after they had been taken hostage.

After World War One, what was once the Ottoman Empire that ruled the Middle East and areas of the Maghreb in northern Africa, the French and the British got out their maps at the Versailles conference to literally draw new lines on it and create new nations that were, in fact, colonies. They included Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, and a strip of territory called the Palestinian mandate. The chief prize at stake was oil.

After World War Two was concluded many of the former British and French colonies, including India, and much of Africa declared their independence. The Saudi Royal family had already thrown in its lot with America. In Egypt, the Suez Canal, opened in 1869, was jointly owned by the British and French. The British called the shots there through its royal family.

The Egyptian defeat in the 1948 war in response to the establishment of Israel stirred discontent among its military leadership. Gamal Abed Al Nasser ultimately emerged as Egypt’s leader after a July 1952 bloodless coup against King Farouk and the royal family. In 1956 Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal.

Here’s what it gets very instructive. In 1956 the British and French, with Israeli involvement, sent troops to seize the Suez Canal. That operation was quashed by President Dwight Eisenhower who made it known that the United States would not support it. The era of colonization was over.

What had been occurring, however, was an era of pent-up anger throughout the Middle East focused on the establishment of Israel and resentment of the former colonial powers. The British had earlier installed a royal family in Iraq. A new component was opposition to the dictators like Hussein who emerged to run Iraq. Another example is the fact that first the British and then the Americans had controlled Iran’s oil through its royal family. Other royal families continue to control mideast oil.

Ironically, it took George W. Bush to rid Iraq of three decades of despotic rule by Saddam Hussein. However, this has to be balanced against the fact that the U.S. has also supported the authoritarian regime of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. It was, however, Egypt, as well as Jordan, who made peace with Israel.

Arab military defeats gave way to support for the so-called Palestinians as pawns in the war against Israel. The main support of the Palestinian "refugees" is the United Nations, sixty-three years after 1948 and subsequent wars to destroy Israel. Iran has funded two Palestinian terrorist organizations, Hezbollah and Hamas.

At the heart of the turmoil in the Middle East is a movement to restore Islam to its former glory when it literally knocked on the doors of Europe. The jihadists such as Osama bin Laden dream of a worldwide Islamic caliphate. As in the early spread of Islam, it would be achieved through war, but the tactic employed would be terrorism and the fact of Islam’s expanding population worldwide.

An irony of the Islamist movement is its opposition to the monarchies ruling Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, all of whom have proven to be good allies to the United States at the same time they have funded the spread of Islam. In Egypt, under Mubarak, the jihadists known as the Muslim Brotherhood were ruthlessly suppressed. The Saudis actually exiled bin Laden.

What the world has witnessed has proven to be very bad news for the West. The 1979 Iranian revolution has given us Mamoud Ahmadinejad and a regime plotting through proxies to control Lebanon via Hezbollah and Gaza via Hamas, while it plots to control Iraq and eyes the Gulf States as well. Its closest ally these days is Syria. It has long sought to become a nuclear power. Its proclaimed goal is to destroy Israel.

Democracy has not turned out to be much help in the Middle East. Rigged elections in Egypt kept Mubarak in power for three decades. Saddam Hussein used terror and the Baath Party to achieve and hold on to power. Elections were rigged in Afghanistan. Pakistan has been mainly ruled by its military.

Lebanon was a democracy and now its prime minister comes from the ranks of Hezbollah. Turkey has had a long run of real democracy, but only because its military ensured that Islamists did not take over.

Americans have a lot at stake and, of growing concern to many, a President, Barack Hussein Obama, whose first television interview was with Al Arabia, who bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, and whose first global lengthy outing was a tour of the Middle East to demonstrate how friendly he was to their cause.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

11 comments:

Ronbo said...

@Alan:

If the Islamists take Egypt, it will be World War III...Maybe not during the Obama Regime's watch...But it will be war...The West cannot allow its engines to stop.

Conway said...

As a irreligious, cold blooded cynic who utterly despises superstition, I look at the unfolding Egyptian situation a bit differently than most.

That said, America, China and Russia should join forces (though they never will) and withdraw any and all support for every Moslem regime on the entire planet. Then they should sit back and allow those superstitious idiots to sort out their ridiculous "belief system" differences by employing their usual method of settling scores - killing each other - hopefully to the last delusional man.

Hell, that's what they seem to want anyway, i.e., DEATH, so they can go off to their silly drunken sex orgy in the sky with shitkicker "Allah", whatever that actually is. I wager loony Islamists do it sooner or later; later with their own atomic weapons, taking all of us with them into non-existence. Therefore, sooner seems a better option for those people who want to live the remainder of lives free of wild-eyed, virgin, Koran toting suicide bombers and the like.

Sure, oil would go up for a while and we'd have to let Israel use atomic weapons on some of those intransigent, ragheaded bastards - but just think what the end result would be - an "Islam free" planet, at least for the most part.

I can't say for anyone else, but I'm sick and damn tired of those annoying, arrogant, self-centered, religiously obsessed Islamic freaks; the sooner they're all dead and gone, the better off the rest of the planet will be.

Alas, judging from history, that pleasant scenario will never happen. I imagine we all can look forward to total nuclear annihilation when those psychotic ragheaded shits complete building their atomic weapons, in the name of their silly, non-existent "god".

TexasFred said...

The stated goal of Islam is to KILL any and ALL that will not accept Islam and become Muslims...

The bastards may kill me, after I run out of ammo for my .45, both .40's, a shotgun or 2 and a few other little toys I have to play with...

Those bastards need to be very careful of old, un-PC Conservatives like me, I'll give em a chance to find out that no matter how many of them you have, virgins are highly over-rated...

TallaiJohn said...

Actually, 1956 was not the end of the colonial era. It ended when Winston Churchill committed to Roosevelt to give up India and Africa after the war in return for military supplies in 1940. As it turned out, all to fast, leaving a vacuum for communists and revolutionaries.

LarryOldtimer said...

Israel has been a thorn in the side of the Islamic rulers since its inception. Israelites prosper and people of Islam ruled nations remain poverty stricken. Those living in poverty ask why this is so.

I see this as the beginning of the quick end of American/European hegemony in the Middle east. Once the Tunisian government overthrow was successful, revolution became quickly "catching".

Israel will now stand alone, which most probably means nuclear war within 5 years "over there". "Never again" means never again will the Jewish people of Israel go willingly to their deaths.

At least the shipping of goods, including oil, through the Red Sea will end up under control of more than likely Islamic theocracies, Egypt at the Suez Canal and Yemen at the southern pinch point.

The Obama administration wants our "engines to stop" by doing away with the use of petroleum, natural gas and coal, and hasn't a clue about anything. Obama is already being spoken of as the president who lost Egypt.

Eddy said...

Indeed, a clear target is to be preferred over a muddy one. Better that the lines are drawn clearly in the sand.
Ed

Geoff A said...

Armaggedon is coming, whether people who are far too smart to accept the Bible ridicule Biblical prophesy or not. It has just got a whole lot closer!

Geoff Alder

Rich Kozlovich said...

Alan,

What I find fascinating is the unending use of the phrase by politicians that they "want to encourage democracy" in these countries. In those Muslim countries that became "democratic" they promptly voted in Islamic extremists, who in turn instituted Shari which ended any kind of democracy at all. Don't these people ever read a history book...or the newspaper for that matter?

Muslims will always be ruled by thugs, their historical background, culture and the very framework of their religious belief promotes it. The best you can hope for is that they get a thug that doesn't want to kill everyone else; or for that matter other Muslims who disagree with them. It would be nice too if they didn't find it necessary to kill people of other religious persuasions also.

The real problem is the failure of the world’s leaders to properly define the problem. In America the very idea of a religious war is anathema to the American psyche. Yet that is what we are dealing with; that is what the originators of this war believe; that is what it is.

Rich

Rich Kozlovich said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
joetote said...

Well, the other shoe has dropped as one has feared. A leading Iman has warned Israel to prepare for war!

And one would be shocked by this? I repeat! This appears to be the lion going after the wounded prey!
Could all the turmoil we are seeing in Muslim countries be an offshoot of perceived weakness on the part of the United States and her allies! I for one have always felt this President is firmly on the side of the Muslim world as a whole. Certainly he is the most antagonistic President as in his stance on Israel I have ever seen. This new Iranian poster boy feels the President WILL NOT do anything other than to warn Israel to stand back and let the events take their course.

As we now are at the point in which we have elected officials telling the Muslim world this country is full of racist hate and an administration that in almost every stance is extremely ” Anti-American ideals” why should one be surprised that these radical Muslim Fundamentalists are taking their shots now? After all, this is the administration that just the other day as an example declared the Egyptian government was stable. No surprise from the blind mice running the show in D.C. now is it?

It is my understanding Iran is ecstatic about the coming regime change in Egypt. If so, what does this do to the region? It in fact puts another knife at Israel’s throat along with another one aimed squarely at the U.S. which we know for sure will threaten oil supplies and therefore raise oil prices thus causing more economic problems. And for one to be “surprised that the Anti-Israel rhetoric has started to emanate from the Egyptian protesters only shows how far up their rears they have their heads stuck! Combine that with El Baradei, another poster boy from Iran and one has to expect the worst case scenerio.

Joanna said...

The latest from a different point of information...
just watched noon newsreports out of Egypt on polish TVP Info...polish reporter was stopped and held in Hurghada...he is a polish/arabic mix...as he spoke via telephone he stated that all turist places are well guarded and Police is very polite and watchful toward anyone who "does not fit"..
he was not charged but ordered to stay in a hotel...
Polish gov is standing by with military and civilian airplanes ready to take polish citizens (over 6,000 turists) out of Egypt if situation there will promote itself toward violence...
as of right now everyone is saying that outside of Cairo, Alexandria and few other cities "life is as normal as could be"...

Polish politicians having a field day with Egypt/American politics, and are waiting for obama to take a stand...
against our press releases all Europe including polish never liked obama, considered him like a "new kid in a sandbox"...
not capable of managing anything but his golf outings...
matter of fact a lot of politicians refer to obama as "ciemny president"...
:)
'ciemny' in polish language have a double meaning: dark in color and/or not so bright....
:)

and to add my 2 cents to the situation?...
I am with TexasFred!!!...
...but to ask why our society is falling for all the limitations of our freedom?
just check the trending searches...
...I am greatful to have my home in Michigan where 75% of people are hunting nuts....
:)
May we all live to see better times!