In perhaps his most famous anti-imperialist essay, To the Person Sitting in Darkness Mark Twain critiques the self-evident truth of American imperial policy in Africa, China and the Philippines:
“Privately and confidentially, it is merely an outside cover, gay and pretty and attractive, displaying the special pat-terns of our Civilisation which we reserve for Home Consumption, while inside the bale is the Actual Thing that the Customer Sitting in Darkness buys with his blood and tears and land and liberty. That Actual Thing is indeed Civilisation, but it is only for Export.”
When it comes to the US’s current foreign-policy template in the Middle East, Egypt’s geopolitical relevance is strictly rooted in the idea of geographically containing the “Palestinian threat”. It came as no surprise then, when Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak advised Israel to reject Qatar’s offer of reconstructing the Gaza Strip in exchange for Israeli recognition of Qatar’s political weight in the Middle East.
But in doing so, Mubarak Inc revealed the regime’s vulnerability as a “sub-imperial” power already in decline. Simply put, Egypt’s draconian state cannot survive Qatar’s proposal — normalising free movement of goods and material through Gazan borders religiously sealed by Egypt: Mubarak’s regime depends on it. The military aid allegedly providing Egypt with the clout to “contain” the Gaza Strip has been provided by the US for over three decades, following a tradition that began with the Camp David Peace Accords of 1978. Since then, US military aid to Egypt, estimated at $1.3 billion annually, evidences Egypt as the US’s primary recipient after Israel, on the receiving end of $38 billion.
Unsurprisingly, US military aid — a strategic “rent” enabling the Mubarak edifice to capture state power, corresponds with Egypt’s “state of emergency laws”, allowing for detention and arrest without trial as well as the use of secretive state security courts. The law, introduced in 1967, was consistently implemented from 1981, bearing witness to the assassination of president Anwar Sadat and Mubarak’s rise to the highest office in Egypt. Opacity vehicles such as the extreme emergency law allows for opposition movements like the non-violent Muslim Brotherhood, branded by the state as terrorists, to be removed from Egypt’s political canvas.
More recently, in the run-up to parliamentary and presidential elections to be held in 2010 and 2011, Mubarak’s regime once again cracked down on political protests and opposition parties. The country’s main opposition party is banned, while more than 45 members, including the leadership, were detained.
The aim? To erode potential gains by any opposition party. Mubarak’s National Democratic Party requires a stronghold over parliamentary seats to facilitate “legitimate” constitutional changes before the presidential elections. Though US President Barack Obama selected Cairo as his pick to deliver a speech to the “Muslim world”, hubristically titled “A New Beginning”, more than 80% of Egypt’s arms — used to sustain Mubarak’s 28-year rule — is supplied by the US, with a $4 billion endowment fund in the pipelines. If alleged rumours related to high-level meetings bear fruit, this endowment may just be supplied without congressional oversight. Attending such a meeting in August 2009 — Mubarak’s first trip to Washington in five years — was son Gamal, groomed to be the next president, as well as intelligence chief Omar Suleiman.
In that same month, Egypt allegedly discovered a terrorist cell planning to assassinate an Israeli ambassador — a political coup that landed Mubarak the personal thanks of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Just two months prior, Israeli warships and submarines received the blessing of Egyptian regimes to use the Suez Canal as a training ground for preparations in attack against Iran. According to an Israeli official quoted in a US congressional review: “Israel is investing time in preparing itself for the complexity of an attack against Iran. These manoeuvres are a message to Iran that Israel will follow up on its threats.”
Beyond military aid, Egypt also receives bilateral aid earmarked for democracy and governance initiatives via the US Agency for International Development (USAID), currently standing at $20 million. Yet according to the US-based Carnegie Endowment Centre, USAID, “adopted a policy of only funding those organisations officially registered and approved as NGOs by the Egyptian government”. The notorious “NGO Bill”, drafted by the Egyptian ministry of social solidarity, threatens to eliminate civil-society movements in Egypt, following on the heels of the government’s brutally restrictive current NGO Law of 2002, rendering the legal status, activities and focus areas, funding, board members and employees, subject to the approval of the ministry.
According to the draft bill, the ministry must be informed of meetings 15 days in advance, reserve the right to have government representatives attend meetings, reserve the right to dissolve NGOs, imprison or detain deviant groups or individuals, reject application for registration if it is deemed threatening to the public interest and prohibit civil society groups from accessing foreign funding, amongst other tentacles of repression.
Though the Obama administration recently expressed disappointment concerning the extension of emergency law, suggesting instead other means of containing “terrorist activity”, the US has turned a blind eye to Egypt’s brutal human-rights record. According to Abdullah al-Ashaal, a professor at the American University in Cairo and presidential candidate: “If any terrorism arises it is because of the government policies — raising prices, the detention of people and the injustices which are prevailing everywhere.”
But the terrorist activity alluded too has been justified by Egypt’s status as the handpicked geopolitical Arab “mediator”, specifically concerning the democratically elected, US-designated “foreign terrorist organisation”, Hamas. As an Arab power of note, conveniently located astride both North Africa and the Middle East, Egypt is able to “legitimately” quash — and lock in, the threat of movements perceived as a threat to Israel’s geo-strategic stronghold, and by default, Mubarak’s regime.
Once a majestic civilisation, Egypt has since become a glorified US “security guard” at the expense of Egypt’s citizens. Mubarak, positioning himself as a modern pharaoh, comforts himself with the mantra informing the great game of empire: “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”.
But will the relationship last in its current form?
In his essay “Imperial America”, Richard Haass, then special assistant to former president George Bush and a member of the National Security Council, articulated the means through which the US should re-conceive its role from a powerful nation-state to that of an imperial force.
“To advocate an imperial foreign policy is to call for a foreign policy that attempts to organise the world along certain principles affecting relations between states and conditions within them,” said Haass. “Coercion and the use of force would normally be a last resort.”
The paper, delivered at an Atlanta Conference on November 11, 2000, was the catalyst behind the decision to retain Haass as director of policy planning in George Bush’s administration. But the ideology informing Haass’s language — clothing hegemonic visibility, especially when sustained through khaki-force, as an undesirable and unsustainable means of empire, was lost on the Bush administration.
Currently president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Haass’s ideas on imperial foreign policy alluded to the formula of great empires — those who maintained a forced peace not through territorial acquisition alone, but instead, preferred “invisible” hegemonic structures located in geostrategic fulcrums constituting the blueprint of “realities” ie global systems selectively designed to reinforce the notion of “self-evident” truths.
Mubarak should take heed — though Egypt’s location might be a relevant justifying agent, the nature of the authoritarian regime reflects badly on the US’s war-stained brand of empire-for-export. As such, Mubarak Inc might just be too costly a friend to keep.
Lets face reality – Egypt is struggling not to descend into an ISLAMIC STATE …its that simple.
Once it becomes an Islamic state, there is no freedom of expression and becomes fertile ground for groups like Al-Qaeda, Taliban etc. to promote their jihadist agendas.
The imposition of influence in Egypt in the form of a payoff clearly goes against US ideals of democracy and human rights,common in US history, and its effects in Egypt very well known for some time. But just what exactly should Mubarak, perhaps barely hanging on to power now, expect from this Haass doctrine, beyond a presumed end to military aid? How will the US maintain its “hegemony” with invisible hegemonic structures? Or are they just going to give up to popular opinion in most of the region?
The Muslim Brotherhood may be nonviolent in its official statements but their actions belie that. They were behind the assassination of Egypt’s prime minister and support violent resistance in the Palestinian territories and in Syria.
Al-Banna’s writings on jihad make it clear that he is anything but nonviolent.
The Middle-East is a tough region. The US has a strategic interest in the region because of oil. In fact everyone has…
The alternative to dictatorships in many of these countries is Islamic parties. Turkey has proven it can be done – but then again it has a history of secular politics.
Will the “Brothers” that are behind most Islamic parties in the region embrace demoracy or is it a means towards an end?
Mubarak is a dictator and so are many others in the region. Apart from Israel there are no other democracies of any note. How do we encourage democracy in the region – Iraq, Egypt and the rest seem to be disasters.
Perhaps the region should be left alone, but then most political elites across the region are very happy to work with the US/Israel (Syria being the exception but even only to some extent). These elites also depend on the US to stay in power.
I think many US policymakers personally would like to see democracy in the region. But the risk in withdrawing and seeing the world oil supply fall to Islamic fanatics seems just to big. I guess that is why everyone is hoping for gradual change.
I guess once an idiot, always an idiot:
Hey Davey! Davey! Maybe you missed it, but one of the WTC attackers was from Egypt, one from Lebanon, none from Pakistan, none from Iran, none from Bangladesh, none from Afghanistan (nor was the planning done there) and none from Sudan. AQ had substantial presence in the last two countries at different times, but in the former, it was mainly concerned with keeping the Taliban in power, with modest training camps which were probably tied to small arms training, and in the latter, Bin Ladin was playing horticulture (the horror!) – seriously, do you write before you think, or is thought to you a crime?
PS It was the Bosnian and Kosovar campaign, with US/NATO assistance, where AQ got into Europe, and from where they launched their attacks (and did their relevant training) – the Taliban have much less material responsibility for the attacks than do NATO/USA’s meddling and support for Nazi collaborators like Izetbegovic.
I guess I should point out that the above was aimed at Harris, not the anonymous dave.
@hds
Because killing one Israeli is so much more violent when performed by a Palestinian than killing twenty Palestinians when performed by Israelis?
Both George Bush Snr and George Bush Jnr were far to lenient in their attacks on muslim states. They treated them with kid gloves in my opinion. They should have really taught them a lesson.
If you’re not too busy trying to blame the “Great Satan” (USA) for all the world’s ills, and completely ignore the oppressive nature of most of the Islamic world. (incidentally missing out on the rest of the world.)….
Would you like to notice that Egypt has had “Emergency Laws” in force for thirty years (Emergency Law (Law No. 162 of 1958) since 1967, except for an 18-month break in 1980.), renewed every three years, and technically during this time the “real” constitution of Egypt is suspended.
And this has naff all to with American Aid but more to do with the army’s role as the power behind the throne for the ruling party.
So you could stop blaming America as if all Egyptians are mindless zombies controlled by the CIA Mind Agents and you could start admitting that it is Arabic Dictators that are ruling Egypt and taking American money as a bit of petty cash.
But you wouldn’t want facts to get in the way of your little political American diatribe and start blaming corrupt Muslims (nominally) for oppressing their people, and christians (copts), denying citizenship on racial and religious grounds (by marriage) and taking money from anyone who would like to give it to them, now would you?
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/egyptian-men-married-to-israeli-women-may-be-stripped-of-citizenship-20100519-vcia.html
This article accurately portrays the leaders and effective citizens of the USA as a bunch of little boys playing with their newly grown big tools.
The second paragraph of this article accurately asserts the historically evident fact that this is not a new thing.
That this is not yet recognised in the West as self-evident is an indication of cultural mental deficiency
Indeed in the east it is accepted that the unlimited assertion of the I is the characteristic of little boys and the West. It is what they mean by a group of words Americans translate as barbarian.
For more than three thousand years (ie before Confucius) this as been seen by the eastern mind as a reality that has to be dealt with in a practical way and they are therefore very good at getting what they want from the little boys who think they are big because of their new tools. Had it not been for piracy allowed by the massive injection of opium by the ‘tea traders’ using such as the Cutty Sark, America would not be the wealthy country it is today
The Islam-a-phobes already in evidence on this site are the voyeurs who either do not yet have big tools or who despite their irresistible fascination are watching the big boys while playing with themselves being as they are too frightened to use them any other way.
Give them space. It is better that they defile themselves than they defile others.
Blaming the USA for the world’s ills makes a lot more sense than blaming Egypt or the Muslims. To claim otherwise is just to beg the question.
Nonetheless, it is a frightening thought to imagine what is going to happen now the entire Anglo-Saxon hegemony is collapsing.
Radical criticism of the USA and England will eradicate the elements driving this equally radical collapse within them and allow those beneficial elements we all know a place in the future to the world’s benefit.
Now is not the time to be kind and forgiving to an arrogant, overreaching and conceited language group that condones the murderers who lead them. Those of us who have confidence in the value that is there know that this is the time for tough love.
Be courageous and smash them I say!
It is a bit of a problem, isn’t it? You systematically destroy democracy in your country and hand it over to foreigners who hate everything you stand for — and then, blow me down, a bunch of undemocratic theocrats who detest foreigners threaten to take over? So of course you have to kill them, and hand even more to the foreigners and destroy even more democracy!
Who could have foreseen that it would happen?