When Cairo’s Tahrir Square was full of protesters a year ago, when the American media was full of talk of democracy in Egypt a year ago, we wondered about the nature of the post-Mubarak Egypt. We asked at that time whether the new Egypt would use a Russian, Iranian, Pakistani or a neo Turkish-Egyptian model. Soon afterwards, Tom Friedman came on Television to express hopes of a neo-Turkish-Egyptian model for Egypt. That was logical because the entire world knows that Pakistan is a failed state.
Our views were different. We wrote in our article:
- Before you dismiss this [Pakistani] model as pathetic or a failure, look at its track record over the past 40-50 years. American and western aid to Pakistan has grown steadily over these decades. Every US President comes in with robust intentions to straighten out Pakistan but gets straightened out himself…..So don’t brush off the Pakistani model. It has demonstrated its durability and resiliency.
On February 3, 2012, a year after our article, the New York Times published an Op-Ed piece titled Can Egypt Avoid Pakistan’s Fate? The article was authored by Michele Dunne, a former White House and State Department official, and Shuja Nawaz, an author.
Though the authors phrased the title as a question, the body of the article described the morphing of the new Egypt into the Pakistan we know. The authors wrote about the similarities they saw between Egypt and Pakistan and asked in the tradition of NYT journalists:
- The question now is whether the United States will, a year after the Egyptian revolution, stand by and allow the Pakistani model of military dominance and a hobbled civilian government to be replicated on the Nile.
Despite the evidence of over 50 years of Pakistani-American history, the authors raised this as a question and in the best journalistic tradition told Washington what to do:
- Washington should suspend military assistance to Egypt until those conditions are met. Taking that difficult step now could help Egypt avoid decades of the violence, terrorism and cloak-and-dagger politics that continue to plague Pakistan.
Well, this week, both America and Egypt answered with an emphatic No. Instead, America and Egypt agreed on a deal to end the ordeal of the Americans accused in Egypt as a part of a politically charged criminal case against nonprofit groups. The dispute was getting serious. America had threatened to cut off the $1.3 billion in annual aid to Egypt’s military which in turn retaliated by warning that they would reconsider their peace treaty with Israel.
On March 1, 2012, Egypt lifted the ban and the accused Americans left Egypt. Of course, this departure did not come cheap. The Americans were only allowed to go after $4 million in bail was posted and they agreed to return for their trial according to the New York Times. The NYT also reported that “lifting the travel ban on the accused Americans does not resolve charges against the nonprofit groups or their dozen or so Egyptian employees, nor does it erase the fear among the many advocacy groups that have come under the same investigation.”
Doesn’t this remind you of the many disputes between Pakistan and America over the years? All these disputes got fixed, not resolved, by America paying a large sum of money.
Just as in Pakistan, there is a serious backlash in Egypt against this “surrender” to America. The NYT quoted from an online comment from Reem Saad, director of the Middle East center at the American University in Cairo:
- “Could this be? I go out to eat some salad and come back to find that Egypt has knelt?”
And this guy is a director at the American University? Another Professor at the American University in Cairo, Mona Makram-Ebeid, reportedly said:
- For the United States, Egypt is a pivotal country….this is a long-standing strategic alliance that I think the NGO case would not jeopardise, although we do not agree to any interference or any threat of removing the financial aid.”
She added that the comments by US officials that aid was at risk had angered many Egyptians, according to the Dow Jones News Wire. In other words, Egypt can arrest and detain Americans, enrage American Society & Government, but America does not have the right to reconsider its financial aid to Egypt. And this is the opinion of a Professor at the American University in Cairo! And this was in a case which, according to the New York Times, “could hardly have been better designed to infuriate American officials.”
Before you blame these professors, compare this “infuriating” Egyptian case with Pakistan’s Bin Laden case. Pakistan hid Osama Bin Laden, America’s most wanted enemy & the man who had masterminded the murder of over 3,000 Americans, in a Pakistani military cantonment from 2005 to 2011 until America found him and killed him. Did Pakistan apologize or express regret? No. Instead, Pakistan had the utter gall to get palpably angry and cut off supplies to US troops in Afghanistan. What did America do in response? America huffed and puffed for months and then paid over $2.1 billion last month.
Does any one think Egypt did not notice? They know that America considers Egypt’s military as the only stabilizing force that keeps peace with Israel. As Professor Mona Makram-Ebedi said, Egypt is a pivotal country for America. The Egyptian Generals understand that they have powerful leverage against America.
So they will play the game that Pakistan has mastered over the past 5-6 decades. As backlash against America builds in the Egyptian civilian population, as Islamic groups get more popular in Egypt, America’s dependence on the Egyptian
military will increase even more. So America will continue to pay large sums of money to the Egyptian military. This will preserve the status of the Military as Egypt’s most powerful and privileged class. This will weaken the Egyptian economy, erode the living standards of the Egyptian people and breed more Anti-Americanism which in turn will make America provide more money to the Egyptian Military to maintain stability and combat Islamic fundamentalism.
This is the model perfected in Pakistan. Don’t underestimate it. Just be thankful Egypt does not have nuclear weapons. So they will be cheaper “allies” than the Pakistani Military.
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