It is an idiocy to call the events of June 30 to July 3 of this year a "coup." A brief lesson in political terminology might help. When millions of citizens call for a recall, the happening is called a revolution. On January 25, 2011 and on June 30, 2013, millions of Egyptians exercised that right to populist democracy and won. Their first revolution brought together 7 millions; their second, mustered 23 millions. Supported by their armed forces whose personnel sprang from them as conscripts, they were shielded by the tanks of a national army. That army told the losers, Mubarak then Morsi: "We are the army of the people; not the army of the President."
It took the American revolution eleven years (from 1776 to 1787) to correct its course, and it took the French revolution even longer to do the same. The two iconic revolutions brought as their supreme leaders, General Washington (in America), and General Napoleon (in France). In Egypt, we had Morsi for 368 days, and we now have Mansoor as an interim President until the 90 million Egyptians settle down on a post revolutionary system. That system should embody diversity, cosmopolitanism, separation between religion and the State, and safeguards, with the help of the armed forces, for the character of the State as secular. Turkey has this model.
The transitional government which was sworn in by President (formerly Justice) Adly Mansour in Cairo on July 16, 2013 reflects that character. Its 34 cabinet members, including General Abdul-Fattah El-Sisi as both defense minister and deputy to Prime Minister Beblawi, count among them three, Coptics and three women. Where are the Muslim Brothers in that technocratic line-up? Nowhere to be found, refusing repeated offers of inclusion in the service of Egypt. The Brotherhood has opted for futile demonstrations and for calling for the return of the status-quo ante. Their abstention means no vote in the future.
Someone at the Cairo-based "International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance," commented on the post-Morsi administration from the two sides of his mouth. On the one hand he says: "The only institution that can hold government accountable is the people." Rational!! But then he adds: "Legitimacy is hanging by a thread." Irrational, both legally and politically. Why?
Sovereignty resides in the people. It has two pillars defining a sovereign State: enactment of its laws, and conducting foreign affairs. Egypt, as a sovereign State, is able to enact laws and to conduct foreign affairs. When I teach law, whether in New York City or at Cairo University School of Law, I remind my students of these two pillars of sovereignty. At present, Somalia is not regarded as a sovereign State because of the absence of these two pillars. That absence or deficiency, makes Somalia "a failed State." Since 1922, Egypt has never been bereft of either the competency to make laws for its people, or to conduct foreign affairs in the world outside its borders.
Examining, in this issue, the pillar of conducting foreign policy during the defunct Islamic regime of Mohamed Morsi, I give that regime's performance the low grade of "F" for failure. I wish that I could have given it a "W-P" meaning "withdrawal-passing." Morsi did not withdraw as he had promised the public in Tahrir when he took his first oath of office on June 30, 2012. On that day, Morsi pledged accountability to the people. Then he added: "If I fail, remove me." He failed, and 23 millions, on June 30, through "Tammarod" backed by the armed forces, forced him out of power.
Morsi's second oath of office was before the Supreme Constitutional Court, whose Chief Justice is now his replacement. The third oath of office by Morsi was at Cairo University where the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood, his movement and the parent of his party "Freedom and Justice," was given the front seats of honor. That was prophetic: Morsi was gradually distancing himself from the historic character of a secular and inclusive Egypt, and was gravitating towards his Islamist cocoon. A cocoon is a silky case spun by larva for protection. That protection proved unequal to 23 million Egyptians shouting "IRHAL" (Go).
At Cairo University, the leadership of inclusive Egypt saw on that day the writing on the wall. Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayeb, the Rector of Al-Azhar, abandoned the Cairo University ceremony protesting the commencement of the Brotherhoodization of Egypt. The opposition to the Brotherhood's coup against the substantive character of the State began to coalesce. The January 25 Revolution to which the Brothers came late was being hijacked in the name of Islam, not as a faith, but as an expedient cover for a blatant political grab for power.
Moving towards analyzing the failure of the Morsi's one-year rule in foreign policy, let us first have a look at my inbox marked: "Miscellana." Egypt's Foreign Ministry has been, since its beginning 90 years ago, a superb professional department which has made Cairo's foreign policy a point of reference for global diplomacy. The personnel is highly trained; their educational and linguistic qualifications are above par; their performance, even during the darkest hours of military humiliation, admirable.
However, my "Miscellana" inbox, contains embarrassing episodes during Morsi's one movement/one year rule.
- For Washington, D.C., his interlocutor was a Muslim Brother spokesman, Gehad El-Haddad - "the President Foreign Policy Advisor." An embarrassing lack of knowledge of diplomacy.
- At a summit meeting between Morsi and Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel, the then - President of Egypt kept on looking at his watch as if he had a train to catch.
- Morsi, the engineer who taught the subject of "the new materials" on America's west coast in English, could not articulate in English during foreign encounters.
- He shouts to his supporters the severance of relationship with Syria as if it were a great achievement. This prompted Bashar, a world class killer, to retort: "Morsi: Grow up."
- In the context of the Nile water issue with Ethiopia, his meeting was aired, deliberately or not, advocating military action against a sister African State for building a dam on the Blue Nile.
- He attempted a rapprochement (a recommencement of harmonious relationship) with Iran -a Shii majority Middle Eastern power. Yet he sat passively at a mosque where a sectarian rabble-rousing Imam called the Shiis "dirty apostates." Triple failures as regards the inclusiveness of Islam; the war against sectarianism; and the promise of normalizing relationship with Iran, especially in a revamped Middle East.
Under the title of "Foreign Affairs," (p. 16) there is a list of 12 "achievements." None of these twelve items would qualify as a foreign affairs item per se. It is a strange list of grants, loans, and foreign deposits intended to shore up the sagging Egyptian economy. From the contents of that list, the reader is obliged to conclude that the highly professional Foreign Ministry of Egypt had at best a limited input in that amateurish list.
What adds to this "dehors foreign affairs" nature of the list is item 10. The item is entitled "The immediate cessation of Zionist aggression in the Gaza strip." By definition, an achievement is a completed act. If the Brotherhood means to refer to Egypt's mediation between Israel and Hamas for the prolongation of the present cease fire, this matter is tasked, not to the Foreign Ministry, but to Egypt's military intelligence. On the other hand, if that out of context listing is meant to curry favor with Hamas, that type of Morsiism reflects a lack of reading of Egyptian growing hostility towards Hamas.
For the past 2 1/2 years, the Egyptian masses have looked upon Hamas as an instrument of offensive overreach in Sinai. Sinai, from time immortal, being Asian Egypt, has always been a highly sensitive security/sovereignty issue. There is an undeclared war between Hamas operatives, supported by Bedouin criminal elements, and the Egyptian Second and Third field armies. The top commander of the Second Army, General Wasfi, was nearly assassinated recently while inspecting some check points.
Here I do not wish to go into the present criminal investigation of the presumed role of Hamas in springing pre-presidency Morsi from behind prison bars in Wadi Al-Natrone in Egypt's western desert. Dwelling on the Hamas/Sinai issue is due to the confluence of national security, foreign policy and Egyptian treaty obligations. One of Nasser's misguided plans, which were summarily abandoned, was settling Palestinians in Sinai. At that time, at least Nasser had two excuses for that later aborted project: an Egyptian administration in Gaza (1948-1967) and a so-called war of attrition with Israel.
But under Morsi's Islamic rule, Hamas was looked upon as an Islamist partner of Egypt. At present, Egyptian general public opinion perceives an underground invasion of Sinai by Gazan tunnels through which arms, drugs, terrorists and Egyptian subsidized goods flowed regularly. Under Morsi, Egypt's north-east began to resemble the tribal areas of Afghanistan north-east. Egypt's armed forces were chafing under Morsi's attitude of "go easy on our Gazan brothers." Then came Ramadan of last year where no less than 16 Egyptian army recruits and officers were massacred by Hamas and Bedouin elements. El-Sisi declared that the armed forces would bring the assassins to justice, the tunnel invasion to extinction, and Bedouin criminality to an end.
The chasm between President Morsi and Defense Minister El-Sisi began to deepen into a "Grand Canyon." Under the special status conferred by the December 2012 Constitution upon the armed forces, the military might of Egypt came into play, especially through the non-declared modification of the protocols relating to Area G of Sinai in the Egypt/Israel Peace Treaty of 1979.
The iron fist of Egypt's armies punching Gazan invaders and Bedouin outlaws in Asian Egypt is a combative replay of an adage used by the American novelist Tom Clancy in his best seller "The Teeth of the Tiger." It says, "If you want to kick the tiger in the (rear), you'd better have a plan for dealing with his teeth." That is especially so when Hamas has lost its perch in Damascus, its support from Hezbollah, and its leverage with both Tehran and Ramallah. The Morsi regime was politically derelict to turn a blind eye to the rise of the so-called "jihad" cum criminality on Egypt's north east -a counter revolutionary movement which also contributed to the drying up of tourism to Egypt.
The Nile water issue between Egypt and Ethiopia was also a glaring foreign policy disaster. Egypt is benefiting from a generous share of the Nile water under a 1929 Nile Water Treaty. That treaty was concluded during colonial times when Britain controlled the destiny of the riparian States from Egypt to the north, to the Sudan and Uganda to the south. Six years after that treaty was concluded, fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia. Now sovereign Ethiopia is constructing a dam over the Blue Nile which carries to both the Sudan and Egypt 60% of the Nile flood waters. That Ethiopian dam is looked upon by both Egypt and the Sudan as potentially limiting their water intake. Ethiopia rebuts this opposition as exaggerated.
So what does President Morsi do in the face of this delicate issue? As mentioned briefly above, he convened a meeting attended by a number of heads of political parties and others to discuss Egypt's options under the uncomprising slogan of: "Not one drop of Nile water would be lost to Egypt." The discussions were aired to the whole world, some say by error, others say by design. What were some of the recommendations: Bomb the Ethiopian dam!!
A war with Egypt's historic neighbor Ethiopia was proposed as an option at a leadership meeting headed by the Egyptian President. This is at a time when Egypt is struggling to feed its people; big powers are finding that wars are anathema to economic recovery; Egypt is already immersed in a hit and run war in Sinai; and the Sudan is mired in its internal and external armed conflicts. Discovering the historic links between the Egyptian Coptic Church and its Ethiopian sister Church, the Morsi regime, arguably without the benefit of professional diplomacy, sought support from the Pope of Alexandria. The answer was negative.
That was another episode of the Brotherhoodization of Egypt which was running amok. No room for diplomacy, negotiation, conciliation or arbitration -the very tools which Egypt's foreign policy has mastered for a long time. Was General El-Sisi consulted prior to this threat of the use of force, a threat which is legally forbidden under the UN Charter, and the Charter of the African Union? I do not know. But Egypt heard no military voice rising out of that Morsi hallucinating conclave. After the broadcast threat of war, came a quiet and belated visit by Egypt's foreign minister to Addis Ababa. Since then, Ethiopia has been raising the banner of self defense.
The Syrian question was another foreign policy blunder. The greatest majority of the Egyptian public has been horrified by the Bashar killing fields in that sister Arab country. The League of Arab States, whose headquarters is in Cairo, has already given the Syrian opposition the seat of their country. In view of the complexity of that widening civil war, that measure should have been enough. Egypt has been actively trying to get all the parties to the conflict to the table in the framework of the US/Russia plan.
Then suddenly, like a thunder bolt, President Morsi, while recently haranguing his supporters, declared that he had decided to sever diplomatic relations with Damascus. His motley crowd cheered. But it must have been a sad day for the occupants of that magnificent building by the eastern edge of the Nile -the Foreign Ministry. To the Syrian regime, it was like pouring salt into the wound. Bashar was not silent. He called Morsi inexperienced, reminded him of the Cairo-Damascus historic amity, and in effect told him "shut up." To Morsi, foreign policy was a matter for the pulpit.
The drift towards the pulpit as a locus for non-digested foreign policy issues, during the Morsi regime manifested that Egypt's secularism was slipping away. A recent fatwa by Al-Qaradawi, who heads the Organization of Muslim Scholars (a Sunni entity) was issued after July 3. It confirmed, especially to Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and Kuwait, their fear of an Islamist Egypt in the making. This fatwa which, under Islamic jurisprudence has no standing, claimed that Morsi "was elected to the presidency due to heavenly design." A devine right for Morsiism!! To those Gulf sources of financial assistance to Cairo, the Arab Spring of Egypt had become a potential tornado against Arab monarchies.
It was on August 17, 2011, that Al-Azhar, with the full concurrence of the Coptic Church and a broad representation of Egyptian political movements, issued eleven basic principles about which there was a solid Egyptian consensus. Its first principle declared: "Islam, in its legislation, civilization, and history does not recognize a religiously-based State." (my translation from the Arabic). During the interregnum between Mubarak and Morsi, General Sami Anan, Deputy Chairman of the Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces declared: "The secularity of the State is a matter of national security which is non-negotiable." These pronouncements were not what the Muslim Brotherhood wished to abide by. Power, not principle, was their goal warped in the abaya of "faith and governance are one."
Now this is over, hopefully forever. A new transitional cabinet was sworn in by interim President Adly Mansour on July 16. Technocracy, meritocracy and inclusiveness are back. How can the Foreign Ministry, now under veteran diplomat and scholar Nabil Fahay, not be jubilant?
With historic Egypt back, normalcy in Cairo was being politically and financially rewarded. When Burns of the US Department of State was in Cairo he did not even utter the name of Morsi. The calls by the Brotherhood for outside intervention went nowhere. The reign of terror against the judiciary came to an end. Goods and services seem to flow back calming the Egyptian street. El-Sisi, who was recently called by the Brotherhood "an American agent," added to his post of Defense Minister, the post of Deputy to Prime Minister El-Beblawi. Twelve billion US dollars flowed from Riyadh, the Emirates and Kuwait into the Egyptian treasury, thus postponing the day of wrangling with the International Monetary Fund.
Commenting on these developments, former Kuwaiti permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador Abdullah Bishara, the first Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council, said in a recent article (my translation):
"Whatever one says about the Brotherhood, one cannot escape the conclusion that they are not fit to join the universal march which is guided by certain foreign policy principles. Neither they nor Morsi are equipped with the legitimacy of enlightened leadership which promises that the future shall bring fulfillment of Egypt's big dreams."
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