After 6 Months of El-Sisi Presidency - An Egyptian Version of "Yes - We Can!!"

It was one of the highlights of my ten-days of stay in Egypt in December.  Guest of Hajj Yousri Nagy and his family.  The inauguration of the Passenger's Terminal of the Hurghada Airport on the Red Sea.  An iconic event celebrating the return of the Egyptian spirit of patriotism and the desire to excel.  After all, the inheritors of the land of the Pharaohs were saying, in response to an El-Sisi impromptu speech, "Yes - We Can."

Egypt is, after all, a land of symbolism.  Its edifices convey an uninterrupted recorded history of 7000 years.  From the Pyramids and the Sphinx, to the Hanging Coptic Church where the Holy Family hid from persecution.  From the Muhammad Ali Mosque, a symbol of an Egypt moving ahead of a dying Ottoman Empire, to the new Suez Canal where water is expected to flow this February, creating two Suez Canals -each a one-way global waterway.

It is a confident Egypt, in search of a new age of progress through science and technology, in search of 13 million tourists a year, in search of pivoting to the East to end vestiges of dependency on the West, and in search of assertive secularism over the non-content Islamism of the Brotherhood which dupes its adherents by the fiction of being a Muslim Brotherhood.

Throughout this 10-day period of stay in Cairo, I was able to discern tangible evidence of the framework of the New Egypt after only six months of El-Sisi presidency.  No -I am not in anybody's pay!!

"Tahya Misr" (Long Live Egypt) is the new motto which reflects a post-revolutionary focus on Egypt itself.  No more ideological preoccupation with non-Egyptian issues under an inarticulate banner of "Arab nationalism."

With the Egyptian economy in a sorrowful state, coupled with terroristic attacks targeting Sinai, Egypt is forging an eastern axis with Saudi Arabia, other Gulf States (all sources of generous capital infusions eclipsing any US aid), plus Jordan.

That axis has a central global mission: combating ISIS and other barbaric marauders.  It requires coordination with Cairo, an Arab wing of the Anti-ISIS international coalition.  Hence a twenty-one gun salute greeted El-Sisi this December upon his arrival at the Amman airport.  Units of the proud Jordanian Arab army strutted to the tunes of bagpipes as El-Sisi and King Abdulla II saluted.

In mid December, a two-day conference sponsored by "Dar Al-Tahrir" and publicised under El-Sisi name, was organized as "The Anti-Terrorism Conference."  It was addressed by Egyptian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab who declared that "those who seek to transfer their terror trade to Egypt shall fail.  For Egyptian culture, and all shades of Egyptian public opinion, confront terrorism through a culture of religious moderation and of total support of the army and the police as they daily combat that scourge."

The broad representation at that conference of the Cabinet at the ministerial level was indicative of the variety of official contributions to that globalized the historic task of terrorism containment.  The ministers of interior, energy, supply, religious affairs, communication, local development, culture, oil, transitional justice, and the presidential advisor on national security.

The conference targeted five fronts through which anti-terrorism should be tackled.  Aside from the military blunt instrument, there are other tasks: improvement of public services; continuation of Al-Azhar's efforts to rebut the misguided notions of extremists; bettering the advocacy of religious tolerance through mosques and churches; revamping the educational curricula at all levels; and monitoring groups and associations which advocate exclusion.

More anti-terrorism conferences: This time by joint co-sponsorship by Al-Azhar and the Coptic church.  Headed by the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Dr. El-Tayib, and Pope Toadros, their respected voices were raised to stress that there is absolutely no conflict between Islam and Christianity.  The conferees denounced the mixing between the barbarism of terrorism and Islam, a faith of moderation and tolerance.  While terrorism, the conference noted, seeks the expulsion of Copts from their homeland, Islam does not decree jihad except for self-defense and repelling aggression against faith and country.  Its exercise is the monopoly of governments, not of free-lancers.  In this regard, there is no difference between ISIS, Al-Qaeda, the Friends of Jerusalem, and the Muslim Brotherhood.  They are all links in the same satanic chain.

Now the thrust of external Egyptian foreign policy beyond the Arab homeland is in the direction of containment of Turkish Islamism, as exercised imperially by Ordogan.  This seems to be the knob of Egyptian focus on the Mediterranean, which is marked by espousal of Athens, Nicosia, Italy and France.  An epitome of diversification when seen through the Egyptian "NACH OST" (thrust toward the East).  Witness the forthcoming visit by Putin to Cairo.

As a tenet of this diversification of the New Egypt's foreign policy is the sidelining of Ordogan of Turkey as a delusional master of an uncertain destiny.  It is a quiet assault on the neo-Ottomanism which sees the Muslim Brotherhood as a loyal opposition.  Only idiots may assess the blood-thirsty Brotherhood as a democratizing force.

Aside from the big picture, the new normal, the New Egypt is forging ahead:

• The Giza Zoo is full of visitors, especially entire families;
• The trains are running; the buses are again crowded;
• Thousands of customers are crowding little shops selling produce, fruits, as well as housewares, all made in Egypt;
• Syrians are not herded into refugee camps, but are fully integrated within a welcoming Egyptian society;
• Restaurants are busy serving all types of cuisine;
• Tourists are back, with some of them taking pictures through their apps even with President El-Sisi;
• International conferences are being held in Cairo and elsewhere;
• The name of a Copt recently martyred by terror gangs in Sinai Kyrollos is now given to, a primary school in the province of Sharkia where the 29th Pharaonic family held sway in Tal Basta -a mere 3 miles from my village -Kanayat.

Conclusion: El-Sisi summed up the surge of new energy in the New Egypt: "The era of regimes is gone.  The era of 'The Egyptian State' has begun."

Christmas Letter No. Two: How and Why Has Egyptophobe Michelle Dunne Gotten the Reputation of the Carnegie Endowment Undonne?

This is the second and final Christmas Letter addressed to Michelle Dunne from ELIFAS (El-Ayouty Institute For Arab Spring Studies).  ELIFAS is a truly biased and self-funded organization in New York City.  We are biased in favor of justice globally speaking, especially towards Egypt, the Arab homeland and Islam as a force of moderation.  These three entities have been the favorite targets of three American inter-related phobias.  These phobias are the result of the U.S. taking a sharp turn to the right as of 9/11, of America losing every war since World War II, and of the rise of China and India.

Devoting this Christmas Letter No. Two to an "analysis of Dunne's so-called scholarly writings" requires an ideological preface.  Here it is:

• The growth of international law has been largely the consequence of the growth of human rights since the Nuremberg and the Tokyo military trials of 1945 and 1946;
• In the train of that growth, came the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.  On its heels came the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and two UN Conventions on Civil and Political Rights; and on Economic and Social Rights in the mid 1960s.  Africa's independence movements of the early 1960s gave an additional push.
• In consequence, and largely as a reflection of the Holocaust tragedy of the late 1930s and early 1940s, two theories of international law were born: the Human Rights Law (largely affecting individuals) and the International Humanitarian Law (affecting larger groups).  Together, these theories gave States some right to intervene in the internal affairs of other States where violations of human rights were perceived.
• These important developments stood largely inactionable due to the rise of the non-State actor, especially with regard to the illegal occupation by Israel of Palestinian territories beyond the line of demarcation of June 4, 1967.
• Yet three terms remained lacking of consensual definitions in the legal dictionary: Democracy; Aggression; and Terrorism.  The absence of translations into Western languages of the languages of the East, such as Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, and Pashtu expanded the area of darkness about Eastern/Western understanding.  In these domains, the UN and other international regional organizations stood nearly motionless: they were inter-state systems facing almost leaderless mass movements of non-State actors unbound by the conventional legal strictures.  The catastrophe of 9/11 was only but one example of State paralysis of action in a globalized context.
• At that juncture, non-governmental organizations dealing with human rights issues generally took the wrong jump.  Organizations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Human Rights First, the Carter Center, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace began to meddle in the internal affairs of sovereign States.  This is while ignoring, perhaps for funding reasons, the infractions of human rights by States in which they are chartered.  
• Hence the under-reporting on Guantanamo, the destruction of Habeas Corpus jurisdiction (every person has the right to his/her day in court to question the legality of their detention); forcible renditions; the torture practices by the CIA; the military commissions replacing regular U.S. Article III Federal Courts; detentions for years without either charges or release; and the downgrading, under Bush II administration of the Geneva Conventions as obsolete.
• Rationale: The so-called "War on Terror" needed new tools.  Coercive interrogation, guilt by association, and claims of the need for total U.S. security became parts of the U.S. arsenal.  That arsenal included killing of U.S. citizens abroad in an extra-judicial manner, and floating hostility toward Islam and Muslims.

Enters the likes of Michelle Dunne; David Kirkpatrick; Fareed Zakaria; Tom Friedman; Michelle Bachman; Sara Palin; Ted Cruz; and the rest of the party of war, the Republicans.  Ironically, they saw victories in the destruction of Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan by an unrelenting military machine.  The Islamophobic side seems to be left as the preserve of Fox News and Bill Maher.  Books began appearing such as that by Sam Harris attacking Islam as a bundle of crazy ideas.

Through such a crowd of ignoramuses, the jihadis, including ISIS, won in two ways:  Their criminal interpretation of Islam became an accepted norm; and America's embroilment in wars in Muslim countries, sanctions on countries like Egypt became the best jihadi tool for recruitment and funding.

Against that lengthy, yet general background, we begin to examine Michelle Dunne's writings as reflecting her untoward intervention in internal Egyptian sovereign affairs.  This has been behind the transparent veil of concern for human rights.  The following is an illustration of Dunne's half-baked scholarship and holier than thou attitude.

In a Carnegie article dated September 22, 2014, entitled, "Syria in Crisis - What Egypt Can and Cannot Do Against the Islamic State" she posits the following imbecilities:

• "Many assume that Cairo will have a significant military rule to play in the fight against the Islamic State."  Then disparagingly, Dunne goes on to say: "Kerry recently bolstered the impression of Egypt's 'critical role' by including Cairo in his tour of the region, by touting Egyptian Sunni Muslim institutions as key to the ideological fight against extremism, and by stressing the importance of defeating extremism in the Sinai."
• Dunne is dead wrong about all the above because: (1) Cairo's role in the anti-ISIS coalition is bifurcated into (a) combatting Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis on national territory; (b) resonating to Al-Azhar's huge impact for more than 1000 years throughout the Muslim world in attacking the criminal jihadi interpretation of Sharia; (2) Dunne gives the impression that she knows what is needed to be done better than the U.S. Secretary of State; (3) Dunne looks myopically at Egypt, with its 100 million inhabitants as a marginal factor in the global war on terror; and (4) Dunne stupidly and cavalierly discounts the role of fighting jihadi criminal ideology by the precepts of Islamic jurisprudence.

Furthermore, she treats Egypt as if its contributions to the U.S. -led anti-ISIS coalition were to be taken for granted.  Egypt, Ms. Dunne, is not a vassal State beholden to Washington, D.C.

Michelle offhandedly posits the following: "Expedited Suez Canal transits for warships for which the U.S. government pays a handsome premium are routine features of the bilateral relationship."  In the same paragraph, she does not lose the opportunity to tarnish the legality of El-Sisi administration calling it again and again the result of "Egypt's July 2013 military coup that ousted then president Mohammad Morsi."

Attacking Al-Azhar and the Mufti of Egypt, Dunne, with her crooked pen dripping of Egyptophobia, describes these iconic personalities as "complicit" in the ouster of the heinous Islamic rule of 2012-2013.  Michelle Dunne unthinkingly speculates as follows: "Egyptians and other Sunni Muslims susceptible to recruitment by the Islamic State are unlikely to pay heed to statements by the grand sheikh of Al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb or the grand mufti, Shawki Allam; many consider them to be no more than civil servants who put out a government-sanctioned brand of Islam."

Dunne's total ignorance on that score is plainly manifest in: (1) Her non-recognition of the return of Al-Azhar under the secular Constitution of 2014 to its prior status of independence; (2) Her non-recognition of the Al-Azhar's seminal document, co-authored with the Coptic Church in August 2011.  In that document of 11 principles, is included "the non-recognition of a State based solely on religion;" (3) Her stupidity in the heinous assumption that in Islam there is "government-sanctioned brand of Islam."  Michelle, as a presumed scholar, does not seem to know that Sharia everywhere is based on the Quran, the Sunna, and ijtihad. 

Egyptophobe Dunne ends up her diatribe in that poorly argued article made up of a mix of contradictions, by the following: "The political repression and human rights abuses associated with this crackdown, which are on a scale not seen in Egypt's modern history are a recipe for breeding recruits to Islamist militancy and ideologies such as that of the Islamic State."

Yes, Ms. Dunne: Right, Right, Right: Egypt by ousting a hated Islamist regime, has ensured the emergence of ISIS!!  Not the U.S. disbanding of the Iraqi army; not the U.S. contribution to sectarianism in Iraq through hugging the Sunni Sahwas one time, and casting them aside the next time; not by Obama's announcement of red lines in Syria then backing down under the pressures of a dysfunctional U.S. Congress.

It is all Egypt's fault!!  Your stupid arguments reveal the shallowness of your presumed scholarship, and the surface commitment by a discredited Carnegie Endowment to a proper engagement with the U.S.  Please remember again that Egypt is not a U.S. colony, but a sovereign State whose roots go back 10,000 years -40 times the age of the establishment of the U.S. which largely still treats Obama as a racial figure fit for demonization.

Now to another example of garbage emanating from the hateful pen of Michelle Dunne.  Co-authoring in the Wall Street Journal of Nov. 4, 2014, an article with Frederic Wehrey, she emblazoned it with the title of "3 Risks of U.S. Cooperation With Arab Allies Against Islamic State."  Dunne knows it all.  The rest of us in the Arab and Muslim worlds are non-thinking dummies!!

So just mention the word "Egypt" once, and the hate enzymes start oozing out of Dunne's pores!!  As if she is a pre-programmed hate machine.  To her, every act of Arab cooperation with the US is either suspect or futile.  The zone of hate now envelopes her in a trance of Arabophobia.  Thus in her "3 Risks" piece (only 3 Michelle?) she asserts that "while U.S. cooperation with Arab allies against Islamic State and other terrorist groups is essential, it is also problematic."  Real funny: she seems to treat the mirage of the so-called Islamic State as real!!

But Michelle: This is how alliances work.  They are not a fusion.  They are arrangements among sovereigns.  Leave it to Dunne.  She knows better.  Thus with regard to the Arabs, with whom America is deeply involved, regardless of the likes and dislikes of Michelle Dunne, she arrogantly says: "As they compete for influence, some are enacting repressive policies that fuel the extremism that they purport to fight..."  Again Arab security measures, not the espousal by the US authorities and media of the cause of Islamists, are to blame!!  For good measure, she adds: "And in the rush to build support from Arab partners, the U.S. is largely ignoring these policies."

Michelle's idea of inter-State relationships is terribly at odds with the way international comity works: cooperation in one area does not translate into submissiveness in other areas.  Otherwise it is colonialism all over again.  Just look at the rocky relationship between the UK and the European Union.

But Dunne's recipe -a recipe for increased US isolation in the Arab Middle East takes in a very confusing element.  She manifests her patent confusion about the meaning and content of terms when she proclaims haughtily that: "By focusing on winning the battle against ISIS, the U.S. will (WILL) lose the war against extremism."  Is there a difference?  

Please explain Ms. Dunne.  And she does: "America's counter-terrorism focus with Arab States reduces its leverage, and bandwidth, to advance reforms that would address the root causes of radicalization."  Oh, I got it.  Michelle, while shifting her arguments, is advocating that the U.S. should imperially take upon itself the task of intervention in the internal affairs of Arab States.  Are you nuts?!

This is aside from the plain facts of the tragedy of decline in the U.S. style and manner of democracy: Dollars buy Congressional seats; redrawal of congressional districts to curtail minority participation; and obstacles placed by several States in the path of one person one vote through ID requirements.  There is an Arab proverb which says: "You cannot offer what you don't have."

More laughable idiocies from the Carnegie's Michelle Dunne.

In Al-Jazeera, Dunne on Nov. 4, 2014, states without any credible evidence that: "The question is whether the scorched earth methods practised by Sisi and his government are helping to build legitimacy among the Egyptian population, including in economically disadvantaged areas such as north Sinai, the Western Desert, and upper Egypt."  El-Sisi does not need to build legitimacy.  He won the Presidency against Sabbahi in 2014 through the ballot box.

No end to her hysteria; no end to her venom!!  But for the record, she and her likes among the Egyptophobes and the Arabophobes must realize that: 

(1) US wars of choice in both Afghanistan and Iraq as of 2002/2003 have spawned criminal ideologies by jihadis who wished the Americans ill in order to get even;

(2) Total denial by the US of human rights on the field of battle and in detention camps such as Pagram and Abu Ghraib and force feeding in Guantanamo has super-charged millions of Muslims with hate for the U.S. and its institutions;

(3) American reliance on military means in the Middle East and Central Asia, without any meaningful attempt to understand Islam, in both its religious and cultural aspects, have compounded the task of many governments in the area with regard to containment of jihadism;

(4) The so-called human rights organizations have tried but failed to jump over the fence of sovereignties under the guise of protecting human rights;
(5) The recent Egyptian law on regulation of public demonstrations is much less stringent than its US equivalent; just remember "Occupy Wall Street;"

(6) It is patently stupid to measure the transition of the Arab Middle East from brute dictatorships which America supported for years with the same measures used in the US.

(7) In the U.S., we have a former Vice President, Dick Cheney, who is so insane that he still believes that water boarding is humane!!

Michelle: Bark as you must!!  As far as Egypt is concerned, your hate shall topple neither the pyramids, nor the sphinx.  Nor shall it bring your beloved Islamists back.  For I have just returned from Cairo after watching El-Sisi in Hurgada, calling movingly for "A Strong Egyptian State."  So Buzz Off.

Lady!!  You NEED A Psychiatrist Real Fast!!

How and Why Has Egyptophobe Michelle Dunne Gotten the Reputation of the Carnegie Endowment Undonne?

This is the first of two Christmas letters to Michelle Dunne.  Its title is "The Contrived Drama a the Cairo Airport."  She, the queen of that drama, is reputed to be a diplomat and a scholar in the pay of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  I am the founder of "ELIFAS - El-Ayouty Institute for Arab Spring Studies" and in the pay of myself.

Before I present the non-controverted facts, Dunne and El-Ayouty share in two values: Love for the U.S. as citizens; interest in Egypt with Dunne as the ideological attacker, and I, a "one man platoon," as a defender of my other and older nationality -an Egyptian who came to America as a Fulbright 62 years ago.

I served America well through teaching since 1954.  She serves America not so well through attempting, not to bring Egypt and America closer, but to drive them apart, by casting unmitigated doubts on the Egyptian Revolution as a failure.  Dunne's motivation for her Egyptophobia is unclear to me.  The only clarity is that a scholar and a diplomat are soldiers for peace.  From the facts below, she comes across as a stalwart for hate.

Ms. Dunne was invited to speak at the 15th Anniversary of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs (ECFA) in Cairo in mid-December.  ECFA, which I represented at the UN from 2002 till recently this year, is a prestigious NGO.  It brings together the best Egyptian minds in diplomacy, academia, business, politics and the arts under one umbrella.  I was in Cairo at the celebration time.  But could not attend because of a nasty bout of cold.  However, I came to know about the Michelle Dunne saga from ECFA's top echelons, and from the media which carried mostly Dunne's view of what she was subjected to upon arriving at the Cairo Airport.

From my investigations, the following picture emerged:

• Opposition within ECFA to inviting Dunne was based on her persistent attacks on the legitimacy of El-Sisi's assumption of powers as President.  Casting doubts by Dunne in that direction is baseless.  Thirty-five million Egyptians congregated on June 30, 2013 in every square clamoring for Morsi's ouster.  His Islamic iron fist and the Brotherhoodization of Egypt were about to plunge Egypt of 100 million population, both Muslims and Copts, in a Libyan/Yemeni style civil war.  It was a popular recall of a hated Islamist regime, an appeal for the rescue by the national cohesive Egyptian army, not unlike 1958's uprising in France which brought DeGaulle to power.

States in transition are traditionally sensitive to outside intervention, even if that intervention is by the so-called "Global Think Tank" -the motto of Dunne's paymaster, the Carnegie Endowment.  Yet the ECFA leadership won the day over those who opposed Dunne's participation.  The leadership said, "Let her come so that we might reason with her."  If I had a say in the matter, I would have joined the opposition.  Ideologues like Michelle Dunne are beyond reasoning.  Like Amtrak, they run on iron rails, not a Greyhound bus navigating the bumps and taking alternative back roads.

Dunne was advised by ECFA to pay for her air travel and secure her visa.  ECFA was to house her, together with other invitees from abroad, at the Conrad Hilton, a 5-star, by the great Nile River in Cairo.  Dunne submitted her passport to the Egyptian Counsular section of the Embassy in D.C. for the purpose of a visa.  But quickly withdrew it before any official response was made.  Why?  I don't know.  But she did, and opted to travel to the country which she, from her writings, considers a dictatorship, only because she says so.

Arriving in Cairo late at night, Dunne presented herself to Passport Control at the Cairo International Airport (Terminal 3).  Her request was for "a tourist visa," while the purpose of her travel was "business."  By checking her name on their "No Admission" list, Michelle Dunne's name was emblazoned, and her admission was denied.

Was that a contrived move by Dunne to prove to the world that Egypt was in the grip of a dictatorship, and that she was justified in her Egyptophobia?  I truly don't know.  But as an international defense attorney, I would be foolish to discard it, though I am not generally a believer in conspiracies.

So here I must say in this First of Two Christmas Letters to Michelle Dunne: Had you left your passport at the D.C. Egyptian Consulate, you would have been warned that you were not welcome to enter Egypt.  That unvisa'ed trip and the obfuscation in your application at the Cairo Airport for a "tourist visa" cascaded into what followed.

Undoubtedly, it fed you with the Egyptophobe nourishment which you, from your writings and other utterances seem to crave.  Addiction to hate is a real malaise, though you pretend to work for "international peace."

Midnight of Dec. 14/Dec. 15 at the Cairo International Airport is not an opportune time for negotiation with the security services of Egypt.  This is a country at war with terrorism and other myriad opponents, and lifting of "the non-admission" status is a lengthy process.

You called the U.S. Embassy in Cairo -no help.  You called another soul mate of yours -another Egyptophobe, David Kirkpatrick, reporter of the New York Times in Cairo -no help, except for a commitment to persevere in calling the elected El-Sisi administration a coup.  I am certain that you called others as well, especially in the U.S., at around 5:00 pm Eastern Standard Time.

Lots of empathy for you, Michelle, from those helpless quarters.  But still "no admission."  Mind you, as a presumed scholar and a diplomat, you should know that legally "no admission" is not detention.  But for enhancing the dramatic effect of what you, by your unreasonable actions, had brought upon yourself, you allowed yourself to call it "detention."  Even a cup of tea in a private salon offered to you by the Airport Security Officers out of sheer Egyptian kindness to your unresolved dilemma, was described as "isolation, intimidation."  How ridiculous!!

Then your veil of victimhood fell off.  Ambassador Shalaby, the able, gentle and scholarly Executive Director of ECFA, having been informed while in bed at or about 1:00 AM of your dilemma, called top officials to allow you to enter even for one day.  He regretted that he was unsuccessful, and that ECFA had not known about your being on a "no admission" list.

Calling you through a teleconference while you sat waiting for a plane to fly you out of Egypt, your haughty response was truly imperial.  You told him in effect that "I came in the hope of changing my mind about Egypt.  Now I am confirmed in my views about Egypt!!"

A threat, combined with arrogance and ingrained malicious intention about Egypt -one third of the Arab population!!  So please go ahead with your theatrical threats.  You and the entire "think tank" of the Carnegie shall not move the New Egypt one inch from the march to its own drummers -its secular society.  Rivers of your ink shall not change the color of the Nile water, because, in your fantasy, you ignore the following realities:

• A visa is a recognition of the validity of a passport, issued by the proper officials of the country which the bearer wishes to enter;
• A visa is a product of a State sovereignty whose denial is known in international law as "a protective principle" with respect to certain conduct outside of its territory by persons, like you Michelle Dunne, not of its nationals;
• According to international law, the U.S. cannot interfere with the laws of another sovereign regarding conduct occurring within that other sovereign's territory; and
• The New Egypt, unlike the pre-El-Sisi era, is not going to be supinely the tool of other powers.

As an example, the U.S. has denied the entry of Professor Tariq Ramadan to the U.S. 3 years ago, following his application to the U.S. Embassy in London for an American visa.  That world renowned professor of Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Theology at Oxford, was responding to an invitation to speak at Stanford University.  Though a nephew of Hassan El-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, and based in Geneva, he has never engaged in anti-US or anti-Western activities to warrant that senseless denial.  Le Monde Diplomatique has said about him: "Ramadan has started to pave out the road to reform and changes in the understanding of Islam in Muslim communities in the West."  I have assigned his book entitled "Islam and the Arab Awakening" to my graduate seminar at Fordham University School of Law, New York City where I teach a course entitled "Islamic Law and Global Security."

Everyone took that visa denial in stride.  But not the omnipotent Michelle Dunne of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace!  She is UBER ALLES!!

• David Kirkpatrick, Dunne's cohort in Egyptophobia, wrote two pieces on the Dunne's seemingly pre-fabricated victimhood.  The title of the first article in The New York Times was "Egypt Denies Entry to American Scholar Critical of Its Government."  In it he refers to recent Dunne's writings by saying: "Ms. Dunne has pointedly criticized Egypt's attempts to carry out what she called 'draconian' restrictions on nongovernmental organizations as well as its "harassment and intimidation of activists."
• Thanks, David!!  You are a Prince in the mold of Prince Vlad!!  I hope that you have enjoyed reading about your lack of ethics in reporting in Media Ethics, by Rhonda Roland Sheaver, dated Dec. 18.  Media Ethics investigations revealed, among many other lapses of ethics, that you lied about the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Shawki Allam.  You, a lying weasel, featured him as "defending forced evacuation of families from Sinai."  Mr. Kirkpatrick: you did not even contact Dr. Allam.  You seem to ignore the fact that in Sinai, Egypt is at war with terrorism.
• Its action in Sinai does not even come close to Roosevelt's brutal herding of US citizens of Japanese descent in 1941 in horrible concentration camps after Pearl Harbor.  
• Media Ethics proved by statistics that 12 of your stories relied in 38 anonymous sources; that nearly half named no sources interviewed by the Times; and that your lopsided stories quoted 15 critics of Egypt's government and a single Sisi supporter.  40 of your stories, Kirkpatrick, quote the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, of Cairo, a well funded attacker of Egypt's actions against Islamist marauders in Sinai and elsewhere.
• Shame on you and on other Egyptophobes like Dunne for calling Egypt's Grand Mufti "a lackey for the Egyptian government."  And that the Mufti's ruling was "the latest attempt by the government of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to invoke interpretations of Islam for its own legitimacy."
• Confirmed ignoramuses like you and Michelle reflect a disgusting mix of Egyptophobia, Arabophobia and Islamophobia.  All wrapped into one.  An Egyptian version of Islam, exists only in your deranged approach to public reporting.

Returning to Dunne: The Carnegie entire board published an editorial in The New York Times of Dec. 15 entitled: "Egypt's Latest Outrage."  In it, that Board for international peace called American approval of $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt contradictory.  Why?  Because that aid, which is treaty-based, and in line with Egypt's performing in the global war on terror, was claimed by Carnegie as supporting the continuation by El-Sisi Government of repressing "Egyptian citizens" and of "harassing foreigners like Ms. Dunne."  No wonder that Cairo is pivoting to the East!!

Yet the Carnegie endowment of Michelle Dunne falsely claims that it continues to be "dedicated to advancing cooperation between nations and promoting active international engagement by the United States"  YA SALAM!!  Equivalent in Arabic to "Oh My God!!"  Give it up Carnegie: your fig leaf has fallen and the visuals are far from appealing.

Through Dunne and others like her, the Carnegie does not deserve the title of "The Global Think Tank."  In reality, and with reference to Dunne, you have become, at least in respect to the New Egypt "THE GLOBAL STINK TANK."

Await Christmas Letter No. Two to Dunne on "Analysis of Dunne's So-Called Scholarly Writings."

For How Long Can the Arabs Continue To Blame "The Others" For THEIR Retardation?

Time for the Arabs to get up from their easy chairs, look in the mirror and say: "We too are to blame!!"  Self-criticism is a virtue, a sign of maturity, and the point at which the Arab World would begin to own its future.

Yes, we know!!  The Sykes-Picot secret agreement between Britain and France during World War I was a huge betrayal to Arab nationhood and independence.  Colonization of Syria and Lebanon by France; Iraq and Palestine and Jordan by Great Britain; Balfour Declaration for the creation of a national home for the Jews in a part of Palestine; and a free hand in the Gulf for the Union Jack.

Prior to these national calamities, visited upon the Arab homeland nearly a hundred years ago, was the continuation of British occupation of Egypt and the Sudan; Italian hegemony over Libya, and French protectorates over most of the Maghreb, west of Tripoli.

During those dark ages, the Arabs were humiliated; their national leaders were exiled, killed, or imprisoned; their language, the language of the Quran, was given secondary importance in the curriculum. Arab culture was denigrated; national uprisings were put down ferociously as if they were crimes against humanity.  From ages of glory, to ages of western imperialism and in your face ascendancy!!

But that was more than a hundred years ago.  Yes the Wilsonian "right to self-determination" remained mere ink on worthless paper.  But by the end of World War II, an earlier Arab Spring of national liberation changed nearly everything.  By 1962, with Algeria's independence, which I witnessed as UN spokesman, the Arabs, with the exception of the Palestinians, became masters of their own houses, or shall we say palaces.

However, who replaced the western colonialists?  Arab dictators!!  Inter-Arab Cold War!!  Swinging from alliances with either the West or the East!!  Or being non-aligned!!  Politics became the sport of an indecisive elite.  But the street and the mosque were left to religion largely defined as mere rituals not as renewal of values especially "the acceptance of the other." 

Armies marched proudly, but on parade grounds, except when enforcing the will of the dictator.  Education became largely costless but also worthless.  The press became mere gossip sheets, or poor translations of how the developed world perceived us.  Gender inequality found its support in the misunderstanding of Sharia (Islamic Law).  Oil made the Gulf rich in liquidity, but did not create truly industrial societies.  Federations were fabricated from the top, and quickly dissolved through either inter-dictator piques or through putsches.

The Baath party was born, so was the Muslim Brotherhood.  The one became secular fascism, the other became religious fascism.  Nascent democracies became a tool to paper over one-party rule.  College degrees could not qualify the holder for jobs.

The League of Arab States (LAS) was trumpeted, but remained a mere talk show.  Membership in the UN Security Council, though it continued to be "The Great Hall of Deadlocks," became a phony badge of national prestige!!

Qaddafi called Libya "The Great Popular Socialist Jamahiryah;" Saddam thought Kuwait was his to take by force, and Arafat rushed to hug him as an Arab gesture of solidarity.  How Machiavellian!!  The Sudan fragmented.  Israeli settlerism in territories allotted to an Arab State remained largely immune from condemnation as flouting international law.

With the 40's, the 50's, the 60's and the 70's gone, came over the Arab world, the dark cloud of militant Islamism.  The great content of Islam was replaced by the disturbing context of "Islam Is the Answer."  Images without substance.

Al-Qaradawi assumed in Qatar the mantles of the great Gamal El-Deen Al-Afghani, Muhammad Abdo and Rasheed Ridha.  His fatwas were sought as if emanating from a great oracle or from the great Al-Azhar in Cairo.  The Khomeini Revolution of 1979 attempted exportation.  But deservedly failed, except -except for making the veil and the long beard Islamic requirements.

That was the first wave.  The second wave (waves always overlap) was jihadism born of Al-Qaeda's rise in consequence of the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan.  And from pin-pricks to the catastrophic 9/11.  Don't laugh, but some Arabs blames it on the CIA.  And from here Islamophobia reared its head, especially in America and Europe.  A boon for jihadism which grew out of ignorance of Islam by the West.  It also grew out of the Muslims ignorance of the continuous evolution of Islamic Law in the direction of "The Maslaha Jurisprudence." (The Laws of Communal Interest).

The third wave was the Arab Spring.  A rumbling earthquake.  It began, but seemingly without and end.  Its ugliest form is the Syrian civil war.  A family of dictatorship, the Assads, which would rather pulverize Syria as a structure, and annihilate its population, than relinquish its ill-gotten throne.  Yet its most promising form is Egypt and Tunisia.  This is where the battle between secularism and Islamism has been decided by popular vote in favor of secularism and inclusiveness.

Throughout all the above, one could see that the Arabs, since the early 1960s, have chosen their twisted paths toward tomorrow.  "The Others" had virtually no hand in fashioning it.

• "The Others" did not cause developmental retardation;
• They did not bring one dictator after the other to the seat of power;
• They did not wreck the educational system;
• They did not enhance corruption in public life; for corruption is invariably locally manufactured;
• They did not dictate to the judiciary;
• They did not write the rubbish which is daily published under the name of "thoughtful analysis;"
• They did not degrade TV shows to their present level of superficial pastime;
• They did not cause the young and the restless to want to die crossing the Mediterranean in search of a future; and 
• They did not even anticipate the Arab Spring with its popular calls for Dignity, Development, and Democracy.

It was the Arabs who, by and large, have mismanaged their affairs:

• They have looked upon their oil wealth as a non-ending bonanza;
• They have lagged in the creation of their own defense industry;
• They have condemned terrorism but stopped short of creating powerful indigenous anti-jihadi structures;
• Their Sunnis have looked upon their Shiis as non-Muslims;
• Their only Shii State, Iraq, has bungled its relationship with its Sunni population to the point of the latter opting for joining Satanic ISIS as a means of revenge;
• Libya has become a State of militias; Sudan continues to fragment beyond the loss of the South; Yemen is in the grip of a combination of tribalism and Houthis revival; the great Sahara in both Libya and Algeria have become a prime source of jihadi military hardware; Qatar is closer in foreign policy to Turkey than it is to Saudi Arabia, the largest stakeholder in the Gulf Cooperation Council; Dubai has become more of a western implantation than an Arab enclave; and the Palestinians are still in search of national unity under a dysfunctional leadership which is expert in corruption; and Islamic Law is still unlearnt by the majority of Muslims.

For how long can the Arabs continue to blame "the others" for their retardation?  For as long as they do not see their reality in the mirror and decide to become "the new India": hundreds of languages and ethnicities; a democracy deemed to be the largest in the non-Western world; a tradition imbued with technology; and leaders who are proud to see their vehicles in outer space.

India even had a Muslim president, a Sikh Prime Minister, and a Catholic woman born in Italy as head of the former governing party, the Congress Party which the Wafd party in Egypt tried to emulate!!

Let the Arabs compare between India and Pakistan: sky above, and turmoil below.  This is the magic of forgetting the colonial past and espousing diversity.  When are the Arabs going to learn that: "Salvation comes from within?!"

Through Default, ISIS LIVES And Shall Die!! Here is Why?!

We are back to an analysis of ISIS -the vaunted phantom which crystallizes jihadism.  Born through fissures in governance in Iraq, and absence of governance in Syria.  This is the cleanest slate any barbaric movement would hope for.

In Iraq, the fissures were already there under Maliki, the former Prime Minister of an Iraq orphaned by lack of truly national leaders.  Maliki, a Shiite boss who commands allegiance centered on Tehran, saw a mirage of an Iraq dominated only by Shiis.  Not by an amalgam of all Iraqi sects.  Neither the Sunnis of the great North, nor the Kurds of Iraqi Kurdistan saw in Maliki the visage of national unity.  For he was a divider, not a uniter.  His ethos was "divide and misrule."

Pandering to his handlers in Tehran, he refused to sign a security agreement with the U.S. That was before the American military turned tail, and completely departed from the "Land of the Two Rivers."  In the wake of that withdrawal, was a Sunni dormant volcano ready to erupt in the face of the Sectarian-in-Chief Maliki.  Bremer, the genius of a misguided American invasion of Iraq in 2003, had disbanded the huge Iraqi army.  An insane blunder for which America dearly paid.

That formidable Iraqi military machine had been officered for years by highly-trained Sunni general officers.  Now, without jobs in Anbar, Mosul and Faluja, highly trained but unemployed, imbued with Iraqi nationalism, but excommunicated by the Baghdad Shii-powered structure, they readily welcomed ISIS.  An act of Qassass, revenge, against Maliki.

Acting on the basis of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" (sectarian Maliki v. Sunni north), this cadre of battle-tested military were a boon to Al-Baghadi of ISIS.  It was an alliance to which the tribal leadership of the north and west were eager to seek out and pay homage to.  The tribal leadership of Tikrit, and other Saddam geographic centers of power, had been humiliated by both the American invaders, and by their shii-based Iraqi successors.

They saw in ISIS an entity through which they could hit back at their tormentors.  And hit they did.  By the huge American-made arsenal, nearly trillion-dollar worth of the best offensive equipment money can buy.  ISIS knew the Sunni desire for revenge: They have been in bed with them in Iraq, even before ISIS was an ISIS fighting in Syria to topple Assad.

The field was clear.  In both Iraq (north and west), and in Syria (north and east), you could see no border markings.  I was there as a defense attorney.  It was, and continues to be the biggest no man's land in the world.  TERRA NULIUS!!

Having been declared by Al-Qaeda as too brute, and by Al-Nusra as too independent, and by the world as an outlaw, ISIS reality showed its ugly face.  Through a different modus operandi moving massively eastward astride both Syrian and Iraqi territory; cease the no man's land and hold it; inherit the Sunni desire for revenge against the shiis; re-employ Saddam's battle-hardened colonels and generals.

More importantly, declare a caliphate -the Muslim equivalent of an imperial system!!  It evokes memories of a robust governance which could put an end to Islamophobia and the humiliation of Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Palestine of the mandates.  No more Guantanamos; no more Abu Ghraibs; no more Pagrams; no more collaboration of peace between Arab capitals and the West, including Israel.  Payback time through a caliphate, headed by Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi.  Hail to the Caliphate, and come you all disgruntled young from the West and East, and cleanse the Middle East from all vestiges of westernism, including even Christian Arabs!!

In a matter of days, the newly trumpeted caliphate had two capitals: Raqqa in Syria, Mosul in Iraq.  Oil fields, and huge water dams were targeted; the shias had no real army in Iraq, only disjointed militias; the collapse of the Iraqi army of the north proved the falsehood of the modern State; over the necks of western hostages, knives were a tool of terror; over the modern tanks abandoned by leaderless Iraqi recruits, black banners fluttered with the familiar inscriptions of "Allah, and Muhammad, His Messenger."  Neither Allah nor Muhammad have anything to do with that barbarism.

Various jihadi factions declared their fealty to the new phantom caliphate, including the Friends of Jerusalem, a Hamas offshoot, which went as far as declaring Sinai of Egypt an emirate of the new caliphate.  A pie in the sky.

The hit and run acts of the Muslim Brotherhood, now declared a terrorist organization in the largest Arab State demographically (Egypt), were celebrated.  ISIS called it, through social media, the beginning of the collapse of El-Sisi government, and of the restoration of the faschist Islamic rule of 2012-2013 in the heart of Arab lands.

And when the anti-ISIS international coalition of 60 countries was declared and began raining bombs on ISIS command and central centers, ISIS called the campaign against terrorism a campaign against Islam itself.  Through confrontations at holy sites in the West Bank and Jerusalem, between Palestinians and Israelis, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was changing labels: from a territorial conflict into a bloody religious conflict.  A huge assist to the propaganda machine of ISIS.

But can all of this chaos translate into an ISIS durability and longevity?  Absolutely not.  Through all sorts of default, ISIS lives.  And through the same defaults it shall gradually die.  Here is why:

• The international anti-ISIS coalition is fast learning.  Air campaigns shall gradually be supplemented by foot soldiers from the localities affected;
• The Sunni-Shii divide, exasperated by jihadi propaganda and Western Islamophobia, shall eventually shrink.  This is being done by age-old solid institutions, such as Al-Azhar of Egypt.  And by the centralization of sources of fatwas in various Muslim countries;
• Weak institutional responses to ISIS and other jihadi organizations have been the hallmark of inter-State systems, such as the UN, the League of Arab States, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
• These organizations are now being sidelined by more robust non-governmental organizations which are less bureaucratic and more adept in confronting false jihadi propaganda.  They are more suitable to deal with the actions of non-State actors as regards recruitment, funding and mission-statements.
• Anti-jihadi forces are quickly learning from their jihadi adversaries.  Military training is accelerated; modern technology is being employed; nationalism is overwhelming their daydreams of a caliphate; Islamic law (Sharia) is being learnt; protection of minority rights is being rediscovered; parliamentary systems are being refashioned to suit the environments of Egypt, Tunisia, and Bahrain; women empowerment is becoming a national objective in several Muslim countries including Saudi Arabia.
• Assad may stay on, but eventually presiding over a partitioned Syria; the Islamic militancy by which Turkey and Qatar are approaching their neighbors is not gaining traction especially in the New Egypt; and Iran is struggling to find a middle ground between its sovereign right to nuclear energy and western fears of proliferation of nuclear arms.

It is indeed tragic that some Western analysts seem to have become spell-bound by the din of jihadi self-aggrandizing publicity.  A recent example could be here cited by "An Analysis" posted online by, George Friedman of Geopolitical Weekly, dated November 25, 2104.  Its title is "The Islamic State Reshapes the Middle East."  A tantalizing title for an article which dealt mainly with various readjustments in external policies by Middle Eastern Arab States.  The author was off the mark where he described ISIS as "a new territorial power in Syria and Iraq."  Sound analysis?! No!!  Alarmism: Yes!!  Slowly but surely, anti-jihadi forces are rising, organizing and coalescing.

The dream of Al-Baghdadi of flying his ISIS black flag over the White House in Washington or over Al-Ittihadyia Palace in Cairo, or over Mecca and Medina, shall in the long term prove to be less credible than the flying carpet of Ali Baba and the Forty-Thieves!!