A Foolish American Interpretation of Egyptian-Russian Relations

It is foolish because it is as old as the 1950s. Out of sync with the march, always accelerating, of the global political life. Judging should be based not on yesterday's facts. It should be based on the facts of the moment, even when you glance at the prior cases.

The New York Times of December 1 headlined on its first page: "Egypt Agrees to Open Bases to Russian Jets." A neutral headline, followed by the imperial interpretation of yester years. Here follow the points where the reasoning is as old as a museum piece telling how the past was:

• "The agreement would give Russia its deepest presence in Egypt since 1973;"
• The U.S. has provided Egypt with more than $1.3 billion a year for four decades because that aid "secures the use of Egypt's airspace and bases for the American military;"
• Analysts "characterized the preliminary deal as the latest sign of the waning influence of the U.S.;"
• Then quoting from a former American deputy assistant secretary of defense, the paper bolsters its foolish interpretation by his imperial language. "Power abhors a vacuum, and when the United States pulls back, we can't be under the impression that the world is going to stand by and wait for us."

These are pitiful points of reasoning because they reflect mental sclerosis regarding Egypt. That country, throughout its long history has never been a client State of any power. No foreign military bases have ever been allowed by any Egyptian government, monarchical or republican. Not even during the 400 years of Ottoman nominal rule (1517-1917). No bravado in this. Only historical facts.

In fact, it was the Egyptian army of modern Egypt, built by Muhammad Ali as of 1805, that punched through the Ottoman Empire in 1832 to punish an impudent Sultan. Marched as far as only 60 miles from the seat of that Empire. British troops were stationed in Egypt as of 1882 as an occupation presence, and were gone by 1956. And the U.N. Peace-Keepers, in Egypt as of 1957, do not constitute occupation since the host country can always invite them out.

This phenomenon of Egyptian freedom from clientism or, for this matter, occupier-inclination in the modern era, cannot be due only to one single factor. Among the multiple factors, account should also be taken of: the longevity of the deep historical State (7000 years); demographic cohesion; the nilotic tendency to stay close to home; the inter-continental bridge between 3 continents, thus heightening the innate apprehension of suffering, say, the history of Poland or the Korean peninsula.

And when Rommel, the German brilliant general, pushed eastward from Libya into Egypt, reaching less than 100 miles from Alexandria in 1942, we, as high school students donned military uniforms to fight him. 

Hence the fallacy of the rationale of the New York Times experts as they make the facile claim of: "The danger and the reality (of landing rights in Egypt for Russian military aircraft in Egypt) is that other countries will take advantage of the opportunity presented when America chooses to pull back."

Even the linkage between this new facet of Egyptian-Russian relationships to the Cairo/Moscow agreement to have Russian building nuclear power facilities at Al-Dhabaa is patently counterfeit. For what does Cairo's search for energy has to do with the implied claim of subjugation of Egypt to the will of Putin's Russia? A contradiction of today's revelations about the Trump's administration feverish search for Russia's helping hand to put Trump into the Oval office.

Getting away at this juncture from these deceptive claims to the content analysis of this imperialistic posture, we find the unmistakable resurrection of the colonial notions of:

• The Russia/Egypt agreement is a symptom of a power void. There are power voids only in failed States due to their inability to conduct foreign affairs. Not applicable to Egypt; 
• Egypt entered into that agreement with Russia to boost its tourist industries. The plain fact is that tourism is rebounding in Egypt mainly from Arab and other Asian arrivals.
• The relationship between Cairo/Washington/Moscow is a zero-sum relationship. A gain by Moscow in Egypt is perceived as a loss by D.C. Not so. In Cairo, there has been a strategic shift away from non-alignment under Nasser, to multi-alignment under El-Sisi. Purchasing military hardware from Moscow and Paris, while keeping the contracts with Washington intact in the areas of maintenance and fresh supplies.

Even Saudi Arabia under King Salman, has pivoted in the same direction. The King was the first Saudi monarch to pay a State visit to the Kremlin last month. That is after he teamed up with Trump in Riyadh in a sword-dance, and multi-billion dollars contract for modernizing the Saudi arsenal.

In Analysis, which also goes by another name, interpretation, one has to seek not only what was said, but also what was not said. Of the latter category, there is plentiful of examples:

• The worrisome ups and downs in Congressional attitudes towards aid to Egypt. Though contractual and linked legally to the peace treaty of 1979 between Egypt and Israel, it has become akin to a ball in the field of competition between American special interests, lobbies, and stable foreign policy;
• The constant drumbeat emanating from Washington questioning the legitimacy of the elevation of El-Sisi to the presidency of Egypt. That process was not, as those nay-sayers claim, a military take-over. It was the result of the implementation of the Egyptian secular Constitution of January 2014: a fair and open election contest between El-Sisi and Sabbahi;
• The continuous intrusion in the internal affairs of Egypt through American governmental actions (the annual assessment of human rights in Egypt by the State Department) and non-governmental organizations like Human Rights watch;
• In a country like Egypt, where terrorism has felled hundreds of casualties, the country has perforce to put societal right to security, ahead of individual rights, in the context of emergency laws. The American Civil War of the 1860s witnessed the partial suspension of the US Constitution. And where is American due process and the jurisdiction of Habeas Corpus in keeping Guantanamo open since 2002, even when the American judiciary asserts the viability of application of these basic rights to Muslim detainees?! These helpless victims have not even been charged by military commissions;
• Add to the above the manifestations of anti-Islamism exhibited nearly daily by President Trump, members of his administration, and his supporters?! This is no longer freedom of expression under the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Calls to hate have increased the volume of incidents, both anti-Semitic and anti-Islamists. These go largely unprosecuted. They are lumped together within the Nazi-like call for "Save Us From Islamization;" 
• Muslim bans are, in effect, igniters of ISIS-like terrorism as they become fodder for jihadi propaganda helping recruitment and funding;
• And how could Trump's ill-considered decision to declare Jerusalem, whose eastern part is occupied territory since 1967, the capital of Israel advance the cause of peace generally, or of American/Egyptian amity, specifically?

In all of this, one sees America's lurch to the Right, staggering towards white nativism which seeks in the old imperial lingo a mode of self-assertion. This is the essence of hegemony. America today has military presence in more than 100 countries.

There is no American physical retreat. Only a retreat from rationale regarding other sovereignties claim to the right to action independent of the wishes of other sovereignties. Facts are facts. They are not alternatives. 

Alternative facts are falsehoods. Including foolish interpretations deriving from the bygone days of the Cold War of a bipolar world. 

And one has to be blind not to admit that America under Trump is now experiencing a period of irrational governance. This great country is divided between right and left to the point of outright tribalism. Trump, lacking the power of inquiry, is following what appears to be a formula for destroying "the administrative State."

With an approaching constitutional crisis, how can America's allies rely upon Washington's promises? On December 1, General Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security advisor, pleaded guilty in federal court to lying to the FBI about conversations with Russian officials regarding elimination of sanctions imposed by Obama, prior to Trump becoming president.

The claim by Trump on December 3 that Flynn's life is unjustly being destroyed by the judicial system is manifestly bogus. It puts the American President in further legal jeopardy.

Commenting on this State of chaos in the White House which can only become worse, Garry Wills in an article on Trump in the New York Review of Books dated December 21, 2017, says: Trump's "neglect of necessary requirements for governing offers in itself grounds for impeachment."

NOTE: My new book entitled, "War on Jihadism By Ideology: The New Islamic Religious Revolution" is now available to be purchased through Amazon from the following link: https://www.amazon.com/War-Jihadism-Ideology-Religious-Revolution/dp/1979932182

NOTE: The frequency of posting this blog in 2018 shall be reduced due to my concentration on writing my autobiography.