With Regard to the Second Egyptian Revolution of June 30, The U.S. Should Speak Softly and Carry No Sticks

With apologies to President Teddy Roosevelt who admonished: “Speak softly and carry a big stick!!”  Mr. President, Sir, allow me as an Egyptian American (I am of dual nationalities) to modify your saying.  With regard to the Second Egyptian Revolution of June 30, it is of mutual interest for both Cairo and Washington, that the U.S. refrains from shouting at the Egyptian transitional government.  First: It will have no effect; Second: it is none of the U.S. business; and Third: It gives the pro-Morsi forces some false hope that their man should be given a second chance.  Nonsense!!

As to the “no effect factor,” see the book by Andrew Bacevich: The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (2010).  The same thesis is reflected, though in a different way, in the recent book by Richard Haas, the current president of the Council on Foreign Relations.  Under the title of Foreign Policy Begins at Home: The Case for Putting America’s House in Order (2013), Haas concludes as follows: “Either the United States will put its house in order and refocus what it does abroad, or it will increasingly find itself at the mercy of what happens beyond its borders and beyond its control.”  Well said, Mr. Haas.

With regard to the “none of the U.S. business” factor, I begin by the obvious: the sovereignties of nations, large or small, are co-equal.  Malta, whose population is less than the number of tenants in the complex where I live in Manhattan, has the same degree of sovereignty as that of China.  Why?  Sovereignty, in legal and political terms, is not measured by power and influence.  It is inherent in a well-defined population within recognizable borders.

Thus Egypt and the U.S. enjoy, each respectively, co-equal sovereignty, No dictat and no Pax-Americana.  From my focus on decolonization, both as an academic and a former U.N. Principal Political Officer in charge of the Africa Division, I have always appreciated two essential values in U.S. politics: support for liberation movements, and the general adherence to Washington’s advice: “No entangling alliances.”

One might say: “But the U.S. provides Egypt with $1.5 billion in annual aid since 1973.  Shouldn’t Washington have at least some say in the Egyptian sector of the Arab Spring?”  A fair question; but a wrong premise. For starters, Egyptian sovereignty is not for sale.  Waving the stick of withholding that aid would be very short-sighted.  That aid, most of which is spent in the U.S. on military equipment and training, is an integral part of the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty of 1979. An Egyptian President, Sadat, gave his life at the hands of Islamists, for that peace.  Playing that card would be tantamount to the possible unraveling of that Treaty which is guaranteed by the U.S.

Note also that the Peace Treaty of 1979 is, in part, a factor in the security chaos in Sinai against which Egypt’s armed forces and other security elements are battling.  It has restricted the volume and the quality of the tactical armed strength on the Gaza/Sinai borders.  Area “G” of Sinai has become a veritable ware zone.  In that war, where the so-called jihadists, together with Hamas and other marauding terrorist elements, including some Sinai Bedouins, Egypt is daily shedding blood.  You cannot put value on human blood.

I stated above a third factor.  The U.S. is perceived to be giving, through utterances by Secretary Kerry, Secretary Hagel, and congressional leaders, some hope in the resurrection of the Morsi reign.  This is wrong, counter-productive, and cannot be politically or strategically sound.  When I teach political science or law, I begin by defining politics as “the art of the possible.”  The chance of a Morsi come back is a mid-summer dream.  The culture of “no second chance” in a revolutionary context stands in the way of the Muslim Brotherhood.

A second chance might be acceptable in a peaceful American political culture.  Witness the “comeback kid” phenomenon in the case of Bill Clinton, and in the attempts at similar feats by former New York Governor Spitzer, and former Congressman Weiner.  There is a chasm of 6000 miles between “a comeback” tolerance in the American culture, and “a comeback” utter rejection in the culture of the Egyptian Second Revolution.  That geographic distance between Washington D.C. and Cairo has greater vertical depth: the way the Islamist regime has mismanaged Egypt during one very very long year to which the majority of Egyptians put an end in Tahrir on June 30.

Let us now tackle the issue of “Islamic mismanagement in Egypt” from June 30, 2012 to June 30, 2013 –when the armed forces, though engaged in war in Sinai, came to the rescue of Egypt.  My sources are many, and my evidence is drawn from largely Egyptian voices.

I begin by Dr. Abdel-Monium Abu-Elfotooh, who was pushed out of the Muslim Brotherhood.  His views were those of reforming that historic organization which had suffered brutal suppression as of 1948.  In 1948, its founder Hassan El-Banna was assassinated by the regime of Ilbahim Abdel-Hadi.  The predecessor of Abdel-Hadi, Prime Minister Al-Nokrashi, had been killed in 1947 by the “Secret Wing” of the Muslim Brotherhood.  One of my several sources is in his book: “Innovators, Not Spoilers” (in Arabic, 2005).  That book by Abul-Elfotooh, which was published while he was a member of “The Guidance Bureau” of the Brotherhood, included his responses to a press interview.  On p. 103, he speaks the language of the 21^st century.

Abul-Fotooh told his interviewer (my translation): “I am fully supportive of the freedom of expression, including the freedom of apostasy (ilhad).  The Brotherhood is against all forms of exclusion, prohibitions or restraints on freedoms.  The Brotherhood is for a secular State not a religious State.  They do not reject a president for the Arab Republic of Egypt, even if that president was a Christian.  They do not condone anyone who pretends to speak in the name of the Almighty Allah (God).  The Brotherhood has no monopoly on Islam.”

Before the presidential run-off of Morsi vs. Shafik, I gave Abdul-Fotooh, as a presidential candidate, my vote.  He spoke my language.  He also seemed to anticipate my conclusions in the book on which I am working now for publication in New York to counter Islamophobia.  The title of this forthcoming book: “Sharia Legal Principles for the Twenty-First Century.”  I am dedicating that work to my late father, Sheikh El-Sayed Muhammad El-Ayouty, a graduate of Al-Azhar who taught Islamic philosophy and history.

My forthcoming book is also dedicated to the late Gamal El-Banna, who, though a brother of Hassan El-Banna, was kept by the clumsy conservatives of the Brotherhood, at arm’s length.  Gamal, the younger brother, espoused in several of his sources which he had gifted to m, the principle of “diversity” in Islam.  (I once carried his bags at the Geneva Airport).

One of his many books is entitled “Islam Is Faith and Community (ummah), Not Faith and a State.” (January, 2003).  He rebuts ten years earlier than the chants of the pro-Morsi crowds in Cairo for “a Caliphate” which arose as of 2013 following the collapse of the Morsi regime.  That chant was repeated on July 3 by El-Zawahri, Bin Laden's successor.  It was in the context of a threat addressed by that evil man against Obama.

On the dust jacket of that book by Gamal El-Banna, the author states that, “the Quran has addressed the Nation (Ummah) as a community of Muslims.  Nowhere does the Quran refer to a State.”  Then he defines the Ummah as “a diverse collectivity of mass organizations such as labor unions, political parties, charitable organizations, and civil society institutions.”

Within the two covers of that book by Gamal El-Banna, the central premise is "freedom of thought and expression is a sine qua non condition."  This is also a rebuttal to the thesis of Bernard Lewis especially in his book, “What Went Wrong:  The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East” (2012)

In effect, Gamal El-Banna is saying: “Professor Lewis: There is nothing wrong with Islam.  The wrong is with the thinking of the likes of the conservative wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.”  There is little doubt that handing the books by Bernard Lewis on Islam to US forces on their way to Afghanistan in 2002 could not have served the U.S. interest in reconciling with Islam in the aftermath of 9/11.

That colossal misunderstanding of Islam resulted from seeing that faith of 1.5 billion population through the prism of conservatives and so-called jihadis.  It is seeping through the present US assessment of the Second Egyptian Revolution.  Secretary of State Kerry, Secretary of Defense Hagel, US Ambassador to Cairo, Anne Patterson, are urging Cairo to release Morsi and to reach out to the Muslim Brotherhood.  The civilian and military leadership of the June 30 Revolution responded that the Brotherhood had rejected those overtures.  So far it has been a useless “dialogue of the deaf.” It it takes two to tango.

But we still also have unofficial US voices raising the proverbial stick.  Dennis Ross, former Middle East advisor to President Obama yells through the New York Times of July 30, that “the administration should make it clear that it has red lines that if crossed would result in a cutoff of aid.”  Then he goes on to suggest that the US “should enlist Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf emirates to pressure the generals.”  I wonder what Mr. Ross is smoking these days!!  He is presuming that these sovereign States are no more than US outposts in the Arab world.  And he also overlooks the political significance, though not the fact, that these are the very States which have just advanced $12 billion to Egypt.

Summing up the blessing by the Gulf States of the unseating of Morsi, Ambassador Bishara, the first Secondary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council wrote recently to me that: "No one ever thought of Egypt under a Mullah."

And there exists no “Faustian Pact: Between Generals and Democrats” in Egypt as claimed by Steven A. Cook, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in the title of his Op Ed page in the New York Times of July 26.  Such statements by Ross and Cook exemplify the disconnect between present day Egypt and the American foreign policy establishment.  A real shame!!. It was the founder of Saudi Arabia, the Bedouin King Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud who, when approached in the 1930s by the Muslim Brotherhood to allow for a branch of their movement in his Kingdom, refused.  His response was succinct: “Why? We are all brothers and we are all Muslims.”

Official reaction by Cairo to the characterization of the Second Egyptian Revolution as “the unraveling of Egypt” was swift.  Ahmed Al-Meslemani, the official spokesman of the Presidency declared: “Egypt is governed by the Egyptian House not by the White House.”

There were also unofficial voices raised in exasperation from what is perceived as US meddling in Egypt’s internal affairs.  A former dean of an Egyptian Law College told me on the phone: “If the Americans are enamored with the Muslim Brotherhood, they should give all of them visas –visas to Guantanamo.”

Owners of private micro-buses in Alexandria put up signs in the windshields of their vehicles: “No Muslim Brothers are allowed.  They cause fights to break out with ordinary passengers.”  Muhammad Al-Barghouthi, a journalist, wrote in the newspaper Al-Waltan, on July 30: “When it became clear that the political and moral legitimacy of the Brotherhood’s rule in Egypt was evaporating, the Brotherhood did nothing but cling to the results of the ballot box which brought them to power.”

Again to Abul-Fotooh’s book, “Innovators, Not Spoilers.” Here on page 113, he says while being a member of the Brotherhood's Guidance Bureau: “The Muslim Brotherhood has no experience in governance.  We are with whatever good they advanced, and against whatever mischief they perpetrated.  Don’t expect them to follow the example of the Taliban in forcing women to dress their bodies in tents, to destroy monuments or to ban music.”  That was before he was forced to quit the Brotherhood which embarked through the Morsi rule on just that perilous path.

So the U.S. should speak to the Second Egyptian Revolution softly and brandish no sanctions.  A distinguished Egyptian Ambassador, Dr. Mahmoud Karem, who is attached to the NATO Mission in Rome offered a sober counsel to both Egypt and the US.  In an article in English in Al-Abhram Weekly of July 9, 2013, entitled, "Cairo and Washington," he states in a conciliating tone: 

“We await a strong message from the U.S. anchored in strong ties of partnership with Egypt.  The U.S. inspiring constitution that leads with the well-known assertion ‘We the People’ should act as a harbinger for creating strong ties between both peoples.”

Ambassador Karem resorts to the U.S. Constitution as a possible ideological vehicle for a true Cairo-Washington rapprochement.  In that context, I, following his example, by resorting to U.S. laws anchored on the Constitution.  Therefore, I advance the following Q's and A's:

• Is occupancy by thousands of Morsi supporters of at least four main areas in Cairo for days "a peaceful demonstration?"

No!  The right to peaceful assembly is governed by three principles:  Time, Place and Manner.  Under US laws which underpinned the break-up of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement by the New York Police Department, the State acted on the basis of this tripod of legitimate freedom of assembly.  License to assemble is issued for a few hours, at a distance from buildings serving public or private functions, and without disturbing public peace and civilian activities.  Of course, no arms or threats of violence are permitted.  The sit-ins in Cairo have violated all the three parameters stated above.  They have become armed camps controlled by their organization.  The Egyptian authorities have the right and the obligation to put an end to that chaos.

•  Is the Egyptian Government entitled to marshal its armed and security forces to confront those who are abusing the right to freedom of assembly and of speech?

Of course.  There is chaos caused by the Brotherhood's hot-heads for the sole purpose of disenfranchising the 30+ millions of Egyptians who demanded Morsi's removal.  There is also a war in Sinai.  The Brotherhood have characterized the Egyptian Cabinet declaration of July 31 as "a declaration of war."  No reasonable person should support the shedding of blood of innocent civilians.  But the Islamist opposition, which is apparently armed for combat targeting the Second Egyptian Revolution by its own reaction to the call by the cabinet for the restoration of law and order, is inviting a lethal response.  This is a declaration of insurrection within Egyptian urban centers which is made more credible by the Brotherhood's declared support for the armed insurrection in Sinai.  A veritable civil war is in the making.  Let us recall that President Lincoln had to resort to the suspension of certain civil liberties under the Constitution as a means of keeping the Union together during the American Civil War.

• Are human rights organizations such as Amnesty International exercising their rightful global functions of enhancing the Rule of Law and the protection of civil liberties when they describe the warning by Cairo to the chaos-makers as "a recipe for bloodshed?"

Absolutely negative. 

Amnesty International is not a trustee over Egypt.  They have overstepped their moral and legal boundaries.  Theirs is an ill-advised characterization, thereby weakening their standing in Egypt, not to mention tarnishing the concepts of detachment and neutrality of other human rights organizations.  They are out of sync with the popular will manifested by the Second Egyptian Revolution.  Their scales and measurements are in sore need of adjustment by competent  professionals who know how to balance between civil liberties and national security.  Amnesty International could benefit from reading the transcripts of hearings held earlier this week by the US Senate Judicial Committee on the work of the National Security Agency.  That organization might also benefit by Secretary Kerry's statement on August 1 in Pakistan.  He declared that Egypt's military was restoring democracy in ousting Morsi.  His premise was that the "military was asked to intervene by millions and millions of people."   

At last, the U.S. is now speaking softly to the Second Egyptian Revolution.