- To Tunisia, where the Islamic party "Al-Nahda" gave up power to enhance democracy?. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood clung to power, refusing to compromise with the secularists;
- To Turkey, where Prime Minister Ordogan, skipping over his primary concern for civil peace in Turkey, preferring to interfere in Egypt's internal affairs?. In Egypt, the two revolutions resulted into a gush of nationalism that refused outside intervention.
- To the Ukraine or to Thailand, where mobs have overwhelmed their presidencies demanding regime change?. Egypt has already passed this hurdle except for the so-called Islamists challenge.
- To the U.K., where the country may break asunder if Scotland does not heed the pleading of Prime Minister Cameron not to secede?. Egypt's unity between North and South was already enshrined since the rule of Pharaoh Narmer 5000 years ago.
- To the U.S., where the great Jeffersonian democracy under the U.S. Constitution is daily threatened during the Obama administration with the unending stalemate between the Democrats and the Republicans?. In Egypt, it would be impossible to imagine a government shutdown for 16 days as happened in the U.S. in late 2012.
- To Russia, where four rebellions in its four corners are using terrorism as a means of gaining at least an autonomous special status within the Russian federation?. In Egypt, there are no such rebellions, except for random attacks on the transitional government which is fast learning how to employ counter-terrorism measures. As to Syria, or to Libya, or to Yemen - just forget it!!
If Zakaria employs that term as applicable to Egypt because of the rising level of terrorism in the country, it has been common wisdom since Lockerbie of 1981 that terrorism cannot be ended, but can be contained. Let us now look at the new phenomenon of so-called "jihadism" on the Egyptian front.
Is there anything new in that alarmist reporting about so called jihadists returning to Egypt to fight for the restoration of the Morsi regime? None whatsoever!! A researcher at the New America Foundation opines from the comfort of his office in Washington, D.C. that "Egypt is again an open front for jihad!!" On the basis of that faulty premise, the New York Times on February 6, 2014, goes on to describe Egypt as "the birthplace of political Islam," and as such "has sent fighters to battle zones from Kandahar to the Caucasus for decades."
The facts are: the Muslim Brotherhood, from 1928 to 1954, had no record of mass violence. Calling Egypt, where the Brotherhood was founded, "the birthplace of political Islam," is sheer ignorance. And sending fighters to battle zones, as if terrorism is stamped with a "made in Egypt" label, has no demonstrable evidence. Above all, there is no terror ideology that has its roots in any faith, Islam included.
An entire dictionary of terms defining terrorism has grown like poison ivy on the walls of Islam. It has become the source for faulty labels, including the term "jihadism." In Islamic law (Sharia), there is no aggressive war, only defensive war, and there is no principle which calls for killing the innocent. The only explanation which I find admissible in the media jargon about the so-called "political Islam," "jihadism," and "Islamic terrorism" is the thread of Islamophobia. Terrorism has no religion.
It is interesting to note that U.S. media, including Zakaria's CNN weekly program, has scoured the entire map of the Muslim World to select "a birthplace" for terrorism. Their faulty GPS pointed first to Tehran, then to Riyadh, then to Islamabad, then to north-east Afghanistan. Each one of these locations had its place in the hot sun of adverse publicity. The fact of the matter is that terrorism travels, and its spread from southeast Asia to the Caucasus, and from Kandahar to Timbuktu is an aspect of its morphing into a franchise. And Islam, as a cover, is readily available. Why? Because any Muslim can claim the right to render a fatwa (a non-enforceable legal opinion), under the guise of ijtihad.
As the pendulum of approbation/disapprobation swings now in media thinking, and is now disfavoring post-Mubarak/post-Morsi Egypt, the history of U.S./Egyptian relationship has kept up with its gyrations. During the dictatorial Mubarak regime, Egypt was one of "the black holes" to which America's "enforced rendition" of suspected terrorists for the purpose of torture was a common practice. When the dictatorship of Mubarak was ended by the millions in Tahrir, and was followed by electing Morsi as President, one of the primary supporters of his Brotherhoodization of Egypt was Ann Patterson, former U.S. Ambassador to Cairo. That support remained undiminished even after the Egyptians by the millions, protected by the military, caused Morsi's ouster.
It was therefore not surprising to hear Michael McFaul, the present U.S. Ambassador to Moscow who is leaving his post to academia at Stanford define Russia's attitude toward the U.S. On Zakaria's CNN program he stated: "Most Russians believe that the U.S. is fomenting regime change around the world." It was a shrewd move by Putin to send "good luck" greetings early this week to Field Marshal El-Sisi.
Within a few days of that revealing statement by McFaul came another revelation to confirm that notion. It was in a taped conversation between a U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland and the American Ambassador to the Ukraine. That exchange, which included an expletive against the European Union by that senior lady diplomat, evidenced Washington's activism in the internal affairs of the Ukraine, the birthplace of pre-communist Russian nationalism.
All of the above makes the present reading of the works of the late Robert A. Dahl a must. Dahl defined American politics and power in a very refreshing and authentic way. He said: "Instead of single center of sovereign power, there must be multiple centers of power, none of which is or can be wholly sovereign."
Mr. Fareed Zakaria: If Egypt, in your oscillating judgements is now "a mess," then how would you impartially describe the inability of President Obama to get his important reformist agenda legislated except by resorting to bypassing Congress through executive orders as per his constitutional right? Until today, one-hundred sixty-eight executive orders have been issued by President Obama to get the U.S. moving ahead in spite of the insane politics of the Tea Party, Senator Ted Cruz, and the political hordes of the American political right.
Fareed: You have a pulpit, CNN, which is huge by comparison to mine, this weekly blog. You get paid for using CNN as a medium; I don't get paid for writing this blog. Your is for what goes for public information; mine is for public education. In spite of these differences, there should be similarities -sticking to credible facts, and making judicious conclusions based on them. Though we share in being both U.S. naturalized citizens, we do not share in many outlooks, especially when it comes to the role of the military in national crises.
For example, I see no stigma attached to Egypt's difficult transition to democracy, even if El-Sisi, through the coming presidential elections, becomes the third Egyptian president in the post-Mubarak era, succeeding Morsi, then Mansour. From your recent interview with Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi of Egypt at Davos, your questions were laced with negativity about this prospect.
Personally, I look upon it this way: There is a qualitative difference between a military man becoming, through democratic means, the ruler of Egypt, and an America which practices democracy at home, but uses military rule off shore -Guantanamo!!
This, to me as a law professor, is a form of political/military laundering using the tactics of money laundering in the Caribbean. The same American tactic has been perfected in "forced rendition" to other countries, in the prisons in Abu Ghraib (Iraq) and in Pagram (Afghanistan).
Then that tactic was elevated to a new science: shifting parts of the U.S. military power abroad to private security companies, like the infamous Black Water of Erik Prinz. Black Water was even given diplomatic immunity by the U.S. State Department as if it was a sovereign entity.
So when Black Water killed 17 innocent civilians in Iraq in 2007 in Al-Nesoor Square, Baghdad, immunity sheltered it from prosecution. When later I visited the scene of that war crime in Baghdad, I knew that I was standing on the ground of a real American mess!!
So, Fareed (your name in Arabic is translated into "unique"): The mess exists only through your process of subjective selection!! Unfortunately, this has become your unique fare which on your weekly CNN program, you preface it by : "I have today for you a great show!!"
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