On Wed, 9 Feb 2011, Foreign Affairs was quoted as saying:
> http://www.foreignaffairs.com/ARTICLES/67351/joshua-stacher/egypts-democratic-mirage?page=show
>
> Egypt's Democratic Mirage
> How Cairo's Authoritarian Regime Is Adapting to Preserve Itself
>
> Despite the tenacity, optimism, and blood of the protesters massed in
> Tahrir Square, Egypt's democratic window has probably already closed.
<snip>
Which is ultimately based on this premise:
<quote>
The ... ruling military elite was clear, united, fully supportive of Mubarak, and disciplined practically down to a man....no acts of organizational fragmentation or dissent within the chain of command have occurred.
<unquote>
On its face, that seems pretty obviously wrong. The repressive apparatus looks full of splits. He asserts that behind it all is an ultimate puppetmaster but offers no evidence. He implies that it Mubarak who is that ultimate puppetmaster, but that seems even less likely.
IMHO, below is a more plausible description of the same set of events, describing the same opposite tacks as the result of such splits. The last paragraph seems to me key:
http://www.juancole.com/2011/02/mubaraks-basij.html
The outlines of Hosni Mubarak's efforts to maintain regime stability
and continuity have now become clear. In response to the mass
demonstrations of the past week, he has done the following:
1. Late last week, he first tried to use the uniformed police and
secret police to repress the crowds, killing perhaps 200-300 and
wounding hundreds.
2. This effort failed to quell the protests, and the police were then
withdrawn altogether, leaving the country defenseless before gangs of
burglars and other criminal elements (some of which may have been
composed of secret police or paid informers). The public dealt with
this threat of lawlessness by organizing self-defense neighborhood
patrols, and continued to refuse to stop demonstrating.
3. Mubarak appointed military intelligence ogre Omar Suleiman vice
president. Suleiman had orchestrated the destruction of the Muslim
radical movement of the 1990s, but he clearly was being groomed now as
a possible successor to Mubarak and his crowd-control expertise would
now be used not against al-Qaeda affiliates but against Egyptian civil
society.
4. Mubarak mobilized the army to keep a semblance of order, but failed
to convince the regular army officers to intervene against the
protesters, with army chief of staff Sami Anan announcing late Monday
that he would not order the troops to use force against the
demonstrators.
5. When the protests continued Tuesday, Mubarak came on television and
announced that he would not run for yet another term and would step
down in September. His refusal to step down immediately and his other
maneuvers indicated his determination, and probably that of a
significant section of the officer corps, to maintain the military
dictatorship in Egypt, but to attempt to placate the public with an
offer to switch out one dictator for a new one (Omar Suleiman, likely).
6. When this pledge of transition to a new military dictator did not,
predictably enough, placate the public either, Mubarak on Wednesday
sent several thousand secret police and paid enforcers in civilian
clothing into Tahrir Square to attack the protesters with stones,
knouts, and molotov cocktails, in hopes of transforming a sympathetic
peaceful crowd into a menacing violent mob. This strategy is similar to
the one used in summer of 2009 by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to raise the cost of protesting in the streets of
Tehran, when they sent in basij (volunteer pro-regime militias). Used
consistently and brutally, this show of force can raise the cost of
urban protesting and gradually thin out the crowds.
Note that this step number 6 required that the army agree to remain
neutral and not to actively protect the crowds. The secret police goons
were allowed through army checkpoints with their staves, and some even
rode through on horses and camels. Aljazeera English's correspondent
suggests that the military was willing to allow the protests to the
point where Mubarak would agree to stand down, but the army wants the
crowd to accept that concession and go home now.
<end quote>
Several things to note:
1) The army is a popular institution -- still. As many have pointed out, the maximum demands of the protestors -- Mubarak leaves, interim consensus govt installed under ElBaradei, new constitution written, new elections for a new parliament held under new constitution -- have nothing to do with revolution and don't affect the army which everyone knows is the ultimate power in the country. This is a reform movement through and through.
2) The army seems already completely reconciled to Mubarak going.
3) The army's primary goal seems to be all change is ok so long as they are left untouched.
4) Second goal: that they maintain their popularity.
5) Third and conflicting goal: the less change the better because safer to accomplish goal 1.
6) Against this background, the finesse of letting through the thugs on Friday was a calculated risk that failed. It didn't make the protestors go home, and it smirched the army's popularity, which up until that point had risen. Doing it again risks their ultimate goal.
So it seems to be things are still very much in flux. Mubarak's days seem numbered, and now it looks possible that the army might retreat another line and let Sulieman sink as well. It seems still quite possible that somehow there will be constitution writing convention, which is still the ultimate demand. I'm not saying that will happen. But this argument that the "window is closed" seems groundless. It's opener than it's ever been. FWIW.
The only truth in the FA article seems to be the obvious one that the army is still by far the strongest institution in Egypt; that this hasn't changed that; and that nothing looks to be changing that afterwards.
But it doesn't follow from that the democratic window is closed. On the contrary, its compatible with the ultimate demands thus far of the protestors.
What's funniest about this article is how conspiratorial-minded it is, assuming what is to be proven, namely that Mubarak is in total diabolical control, which there's a lot of evidence against. It sound very much like it was reeled of a dour Middle Easterner in a cafe. It's as if the author transcribed it from a native informant.
Michael