That's my opinion also. I misunderstood you when you said "border security" would be more effective and cheaper. I thought you meant build a wall which is what prompted the wall discussion.
I highly doubt Egypt would be successfully capable of such a feat TBH. As strong as the military might be, that's a tall order and being realistic, I don't think the Egyptian army not only doesn't have the wherewithal, but neither the capability for an invasion of Libya. Besides the fact that it wouldn't serve any purpose except exacerbate an already exhausted situation, it would add an unimaginable burden on Egypt that it could hardly afford at this point. Totally unproductive.
We've been brothers and sisters forever. There should be a lot more love going on and what is happening is really too bad.
You are right. We are brothers and sisters, and building a wall won't really do much good.An invasion is also unlikely, as I don't really think that there will be any motivation to do this. You are right to say that Egypt is in a very tight place in here.
It's a very big price to pay to get rid of Arab dictatorships and it's even worst when outside superpowers are involved and the only real reason they get involved is not because of the great concept of democracy, that couldn't be further from the truth but rather the prospect of the economical benefit of controlling the primary natural resource.
I believe that the reason why the Arab Revolutions and the ascent of democracy have failed is mainly due to the fact that there is no organized force for Democracy. Nobody believes that the outside powers want a democracy in the Middle East. Every democratic country is a sovereign and strong country, two things they definitely don't want anywhere in the Middle East. If the country was the power's friend, it will end up like France and Turkey, with an independent foreign policy and a might that will bend the power's (in this case, American) wishes. If not, it will end up like Iran. We as Arabs are not easy to control, and we are paying the ultimate price for daring to stand up for our rights.
But isn't Libya quite distant from the UAE? Unless you think there is some active conspiracy between Egypt and the UAE to keep democracy away from Egypt itself, that I can see. But it's hard to accept the concept of squashing a possible democracy that would be thousands of km away from them just for the sake of diffusing any possible change to the standard monarchical or dictatorial leadership in the Arab world, let alone in the UAE. There must be some other motivation for the UAE in all of this, considering the tremendous amount of money they've invested in this war.
I believe that the emergence of a democracy in Libya may pave the way to the democratization of the rest of the Middle East due to its proximity to the heart of the Arab world, which is Egypt. The fact that Libya has a lot of oil per capita has prompted many people from places as far as Bangladesh to work in Libya, but before the war, Egyptians used to make up anywhere from 3% (200k) to 30% (2M) of our population.
The trouble with Tunisia is that it could wait. Its economic situation isn't getting better any time soon. But in Libya, it has a lot of money to prop up a massive public sector, so it is kind of like a UAE-style economic splurge that was planned by Islamist governments controlling the National Transitional Council and the Government of National Salvation. In the case of Libya, were all sanctions put down and funnelled to the government, it would have had the capacity, with enough reform, to make a Gulf State in North Africa. The immediate fear was that it would make democracy look viable. Libya was also unique in the fact that it is vulnerable and fractures, which would aid any deployment to its land, as it would be secret and would massively help any party they would like to win.
If Egypt goes democratic, so will many other countries around it. Because Egypt makes a primary part of Arabic culture and there is widespread Egyptian influence in the region. To risk losing Egypt would mean risking losing much of the Middle East.
As far as Egypt is concerned, IMO, I do share the same concerns about a true, democratic process with such a divided population. We saw the result of that with Morsi. The makeup of Muslim countries makes democracy a very challenging proposition in the sense that democracy -- as we know it -- is not conducive with Islam on many levels. It works much better in largely dominated secular societies and Egypt is the prime example of why it has failed and will probably keep failing. Maybe failing is too strong of a word and "manipulated" might be better.
I believe that the problem isn't really in Egypt, but the fact that there are so many foreign powers interfering, trying their best to get their interests to the front, that they essentially sabotage democracy for their interests. If you look at the democracies of Malaysia, Turkey and Indonesia, they are all large democratic Muslim countries, that in the cases of Malaysia and Turkey, are even more diverse than Egypt. The reason why so many youths support the democratic process nowadays is due to the feeling of despair over more of the same. Mubarak brought the same, and so did Sadat, after the change brought by Nasser. But the main pitch of El Sissi is that there will be more of the same. Democracy is by its nature messy and sometimes unstable, especially in its first years, but the good thing about it is that it doesn't kill or imprison people along the way. The good thing for Egypt is the fact that it has a very strong civil society, that gengs don't rule the majority of streets like in Latin America, and villages aren't burned down because a warlord was unsatisfied, as what happens in the DRC and South Sudan. This brings a hope that as long as the guys on top allowed, it can be democratic, and it can be a relatively clean democracy.
Looking at the recent elections in Egypt, it doesn't take a genius to realize what happened, of course. But the kicker will be in the next election since Sisi's full eligibility for 2 terms will be up and technically he won't be allowed to run again. What happens from here on until then will be critical to see if there will be any semblance of democracy.
And let's face it, it's much easier to have democracy in a smaller country like Tunisia which took advantage of the timing and speed of the revolution. It happened almost overnight where none of the outside powers got a chance to jump in and change the path. It's also a much less divided society (despite the large number of Islamist who have left to fight with ISIS), they don't have that dominant, Islamic organization that is quite prevalent in Egypt and other Arab countries. It's also not dominated by the military like in Egypt. That's another huge problem in Arab countries. The army has tremendous strength and with that strength comes that control which influences power. Factor all those elements and I think it's easy to see why Sisi would say Egypt is not ready for democracy and you'll also see why the overwhelming majority support that idea.
I do agree that Egypt was not quite ready institutionally for a democracy. I also hope that the constitution proves strong enough to bring El Sissi down if he tries for a third term.
The democracy in Tunisia actually started growing as embryo decades back, even before the time of Ben Ali. The elites at the time made sure that the Army is weakened, and therefore has no bargaining chips anywhere in the field of politics. It also has had an adventure with a free press. Its press has stayed somewhat independent of the state and elite for decades, which has also made it easier to transition. It also has all the courts as independent institutions, which means that many dissidents and other people had a right to a fair trial. So it was essentially a democracy without the ruler, but with everything else in place. I believe that Egypt must follow the same path.
If we look at the reasons for what happened in 2013, it becomes quite clear that Egypt's first attempt on democracy was premature. The constitution was very ambiguous, and so are the laws, meaning that anybody could do anything while not technically violating the constitution. This was the main reason, in my eyes, for the constitutional crisis. The election of Morsi also did a lot to polarise the divide between the civilian and military Governments. The Egyptian Army is independent, which meant that its dominance was feared by the likes of Morsi and the civilian govt, which unleashed a power struggle, which ended after Morsi tried to dissolve the Parliament. This power struggle meant the difference between an unchecked (potentially dictatorial) Morsi and an unchecked Army.
However, Sissi could do a lot more to allow democracy to take its first tentative steps without having to resort to elections. He could allow for a free press, stop imprisoning a lot of folks, and he could allow a concise constitution to solidify. But there is also another factor to take in, which is the fact that any of these would increase opposition to his rule. Freeing a lot of political prisoners will not mean that they will like him, but it will mean a larger threat to his rule. Having a concise constitution is like putting yourself in a cage. It does nothing but costrain the powers of the president.
So I believe that there will just be more of the same, but if the campaign to silence dissent continues, things may end up quite ugly.
