Mohamed Morsi victory unsettles Middle East neighbours

[Banu Umayyah]

Mohamed Morsi victory unsettles Middle East neighbours
Domestic issues will dominate the president's agenda, but Egypt's relations within the Middle East will require sensitivity

Mohamed Morsi's victory in Egypt's presidential election has brought him congratulations from across the Middle East. But there have also been mixed feelings, loaded messages from Israel to Iran, and uncertainty about the future direction of policy.

Islamists everywhere were delighted by the historic achievement for Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, but conservative monarchies hoping to avoid the Arab spring unrest were not. Compliments from Saudi Arabia, where King Abdullah still laments the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, sounded distinctly formal.

Morsi's main challenges lie in the domestic arena, with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf) determined to hold on to its powers to control defence, foreign policy and internal security. "There will be no dramatic changes," predicted the Egyptian analyst Said Shehata.

Still, even a weak president will want to speak out on the sensitive issue of Egypt's peace treaty with Israel. The Brotherhood's position, reiterated on Sunday, is respect for international commitments, though that does not preclude an attempt to renegotiate military deployments in Sinai.

Abrogation of the 1979 treaty would return Egypt to a state of war that cost it thousands of lives and would risk strategic relations with the US.

It is hard, too, to imagine any tolerance for Mubarak-era support for the blockade of the Gaza Strip, where jubilant Hamas leaders hailed Morsi's victory as "a defeat for the programme of normalisation and security co-operation with the enemy". The Rafah border is likely to be more open to Palestinians, though without triggering an immediate crisis with Israel.

Yediot Aharonot, Israel's largest-circulation newspaper, expressed alarm about what it called "darkness in Egypt" – a reference to one of the biblical 10 plagues. That was in contrast to a terse formal message from Binyamin Netanyahu but reflected popular Israeli fears about the long-term dangers of the Arab spring.

Morsi's first foreign problem arrived from Iran, where a news agency quoted the new Egyptian president on Monday as saying he wanted to reconsider peace with Israel. That was swiftly and emphatically denied, as was the reported statement that he wanted to see a "balance of pressure" in the region.

US diplomacy towards Egypt is based on the assumption Scaf will retain control of these issues. The US will be anxious to keep overflight agreements and free passage through the Suez canal. The generals will not want to jeopardise $1.3bn in annual US military aid.

"Morsi will not make any difference on the Palestinians or the treaty with Israel," said Nadim Shehadi of Chatham House. "It will be a continuation of the old system when the military and Brotherhood play good cop/bad cop and keep the balance."

Middle East expert Juan Cole wrote in Informed Comment: "Mursi and his colleagues will only change things at the margins for US policy."

Morsi's reputation for caution was reinforced recently when he dismissed as "delusional, slanderous and baseless" the suggestion that the Brotherhood had direct relations with Iran or Hezbollah, its Lebanese ally. "We will never stand with the forces who threaten friendly countries in the Arabian Gulf," he pledged.

Iran and Saudi Arabia are at odds over Bahrain and Syria so any rapprochement between Cairo and Tehran would anger the Saudis and Gulf partners. That could risk economic aid and investment in Egypt.

The Saudis backed Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak's last prime minister and Morsi's rival for the presidency. So whatever else happens, "Egypt's relations with Saudi Arabia will never be the same again," suggested Ahmed Asfahani, the respected al-Hayat columnist.

Jordan, another western-backed Arab monarchy nervous about the pressures of the Arab spring, will be privately unhappy about Morsi's victory – not least because it will encourage the country's Islamic Action Front, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Morocco shares similar concerns.

In Syria, where the Brotherhood makes up a significant part of the anti-Assad opposition, the government offered its formal congratulations, avoiding the awkward question of whether Damascus is likely to see a free and democratic election soon.

 

[agentny17]

I just we can focus in building a better economy for now and building better relations with all our neighbors.

 

[Banu Umayyah]

I just we can focus in building a better economy for now and building better relations with all our neighbors.

With defense, justice and interior affairs in the hand of Scaf, Morsi has no option but to focus on economy.

 

[Solomon2]

Second Thoughts on Morsi's Victory

27 June 2012

Robert Satloff, the executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says “it would be a grave error…to fixate on the obstacles the [Egyptian] army has put in the way of the Islamists without appreciating the latter's remarkable ability to fill any political vacuum they are permitted to fill.” After thinking about this for a day or so, I think he’s right. My initial reaction to Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi’s victory two days ago was a little too flip.

I’ve been half-expecting a less bloody version of the Algeria crisis in the 1990s where the secular police state voided the election after the Islamists won, precipitating civil war. It’s still too soon to rule that out, but let’s assume for now that it won’t happen, that the Muslim Brotherhood has some (albeit limited) power right now and will use as much of it as possible to transform Egypt in its own image. What should we expect to see happen?

Here’s Satloff on the regional ramifications:

While confirmation of Morsi's victory may spare Egypt a potentially violent faceoff between Islamists and the military, the shockwaves will be felt across the Middle East. This ranges from the wilderness of Sinai, where more-violent Islamists will push the Ikhwani leader toward confrontation with Israel; to the suburbs of Aleppo and Damascus, where the Morsi example will be a fillip to Islamists fighting Alawite rule; to the capitals of numerous Arab states, especially the monarchies, where survivalist leaders mortified by the prospect that Islamist revolutions could trump their claims of religious legitimacy will double-down on their velvet-glove/iron-fist strategies to fend off the fervor for change.

Reactions will differ by country. Wealthy Gulf states, more fearful of the Brotherhood's populist message than welcoming of its Islamist content, will offer aid to Egypt, but only enough to keep the country hungry without starving. Jordan, caught between an Egyptian Islamist rock and a Syrian jihadist hard place, will move closer to Washington and Israel. For its part, Israel will cling to the SCAF, with whom it has more intimate contact and better relations today than at any point in years. In other words, everyone will play for time.​

But what happens after time passes? A now-volatile place like Egypt can’t remain in a holding pattern forever.

Here is Lee Smith in Tablet:

The Brotherhood, as the culmination of the Muslim reform movement, is the embodied critique of modern Muslim communities. The lands of Islam were inferior to the West because of how Muslims practiced Islam. The problem then is not that this well-oiled political machine has never actually governed a country or managed an economy, or that its practical political theory is derived from a 7th-century desert utopia ruled by the prophet of Islam. The real issue is that the Brotherhood perceives itself as a corrective—not simply to the Mubarak regime, but to the way ordinary Egyptians have conducted their affairs for the last half millennium or so. This is the Brotherhood’s ideological core, which may well spell disaster not only for the rights of women and minorities, but also for millions of other Egyptians.

Morsi has said that he is the president for all Egyptians. The question is how, particularly in the middle of an international economic meltdown, he can reconcile more than 80 million Egyptians to the Brotherhood’s rule. What has made the organization attractive for all these years is not its vision, its policies, whatever those turn out to be, but rather resistance, negation, a dynamism built on the foundations of conflict. Morsi will likely have little choice in the matter: To manage an Egypt perpetually on the verge of chaos, he will have to project internal conflict outward. In due time, Egypt will make war either on itself, or on Israel.​

Sorry to be grim here, but I see no possibility whatsoever of a happy outcome in this country. Egypt is by far the most Islamist place I’ve ever seen. That volcano can only stay plugged for so long.

***

Patrick Lasswell

Michael,

It is worth noting that you haven't been to Saudi Arabia or rural Iran, so there are some pretty Islamist places you haven't been.

I don't disagree that the Muslim Brotherhood is pushing Egypt off a cliff, but it is worth noting that they are pushing themselves off a cliff, too. As someone who cares about the megadeaths that necessarily follow the Muslim Brotherhood's choices, it is painful to look at what happens next.

For reference, the megadeaths that are going to occur in Egypt happen regardless of if Israel is physically removed from the planet by aliens tomorrow. Islamism is so controlling that before much longer the ramshackle arrangements that keep the food moving into the country are going to fail. Try not to fixate on the terrible glory of war's blood and thunder; famine and starvation induced plague will kill more than bullets or bombs.

In many ways the Muslim Brotherhood is dependent on Israel's existence to excuse their ideology driven incompetence and corruption. Next comes the bitter harvest of Islamism's discontent They've gotten too big not to fail, and their political successes will show all the stark failure of their policies.

 

[ihealugo]

i don't think that egypt can improve for now , they must kick the balls of tantavi and then they can start to improve their economy etc ...

 

[EGMI]

its not the time for war