Mubarak and Friends
Scheme to Short-Circuit Egyptian Revolt
"Mubarak, the army and probably the United States have agreed on a scenario, the implementation of which would safeguard their respective interests. ... The obvious goal is to break the solidarity between the middle and lower classes, thus reducing the range and significance of the movement now shaking the country."
The
Egyptian street is rejecting Mubarak's responses to its revolt. Egyptians
rightly see them as an operation designed to save a system that they no longer
want and to arrange an honorable exit for Mubarak, whose departure they demand.
After
having the existing government "resign," the besieged president has
charged General Ahmed Shafik
with forming a new one, and has named the head of the Egyptian secret service as
vice president. Appointing figures like this to the key positions of prime
minister and vice president is simply a sign that Mubarak, the army and
probably the United States have agreed on a scenario, the implementation of
which would safeguard their respective interests. In fact, if imposed, this
scenario will allow Mubarak to step down from power in the short-term, without
being forced to hastily flee in the style of his fellow dictator, Tunisian Zine El Abidine Ben
Ali.
For
the army, this transfer of power conducted by Mubarak in favor of the two
generals will avoid creating an institutional vacuum that would have consequences
dreaded by a regime whose backbone is the military. Finally, for the United
States, this guarantees that power in Egypt will be exercised by a team established
by the strategic alliance sealed between the two countries at the time of Anwar
Sadat and upheld by Hosni Mubarak.
But
in order for this to happen as it has been framed, the street revolt must end.
Now, despite the introduction of a curfew, the deployment of the army and its
threat to suppress the popular unrest, the Egyptian people continue their
demonstrations, rejecting both Mubarak and the "changes" he has made.
Things
have now reached the point that a confrontation between the army and protesters
may be inevitable. So as to avoid appearing to exercise repression against the people,
officials are determined to put a stop to the uprising and are striving to
create a security environment that would legitimize, in the eyes of a portion
of the population and internationally, a "muscular" military intervention
against demonstrators. The arrival of "bands of looters," the sacking
of public buildings and private property, and above all the escape of a 1,000
prisoners, among them Islamist detainees suspected of taking part in terrorist
operations, are hardly "spontaneous." All of this occurred under the eyes
and noses of police and military forces omnipresent on the ground.
The
obvious goal is to break the solidarity between the middle and lower classes, thus
reducing the range and significance of the movement now shaking the country.
If, out of fear of this deliberately programmed chaos, the first group abandons
the fight to bring down the regime, the architects of its survival will have
won the game.
Egypt
then, for the price of a superficial reform of the regime, will once again fall
into the throes of a "soft" dictatorship that ensures the wealth and
privileges of a minority that ignores the frightful misery in which the vast
majority of the Egyptian people languish.
