The chief casualty of more bloodshed in Egypt to prop up Hosni Mubarak will be Israel’s security. The stakes for Israel are very high. Its only protectors in the Middle East are Mubarak and his coterie because most ordinary Egyptians hate Israel as do Islamists throughout the Arab world.
Even Egypt’s armed forces that receive at least $1.3 billion in annual aid from the US see Israel as the archenemy. If Mubarak falls, the 30-year-old understandings between him and Tel Aviv will be unraveled forever. The Jordanian King and the dictator of Yemen may also not survive their homegrown street protests.
No future Egyptian government will dare to give support to Israel if soldiers do fire on the people to save Mubarak’s throne. American prestige will be in tatters because few ordinary citizens will believe that such a thing could happen without White House connivance.
The US will bear condemnation because American-made tanks and armored vehicles line Cairo’s streets and soldiers carry America-made automatic weapons. They may be used against unarmed demonstrators fighting for the freedoms the US claims to promote unreservedly.
The prospect of considerable bloodshed is real because Mubarak has made no regime change worth the name to give hope to the protestors. Instead, he appointed top spy Omar Suleiman as his first ever Vice President to ensure continuity if he is forced to step down.
In real politick terms, Mubarak deserves protection because he has kept the cold peace with Israel. That peace is vitally important because no Arab coalition can mount military offensives against Israelis without Egyptian participation. He has also worked hard to protect Israelis by weakening Hamas and providing intelligence allowing the Tzahal to conduct targeted assassinations in Gaza and the West Bank.
So far, the Obama administration does not seem to have an action plan to protect Israel’s interests in this new and unexpected situation. In her round of Sunday talk shows, Hilary Clinton called for orderly transformation to democracy through elections already scheduled for September. She wants them to be free and fair. However to organize them, Mubarak will first have get much tougher to quell the rebellious streets. Weapons supplied by America may have to draw much more blood before Clinton’s solutions can be envisaged.
Obama called on Egypt to rise to freedom of expression in his historic Cairo speech at the start of his Presidency. Mubarak refused to listen and the people are now taking the law into their own hands. Clinton seems to think that those people will somehow become rational and wait for September elections. She also seems to expect that Mubarak will miraculously organize free and fair elections despite refusing to lift emergency laws for three decades to prevent just such a vote. Alternatively, the hope may be that protest will fizzle out of the protestors if enough time is bought through promises.
Whatever Clinton’s strategy, Israel and Washington should prepare for a post-Mubarak Middle East because he is a sick man who may soon be gone through natural causes. Nor can his pro-Israel and pro-US coterie survive for long if it sheds more blood now to save itself.