For geo-politically challenged Americans hoping for the next paycheck and seeing no further than our ocean’s shorelines, I have a message: Cairo (Egypt, not Ohio) is on fire.
You may have seen it live on TV. Keep watching. What’s happening in Egypt and a few, for now, other Middle Eastern nations, could come back and bite you on the butt where you stash your wallet.
It’s that oil thing, you know. Also Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. It’s happened already with Hezbollah taking control of Lebanon. Muslims may be shooting each other today, but what beckons for tomorrow?
And for you political watchers, this isn’t turning into Obama’s most shining moment.
The live videos we see on TV from news networks and the social networking folks is the right stuff. Those interpreting what’s going on the streets is an entirely different matter.
It is my experience that covering these fast-breaking international stories to be wary of the messenger. Every participant has an agenda and in the Middle East they back it up with bombs and guns.
I don’t pretend to offer you the latest breathtaking news flash, but here are a couple of sources I found worthy of note.
Rather, as the U.S. president is doing, I’m trying to figure out what’s going on and what it means and, mercifully, don’t have to cover my butt for saying something some people considered dumb as Barack Obama did.
“If delivering homilies is all Obama intends to do for the Egyptian people, he risks losing all freedom-seeking youth in the Arab world for a long time,” writes Brij Khindaria, TMV Foreign Affairs Columnist.
“(Egyptian president Hosni) Mubarak will either stay by shedding blood and spreading fear or he will fall after blood sacrifice by the people. Obama will look awful in either case.”
I think Obama is buying time to figure out with the rest of us what the hell’s going on, no thanks to his intelligence and diplomats, apparently.
In an overview, Kathleen Troia “K.T.” McFarland, a Fox News National Security Analysis, offers this:
From what we can tell, the Egyptians taking to the streets in Cairo appear to be young, well-educated, and pro-democracy. They’re demanding economic and political reforms for a country that has been ruled for 30 years by a dictator who is corrupt and incompetent and has left their country in economic chaos.
They are NOT – at this point – motivated by religion. They do NOT want to replace President Mubarak with an Islamic regime of ayatollahs.
But, as happened with Iran in 1978 when the Shah was toppled, what started as a pro-democracy movement can very quickly be brushed aside by radical Islamists, like the Muslim Brotherhood.
That’s Fox News’ take playing the national security fear card. Yes, a definite possibility.
Not far behind is Israel, which is in the middle of this potential conflagration. An AP dispatch:
Eli Shaked, a former Israeli Ambassador to Egypt said to Channel 10 TV Saturday that if Mubarak’s reign is destabilized, radical Egyptian Islamists could fill the void.
“It’s good that Israel is keeping quiet, but there is no doubt that what is happening in Egypt is not good for Israeli interests,” Shaked said. “It will only be a matter of time before a leader of the revolution arises and he will come from the Muslim Brotherhood, they are the ones that will take advantage of the situation,” Shaked said.
The U.S. has spent $67 billion on Egypt in the past half century just to be good buddies. Tom Curry, MSNBC National Affairs Writers, interviews two eggheads who seem to be at loggerheads at what’s going on.
…Steven Cook, a fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations who just returned to Washington from Cairo, thinks the end game may be nearer than many suppose. He referred to the events he witnessed there as “the apparent decomposition of the Mubarak regime.”
Even with an army and police crackdown, he said, “It is still by no means clear that Mubarak can hang on.”
One plausible scenario, according to Cook, would be for the military to shunt aside the 82-year old Mubarak and then “reconstitute the regime under new leadership.”
But that is unlikely to appease the Cairo protesters, who voiced “a desire to live in a more open and democratic society,” he said, adding that “I heard very little about economic grievances.”
But what if the protests ultimately lead to a new government in Cairo that resents American support for Mubarak, who has ruled since 1981?
That, Kurtzer said, is a hypothetical question. “I don’t even think we’re close to that,” he said.
But Steven Cook, a fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations who just returned to Washington from Cairo, thinks the end game may be nearer than many suppose. He referred to the events he witnessed there as “the apparent decomposition of the Mubarak regime.”
Even with an army and police crackdown, he said, “It is still by no means clear that Mubarak can hang on.”
One plausible scenario, according to Cook, would be for the military to shunt aside the 82-year old Mubarak and then “reconstitute the regime under new leadership.”
But that is unlikely to appease the Cairo protesters, who voiced “a desire to live in a more open and democratic society,” he said, adding that “I heard very little about economic grievances.”
And, then, there’s the U.S. finger in the soup in this report from NBC’s Richard Engel who knows the countries he’s covering:
ENGEL: You talked earlier about anti-American sentiment and a lot of that has been because the United States while today the Press Secretary is saying how they’ve been talking about Egypt and the need for reform and bringing up this at every meeting that’s not the way many Egyptians see it. Most Egyptians see the United States as having stood solidly by President Mubarak while the government here grew more and more corrupt. And they see the Americans as complicit in it. And just today, for example, when we were out on streets this is what a lot of people were showing us about American involvement. If you can see in my hands this is one of the tear gas canisters and very clearly written in English on it, it says “Made in the USA by Combined Tactical Systems from Jamestown, Pennsylvania. And they say this is the kind of support that the United States has been giving to the Egyptian government and bears some responsibility, although today it it trying to say that it never backed Mubarak so much, it has been calling for reforms for a long time, Egyptians don’t see it that way.
From what I have seen from the reportage end, those who know and those who are blowing smoke, it appears that the best stuff is coming from reporters years in the Middle East and those from the Arab news stations. Caution: The Arab newscasters are no different than watching the same story handled in the U.S. between Fox and MSNBC. They have axes to grind.
But the worst of them all are the U.S. politicians groveling for air time. Unless it is a grown-up such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, most are dispensing hot air.
Jerry Remmers worked 26 years in the newspaper business. His last 23 years was with the Evening Tribune in San Diego where assignments included reporter, assistant city editor, county and politics editor.