Anecdotal evidence from sources in Egypt puts today’s death toll at over 2000 although some government media reports put deaths at around 150 and the injured at less than 1500. Whatever the final figures, growing hatreds could trigger the region’s worst humanitarian crisis and a chaotic series of internal conflicts.
President Barack Obama’s new attempts to broker Israel-Palestine peace talks, which opened today in Jerusalem under a media blackout, could be derailed if the situation in Egypt worsens. Israel may have to slow down its already hesitant participation to focus on security if the Egyptian military is swamped by domestic conflicts and can no longer help Israel, especially at the Gaza border and in the Sinai.
The crackdown’s severity against the Muslim Brotherhood has changed the situation dramatically. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon reacted immediately. The UN is still gathering information but “it appears that hundreds of people were killed or wounded in clashes between security forces and demonstrators,” he said in a statement condemning the violence in “the strongest terms.
The military regime has promised elections in 2014 for a new democratically elected government to succeed deposed President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. If it continues violent crackdowns, getting all sides to the table may become impossible because of hatreds growing among those who want a separation between State and religion and others who wish to establish an Islamic State. At the same time, there are rifts among the secularists because they fear military dictatorship and among the protagonists of Islam, in particular between the Muslim Brotherhood and others.
The situation has changed dramatically because it is a short step from this bloody crackdown to anti-military insurgency if al-Qaeda affiliated radicals enter the country to fight alongside local Islamists. The Muslim Brotherhood loathes al-Qaeda style militancy and deeply mistrusts Egyptian political movements inspired by Saudi-style Salafi and Wahhabi Islamic beliefs. But the military crackdown ignites memories of decades of suffering at the hands of Egypt’s military and today’s horrors could push many towards radicalism.
In the past, armed militancy did not get sustenance because Muslim Brotherhood followers fighting the military and police since the 1920s had no experienced helpers. So they went underground and some leaders spent years in jails repeatedly. The situation is different now. Battle-hardened Islamic zealots, who have fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Mali, Niger and elsewhere, are keen to help with money, weapons and insurgency tactics. The only proviso is that the Egyptian radicals should fight not for democracy or a secular state but for an Islamic Sharia-based Sunni theocracy.
The UN, the US and other major powers seem to realize that an anti-military rebellion in Egypt assisted by veteran tacticians could devastate the country and destabilize the entire region much more severely than the war in Syria can. On the one hand, they think the military must be restrained because armed internal conflicts cannot solve Egypt’s political partitions. On the other, weakening or humiliating the military would present a power vacuum for the al Qaeda affiliated wolves salivating at Egypt’s gates. There can be no greater gain for the wolves than an Egypt that turns its back definitively on Israel.
Therefore, most major world leaders, including US President Barack Obama, spoke out strongly against the crackdown but were careful not to directly blame the military regime. Ban summarized most reactions when he urged all Egyptians to promote genuinely inclusive reconciliation while recognizing that political clocks do not run backwards.
Curiously, only Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan stood alongside the militant Hamas movement of Gaza in reacting fiercely. Both branded the killings as a “massacre” yet Hamas, itself an offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, was more moderate than Erdogan. Its representative said Hamas “condemns the massacres … and calls for an end to bloodshed and a halt to the killing of peaceful protesters”.
Instead, Erdogan who earlier called Morsi’s overthrow an unacceptable coup insisted “the international community, especially the UN Security Council and Arab League, must act immediately to stop this massacre”. He blamed the violent crackdown on international silence in recent weeks.
Ironically, Iran called for a “national dialogue and democratic process” but also said what others have avoided so far: “Undoubtedly the current approach … strengthens the likelihood of civil war in this great Islamic country.”
As usual, the world will look to Washington for solutions to conflicts born of Islam’s internal hatreds and hurdles in getting countries that have never known democracy to embrace good democratic governance suddenly. Erdogan has already made the first move. For Obama, preventing Egypt from becoming an Islamic or military dictatorship may be no less difficult than getting Israel and Palestine to talk peace.