DAYTONA BEACH -- By now you know the story all too well: On the 11th anniversary of the destruction of the Twin Towers, an Egyptian mob attacked the American Embassy in Cairo, scaled the wall, tore down and destroyed the American flag and replaced it with an Islamic banner containing the Arabic slogan, “Allah’s Messenger is Mohammad.”
This attack is a clear violation of international law, one of the most important elements of which is the inviolability of foreign embassies, which are regarded as the sovereign territory of their nations.
In this case, the incident was made even more outrageous by the inaction of Egyptian police and by rumors that Egyptian authorities were aware of the impending attack several days in advance but did nothing to stop it.
The story is that the mob was angered by the showing in the United States of an anti-Islamic video produced by an Israeli-American and a right-wing pastor from Florida, which attacks Islam and ridicules the prophet Mohammad.
Anger at this video is said to have led to the same day assault on our embassy in Cairo and also to the armed attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, where our Ambassador and three other American diplomats were killed.
Apparently hoping to defuse the rage of the crowd and prevent the mob attack from spreading or being repeated, Embassy Cairo issued a conciliatory, almost apologetic statement condemning the producers of the video for misusing the right of free speech to attack the religious freedom of others. Especially in a significant US embassy, like that in Cairo, no message of this import would be issued without having first been cleared and approved by the State Department or perhaps the White House.
But in this case both the State Department and the White House claim that they never approved the embassy’s statement, which the White House pointedly disavowed and which has since been withdrawn from government websites. I assume that the disavowal was made for domestic political reasons.
Fox News and other conservative media are roundly criticizing the State Department and the Obama Administration for what they see as yet another abject apology for imagined American transgressions while ignoring the fact of the assault itself.
Fox may well be right, although absent evidence of any willingness by the authorities to disperse the mob or to protect the Embassy and/or other American installations and personnel located throughout Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt, it would not make much sense to further inflame the crowd at this point.
In fact, it would have been better to issue no immediate statement at all, at least until the extent and impact of the mob’s assault was clear both in Cairo and in Washington.
All of that said, it seems to me that both Fox News and the State Department’s statement are missing a very significant point. While the video is what inflamed individual members of the mob, it is not, in my opinion, the core reason for the attack.
The single most important issue in Egyptian politics today is the power struggle between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Ever since the signing of the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt in 1978 – an agreement which is intensely unpopular in Egypt - the Egyptian military has enjoyed a close relationship with the United States involving billions in American aid and immense personal profits to various Egyptian generals stemming from their political and economic control of the country.
The recently overthrown Hosni Mubarak was the personification of that relationship. Thus Washington and the Egyptian military are closely identified in the minds of the average Egyptian.
In many Islamic countries, as in Iran in 1979, it has been a common tactic to assault the friend of one’s enemy in order to embarrass and weaken that enemy. I believe that that is what we are seeing today in Cairo. I suspect, but cannot prove, that the Muslim Brotherhood is using the US Embassy as a pawn in its domestic power struggle with the military, which retained much of its power and influence despite the fall of Mubarak.
In many Islamic countries, as in Iran in 1979, it has been a common tactic to assault the friend of one’s enemy in order to embarrass and weaken that enemy. I believe that that is what we are seeing today in Cairo. I suspect, but cannot prove, that the Muslim Brotherhood is using the US Embassy as a pawn in its domestic power struggle with the military, which retained much of its power and influence despite the fall of Mubarak.
Indeed, the single most important political step taken by President Morsi (who just returned from an Islamic summit in Tehran, Iran) since his election was a measure splitting his military opponents by removing many of the senior generals and replacing them with hungry lower level officers who are presumably more beholden to Morsi and the Brotherhood.
Assuming that it was the Egyptian government or the Muslim Brotherhood that clandestinely incited and rallied the mob – a simple task in a great many Islamic countries – then the video was merely an excuse for the mob attack.
Sooner or later another excuse would have presented itself and the attack would have taken place anyway.
Since the attack not only has the Egyptian government failed to issue a clear condemnation of the assault but the Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi’s political and philosophic sponsor, has called for a public apology from the United States for the video and imprisonment of the film’s producers, whom the Brotherhood described as “mad men.”
If I am correct that it is the intent of the mob’s organizers to make America the target of mass popular resentment, a good deal of that feeling will be transferred over to the military because of its long association with us. And if that is so then the statement sissued by the Embassy and later by President Obama are largely irrelevant in Egyptian terms.
For the moment embassy staff have resumed work but for how long? The Embassy might be attacked again or some sort of long term occupation of the grounds or of the chancery itself might be undertaken.
Unless and until the Egyptian government of President Morsi shows itself unequivocally ready to act against such a mob, no statement by the United States will have the slightest positive impact on the situation.
Unless and until the Egyptian government of President Morsi shows itself unequivocally ready to act against such a mob, no statement by the United States will have the slightest positive impact on the situation.
It is possible that the Egyptian military could act to support the embassy should that be necessary in the future. But this would create a direct confrontation with Morsi and the Brotherhood which Morsi does not seem to anticipate, but which I imagine he has calculated that he could win via mass popular pressure of the sort which collapsed the Mubarak regime in the first place.
It is also possible that the mob, believing that they really are protesting the anti-Islamic video, will not return, feeling that they have made their point. The next few days should tell the tale.
If the mob remains or returns and Morsi begins to claim that he cannot simply drive them away but rather must persuade them to leave, we should expect to see them settle in, raise tents, feeding centers, field mosques and all the accoutrements of a long term political demonstration such as that in Tahrir Square which started the whole popular uprising in Egypt. Then it will be the terms of the occupation that will matter.
For example, will Americans be permitted to come and go freely from the embassy? Will the embassy chancery itself be occupied? Will other Americans or their offices or businesses in Cairo or elsewhere in Egypt be at risk? Will there be a media frenzy of the sort that covered the 444-day term of the hostages in Iran?
One thing is clear: The US-Egyptian relationship will suffer from this. If it drags on very long, the whole thing will be trashed. Yet that relationship has, since 1978, been the keystone of the entire American position within the Arab World.
Even if nothing further happens it will be tempting to Washington to respond with harsh decisive action, such as a complete aid cutoff. But keep in mind that almost all of our aid goes to the military, which we must now count on to press for re-establishment of a workable degree of pro-western stability in Egypt.
Should we cut aid ties with the Egyptian military, it will have no reason not to slide into the orbit of the Brotherhood, which could soon lead to a more radical Egypt which has abandoned the Camp David Accords and once again fortified its border with Israel. And this at precisely the time when American relations with Israel are even further strained over the implications of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
In short, Washington’s mismanagement of our role and misuse of our influence in the Arab Spring and regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons program have gotten us into a very serious mess in the Middle East. It will require wise, well-informed and sure-handed leadership, from the front not from behind, to get out of it.
I do not see that leadership coming from Barack Obama’s Washington. Only a foreign affairs neophyte with the boundless naivete of a narcissist would leap to the conclusion that mass movements in countries with no experience of democracy could come to power and replicate Western forms of government.
Only a leader of vast ignorance and wholly unjustified self confidence would conclude that governments emerging from such a process would necessarily set aside whatever radical Islamic tendencies their societies might have and seek friendship with the United States. And only a totally feckless leader would dump proven allies of decades’ standing to chase after rainbows and unicorns.
Yet that is exactly what Obama has done, in Egypt and elsewhere. America will be very lucky to come out of the current mess in Egypt without suffering serious damage from Obama’s incompetence.
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