The ongoing events in Egypt are an unspeakable human tragedy. With yesterday’s death toll of 525 and rising violence in major Egyptian cities, the chances of a return towards anything resembling normalcy are very slim. The Muslim Brotherhood deserves a significant portion of the blame-–mostly for its complete failure in governing the country prior to the coup and also because their willful effort to be seen as martyrs in the aftermath of the military takeover. However, it is the military junta running the country that is now the single biggest factor driving the country towards a catastrophe.
The fact that the military has shut down the normal political process and proceeded with an extensive crackdown both against the leadership of the Brotherhood and its supporters, has created incentives for the rise in politically motivated violence and, potentially, terrorism. Princeton University economist Alan Krueger–author of What Makes A Terrorist, a book investigating the factors fostering political violence and terrorism–argued that
[t]errorists and their organisations seek to make a political statement; terrorists arise when there are severe political grievances with no alternatives for pursing those grievances.
This account describes perfectly the escalation of violence in Egypt after the military coup. Unfortunately, it is not clear that there is an easy way back. Ideally, one would hope that the Egyptian secular liberals engage with the Brotherhood, that the military relinquish its hold to power, lift the curfew, and renounce further repression, and that the Brotherhood and its various factions steer away from violence. Yet the probability of the simultaneous occurrence of all these events is rather small.
It is important to stress that the West has been complicit in the build-up of the current situation. Without a continual inflow of US military assistance (roughly $70 billion since the country’s independence), the Egyptian military would have hardly grown to be the unaccountable and opaque organization it is, controlling a large part of the Egyptian economy and effectively calling the shots in Egypt’s politics.
Alas, the behavior of Western policymakers in the aftermath of the coup has been equally embarrassing – notwithstanding the cancellation of joint military exercises with Egypt that President Obama announced today. Douglas Carswell, a member of the UK’s House of Commons, wrote an excellent blog post on the subject yesterday. He concludes by saying that
[b]y equivocating about the overthrow of Morsi (the US State Department won’t even call it a coup), Western governments seem to be doing all they can to validate the Brotherhood’s script. The more that we buddy up to the generals in Cairo, the further we legitimise the world view of people like Morsi.
Where is the principled opposition to military takeovers in London and Washington? Where is the condemnation of the treatment of Egypt’s democratically elected leader? Where is the loud, and uncompromising condemnation of this morning’s killings?
Perhaps this is what happens when we leave it to career diplomats to determine foreign policy. Equivocation and drift. It does not do us – or Egypt – any favours.
