- Introduction
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- To understand the Obama regime's policy toward Egypt,
the Mubarak dictatorship and the popular uprising it is essential to locate
it in an historical context. The essential point is that Washington, after
several decades of being deeply embedded in the state structures of the
Arab dictatorships, from Tunisia through Morocco, Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon,
Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority, is attempting to re-orient
its policies to incorporate and/or graft liberal-electoral politicians
onto the existing power configurations.
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- While most commentators and journalists spill tons
of ink about the "dilemmas" of US power , the novelty of the
Egyptian events and Washington's day to day policy pronouncements, there
are ample historical precedents which are essential to understand the strategic
direction of Obama's policies.
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- Historical Background
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- US foreign policy has a long history of installing,
financing, arming and backing dictatorial regimes which back its imperial
policies and interests as long as they retain control over their people.
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- In the past, Republican and Democratic presidents worked
closely for over 30 years with the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican
Republic; installed the autocratic Diem regime in pre-revolutionary Vietnam
in the 1950's; collaborated with two generations of Somoza family terror
regimes in Nicaragua; financed and promoted the military coup in Cuba 1952,
Brazil 1964, Chile in 1973, and in Argentina in 1976 and the subsequent
repressive regimes. When popular upheavals challenged these US backed
dictatorships, and a social as well as political revolution appeared likely
to succeed, Washington responded with a three track policy: publically
criticizing the human rights violations and advocating democratic reforms;
privately signaling continued support to the ruler; and thirdly, seeking
an elite alternative which could substitute for the incumbent and preserve
the state apparatus, the economic system and support US strategic imperial
interests.
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- For the US there are no strategic relationships only
permanent imperial interests, name preservation of the client state. The
dictatorships assume that their relationships with Washington is strategic:
hence the shock and dismay when they are sacrificed to save the state
apparatus. Fearing revolution, Washington has had reluctant client despots,
unwilling to move on, assassinated (Trujillo and Diem). Some are provided
sanctuaries abroad (Somoza, Batista),others are pressured into power-sharing
(Pinochet) or appointed as visiting scholars to Harvard, Georgetown or
some other "prestigious" academic posting.
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- The Washington calculus on when to reshuffle the regime
is based on an estimate of the capacity of the dictator to weather the
political uprising, the strength and loyalty of the armed forces and the
availability of a pliable replacement. The risk of waiting too long, of
sticking with the dictator, is that the uprising radicalizes: the ensuing
change sweeps away both the regime and the state apparatus, turning a political
uprising into a social revolution. Just such a 'miscalculation' occurred
in 1959 in the run-up to the Cuban revolution, when Washing stood by Batista
and was not able to present a viable pro US alternative coalition linked
to the old state apparatus. A similar miscalculation occurred in Nicaragua,
when President Carter, while criticizing Somoza, stayed the course, and
stood passively by as the regime was overthrown and the revolutionary forces
destroyed the US and Israeli trained military, secret police and intelligence
apparatus, and went on to nationalize US property and develop an independent
foreign policy.
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- Washington moved with greater initiative, in Latin America
in the 1980's.It promoted negotiated electoral transitions which replaced
dictators with pliable neo-liberal electoral politicians, who pledged to
preserve the existing state apparatus, defend the privileged foreign and
domestic elites and back US regional and international policies.
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- Past Lessons and Present Policies:
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- Obama has been extremely hesitant to oust Mubarak for
several reasons, even as the movement grows in number and anti-Washington
sentiment deepens. The White House has many clients around the world
including Honduras, Mexico, Indonesia, Jordan and Algeria who believe
they have a strategic relationship with Washington and would lose confidence
in their future if Mubarak was dumped.
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- Secondly, the highly influential leading pro-Israel
organizations in the US (AIPAC, the Presidents of the Major American Jewish
Organizations) and their army of scribes have mobilized congressional leaders
to pressure the White House to continue backing Mubarak, as Israel is the
prime beneficiary of a dictator who is at the throat of the Egyptians (and
Palestinians) and at the feet of the Jewish state.
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- As a result the Obama regime has moved slowly, under
fear and pressure of the growing Egyptian popular movement.It searches
for an alternative political formula that removes Mubarak, retains and
strengthens the political power of the state apparatus and incorporates
a civilian electoral alternative as a means of demobilizing and de-radicalizing
the vast popular movement.
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- The major obstacle to ousting Mubarak is that a major
sector of the state apparatus, especially the 325,000 Central Security
Forces and the 60,000 National Guard are directly under the Interior Ministry
and Mubarak. Secondly, top Generals in the Army (468,500 members) have
buttressed Mubarak for 30 years and have been enriched by their control
over very lucrative companies in a wide range of fields. They will not
support any civilian 'coalition' that calls into question their economic
privileges and power to set the political parameters of any electoral system.
The supreme commander of the Egyptian military is a longtime client of
the US and a willing collaborator with Israel.
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- Obama is resolutely in favor of collaborating with and
ensuring the preservation of these coercive bodies.But he also needs to
convince them to replace Mubarak and allow for a new regime which can defuse
the mass movement which is increasingly opposed to US hegemony and subservience
to Israel. Obama will do everything necessary to retain the cohesion of
the state and avoid any splits which might lead to a mass movement
soldier alliance which could convert the uprising into a revolution.
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- Washington has opened talks with the most conservative
liberal and clerical sectors of the anti-Mubarak movement. At first it
tried to convince them to negotiate with Mubarak a dead end position
which was rejected by all sectors of the opposition, top and bottom. Then
Obama tried to sell a phony "promise" from Mubarak that he would
not run in the elections, nine months later.
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- The movement and its leaders rejected that proposal
also. So Obama raised the rhetoric for 'immediate changes' but without
any substantive measures backing it up. To convince Obama of his continued
power base, Mubarak sent his formidable thug-lumpen secret police to violently
seize the streets from the movement. A test of strength: the Army stood
by; the assault raised the ante of a civil war, with radical consequences.
Washington and the E.U. pressured the Mubarak regime to back off
for now. But the image of a pro-democracy military was tarnished, as killings
and injuries multiplied in the thousands.
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- As the pressure of the movement intensifies, Obama cross
pressured by the pro Mubarak Israel Lobby and its Congressional entourage
on the one hand, and on the other by knowledgeable advisors who call on
him to follow past practices and move decisively to sacrifice the regime
to save the state while the liberal-clerical electoral option is still
on the table.
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- But Obama hesitates and like a wary crustacean, he moves
sideways and backwards, believing his own grandiloquent rhetoric is a substitute
for action hoping that sooner or later, the uprising will end with Mubarakism
without Mubarak: a regime able to demobilize the popular movements and
willing to promote elections which result in elected officials following
the general line of their predecessor.
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- Nevertheless, there are many uncertainties in a political
reshuffle: a democratic citizenry, 83% unfavorable to Washington, will
possess the experience of struggle and freedom to call for a realignment
of policy, especially to cease being a policeman enforcing the Israeli
blockage of Gaza, and providing support for US puppets in North Africa,
Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Secondly free elections will
open debate and increase pressure for greater social spending, the expropriation
of the seventy billion dollar empire of the Mubarek clan and the crony
capitalists who pillage the economy .The masses will demand a reallocation
of public expenditure from the overblown coercive apparatus to productive,
job generating employment. A limited political opening may lead to a
second round, in which new social and political conflicts will divide the
anti-Mubarak forces, a conflict between the advocates of social democracy
and elite backers of neo-liberal electoralism. The anti-dictatorial moment
is only the first phase of a prolonged struggle toward definitive emancipation
not only in Egypt but throughout the Arab world. The outcome depends on
the degree to which the masses develop their own independent organization
and leaders.
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