Sunday, August 25, 2013

Gratuitous sex and violence... Oh, and Egypt



I’m back to being boring again.  I was more exciting a couple of months ago.  When I was writing about the emotional topics like the GM bailout and gay marriage, the popularity of this blog (measured in website hits) was up 50%.  Now that I am writing about things like Syria and Gorbachev, my popularity has come back to earth.

But, doesn’t all the intrigue in the Middle East – particularly Egypt – sound like a potential Showtime series like The Tudors?  You have to admit that Henry VIII had nothing on these guys.  Murder, treachery, deceit…  it’s all there.

Let’s start with deceit.  You probably saw the news a couple of weeks ago.  Senators Graham and McCain have declared to the press that there has been a coup in Egypt.  Really?

There was a coup.  But, it took place in 1952 when General Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew the elected government of Egypt.  His successors were two other Generals – Sadat and Mubarak.  The military has been in charge throughout. 

What about the Arab Spring?  Wasn’t Mubarak (and, therefore, the military) overthrown? 

Okay, here’s a reality test for you.  Do you really think that, in a country of 85 Million people, 200,000 protestors armed with smartphones could topple the Egyptian military leader Mubarak? The military sat on the sidelines allowing the press to create the myth of the Arab Spring.  Sounds like treachery to me.

That leads to a few other questions.

Why are McCain and Graham calling this a coup?  They are both long-time members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.  Don’t they know the truth?

Well, it could be that they would like to cut off military and other financial aid to Egypt.  And, they know that Congressional rules require that aid be cutoff in the event of a coup.  So, to get their way, they have planted a seed with the media that they hope will create pressure on the Obama administration to cut off aid.

So, if the military were in charge in the person of Mubarak, why would they sit idly by while the mob in Tahrir Square demanded his removal?

Geopolitical consulting firm Stratfor has provided an answer.  There was a years long push for Mubarak’s son, Gamal, to succeed his father on the throne.  Stratfor asserts that the military didn’t want the western educated young son of the president to run the country.  To understand why you have to understand how the Generals get rich.  Egyptian banks lend money to the top military officers through businesses that never make money.  The officers never pay back the loan.  The money ends up in their pockets.

Gamal Mubarak threatened to reform the system on which the Generals relied to get rich.  So, the Mubaraks had to go.

By permitting free elections, the Generals ended up with the Muslim Brotherhood running the show.  Big mistake!  Now we have mobs in the streets, Muslims attacking Christian churches, military repression and so on.  Murder on a grand scale.

Like I said…  treachery, murder, deceit!  Can’t you see a new Showtime series in all that?  The only thing missing is the sex and Hollywood always writes that in.

But, I am making light of a bad situation that has cost many lives.  The larger strategic issue is what US policy should be.  Should we support the Egyptian military?  The Muslim Brotherhood?  The Syrian uprising?

There is no clear doctrine on which our allies can rely and upon which we can base sound judgments.  President Obama has declared the war on terrorism over. So, on what principles should our foreign policy be based?  No answer from the White House!

Writing in the New York Times, Georgetown University international affairs Professor Charles Kupchan offers a possible framework.  Democratic elections sound great but they should not be the first step, he says.  In the absence of the rule of law, nations and their people become subject to the poor judgment of a freely elected dictator.  Good governance relies on liberal institutions of government, an independent judiciary and individual freedom. 

Institutional traditions are not created overnight and Professor Kupchan doesn’t suggest they should or will.  “The US should do what it can to shepherd the arrival of liberal democracy in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East, “ he says.  “But the best way to do that is to go slow and help the region’s states build functioning and responsible governments.  Democracy can wait.”

Sounds like a great blueprint for American foreign policy.  The only question is…

WHO WILL LEAD?

Friday, August 9, 2013

Reagan, Thatcher, Gorbachev, Machiavelli... Where are they now?


Poor Nicolo Machiavelli!  He really gets a bad rap, doesn’t he?  I mean, just because the well-worn phrase “the end justifies the means” can be traced to his masterwork, The Prince, that doesn’t mean he was a bad guy, does it?  But, that’s the way he’s perceived.  Even people who don’t know what he has written or who he is know that a “Machiavellian scheme” is a bad thing.

More high-minded people point to how he turned the concept of a virtuous society on its head.  The ancient Greek philosophers – Aristotle and Socrates – defined a virtuous society as the result of the good works of its citizens.  To their way of thinking, the means were more important than the end.  Old Nick turned that concept of virtue on its head.  To him, virtue was about being crafty, astute or sly.  It referred to the ability of a leader to deal with whatever comes their way – to be decisive and get results.

The Prince was a handbook for the heirs to the Medici fortune not a blueprint for utopia.   The Greeks were idealists.  Machiavelli was a pragmatist.

Most often this blog turns on “issues” and policies.  I am an issues-oriented guy and those who take the time to read this fit the same mold.  We decry the misguided media and wonder aloud why the mass of voters doesn’t seem to care about the issues.  We parse the words of political candidates as if they will actually do (or have a chance to do) what they promise in campaigns.  Naïve idealists that we are, we actually think that policy matters more than politics and that what politicians say, they should do.

Alas, most political leaders have no opportunity to pursue the policies on which they campaign.  Some have no illusions.  They campaign to get elected.  Others may be sincere but their best intentions are overcome by events.  The administrations of LBJ and the much-maligned Jimmy Carter were not defined by their political campaigns.  They were defined by what the world handed them, the Vietnam War and the Iranian hostage crisis, respectively.

What was handed Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher was Mikhail Gorbachev.  What was interesting is that Gorby brought them an opportunity to pursue ideas in which they believed (unlike the duo mentioned above).

More than any world leader in the 80’s, Gorbachev determined how the 20th Century would draw to a close.  His policies of “perestroika” (restructuring)and “glasnost” (openness) led to freely contested elections and liberalization of the economy.  He foresaw the economic collapse of the Soviet model and hastened it.  The Soviet Union may not have gone so quietly had it not been for Gorbachev, a pragmatist who saw that he didn’t have the resources to continue the Cold War.  Would we think of Reagan and Thatcher in the same way had the Soviet Union dragged on for another decade or two?  How about Helmut Kohl?  Could he have unified Germany and worked with Mitterrand toward the development of the European Union?

In 2000, George Bush campaigned against Clinton’s policies in the former Yugoslavia, calling it nation building, a policy that often results in failure.  But, 9/11 changed everything.  Bush soon found himself nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan.

His successor, Barack Obama, campaigned against Bush’s policies in those two far away lands.  Once inaugurated, he was off to the Middle East to address the Arab public so as to differentiate himself from his predecessor. But, the financial crisis and his response to it define his first term more than any ideology he espoused. 

It was not the policies on which Bush and Obama campaigned that mattered.  It was their character and their ability to make a decision in moments of crisis and stick with them. 

It’s great to focus on policy as a framework for the direction of the country (any country).  However, it’s naïve to think that the political and international landscape is so benign as to permit a candidate to actually follow their prescription for governance.  It is usually a crisis and a leader’s response to it that defines their tenure.  And, it’s their ability to embrace the Machiavellian concept of virtue that determines their success. 

Policy wonks may decry the way in which the media – and most voters – focus on personality or, to put in high-mindedly, character of the candidates.  But, at the end of the day, character is more important than policies. 

WHO WILL LEAD?