Arab Spring, Round 2

[Viking]

Which was pretty much what I was angling for when Yi said "NO you are wrong, now GO to your room".

I mean what was different for Mubarak this time when certain parts of the populace have loathed him for a long time? The economic and social framework of Egypt is collapsing and it accelerated with the economic downturn in the west making the problems impossible to hide. If anything all these revolutions have managed to make the problems worse as the parts of the society that actually functioned reasonably well is also breaking down. Egypt simply cannot support 85 million people with the limited resources at their disposal.

Egypt hasn't been able to feed itself or pay it's bills for over a generation now. So, yes, the decline started in the Mubarak era. The thing is that this deficit has been funded by tourism, american aid, oil and gas exports and a trilateral trade agreement with the US and Israel as part of the Peace Agreement.

The Brotherhood pissed of Obama so he isn't bailing them out with the IMF, World Bank or Direct Debit, the Gas Exports mostly lapsed when Morsi declined to protect and/or fix the pipeline going to Israel (meanwhile in j00stan they discover natural gas of their own) and Tourism has dropped steeply and stayed down with the islamists in charge.

Mursi has been shooting Egypt in the foot economically while trying to secure power. Egypt was already sitting on the knifes edge and he insisted on rocking the boat.

Egypt is literally broke, it has no more currency reserves. This is presumably why the Army choose to act against him. Soon they will run out of bread and tea. 

[crazy canuck]

I had lunch with an Egyptian friend of mine in May during which time he said very matter of factly that the government would be finished before the end of June.  He wasnt wrong by much.

His explanation was that the economic situation in Egypt was getting very bad for people who might have been sympathetic to rule by the Muslim Brothers - the poor.  The infrastructure for the government providing aid or economic relief had broken down completely.

He said that it was plain to everyone that a change was coming.  The open question was and is, what that change would be.

The problem here is that Egypt's social, economic and environmental problems are so horrific that I doubt any government, however uncorrupt, popular, legitimate and unified, would be able to solve them - and any government Egypt is likely to obtain is probably going to be none of these things.   

The problem isnt that he didnt solve the problem.  Everyone seems to acknowledge that would impossible.  The real problem seems to be that he was not taking steps to address the problems at all, but rather was setting up government by and for the Brotherhood.

[Malthus]

I had lunch with an Egyptian friend of mine in May during which time he said very matter of factly that the government would be finished before the end of June.  He wasnt wrong by much.

His explanation was that the economic situation in Egypt was getting very bad for people who might have been sympathetic to rule by the Muslim Brothers - the poor.  The infrastructure for the government providing aid or economic relief had broken down completely.

He said that it was plain to everyone that a change was coming.  The open question was and is, what that change would be.

The problem here is that Egypt's social, economic and environmental problems are so horrific that I doubt any government, however uncorrupt, popular, legitimate and unified, would be able to solve them - and any government Egypt is likely to obtain is probably going to be none of these things.   

The problem isnt that he didnt solve the problem.  Everyone seems to acknowledge that would impossible.  The real problem seems to be that he was not taking steps to address the problems at all, but rather was setting up government by and for the Brotherhood.

I agree. My point is more a lament for the poor sap who gets the booby prize of being the next leader of Egypt. 

[crazy canuck]

One of the things that might be instructive is how difficult it is to create a democracy and how much hinges on who the first leader is.  Overnight they are given a great deal of power and responsibility without established democratic institutions to help them with their tasks.

A great deal is determined by how the new leader deals with this.  Its a bit of a crap shoot.  A new democracy might get someone like a Mandela or a Washington who set the bar high for future leaders.  Or not.

[alfred russel]

Assuming the next leader is a democratic one, I don't know that a Washington or a Mandela would be able to succeed. The problem with the coup is that a presumably large portion of population won't view the new administration as legitimate. Coupled with huge problems in Egypt, I don't think this is an opportunity for success.

[Sheilbh]

The Brotherhood pissed of Obama so he isn't bailing them out with the IMF, World Bank or Direct Debit, the Gas Exports mostly lapsed when Morsi declined to protect and/or fix the pipeline going to Israel (meanwhile in j00stan they discover natural gas of their own) and Tourism has dropped steeply and stayed down with the islamists in charge.

Mursi has been shooting Egypt in the foot economically while trying to secure power. Egypt was already sitting on the knifes edge and he insisted on rocking the boat.

Egypt is literally broke, it has no more currency reserves. This is presumably why the Army choose to act against him. Soon they will run out of bread and tea.

I'll come back to other points later but the IMF and Morsi had agreed an $5 billion loan (with other donors promising a further $10 billion). It wasn't implemented yet, because it called for tax rises and phasing out of fuel subsidies. The normal reasons IMF loans are difficult not because of Obama or the Brotherhood's rocking the boat. The IMF have suspended it because of the coup, so they'll want to renegotiate with the next government.

Some of the problems Egypt faces are far more structural and make them ripe for revolutions. Not least that they're the world's biggest wheat importer at a time when the cost is very high and that goes for many other basic commodities too (not least fertiliser and fuel). They're also an extremely young country with quite severe economic problems. Similarly Mubarak was running 8% deficits when they had far more tourism and no recession, that's going to be difficult for anyone to turn around. I think the fact that the Brotherhood were in power in Egypt probably had less on an impact on tourism than the images of riots, revolutions and disorder that have been on the news pretty regularly since 2010. Even if Mubarak had carried on, with a similar level of disorder I think you'd have seen a similar decline in tourism.

You can blame Morsi and the Brotherhood for lots of things, I don't think the economic situation is one of them. The problems were endemic under Mubarak too, though they're more pronounced now due to the collapse in tourism. You've got a very high deficit and a falling currency which is being propped up by the central bank using its foreign reserves and, occasionally, getting help from the Qataris (which, incidentally, will be withdrawn now the MB have been removed from office). The pound's being devalued and there's huge inflation in many staples, both because of the situation in Egypt and globally (remember the fires in Russia last year that had a huge impact on wheat production, for example). To get the deficit and the situation under control the government needs to raise more revenue and to cut the subsidies which, I believe, are now a quarter of the budget. But those subsidies are also the only real form of aid for the poor in Egypt which, given the economic situation of almost Spanish levels of unemployment, are a substantial and growing proportion of the population.

As I say that's tough for any party or leader to deal with and I think especially so given the power and the influence of the Egyptian street. Failing to govern well has hugely discredited the MB, I wouldn't be surprised if it did the same to the army, and any other political party that fancied a chance. There's a real risk that Egypt ends up resembling Pakistan at the 'end' of all this.

Edit: And it's worth remembering the last leader to tinker with subsidies was Sadat and it almost caused a revolution. He reinstated them, but the economic burden was at least part of the reason he sought rapprochement with the US and Israel.

[Viking]

Traditionally what the US does for it's tin-pot dictator allies who need IMF money is they arrange it so that no washington consensus style pre-conditions of balanced budgets and economic reforms are required. Not so in this case. These are normal IMF conditions. Naturally Egypt can't meet them.

[crazy canuck]

Assuming the next leader is a democratic one, I don't know that a Washington or a Mandela would be able to succeed. The problem with the coup is that a presumably large portion of population won't view the new administration as legitimate. Coupled with huge problems in Egypt, I don't think this is an opportunity for success.

Depends what you think "success" might be.  Egypt could very much use a Mandela who will not use power to further narrow political interests but rather will try to govern in an inclusive manner.  That seems to be one of the major problems with the Brotherhood.

[Agelastus]

Aswan's "long and thin" - even if the Dam is breached the Lake itself will take a long while to drain.

Do you know how long it takes the Nile to transport water from the vicinity of Aswan to the Delta, even when in Flood?

Admittedly that's probably still not enough time to evacuate everywhere...but a lot of Egypt's population live in and around the Delta - how deep will the Flood be there given it'll be able to spread out and not all arrive at once anyway?

Floodplain and Delta is a total of 12,750 sq miles, or 33,022 sq km
http://www.touregypt.net/egypt-info/magazine-mag05012001-magf4a.htm

If I did the math right, the water from the lake could fill that whole area to a depth of 4 meters. However, since it's draining into the plain in a flash flood the wave is going to be higher where it hits.

Lake Nasser is 340 miles long. All that water is not going to hit "all at once". A good chunk of it'll have reached the sea before the last of it hits the Delta. And once it hits the Delta and the multiple channels of the Nile the main floodsurge'll lose height very rapidly anyway.

Also you ignored the first part of what I said - normally the yearly flooding of the Nile reaches Cairo a week after it does Aswan. How much faster is the water of this "superflood" going to be travelling, then?

[alfred russel]

Aswan's "long and thin" - even if the Dam is breached the Lake itself will take a long while to drain.

Do you know how long it takes the Nile to transport water from the vicinity of Aswan to the Delta, even when in Flood?

Admittedly that's probably still not enough time to evacuate everywhere...but a lot of Egypt's population live in and around the Delta - how deep will the Flood be there given it'll be able to spread out and not all arrive at once anyway?

Floodplain and Delta is a total of 12,750 sq miles, or 33,022 sq km
http://www.touregypt.net/egypt-info/magazine-mag05012001-magf4a.htm

If I did the math right, the water from the lake could fill that whole area to a depth of 4 meters. However, since it's draining into the plain in a flash flood the wave is going to be higher where it hits.

Lake Nasser is 340 miles long. All that water is not going to hit "all at once". A good chunk of it'll have reached the sea before the last of it hits the Delta. And once it hits the Delta and the multiple channels of the Nile the main floodsurge'll lose height very rapidly anyway.

Also you ignored the first part of what I said - normally the yearly flooding of the Nile reaches Cairo a week after it does Aswan. How much faster is the water of this "superflood" going to be travelling, then?

Also, it is going to flood the banks of the nile in the south long before it reaches the north of the country.

[Razgovory]

And very significant quantities are going to evaporate sink into the soil etc.  I could see several thousand deaths and maybe a 100,000 displace for a bit.

[jimmy olsen]

This guy makes some good arguments that the military has a lot to lose from this, but it doesn't seem that they percieve it that way to me. They moved much faster against Morsi than they did against Mubarak.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2013/07/egypt_s_military_ousts_mohammed_morsi_the_country_s_generals_now_face_economic.html

For the enormous crowds who gathered in Tahrir Square over the past few days, the military's announcement abrogating the new constitution and deposing Egypt's first democratically elected president, Muhammad Morsi, is a second revolution, a replay of the ouster of dictator Hosni Mubarak three years ago. For the pro-Morsi crowds gathered in a much smaller square in a North Cairo suburb, the move, followed by the installation of an interim government, is a coup. This seems to be the view of most Western commentators as well, for whom the military's actions fit into a tidy narrative of Egypt as a military–garrison state, long ruled by generals who viewed the rise of an elected president as a threat to their power and privileges.

But this gets the situation almost exactly backward. President Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood allies never represented a threat to the military's interests. On the contrary, over the past two years, they proved remarkably willing to accommodate Egypt's men in uniform. For example, the widely reviled constitution that Morsi's allies passed in December didn't just dial back progress on women's rights and sneak in more fulsome declarations of adherence to Islamic law; it also enshrined the military's place atop the country's political hierarchy. Article 146 gives the military veto power over presidential decisions to declare war. Article 195 mandates that the minister of defense be a general. Article 197—a highly valued sop to the generals' interests—instructs that only a military-dominated body (called the National Defense Council) can oversee the military's budget. The constitution even has a provision preserving the military's right to prosecute civilians. Egypt's generals didn't want to abrogate this constitution; they are its biggest fans. It is thus hard to see what the military gains by overthrowing the president—except for direct responsibility over a country whose teetering economy and unruly crowds gave them headaches during the 18 months they were in charge between Mubarak's ouster and Morsi's election.

Egypt's generals no more wanted Morsi's ouster than they wanted Mubarak's almost three years ago. What they want is to continue to enjoy their perquisites—including more than $1 billion a year of military aid and some of the choicest cuts of the Egyptian economy. Their ouster of Morsi puts both of these things at risk. President Obama has already hinted that the generals' abrogation of democracy might occasion a withdrawal of U.S. military assistance—though he's unlikely to follow through. And the young people who helped propel the Egyptian people into the streets, and compelled the military to step in and restore order, are the same people who in November 2011, during the military's brief period of direct rule, were taking to the streets shouting "Down, down with military rule!" No matter how much Egyptians laud them today, the generals know that it is only a matter of time before the revolutionaries turn on them again.
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And then there are the military's new enemies—the Muslim Brotherhood—for whom the latest maneuver is one of the most dramatic and consequential events in more than 1,400 years of Islamic history. The generals fear that the Muslim Brotherhood will not go down without some kind of fight, which is why they moved on Wednesday to pre-emptively arrest key Brotherhood leaders and shut down the movement's television station. It remains to be seen whether these tactics will neutralize the Brothers or inflame their rank and file (who are already speaking of martyring themselves for democratic legitimacy). In short, it is hard to see how the current situation gives Minister of Defense Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and his fellow officers anything other than heartburn.


If the military hasn't won today, who has? It's almost impossible to say. Though Egyptians are still celebrating, they are probably no closer to democracy today than they were three years ago. And though Egypt won't likely miss the combustible, unimaginative, and inflexible Morsi, the fact that he was removed in defiance of the ballot box is not without its own costs. But if it's hard to identify the winners here, it's relatively easy to identify the losers: the so-called youth of Tahrir. Though Egyptian politicians talk about the square as if it's a renewable resource—the people's tool for rebooting their government whenever the public tires of its leaders—the reality is that every new protest wears popular patience thinner. The vast majority of Egypt's 81 million people have never protested in Tahrir and don't care about the Brotherhood; they simply want a return to safety, order, and regular electricity. In six months, when the young people take to the streets again to protest some inevitable violation by the generals, and the military sends out the tanks and truncheons, Egyptians will probably shrug, and maybe even cheer.

[Jacob]

... maybe the military is genuinely trying to pull a Kemalist "guardian of the people" type role?

[Sheilbh]

... maybe the military is genuinely trying to pull a Kemalist "guardian of the people" type role?

I think that's the goal. And I think they've learned a lot of lessons from the SCAF debacle - the wide support for their 'roadmap' from the neo-Nasserists to liberals to Salafis is particularly promising.

But it's going to be tough to pull off. One other good bit of news is that the Egyptian people seem to have learned from SCAF as well. There was a massive protest today to 'hold the army to their promises'. The street, unlike during the early SCAF period, shows no signs of quieting down and trusting the military.

[CountDeMoney]

But if it's hard to identify the winners here, it's relatively easy to identify the losers: the so-called youth of Tahrir. Though Egyptian politicians talk about the square as if it's a renewable resource—the people's tool for rebooting their government whenever the public tires of its leaders—the reality is that every new protest wears popular patience thinner. The vast majority of Egypt's 81 million people have never protested in Tahrir and don't care about the Brotherhood; they simply want a return to safety, order, and regular electricity. In six months, when the young people take to the streets again to protest some inevitable violation by the generals, and the military sends out the tanks and truncheons, Egyptians will probably shrug, and maybe even cheer.

Lolz, useless kids.