In this December photo, Egyptian TV host Bassem Youssef addresses attendants at a gala dinner party in Cairo. (Ahmed Omar/AP)

For Egypt's satirists, Morsi's power is no joke

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / 01.02.13

There are few things dictators hate more than satirists, with their uncomfortable habit of piercing hypocrisy and self-importance with just a few well-placed verbal or written barbs.

Under Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian public's rich horde of satirical memes was an underground phenomenon, the province of cafe talk and SMS messages. That former President Mubarak was commonly called La Vache qui rit ("The Laughing Cow") after the processed cheese brand's mascot, which Egyptian wags insisted Mubarak bore a resemblance to, was something you would never learn from turning on local television and rarely, if ever, from newspapers. You picked it up from friends or acquaintances.

All that changed overnight with the Egyptian uprising against Mubarak in early 2011. The posters of protesters at Tahrir Square relentlessly mocked the president, the themes were quickly taken up on television and newspapers, and it was at this point that Bassem Youssef, a relentlessly genial cardiologist and ardent fan of Jon Stewart's Daily Show, smelled his opportunity.

Working on a shoestring budget, he began posting a satirical news program on YouTube that quickly caught fire with its irreverent willingness to skewer all comers, members of the old authoritarian regime and emerging political factions like the Muslim Brotherhood alike.

A TV contract soon followed, and his success was in many ways a symbol of the best promises of the Egyptian revolution: A country where freedom of expression was tolerated, energizing local politics and culture after decades of being shut in by a military-backed dictatorship. Mr. Youssef, who I knew years ago when he was focused on his medical career, quickly established a major following. It was clear on the ride in from the airport the other day: Over one of Cairo's busiest highways is a billboard plastered with Youssef's face in a spot where just a few years ago advertisements for the low-quality slapstick comedies of the Mubarak era would have been placed. Recently Youssef even got to meet his hero Jon Stewart (video of Youssef and Stewart above).

But while Egypt remains far more open than it was before the revolution, President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood that propelled him to power have shown a worrying willingness to try to silence citizens like Youssef with means similar to those used in the past. Yesterday local media reported that Egypt Prosecutor General Talaat Abdallah recommended that Youssef be investigated for the crime of insulting President Morsi and other government figures.

He's just the latest public figure to be targeted, with Islamist lawyers bringing a string of lawsuits against government critics for the crime of "defamation" or threatening national "stability." Ramadan Abdel Hamid al-Oksory, the Islamist lawyer who filed the initial complaint against Youssef, also started proceedings against Coptic Christian tycoon Naquib Sawiris last year for "insulting Islam."

In Egypt, almost anyone can make a legal complaint against private and public figures for insulting religion or individuals, whether or not they have personal standing in the matter. The new Egyptian constitution outlaws, specifically, both defaming religion and "insulting" individuals. But it's up to the general prosecutor to decide whether investigations will go forward. Mr. Abdallah, a Morsi appointee, has been inclined to accept such cases. With the broad, vaguely defined articles in the constitution, convictions that stick are a real threat for the targets.

Over the weekend, Morsi filed a complaint against leading newspaper al-Masry al-Youm for "circulating false news likely to disturb public peace and public security" after the paper reported, apparently incorrectly, that Morsi was planning to visit a military hospital in a Cairo suburb where Mubarak is currently undergoing treatment. Journalist Yousry al-Badry was summoned for interrogation over the incident by the prosecutor's office.

In November, an Egyptian court sentenced seven Egyptian Copts and Florida preacher Terry Jones to death in absentia for their involvement with a YouTube clip that was deemed insulting to Islam and the prophet Mohammed. Such death sentences were unheard of in Mubarak's day. In October, controversial and conspiratorial talk show host Tawfiq Okasha, often described as the Glenn Beck of Egypt, was sentenced to four months in prison for defaming Morsi after a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party filed a lawsuit against him. Mr. Okasha is appealing.

The growing use of the courts to silence critics, comedians, and dissenters is a clear trend in Egypt, and Egypt's new constitution will make such prosecutions easier than they were under the old one. President Morsi has shown little willingness to stop the suits.

One of the clear gains of Egypt's revolution is under threat. And many of those in power now seem quite comfortable with that.

An Egyptian woman holds a poster with Arabic that reads, "my Christian siblings.. happy new year.." in front of the presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, Dec. 31. (Amr Nabil/AP)

Happy new year, Cairo?

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / 12.31.12

I'm back in Cairo after well over a year away, and my first thought was that little has changed.

Getting out of Cairo airport is still a chaotic mess of taxi and hotel touts, though easy to navigate if you know the drill. Traffic was worse than I'd have expected for midday on Saturday, but Cairo zahma hardly has a predictable rhythm anyway. Parts of the city are always one flat tire away from being turned into a parking lot.

As I pulled into my old haunts, one thing that struck me was the apparent absence of the over-the-top commercialization of Christmas I was used to when I lived here years ago. Friends agreed, saying shops and hotels had reined in their use of the holiday, on the reasoning of "why take a chance?" Referring to bearded President Mohamed Morsi from the Muslim Brotherhood as "Morsi Claus" was apparently de rigeur, however, in certain activist and secular circles.

But enough with first impressions. Egypt had a tumultuous 2012 that was disillusioning, to put it mildly, for many of the young revolutionaries who supported the January 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak. While you can't see the economic pain of the past year by walking the streets of Cairo, just a few early conversations with friends and acquaintances make it clear that it's very real. In the fashionable districts of Cairo, shopkeepers say business is down. In more working class neighborhoods, the guys selling vegetables or clothing say likewise. Men who paint houses or fix plumbing say work is less steady, with customers putting off non-essential work.

And while in my few brief conversations with Egyptian contacts the focus has been disappointment with the new Muslim Brotherhood-backed constitution, or anger at Morsi and the Brothers' apparent accommodations to a military hierarchy that has cast a shadow over Egyptian politics for a generation, it is economic conditions that will make or break the emerging new Egyptian political order in 2013.

The two, of course, are not mutually exclusive. While Morsi has spoken of a need to restore a battered Egyptian economy, neither he nor anyone else has been better able to provide stability or bread than the military was when it was running Egypt from February 2011 until June of this year.

On one level, they can be forgiven. The past year has seen certain post-Mubarak assumptions (or hopes) seriously ruptured. A popular Egyptian view of the military as protector of the nation was eroded. In February, more than 70 people died following a soccer match in Port Said at which security, the responsibility of the army, was conspicuous by its absence.

There was an elected parliament, one packed with Islamists, the results of which were later annulled. There was a presidential election that pitted President Morsi against former Mubarak Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq that saw Morsi walk off with the spoils. Neither option was enticing to Egypt's young revolutionaries, and in Morsi's victory – which was made possible by the Brotherhood breaking a promise not to run a candidate for president – there was evidence that the Islamist movement could not be taken at its word.

And, of course, there were clashes between protesters at Tahrir and at the presidential palace in Cairo, in the industrial towns of the Nile Delta, and once again in Port Said, along the country's economically vital Suez Canal. The constitution, which Egyptians were promised would be written by a truly representative body, was rushed through by Morsi and his allies over serious opposition towards the end of the year. When it came time for Egyptians to vote on it, it passed – but with less than 40 percent of the Egyptian electorate participating, many voters having lost hope that the political process was going to deliver anything of any tangible value to them or their families.

Attempts not made

While fixing Egypt's economic problems would be the work of years under even the best of circumstances, serious attempts to address how the national budget is administered, rampant corruption that makes being either a simple wage-earner or an entrepreneur a minefield, or the heavy-hand of the military in business, were not made. The average Egyptian was financially worse off at the end of 2011, and worse off still at the end of 2012. This simple reality is how Egyptians are judging recent events, and why so many of them are so deeply worried. 

Now the country is less than two months away from electing a new parliament, extending a period of political uncertainty. A new political reality will be created by that election – the fifth national vote in two years – and will lead to more political uncertainty as factions in parliament are formed, and Egyptian politicians test the new rules of the game. Local and foreign investors will stay on the sidelines for awhile yet, hoping for some clarity as to the new rules –clean ones or dirty ones, new ways of doing business or the same old rent-seeking of the past – before they put any more skin in the game. 

Meanwhile, Egyptians are watching, and worried. The Egyptian pound plunged to an eight-year low against the dollar in the past month, and the Egyptian government's foreign reserves now stand at about $15 billion, less than half of what they were at the time of Mubarak's ouster. That exchange rate – and the soaring interest the Egyptian government pays on international borrowing – has a host of implications for the subsidized bread, cooking fuel, and gasoline that millions of Egyptians rely on.

A random walk through Cairo can't show how finely poised Egypt's situation is. But if you stop to talk for a few hours, you can feel it.

It's the economy, stupid, as a US political hack had it 20 years ago. And it's the economy that Egypt needs to focus on in 2013.

Saddam Hassan, a protester injured during clashes with Muslim brotherhood supporters, stands outside his tent near the presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, Friday. The official approval of Egypt's disputed, Islamist-backed constitution held out little hope of stabilizing the country after two years of turmoil and Islamist President Mohammed Morsi may now face a more immediate crisis with the economy falling deeper into distress. (Amr Nabil/AP)

New Constitution divides Egypt as economy falters

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / 12.28.12

New constitutions are usually greeted with great fanfare. They're assumed to carry both the promise of a fresh start and signal that a chaotic transition has come to an end.

But Egypt's new constitution is something else again. Signed into law on Dec. 26 by President Mohamed Morsi, the new charter has become a symbol of a sharply divided nation. Mr. Morsi's opponents charge the passage of the constitution is not the result of a national consensus, but evidence that the Muslim Brotherhood that propelled Morsi to power intends to push its agenda over the heads of secular-leaning and liberal political opponents.

While Morsi extended an olive branch to opponents in a nationally televised speech on Dec. 26, the country is at its most sharply polarized point since longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February 2011. Egypt is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections in about two months, and the runup to that election is more likely to exacerbate Egypt's open political wounds rather than heal them.

What will that mean? More street protests, more chaotic governance, and no short-term fixes for an economy that was weak at the time Mr. Mubarak fell and has gone from bad to worse. The Egyptian pound fell to its lowest point against the dollar in eight years this week, and the currency may say more about what happens to Egypt in the coming years than the contents of the new Constitution. Roughly 30 million of Egypt's 80 million people get by on $2 or less a day, and are heavily reliant on government subsidies. The Egyptian government spent $3 billion on its subsidized bread program alone last year.

And with tourism in the dumps and a collapse in local and foreign investment, the government's ability to meet the most fundamental needs and demands of its citizens has been badly strained. Foreign reserves stood at about $36 billion at the start of 2011. Today, foreign reserves are at about $15 billion.

Finding a solution to Egypt's economic woes won't be easy. But for now, that issue is being pushed to the side, with a loose coalition of secular-leaning groups vowing to fight against the Muslim Brotherhood's agenda. The opposition argues that individual liberties are now threatened by the enshrining of aspects of Islamic law into the Constitution and giving Egypt's powerful military the right to detain and try civilians under some circumstances.

Morsi promised a national dialogue this week and said "mistakes" were made in the drafting of the Constitution, but those remarks fell completely flat as a conciliatory gesture. In the past few weeks he's gotten everything he wanted and critics of the Constitution received zero concessions. Now that he has the document in hand, offers of "dialogue" are being seen as an attempt to put a magnanimous gloss on what was a bare-knuckle, winner-take-all contest that Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood just won.

Leftists, so-called liberals, and Egyptians who want a secular approach to the state and Egyptian identity are furious and pondering their next moves. The Brotherhood, meanwhile, is sticking to the game plan that's made it the winner in all four elections held (two referendums, the last parliamentary election, and the presidential) since Mubarak was driven from power in February 2011: superior organization and on-the-ground mobilization. 

While opponents of the Constitution pointed to low turnout in the referendum as a sign of general public dissatisfaction with the document, the Brothers have won both elections with overwhelming turnout and ones with small turnout. With the constitution set, next up are fresh parliamentary elections that the movement is going to pull out all the stops to dominate, just like it did last time.

That annulled parliamentary election has much to do with why Morsi's political opponents trust neither him nor his movement. In 2011, the Brothers loudly proclaimed that they had no intention of dominating Egyptian politics and vowed to contest only about 30 percent of the seats in the next parliament. The movement and its newly minted Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) also promised not to run a candidate for president.

But as the contours of the new Egypt started to emerge, and the prospect of a counter-revolution by military officers looked less likely, the Brothers abandoned both promises. Obviously, Morsi won the presidency. And as for Parliament, the Brother's contested 100 percent of the seats, winning almost half of them.

Now on Morsi's agenda is victory in the parliamentary election. If the Brothers can steamroll the opposition again, they'll hold the presidency, the legislature, and a Constitution written with little input from the country's secular-leaning forces.

But the real challenge is Egypt's weak economy and the increased suffering of its poor. Absent economic improvement, and soon, the turmoil of Egypt's past two years could well end up being overshadowed.

In this image made from video, NBC chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel shakes hands with an unidentified person after crossing back into Turkey, after Engel and his team were freed unharmed following a firefight at a checkpoint after five days of captivity inside Syria, in Cilvegozu, Turkey, Tuesday, Dec. 18. (Anadolu via AP TV/AP)

Richard Engel freed, but news blackout debate remains

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / 12.18.12

Richard Engel, NBC's chief foreign correspondent, and at least two colleagues, were released from five days as captives in Syria yesterday in what appears to have been a rescue operation by a Syrian rebel unit. Their escape followed an extended news blackout participated in by most of the Western press.

Mr. Engel, cameraman John Kooistra, and producer Ghazi Balkiz were abducted after an ambush near the village of Ma'arrat Misreen, just north of Idlib, while traveling with a group of Syrian rebels.

"We were driving in Syria about five days ago in what we thought was a rebel controlled area, we were with some of the rebels and as we were moving down the road a group of gunmen just literally jumped out of the trees and bushes on the side of the road," Engel told NBC News this morning in an interview from Turkey. "There were probably about 15 gunmen wearing ski masks. They were heavily armed, they dragged us out of the car, they had a container truck positioned waiting by the side of the road. They put us into that container truck ... with some gunmen, some rebels who were escorting us, they executed one of them on the spot."

Engel said the group was moved from safe house to safe house during their captivity, and endured threats of murder, mock executions, and taunting from their captors that they should pick among themselves who would die first. At around 11 p.m. last night in Syria, as they were being moved again not far from the initial abduction, their captors ran into a rebel road block, and two of the captors were killed in the ensuing firefight. Others may have been freed in that gun battle, but NBC and other participants are being tight lipped for now.

Engel: captors loyal to Assad

Engel said the captors were shabiha, Syrian civilian militias loyal to the government of Bashar al-Assad, and his description of what he takes to be their loyalties and background is as good a capsule description of the complexities at play in the Syrian civil war as you'll find.

"These are people who are loyal to president Bashar al-Assad, they are Shiite, they were talking openly about their loyalty to the government, openly expressing their Shia faith, they are trained by Iranian Revolutionary Guard, they are allied with Hezbollah," he said. "We were told that they wanted to exchange us for four Iranian agents and two Lebanese people who were from the Amal Movement and these were other shabiha members who were captured by the rebels, they captured us in order to carry out this exchange, and that's what they were hoping to do, they were going to bring us to a Hezbollah stronghold inside Syria."

Amal, like Hezbollah, is a Lebanese Shiite political movement and militia. Iran's Revolutionary Guards are in many ways the shock troops of that country's Islamic revolution. They are interested to see Mr. Assad, a member of the tiny Alawite sect, a long-ago offshoot of Shiite Islam, retain power in the face of his country's majority Sunni Arab population, since a victory for Sunnis in Syria would deprive Iran of an ally, and provide the Sunnis of Lebanon a potentially powerful new friend.

News of the abduction was kept quiet by dozens of news outlets over the weekend, both at the urging of NBC and as part of evolving ethos among press outlets over how to handle the abduction of colleagues. A number of news operations in Turkey reported that Engel and a Turkish journalist were missing in Syria, and that story was picked up by the UK's Daily Mail and websites like Gawker. But, for the most part, NBC and an informal group of reporters and aid workers jaw-boned most of their colleagues into not following the story, arguing that reporting could put them in danger.

Roots of blackouts

Attempting to maintain a news blackout after an abduction has long been a common practice, both for journalists and other people working in war zones. The idea is generally that a frenzy of questions and attention can make a quick negotiation for release tougher, either by spooking captors, or by raising their perception of the financial or propaganda value of their captive.

In some cases too much silence can be dangerous. If kidnappers know they've got someone high profile, like Engel, and then there's no news, they can get to wondering if their captive is actually a spy working under journalist cover. In others, obviously, publicity can be very dangerous. Every situation has its different particulars. In this instance it appears that people working with the situation on the ground were seeking to buy time for rebels to find the group before they were moved to a part of Syria under government control. 

Double standard?

But as always is in these cases, expect a robust media ethics debate, and discussion of possible double standards from the press. Does the media do more to protect its own than other people? Consider how some US press carried pictures of a man they identified, wrongly, as the Sandy Hook Elementary School murderer on Dec. 14.

And while the safety of Engel and others today can be taken as evidence the blackout "worked," that doesn't prove they wouldn't have been freed if more outlets had reported on events yesterday. When Jill Carroll, then a reporter for this paper, was kidnapped in Iraq in 2006, the Monitor tried to keep a lid on the news, though only managed to keep a hold on it for about 24 hours. With newspapers like The New York Times insisting that they couldn't sit on a major international story for much longer, the Monitor was forced to go public more quickly than it would have liked.

But as that situation evolved, a high-profile strategy within the Iraqi press was adopted to present Ms. Carroll as a sympathetic, honest person who cared deeply about that country and its people. She was eventually released unharmed after three months of terrifying captivity in the hands of an Iraqi group close to that country's offshoot of Al Qaeda. Did the media strategy help secure her eventual release? I'd like to think so. But it's hard to prove. Likewise in the case of David Rohde, a New York Times reporter whose seven-month abduction in Afghanistan was kept mostly quiet by the world's press because the Times was worried heavy attention would lead to higher ransom demands for Rohde. The Times said Rohde eventually escaped his captivity, and expressed satisfaction with the blackout.

Not so blacked out

In this case, some of the blackout efforts had the feeling of closing the barn doors after the horses had bolted.

For instance, The Atlantic website had a story up for hours yesterday afternoon titled "If Richard Engel is missing in Syria, nobody kept it a secret" but pulled it down upon request in the early evening. Reporting on war often brings up ethical conflicts between protecting lives and informing the public, but is vanishing a story down a memory hole after it has probably been viewed tens of thousands of times (it was on the top of The Atlantic's most viewed list at the time it was deleted) the right thing? (For what it's worth, the headline was wrong. Literally dozens of people had kept a lid on this story for days, astonishing in a community whose jobs and personal compulsions are to share information).

In online forums, reporters who cover conflict have been debating the ethics of all this for days, with the majority of opinion coming down on the side of suppressing information if there's any hope it can save lives. But some, including me, have misgivings. Do such practices erode already low public trust in journalists? Are they sometimes potentially counterproductive, if captors are desperate for publicity and enraged when they don't get it?

Austin Tice remains missing

For now, this story has a happy ending for Kooistra, Balkiz, and Engel. But it's a partial one. Austin Tice, an American freelancer, has been missing and presumed captive in Syria since August. There are others who are missing whose cases have been kept more quiet. And the bloody Syrian civil war, with tens of thousands of civilian Syrians dead already, has also been rough on journalists. In a report out today, the Committee to Protect Journalists says 23 journalists were killed in combat situations this year, the highest number since 1992. Syria, and the proliferation of citizen journalists there, were responsible for that number.

"NBC was fantastic in informing our families and keeping everyone up to date, keeping the story quiet. Obviously there are many people who are still not at liberty to do this kind of thing. There are still hostages, there are still people who don't have their freedom inside Syria and we wish them well," Engel said.

His colleague Balkiz summed up: "When we first got captured for me at least it was a moment of disbelief ... there were fumes of despair, at least for me, thinking of my family, my brother, my parents, my wife and I was feeling bad about what I've been putting them through ... and I must say that when we were freed yesterday by the rebels it was one of the happiest moments of my life."

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Afghan soldiers stand guard outside an airport gate in Kabul, after a shooting incident in Kabul, Afghanistan, in this April 2011 file photo. (Musadeq Sadeq/AP)

Vast sums of aid continue to be stolen in Afghanistan

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / 12.11.12

In the summer of 2010, the US decided to do something about the enormous sucking sound being generated by the bulk cash shipments funneling through Afghanistan's Kabul airport and on to Dubai, Zurich, and London – every point of the compass, really.

With Afghanistan's two principal cash crops being opium and slicing chunks off the top of international aid, there were no prizes for guessing where the tens of billions of dollars transferred from Afghanistan since the US-led war began in 2002 came from, or how the luxury villas of so many Afghan officials in the United Arab Emirates had been paid for.

So, the US embassy in Kabul created a "bulk cash flow action plan" and the Karzai government said it was on board. The results since? Well, around $4.5 billion flowed out of Afghanistan in 2011, according to the Congressional Research Service, the vast majority of it unmonitored and unregistered. That's about 22 percent of gross domestic product, an astonishing amount of capital flight.

How is the plan doing this year? About the same as last year, according to a report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a US government auditor, released today.

The failure so far is a reminder that nice-seeming US plans in Afghanistan rarely achieve their desired results, and that the Afghan government's will to rein in corruption has consistently ended with empty promises made across conference tables for a decade now.

What happened?

The US government bought high-tech currency counting machines, that could process 900 bills a minute and record both their value and their serial numbers. The machines were supposed to be electronically connected to the Afghan central bank, so that officials there could monitor who was taking money out of the country, how often, and investigate accordingly.

There was only one problem: Afghan officials decided not to fully install the machines. In 2011, US government auditors found that Afghans running the machines at Kabul airport were not recording serial numbers or transmitting information to the central bank. Without those steps, the machines were essentially useless. What's more, any person granted "VIP" status by the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai could carry as much cash as they liked through the airport without having it counted.

That was more than a year ago, so between September and November, SIGAR auditors revisited Kabul airport to see how Afghanistan had done in delivering on promises to address the problem. As with the first set of promises, nothing was actually done.

"We found that, more than 1 year since our last visit to [Kabul airport], the cash counters are still not being used for their intended purpose, and VIPs continue to bypass key controls," SIGAR writes in the report, Anti-Corruption Measures: Persistent Problems Exist in Monitoring Bulk Cash Flows at Kabul International Airport. "A new Very Very Important Persons (VVIP) lounge was built to provide easier boarding access for high-ranking officials, again allowing transit without main customs screenings or use of a bulk currency counter."

Why aren't efforts being made to deal with money laundering? According to a US Department of Homeland Security official interviewed by SIGAR, Afghan customs officials at Kabul airport are "afraid that they would experience negative repercussions from [the Afghan government] if progress in instituting controls at the airport was made. As of October 2012, according to DHS officials, efforts to connect the bulk currency counters to the internet or a computer server were 'at a standstill.'"

That was the environment in which President Barack Obama conducted his expensive surge at the urging of Gen. David Petraeus, the since-disgraced former commander of the Afghan war and former CIA boss. This is not a case where a huge amount of resources, or technical skills that don't exist in the Afghan population, are required. It's entirely a matter of whether Afghanistan's political class and business elites are willing to have their activities subjected to scrutiny and accountability.

"Although proper controls to monitor cash flows are important for any country to institute, they are particularly critical for a country fraught with corruption, narcotics trafficking, and insurgent activity," SIGAR writes. "In 2010, Ambassador Eikenberry presciently noted that 'many of these measures [in the bulk cash flow action plan] require few, if any, additional resources; their success depends largely on the degree of [Afghan government] political will.'”

The answer so far has been "you can't make us," and that's something US policymakers, and voters, should keep in mind, particularly when considering how much more money to bequeath to the Afghan military. Another US government report out today on Afghanistan says that after 10 years of training and equipping the Afghan National Army, at a cost of well over $20 billion, only one of 23 combat brigades is capable of operating without US financial and professional assistance.

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In this Saturday, Dec. 8, photo, a Free Syrian Army fighter offers evening prayers beside a damaged poster of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad during heavy clashes with government forces in Aleppo, Syria. On Monday, Dec. 10, the US State Department designated the Jabhat al-Nusra militia fighting Assad's government a foreign terrorist organization. (Narciso Contreras/AP)

US designates Syria's Jabhat al-Nusra front a 'terrorist' group at lightning speed

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / 12.10.12

The US State Department designated the Jabhat al-Nusra militia fighting Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria a foreign terrorist organization today.

The speed with which the US government moved to designate a fairly new group that has never attacked US interests and is engaged in fighting a regime that successive administrations have demonized is evidence of the strange bedfellows and overlapping agendas that make the Syrian civil war so explosive.

The State Department says Jabhat al-Nusra (or the "Nusra Front") is essentially a wing of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the jihadi group that flourished in Anbar Province after the US invaded to topple the Baathist regime of secular dictator Saddam Hussein. During the Iraq war, Sunni Arab tribesmen living along the Euphrates in eastern Syria flocked to fight with the friends and relatives in the towns along the Euphrates river in Anbar Province.

The terrain, both actual and human, is similar on both sides of that border, and the rat lines that kept foreign fighters and money flowing into Iraq from Syria work just as well in reverse. Now, the jihadis who fought and largely lost against the Shiite political ascendancy in Iraq are flocking to eastern Syria to repay a debt of gratitude in a battle that looks more likely to succeed every day.

The Nusra Front has gone from victory to victory in eastern Syria and has shown signs of both significant funding and greater military prowess than the average citizens' militia, with veterans of fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya among its numbers.

The US of course aided the fight in Libya to bring down Muammar Qaddafi. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the chance to fight and kill Americans was the major drawing card.

In Iraq, the US toppled a Baathist dictatorship dominated by Sunni Arabs, opening the door for the political dominance of Iraq's Shiite Arab majority and the fury of the country's Sunni jihadis. In Syria, a Baathist regime dominated by the tiny Alawite sect (a long-ago offshoot of Shiite Islam) risks being brought down by the Sunni majority. Iraq's Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is in the odd position of now rooting for a Baathist regime to survive, frightened that a religiously inspired Sunni regime may replace Assad and potentially destabilize parts of his country from Haditha in Anbar's far west to the northern city of Mosul. 

For the US, the situation is more complicated still. The Obama administration appears eager for Assad to fall, but is also afraid of what might replace him, not least because of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile. If the regime collapses, the aftermath is sure to be chaotic, much as it was in Libya, where arms stores were looted throughout the country. The presence of VX and sarin nerve gas, and the fear of Al Qaeda aligned militants getting their hands on it, has the US considering sending in troops to secure the weapons. 

That's the context in which today's designation was made – part of an overall effort to shape the Syrian opposition to US liking, and hopefully have influence in the political outcome if and when Assad's regime collapses. But while the US has been trying to find a government or leadership in waiting among Syrian exiles, Nusra has been going from strength to strength. Aaron Zelin, who tracks jihadi groups at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, notes in a recent piece for Foreign Policy that 20 out of the 48 "martyrdom" notices posted on Al Qaeda forums for the Syria war were made by people claiming to be members of Nusra. 

Zelin writes that it's highly unusual for the US to designate as a terrorist group anyone who hasn't attempted an attack on the US. In fact, the US only designated the Haqqani Network in Afghanistan, which had been involved in attacks on US troops there for over a decade, this September. 

His guess as to why the US took such an unusual step?

The U.S. administration, in designating Jabhat al-Nusra, is likely to argue that the group is an outgrowth of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). While there is not much open-source evidence of this, classified material may offer proof -- and there is certainly circumstantial evidence that Jabhat al-Nusra operates as a branch of the ISI.

Getting Syria's rebels to disavow Jabhat al-Nusra may not be an easy task, however. As in Iraq, jihadists have been some of the most effective and audacious fighters against the Assad regime, garnering respect from other rebel groups in the process. Jabhat al-Nusra seems to have learned from the mistakes of al Qaeda in Iraq: It has not attacked civilians randomly, nor has it shown wanton disregard for human life by publicizing videos showing the beheading of its enemies. Even if its views are extreme, it is getting the benefit of the doubt from other insurgents due to its prowess on the battlefield.

Will it hurt the group's support inside Syria? It's hard to see how. The US hasn't formally explained its logic yet, but it's hard to see how that will matter either. The rebellion against Assad has raged for almost two years now and the country's fighters are eager for victory, and revenge. The US has done little to militarily assist the rebellion, and fighters have been happy to take support where they can get it.

Most of the money or weapons flowing into the country for rebels has come from Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar and some of that support, of course, has ended up in the hands of Islamist militias like Nusra.

Usually the US doesn't like support flowing to its designated terrorist organizations, and leans on countries like Saudi Arabia to cut off support. But in this case, a doctrinaire enforcement of its will could look like helping Assad (who has insisted everyone fighting his government is a terrorist since long before Nusra even existed).

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Egyptian boys sit in front of graffiti and Arabic, bottom. that reads, 'regime your afraid of a paint brush and a pen,' in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Monday, Dec. 10. The Egyptian military on Monday assumed joint responsibility with the police for security and protecting state institutions until the results of a Dec. 15 constitutional referendum are announced. (Hassan Ammar/AP)

Muslim Brotherhood's unlikely new ally? Egypt's military

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / 12.10.12

Yesterday, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi raised taxes on a host of goods and services, among them alcohol, tobacco, advertising, and construction rebar. Then at around 2 a.m. today, he suspended the tax increases with a short update to his public Facebook account.

The image of President Morsi in his pajamas padding to his computer to change legislation with a few keystrokes is, in essence, what's filling Egyptian human rights activists and secular politicians with so much dread. Morsi can legislate at whim. And he's demonstrated an appetite for doing so.

Now, he and the Muslim Brotherhood that propelled him to power appear to be accommodating themselves to the authoritarian institutions that worked so well during the country's nearly 60 years of military-backed dictatorship. Concessions have been made to protect the military's autonomy and business interests, and in return Morsi appears to have secured the cooperation of the military.

One law he passed yesterday and did not rescind in a late-night bout of leader's remorse will put that cooperation to the test. The law empowers the Egyptian military to arrest civilians as deemed necessary to maintain "public order" until a referendum on a new Egyptian constitution, scheduled for Dec. 15, is finished. "Public order" offenses were a favorite method of Mubarak's police state for controlling and punishing political dissent. 

A spokesman for Morsi claimed today that the powers given to the military to arrest civilians were granted upon the request of the Supreme Electoral Commission. That is unlikely to be accepted at face value by Morsi's opponents, who have been pointing out that the president and the Brothers seem quite happy to use the military to silence opposition in much the same way Mubarak used the military to silence the Brothers for decades.

Morsi's camp insists the order is temporary. And that may be so. Using the military to keep protesters away from the presidential palace or polling places will probably prove effective. And the decree won't be needed after the constitution is passed. It's a form of bridge-financing, with muscle made available in lieu of cash since the draft contains language that also allows for military trials of civilians.

That's much how Morsi's last controversial decree played out. In November, he awarded himself extraordinary powers to prevent Egypt's judiciary from dissolving the constitutional drafting committee. In the absence of judicial oversight, the draft was duly completed, in a rushed and fairly slipshod manner. The draft was handed in to Morsi, who referred it to a referendum. According to current rules in Egypt, once the draft was rubber-stamped by Morsi, the judiciary had no power to step in any more.

So when Morsi revoked that decree two days ago, in what was widely reported to be a "concession" to protesters angry over the contents of the constitution and the manner in which it was being rushed to a vote, he was simply putting down a tool that had served its purpose. 

For the moment Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood's get-out-the-vote machine are working toward one common goal: Getting a "yes" vote on the constitution come Dec. 15. Their public messaging is all about the wonders of democracy and how protesters are thugs seeking to deny the will of the people. An umbrella group of secular-leaning political forces, from leftists to Christians to refugees from the Mubarak regime, are organizing to oppose the vote, but superior organization has been the Brotherhood's trump card in every election since Mubarak fell, and it's hard to see the outcome being any different this time, particularly with evidence that the military is on side with the movement's plans. 

The swift adaptation of the military to the Brotherhood, and vice versa, is a reminder of the resilience of authoritarian orders.

The Egyptian military hierarchy is often described as hostile to the Brothers, but that case is frequently overstated. What the Egyptian military wants is the ability to conduct its own affairs without civilian meddling, and to continue to expand a sprawling business empire that ranges from refrigerator factories to water-bottling plants to high-end condominium development. Mubarak provided that platform until he fell. Now, if the Muslim Brotherhood is offering a similar deal, who are Egypt's officers to complain?

There have been plenty of efforts to induce the military to cooperate. While two years ago Brotherhood leaders would talk about the baleful role the military played in Egyptian political life and bitterly complain about US backing for the army, the draft constitution includes protections of the military's long-established perks that seem the result of a remarkable detente between the Muslim Brotherhood and the officers. 

The second sentence of the preamble to the draft hails the military's support for the January 25 revolution – a remarkable piece of historical revisionism for the beginning of a document that's supposed to undergird the building of a democratic political culture in the country. Article 197 of the draft takes control of the military's budget out of the hands of the legislature, and Article 198 says "civilians shall not stand trial before military courts except for crimes that harm the armed forces." That caveat is big enough to drive a truck through.

For Morsi and his allies, the bitterness stemming from the years many of them spent in jail and the torture some of them suffered appears to be behind them. The structures of Mubarak's Egypt are durable and intact, and if they can be turned towards securing the Brotherhood's own position and ability to further Islamicize Egypt, then they will remain.

After 80 years of setbacks, struggles, and an eventual policy of gradual and cautious movement to their ultimate goal, the Brothers are now rushing headlong into a constitution that will move Egypt in a sharply more Islamist direction.

Constitutions aren't worth much when they divide nations, but that's what is happening in Egypt now. President Morsi seems convinced he has the backing for his play to prevail and doesn't seem concerned about the damage it's doing to national cohesion. 

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Game over for democracy in Egypt? Or game over for Mohamed Morsi? (Ahmed Ramadan/AP)

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood's 'trial of power' (+video)

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / 12.06.12

This morning I stumbled across a long story I wrote about the Muslim Brotherhood's struggles with the Mubarak regime in June 2005 and found plenty of resonance for events today (as well as some personal chagrin in the fact that I'd used the phrase "Arab spring" back then).

Egypt is now finding out something that had been an object of speculation for decades: What the Muslim Brotherhood would actually do if it ever came to power. The prospect long horrified many Egyptian secularists and Christians. As I wrote at the time: "Both Arab regimes and secular opposition groups say the stated support for democracy by Islamists is a chimera."

In the first half of 2005, the Bush administration was still pursuing its "Freedom Agenda" in the Middle East (more or less abandoned after electoral successes for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt made possible by US pressure and a stirring victory for Hamas in Palestinian legislative elections) and the Brothers sensed an opening. They began to openly demonstrate and organize, insisted they were committed to democracy, and argued that any friend of freedom should champion their cause.

The Mubarak regime pushed back hard and in June 2005, over 800 Brotherhood activists were in jail. Some of them were tortured.

The debate then, was much as it is now. If democracy came to Egypt would the Brothers win? And if they did, would it fulfill the old cliche of "one man, one vote, one time?" Now many of the people who warned of what would happen then are saying, "I told you so." Tanks have been deployed in Cairo to stop protests against a power grab by President Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader freely and fairly elected in June. In November, he decreed himself sweeping powers and has been trying to force through a new constitution that has ignited a political and social crisis in his country.

False hope?

Hossam Baghat, a prominent Egyptian human rights campaigner who has generally avoided hyperbole in the years that I've known him, summed up the mood in two written statements today.

"I know it may look to outsiders like the beginning of civil strife in Egypt," he wrote of the protests and violence in Cairo yesterday that claimed five lives. "But in fact it is many great Egyptians uniting to prevent the establishment of modern day fascism in their country." He followed that up with: "I can't count how many times I said 'being in government would certainly have a moderating effect on Egypt's Islamists.' I was wrong."

That assumption, or hope, that governance would force the Brothers to compromise, was grounded in a difficult reality confronted by all knowledgeable advocates for democracy in Egypt: The Muslim Brotherhood, even though it had been technically outlawed for decades, was the most popular and organized political force in the country. Free elections in Egypt were always going to give them a major share of political power, and the choice for critics of their agenda was to either decide that dictatorship was better than democracy, or find a way to believe the Brothers when they told them that an Islamist imposition on society would not be the result.

With the developing reality in Cairo, and with signs that Morsi and the Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, are cutting deals with the Egyptian military to cement their position, far more secular Egyptians are in the camp of fear than seven years ago. Suddenly, the young revolutionaries who triumphed in Tahrir Square in Feb. 2011 are on the side of former regime figures like Amr Moussa and Ahmed Shafiq, the Mubarak-era general and cabinet minister who was defeated for the presidency by Morsi in June. The tanks that were defending Mr. Shafiq and Mubarak in early 2011 are now defending President Morsi.

In 2005, the Mubarak government's official stance towards the strength of the Brothers was denial. The then Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazief promised democratic reforms that had been demanded by the Bush administration, but insisted that the Brothers would not be allowed to play a direct political role. Asked if the Brotherhood would ever be legalized he said "never," and added that the group had at most the support of 10 percent of Egypt's population.

Talk of freedom

Mahdi Akef, the Brother's then Supreme Guide, told me then there was nothing to worry about. "For the Brotherhood, the issue of freedom is at the top of our agenda now. Freedom is at the heart - it's the principal part - of Islamic law."

Not everyone was buying it. "I'm not ready to sacrifice my nation to these people,'' Said al-Kimmi, an author and historian of Islam, said then. "They may say to you they support democracy, but if you look at the history of their beliefs, democracy really doesn't fit with Islam. The sharia is antidemocratic – the rights of women would be attacked and they'd cut people's throats. If my choices are Mubarak's corrupt regime or them, I'll stick with what we have now."

Ali Abdel Fatah, the Brothers' chief organizer in Alexandria, Egypt's second largest city, laughed off concerns back then: "The Brotherhood should be the ones who are afraid. We haven't had the trial of power, we aren't the ones who've formed military courts to jail opponents, executed peaceful activists, destroyed Egypt's civil society, or transformed the state into a series of personal fiefdoms. All we want is an open and fair system."

Well, the trial of power has arrived. And so far, the Brothers are failing it. The man I quoted to end that long ago article illustrates the point:

Ibrahim El Houdaiby, a Brotherhood member whose grandfather and great-grandfather ran the organization until their deaths, is a student at American University in Cairo. The movement's democracy rhetoric is no trick, he says, and that the Brotherhood is unlikely to push for more open conflict with the government.

"Revolutions don't really lead to democracies, just look at Iran,'' he says. "The Brotherhood really wants a democracy in Egypt, and it's willing to wait to make that happen peacefully."

Well, Egypt has had its revolution. As for Mr. Houdaiby? He broke with the Brotherhood a few years ago and is now a frequent critic. He told NPR's Leila Fadel a few days ago that the choice Morsi has forced on the Egyptian public – either improve an unpopular constitution or to leave him in a position of unchecked power – "means that we are not only creating a pharaoh, but the equivalent of a god."

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Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi's supporters, background, clash with opponents, foreground, outside the presidential palace, in Cairo, Wednesday. Clashes began when thousands of Islamist supporters of President Mohamed Morsi descended on the area around the palace where some 300 of his opponents were staging a sit-in. (Hassan Ammar/AP)

The politics of post-Mubarak Egypt have broken

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / 12.05.12

Yesterday, tens of thousands of anti-Muslim Brotherhood protesters swept up to the gates of the presidential palace in Cairo, furious about a proposed Constitution that was written with limited, if any, input from the revolutionary political groups that spearheaded the protests that drove Hosni Mubarak from power in Feb. 2011.

The protests prompted a hasty retreat through a back gate by President Mohamed Morsi, as angry protesters shouted the same slogans against him that swept him to power in June. Riot police had to hold back the protesters. 

Today, came the inevitable show of street power from the Muslim Brotherhood, whose leaders insist they're defending a democratically elected president from an undemocratic mob. Brothers were out in force in Cairo today, clashing with President Morsi's opponents and helping to secure the area around the palace, where Morsi returned to work today.

Crisis averted? No.

Egypt's sputtering transition from a military-backed, secular dictatorship to, well, something else, has now hit its rockiest point in the nearly two years since it began. Morsi's spokesman and backers have not offered any specific compromise. His Vice President Mahmoud Makki today addressed the nation, saying a referendum scheduled for Dec. 15 will move forward. Gehad el-Haddad, a senior adviser for the Freedom and Justice Party, the Brotherhood's political wing, summarized Mr. Makki's remarks as "No moving of Referendum date, no cancellation of Constitutional Declaration. Crowds do not dictate course of country, elected bodies do."

What next for protesters?

If the Brother's stick to their guns, the protesters have little in the way of political alternatives but more protests, or giving in. That too seems unlikely, with fundamental questions at stake about the future of Egyptian society and surging distrust of Morsi and his movement. Politics conducted through shows of street power is always dangerously messy, and the stage is being set for a politically and economically paralyzing period of political confrontation, with the risk of real violence.

Michael Hanna at The Century Foundation is worried, and fears that Morsi has been emboldened by his successful role in brokering a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel last month. 

"If approved in a hastily called referendum, that slipshod [constitution] will bound Egypt's political future and institutionalize its crisis. With a significant portion of the country's judges declaring a strike in response to Morsy's declaration and dueling protesters mobilizing on opposing sides, Egypt's flawed transition now risks tipping into outright civil strife and prolonged instability," he writes. "Rather than using his burnished reputation as a regional leader to forge a more consensual and stable transition back home, Morsy capitalized on the favorable international political climate by making an untenable and unjustifiable power grab that has plunged Egypt into crisis."

The US has been largely passive in the face of these moves, wary that too much criticism of Morsi could jeopardize his commitment, so far, to maintaining Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, as was demonstrated by the role he played in securing a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip last month, when it appeared an Israeli invasion of Gaza was imminent.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's comments today are a case in point.

"The upheaval we are seeing now once again in the streets of Cairo and other cities indicates that dialogue is urgently needed," Ms. Clinton told reporters in Brussels. Clinton asked for "respectful exchanges of views and concerns among Egyptians themselves about the constitutional process and the substance of the constitution."

Dialogue? Morsi gave himself sweeping powers by decree last month, and used them to rush through the draft constitution he now wants put to a national referendum ten days from now. The draft was hastily finished in an all night session of a committee almost devoid of Egypt's secular political forces, and has raised fears that fundamental rights to free speech will be compromised in the new Egypt, as they were in the old, and that Islamic law will play an ever-larger role in Egyptian governance.

A beggar's choice

What's more, if the referendum doesn't pass, Egyptians will be left with Morsi holding executive and legislative power and insisting the courts have little remit to review his decisions. That's a beggar's choice for his political opponents, and no recipe for national consensus on the rules of the game.

And events in Cairo today have been about as far from a "respectful exchanges of views" as could be imagined, with Muslim Brotherhood protesters tearing down the makeshift tents of protesters attempting a sit-in near the presidential palace and engaging in rock throwing volleys with less organized secular-leaning protesters.

Street confrontations at the end of Mubarak's rule were generally between government security protesters and police, with one of the notable exceptions coming on Feb. 2, 2011, when leaders of Mubarak's then-ruling National Democratic Party organized an attack on protesters at Tahrir Square. Armed thugs, a few bizarrely riding camels and horses, charged into Tahrir, touching off a globally-televised melee that ended with 11 people dead.

The ruins of that battle, which saw the sympathies of millions of Egyptians shift towards the young protesters, marked the end of whatever hope Mubarak had of clinging to power. The crowds in Cairo, Alexandria, and other Egyptian cities swelled to unmanageable numbers all unified by a singular demand: "Mubarak, go!" The Muslim Brotherhood, cautious as ever, finally joined the protests in force. The military, which governed Egypt from the time Mubarak stepped down until Morsi's election this June, began publicly lining up behind the "legitimacy" of popular demands.

On Feb. 11, Mubarak was gone.

Consensus fractured

Today, the secular revolutionaries are comparing the clashes to the "Camel Battle" on social media. Reports from the streets of Cairo have protesters expressing optimism that the general public will react, much as they did in early 2011. But what's happening now is a face-off between two groups of civilians with different ideologies, not the Egyptian people and military as "one hand" against the regime.

Reporters on the ground say the Brotherhood's numbers on the streets today are greater than their opponents, and President Morsi remains the only popularly elected political figure in the country. But while his support is intense, it isn't meaningful. In the run-off round of the presidential election, he defeated Mubarak loyalist and former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq by 13.2 million votes to 12.3 million.

That a former air force chief of staff who went on to serve in Mubarak's cabinet for eight years came so close to victory was a clear sign that the Brother's did not have a mandate for the Islamicization of Egyptian politics the group has craved since it was founded in 1928.

What stood for a political consensus for post-Mubarak Egypt, with all sides promising greater freedoms and a national healing after Mubarak's almost 30 years of at times brutal rule, has now been fractured. Whether Morsi has the will, or interest, in trying to put it back together again is the key question that now confronts Egypt.

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