Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's heir apparent Gamal has fled to London with his family in the face of the widespread unrest and riots in Egypt.
The plane with Gamal Mubarak, his wife and daughter on board left for London from an airport in western Cairo, according to the website Akhbar al-Arab. The Arab Herald reported on the same story.
Riots and protests are wide-spread all over the country in what Egypt's anti-govenrment forces are calling a 'Day of Wrath.' The official demands of the protesters are for the Egyptian government to end its 30-year state of emergency, pass a law preventing a president from serving more than two terms, and the resignation of Interior Minister Habib al-Adly.
By leaving, GaMal Mubarak made a huge mistake if he had any intentions of ruling Egypt. It remains to be seen if his octogenarian father still has the means to bring the country under control, but even if he does Gamal's credibility is gone with the one group who has the major voice in the matter - Egypt's military and security services.
The future will belong to one of two paths in Egypt. Either the army will stand aside as they did in Iran in 1979 and the Muslim Brotherhood opposition will take over and install an Islamist government, or the military will install another strong man to take over from Mubarak.
Time will tell.
12 comments:
imo, the only way for the kid to have taken over would have been for him to shove his father aside and say i'm the man.
you know, kinda like this.
i digress.
as it stands now, i think the m/b will take over.
this could have all been avoided if the US had done what i said should have been done 9 years ago.
ff didn't/doesn't agree with it.
but it would have been effective.
the coptic areas of egypt are well delineated.
just carpet bomb the rest for about six months.
as it stands now, egypt is just another islamic domino.
note to bibi, assign your presets and warm up the weapons.
Actually Louie, it could go either way..the MB or another strongman.ALl depends on how the military jumps.
As far as Gamal goes, his father was trying to groom him as a successor, but I don't think Gamal had the right stuff and some members of Egypt's military were openly questioning his ascendancy. His runnin' out will intensify those feelings.
Whoever the military installs will not be friendly to the US or Israel. For the US, the choice is clear. Its time to abandon the Middle East entirely. Withdraw to defensible positions along the American borders.
Louie's suggestion of "carpet bombing" is not viable for two basic reasons. 1.)It would only intensify anti-American feelings in Egypt, the broader Middle East, and around the world. This could lead to crippling economic sanctions against the US or other reprisals against America that would only further destroy its economy and further compromise its survival prospects. 2.)The military is worn down, is using outdated technology, and is spreac to thin. As such, the resources simply aren't available to effectively carry out a military campaign against Egypt or anyone else for that matter nor does America have the financial means to undertake such an action.
The next "domino" to fall will likely be Saudi Arabia. When it does, all oil shipments to the US will likely be cut off. Time to start drilling for our own oil and gas reserves and time to build some more refineries. The fall of Saudi Arabia has been inevitable for a long time now. Had we been more intellegent about this, we could have started developing our own reserves sooner and building the necessary refineries and we could have mitigated this situation.
But no, we couldn't be intellegent about any of this. We had to let envirowackos set our energy policy. Now we're about to reap the bitter fruits of such poor decsion making.
There may be a silver lining to all of this. The "moderate" governments like Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc are all bitter enemies of America. They just don't approach it the same way that countries like Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas do. Now perhaps we can be out in the open about things. Also, we can FINALLY end foreign aid to Egypt. We can't afford it any way.
B.poster said:
1.)It would only intensify anti-American feelings in Egypt, the broader Middle East, and around the world.
my #1 is, you say that like it's a bad thing.
my #2 is, you may want to read some blogs to get an idea of how america is viewed by the rest of the world. i would suggest JoshuaPundit.com. he gives an insightful perspective of the current US position in the world today.
beyond that i would say sanctions against the consumer driven society of the US would be akin to cutting off ones' nose, etc., etc.
Louie,
Thanks for the reply. Yes, anti-Americanism is a VERY bad thing. In order to accomplish much of what we need to accomplish, we are going to need help from a number of people and a number of countries. As long as anti-Americanism runs rampant, the help we need will be next to impossible to get. Improving our image abroad should be our top foreign policy priority. A good way to start here would be to develop a coherent message and to take a more proactive approach in getting this message out.
I actually try to read as much as I can, especially Joshuapundit but not just Joshuapundit. I would tend to agree that sanctions against the US right now would probably do alot of harm right now, however, in a few years the purchases of consumer goods by the growing middle classes in places like China, India, and Russia should be able to easily replace any purchases lost from a declining US market. Sanctions against the US right now might make the transition a little rogher than some might like but they are not going to sit around while the US attacks either Iran or Egypt. In order to get support for the position you seem to advocate, we simply must change the current narrative about America. Also, strengthening our military capabilities would be extremely helpful, however, with help from others it may be possible. Right now there isn't sufficient support either from those around the world whose help we will need or among the American people.
Poster my friend, the US has a $14 trillion economy and is the major export market in the world. NO ONE is going to 'sanction' us.NO ONE.
What passes for the middle class in the countries you mention would be poverty cases here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Most Americans who haven't traveled have no idea of how people in other countries live and how rich even the people we classify as 'poor' really are in comparison.
As for attacking Iran,if we did, do you really think any other country would do more than grumble? As a matter of fact, a number of them would be secretly relieved.
Our image abroad is always going to be crappy. When you're number #1, it always is, particularly when you give away a lot of foreign aid without asking for anything in return.
Think about it.
Regards,
Rob
Rob,
Thanks for the reply to my post. In the last sentence, I think you nailed it. When one gives away something without asking for any thing any return, generally they cheapen thsmselves. It only encourages people to look down upon them and think of them as less worthy.
I'm actually for the elimination of ALL foreign aid. With our massive national debt we simply can't afford it and there are number of issues right here at home that urgently need our attention. But if we MUST dole out foreign aid. at the very least, we should make it conditional on certain actions by the recipients.
Interestingly it seems like the only place where the aid is actually conditional is in the case of Israel. In fact, there seem to be such conditions placed on it that I really believe that both Israel and America would be much better off without the aid.
Are we really #1? I think that's debatable, however, what is clear is, if you build someone or something up to be greater than what they actually are, that target becomes much easier to vilify. I think elements of that are at work here.
All we have to do is conduct targeted assassinations of radical Imams who call for jihad against America and the West. It would intensify problems for two or three years, but after a while they would change their tune. Just not right away to avoid losing face. But the more of them we killed-along with their families an closet, immediate supporters-the closer we would get to that day when these clowns realize its not really in their best interests to mess with us.
And that's the thing right there. As long as we focus on civilians, we accomplish nothing. When you target the imams, their families, and their immediate and most influential supporters, you cut off the head of the snake.
Hello Poster, What I said was that it's problematical when you give away a lot of foreign aid without asking for anything in return.
Study the Roman Empire and the Brits. They were able to control huge swaths of territory far beyond their military capacity to occupy it by providing financial support to people that were able to do something for them - police an important trade corridor, deny valuable resources and trade to a rival and 'police and protect' certain vital areas without the need of their empires getting physically involved.
The last president/SoS team we had that understood this and how to use it was Nixon/Kissinger.
Hi PT, nice to have you drop by.The problem isn't really the imams IMO although I see your point. Nor is it a sub-contractor like al-Qaeda.
No modern terrorist movement has ever survived without a friendly nation-state where they can recruit, train, get funding and have a safe haven from their enemies.
The problem is our failure to confront, militarily or otherwise the half dozen or so nations that fulfill that role for jihad - and that includes tolerating foreign funded organizations that do the same thing on our soil co-opting American-born Muslims.
That's the real head of the snake.
We will do this eventually, but the delay is going to cost us a lot of blood and treasure, and the longer we wait the higher the price.
Regards,
Rob
Rob,
I think you and I are very close to agreement on foreign aid. You distribute foreign aid to people and countries who can offer you something that you need or desire. In addition to studying the Brits and the Romans, we could also study how large corporations decide how much money they are going to distribute to charity, how they are going to distribute it, who they are going to distribute it to, and when they are going to distribute it?
Since we aren't the Brits or the Romans nor do we want to be, I think the corporate model for charitable giving would be a much better model for us to study when trying to determine how much foreign aid to distribute, when to distribute it, where to distribute it, who to distribute it too, and how to distribute it, etc. Essentially you distribute your aid in a way that will best benefit the interests of America and its people. Essentially we try to maximize the bottom line for the American government and its stockholders who are the American people in the same way a corporation tries to maximze the bottom line for itself and its stockolders.
Where I think we might respectfully disagree is, when we take the corporate model we should be studying a step further, we find that when a corporation is in the red or faces uncertain financial prospects they will often times decide to cut back on their charitable distributions and in some cases stop them all together. With its massive national debt and struggling economy the US is in just such a situation. We are unable to afford foreign aid right now.
At a minimum we should put an IMMEDIATE halt to ALL foreign aid!! This halt should last for a minimum of five years. This will give us some time to conduct a top down review of how much we can afford, to whom it should be distributed, when it should be distributed, where to distribute, how much to distribute, and how it should be distributed, etc.
Corporate executives understand, if the bottom lines of the stockholders are not maximized, there teunures will not be very long. The stockholders of the American government who are the Aemrican people should make the same things clear to elected officals and government workers.
Pagan Temple,
I'm not necessarily opposed to your idea of "targeted assainations" in principle. In fact, I think this what we are tyring to do with the drone attacks in Afghanistan.
There are some problems though. Specifically, if you are only partially successful in your targeted assainations, you will only make matters worse, as the survivors will come after you with a vengence and they will have more recruits. Essentially you need to be able to take out enough of the problem people while limiting "collateral damage."
In order to pull this off you will need good intellegence on who you need to be targeting and where they are going to be at a given time. Once you've gotten your intellegence, you will need to have enough higly skilled teams of people who can pull off the actual assaination and you will need to have a way to get your teams in place and get them back out once the mission is complete. It would be extremely helpful if the teams who "get to know" the targets could also get themselves in place, pull off the assainations, and get themselves out once the deed is done.
As stated, I agree with your idea in principle but as a pratical matter it simply isn't something we can implement right now. In order to implement it, you are going to need the following: 1.)People who can gather intellegence on the targets. Get to know them. know where they are at any given time. 2.)Skilled personnel who can carry out the actual assaination. 3.)Skilled personnel who can deliver the assaination teams and intellegence personnel to the targets and is able to extract them after the mission is complete. 4.)The best option would be for your teams to have all three of the previous listed capabilities. The less outsourcing the better.
At this time, to be charitable America's intellegence services are incompetent, the military is spread to thin, and is often times using sub standard technology. As such, we simply don't have the capabilities to successfully implement a policy of targeted assainations even if we actually wanted to.
I've already given the best solution to the problem here at Joshuapundit. Since you are a regular reader, I think you have likely already seen it.
Rob writes: "No modern terrorist group has ever survived without a friendly nation-state..." I'm thinking Saudi Arabia. Why are we still allowing people from this region to immigrate into our country? Why haven't we made a much more concerted effort to wean ourselves off of a relationship with this evil entity? I think I know why. To many top officials are on the take from this country. Saudi Arabia is far more dangerous to us than Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan ever were or likely ever could have been. Those WWII foes never achieved the level of penetration into all levels of the American government that Saudi Arabia has.
While Saudi Arabia is far more dangerous to us than our WWII enemies were, it is not the same enemy. As such, how we counter it will likely be much different than how we countered Germany and Japan during WWII. In order to counter Saudi Arabia, we must first understand that it is an enemy. So far this has not happened yet. At least not publically.
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