What is Egypt’s Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi after?

Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

The formidable challenge facing the “two Egypts” today is to rescue politics from the street as the first step towards national reconciliation.

The man central for finding the way to achieve this is Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, long regarded as the sole political arbiter in Egypt.

Following days of mass protests against President Mohamed Morsi at June’s end, the military warned it was prepared to step in “to stop Egypt from plunging into a dark tunnel of conflict and infighting.”

The army issued an ultimatum to Morsi on June 30, instructing him to respond to people's demands or step down within 48 hours. When he failed to do so, it removed him from office on July 3, appointed an interim civilian administration and issued a roadmap leading to fresh elections.

The Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters have been protesting since. They insist that protests will continue until the military-backed administration steps down and the democratically elected one is returned to power.

Egged on by anti-Morsi protesters as the savior of democracy, the Sisi-led military shows no signs of backing down.

In this catch 22 setting, Egypt’s brilliant columnist and talk show host Imad Adeeb wrote this profile of Sisi in Arabic for the country's al-Watan daily:

One question incessantly and markedly posed by all foreign intelligence agencies in Cairo since last June 30 is this: What is Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi after?

Is he power-hungry? Is he leading a military coup? Does he want to ride to the presidency on the back of a Military Establishment tank?

The question puzzling everyone is: What does this man want exactly?

Some in Egypt portray him as a revolutionary inspired by Nasserite thought who rallied the military.

Others who support the Islamic current depict Sisi as a putschist who rode the revolution’s second wave on June 30.

So is he a putschist who rode the revolution wave or a revolutionary who exploited the Military Establishment?

In truth, or at least in my personal humble opinion, the man is simpler than this and that.

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is an Egyptian who comes from an above-average class, loves Egypt and is extremely loyal to the Military Establishment.

Sisi is a prototype of the professional Egyptian army general who strives to uphold the clout, repute and role of the Egyptian Military Establishment, which has entrenched traditions dating back to 1805 and the launch of Muhammad Ali Pasha’s era.

Sisi personifies a set of national and nationalist thoughts shared by the overwhelming majority of the soldiers and officers in the Egyptian Army.

Sisi attended the U.S. Army War College, but he is neither America’s lackey nor her traditional enemy.

Sisi is an Egyptian nationalist committed to Egypt’s full sovereignty over every handspan of its national territory.

Sisi is an Arab nationalist who believes in Egypt’s pan-Arab role but is not prepared to apportion Egypt’s security and independence to any Arab sisterly country, whichever it may be.

Sisi’s moderation is epicentral in its political grasp of the nation’s territorial integrity and independence – this, without extremism or exaggeration and in the accompanying absence of laxity or dereliction.

The second wave of the January 2011 revolution is what won the hearts of Sisi’s generation, which is the first generation to be in command of Egypt’s Military Establishment after replacing leaders of the 1973 October War.

This is an exceptional and rare fusion in Egypt’s political life.

So what does Sisi want specifically?

You may not believe me if I told you that – other than seeing Egypt safe, secure and stable in a modern civil state where the army plays its constitutional role in safeguarding security and stability – the general wants to retire early.

Sisi is not after power, money or fame.

He is folksy in his love of Egypt and a Sufi in the matter of  power.

All this makes his profiles in foreign embassy reports totally inaccurate because it is difficult for a pragmatic and utilitarian mind to imagine a general who reached the helm on the strength of the street and the backing of a tank continue to yearn for nothing.

Can Egypt harmonize the head and heart?

Banners in Tahrir Square decrying President Obama and U.S. Ambassador Patterson

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood today rejected a timetable for new elections laid out by Interim President Adly Mansour, saying it is illegitimate.

The timeline suggests:

• setting up a panel within 15 days to review the constitution
• finalizing constitutional amendments and putting them to referendum in four months
• holding parliamentary elections by early 2014
• calling presidential elections once the new parliament convenes.

Wondering whether the “two Egypts” were heading to political compromise or a bloody conflict, Egypt’s famed commentator and talk show host Emad Adeeb writes for ElWatanNews:

We’re into the new nonsensical phase of “daily bloody struggle” in which the two sides trade charges of wrongdoing and the naked truth is lost as to who’s the killer, who was killed, what happened, in whose interest, at what cost and what aftereffects.

Each party to this conflict is trying to portray the other party’s behavior and deeds as diabolic.

Each side is now trying to convince public opinion at home and abroad that it is the aggrieved party and the other side is guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

Such policies will lead nowhere. They won’t settle the conflict or spare blood. They won’t be conducive to serious and durable political compromise.

With lack of rationalism in the political discourse, each side is trying to defeat the other and tarnish its public image.

Much to the consternation of public opinion, the sides have given conflicting accounts of the violence opposite a Cairo barracks of the Republican Guard. That leaves Egypt stranded in a dark tunnel of absurdity and nihilism that can only lead to chaos and instability.

We are now on the verge of emulating the Syria bloodletting scenario.

Talk under a sitting interim president of a referendum on former President Mohamed Morsi’s year in office is passé.

Egypt lost her political mind when she regained her revolutionary heart.

The quintessence of our crisis is this paradox of having regained the heart and lost the mind.

Are we for dialogue and political compromise or have we decided to fight it out on the streets and public squares?

That’s the question we need to answer truthfully before God, the people and history.

Our security and policies are in a state of flux and changing by the hour with each side trying to muster direct regional and international support for its policies and entitlement to rule and manage state affairs.

Clearly, video scenes aired on satellite TV channels are key stimulants to the positions of outsiders.

Between the statements of Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama, Rashid al-Ghannoushi and the Saudi Royal Court, and between Catherine Ashton and Ban Ki-moon, Egypt’s crisis, chaos and premeditated disorder are intensifying.

Speaking of Obama and Egypt, Rajeh el-Khoury, in his column today for Lebanon’s independent newspaper an-Nahar, gives thumbs up to Martin Indyk for differing with Anne Patterson, the U.S. ambassador in Cairo, and urging Washington to work with Egypt’s armed forces.

The former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs during the Clinton Administration wrote in part in his think piece for Foreign Policy (which you can read in full here):

…President Barack Obama's last minute turn on Mubarak was the right call in the circumstances. But it could do little to convince the Egyptian street that we were now really on their side…

…Deciding to engage with the legitimately elected Muslim Brotherhood government that eventually took Mubarak's place was again the right call. But our failure to stand against Morsi when he began trampling on minority rights convinced the secular opposition that we were now in his corner. We appeared to be merely shifting our support from one authoritarian Pharaoh to the next. The banners in Tahrir Square this week that decried President Obama and the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, Anne Patterson, were a vivid signal of how badly we had managed to position the United States during this phase of the transition. We spoke out when we should've been working quietly to remove Mubarak; we stayed silent when we should've been calling out Morsi on his anti-democratic behavior…

Egypt’s chief justice sworn in as interim president

Interim President Mansour (top & center below) was sworn in at the High Constitutional Court

Adly Mansour, head of Egypt’s High Constitutional Court, was sworn in as interim president today after the army ousted and detained Mohamed Morsi, ending the Islamist president’s first year in office.

"I swear by Almighty God that I will uphold the republican system, respect the constitution and the law, uphold the interests of the people, protect the nation’s independence and the safety of its land," the oath said.

Judge Mansour took the oath of office at a ceremony in the High Constitutional Court (HCC), which was broadcast live on national television.

The swearing-in came after armed forces chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced Morsi’s overthrow on state television late on Wednesday, citing his inability to end the country’s deepening political crisis.

In his speech, Gen. Sisi laid out details of the roadmap for a political transition, chiefly:

• Temporary suspension of the current [Islamist-drafted] constitution
• Setting up a committee to amend controversial articles in the provisionally suspended constitution
• Appointment of the head of Egypt's HCC as interim president, pending early presidential elections
• Formation of a new government of technocrats
• Mandating the HCC to hasten the passing of electoral law to allow for parliamentary elections
• Laying down a media code of ethics to guarantee the media's professionalism
• Draw up a committee to foster "national reconciliation."

The security forces meantime began rounding up senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood to which Morsi belongs.

These include the Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie and his deputy Khairat El-Shater, Saad al-Katatni, head of the ousted president’s Freedom and Justice Party, and Rashad al-Bayoumi, another Brotherhood deputy leader.

But army spokesperson Ahmed Ali warned Thursday, “The armed forces will not allow anyone to insult, provoke or abuse those belonging to the Islamist current. They are all Egypt’s sons. The armed forces have the same amount of esteem, respect and love for them as the rest.”

Morsi’s administration unraveled last night after defying the army’s 48-hour ultimatum to come to terms with the opposition.

Morsi’s opponents had accused him of failing the 2011 revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak by concentrating power in the hands of his Muslim Brotherhood.

His supporters say he inherited many problems from a corrupt regime, and that he should have been allowed to complete his term, which was to have run until 2016.

The Cairo stock market gained LE20 billion ($2.85 billion) in the first hours of trading today as Egyptian investors reacted euphorically to news of Morsi's ouster overnight.

U.S. President Barack Obama said he was "deeply concerned" over Morsi’s ouster and urged a swift return to democratic rule.

Syria’s embattled President Bashar al-Assad, fighting to crush a 27-month-old revolt against four decades of rule by him and his late father, said the upheaval in Egypt was a defeat for political Islam.

"Whoever brings religion to use in politics or in favour of one group at the expense of another will fall anywhere in the world," Assad told his state-run al-Thawra newspaper.

"The summary of what is happening in Egypt is the fall of what is called political Islam."

The Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood became one of the most powerful factions behind the mostly Sunni Muslim uprising against Assad, who belongs to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, and is being helped by Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah militia.

Rosana Boumounsef, in her column today for the independent Beirut daily an-Nahar, says Egypt’s second revolution pulls the plug on using the governance of political Islam as a scarecrow.

She writes:

Ironically, in justifying the course of the latest Arab revolutions, the West expected the upheavals to convulse for many years before producing results that fully meet peoples’ aspirations.

Experience and history prove a revolution does not begin and then cool off before ending with parliamentary or presidential elections – especially when such ballots do not fulfill the people’s expectations.

Many diplomats recognize they were thunderstruck when they saw millions of Egyptians take to the streets to get rid of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and challenge Muslim Brotherhood rule.

The diplomats were equally stunned by Egypt’s first [25 January 2011] revolution against President Hosni Mubarak despite international empathy for Egypt’s mounting economic and financial woes.

It is therefore imperative -- in light of Egypt’s second [30 June 2013] revolution -- that the West and its analysts and researchers rethink to the hilt their theories about the region going down the road of militant political Islam.

They fantasized about the Brotherhood’s rise to power in Egypt being replicated in Tunisia, Syria and all eventual Arab Spring countries.

It wasn’t long before they were proven wrong.

Liberals are still a cut above the rest in devout and Muslim Egypt.

The Muslim Brotherhood did not know how to address Egypt’s multifaceted problems, which are fundamentally economic and administrative. The Brotherhood was caught up in fake successes by laying hands on the seats of power.

The Western powers and Russia will find it difficult from now on to invoke worries that militant or fundamentalist Islamic rule, by the likes of al-Qaeda and its followers, could replace the Syrian regime once agreement is reached on its removal.

Egypt’s second revolution was not only against the Muslim Brotherhood.

It was also a slap in the face of the Obama Administration, which backed and lobbied for the Brotherhood to uphold America and Israel’s interests. 

Egypt showdown over Morsi kicks off Sunday

Ms Hadidi interviewing Heikal last night (top and bottom) and a call for Morsi "to go"

The battle lines are drawn for post-June 30 Egypt.

The opposition is billing June 30 as President Mohamed Morsi’s last day in office -- “but we don’t have an inkling of what comes next,” says Mohamed Hassanein Heikal.

Egypt and the Arab world’s leading journalist and commentator for 50 years was talking last night to CBCEgypt TV anchor Lamis Al Hadidi.

Egypt’s prominent media figure Emad Adeeb wrote earlier for ElWatanNews, “I don’t believe June 30 and the days leading to the [July 10] beginning of Ramadan will pass peacefully. With great regret, I smell blood.”

With the Sunday showdown approaching, this is my abridged version of a curtain raiser penned by Ahmed Maher for BBC News:

Morsi promised when he was inaugurated a year ago to give Egypt a face-lift in just 100 days.

One year on, he faces widespread discontent as much of the country is seething with anger and frustration over the perceived failure of the president to tackle any of the country's pressing economic and social woes.

And from the beginning of his four-year term, Morsi has fallen out with key institutions, chiefly the judiciary, police, media and more recently artists…

The opposition accuses the president and his group, the Muslim Brotherhood, of trying to Islamize the state and of giving the Islamists a monopoly over key public institutions.

In return, hundreds of thousands of Islamists rallied for Morsi in Cairo last week, symbolizing Egypt's increasing polarization.

They dismissed the anti-Morsi campaign as unconstitutional as the president does have electoral legitimacy.

Many locals fear the protests on Sunday will turn into bloody showdown between both camps.

Fearing the worst, the Egyptian army has deployed reinforcements of troops and armored vehicles to strategic locations across the country, chiefly the main presidential palace in Cairo.

As political rivals lock horns over the "Brotherhood-ization" and "secularization" of the nation, opinion polls point out to the mounting public discontent.

A new poll by the Egyptian Center for Public Opinion Research (Baseera) indicated a sharp decline in the president's approval ratings to 32% compared with 78% at the end of the first 100 days of his tenure.

Public anger is soaring over expanding power cuts, water cut-offs in some districts and falling living standards.

Fuel is in short supply as well. So is patience.

For the millions of poor, it is the stagnant economy -- caught in collapsed sources of income like tourism, rising food prices and a growing population dependent on subsidized bread -- that matters.

Foreign currency reserves are half of what they were under Hosni Mubarak and the value of the Egyptian pound has fallen by 10% against the U.S. dollar since last year.

Almost daily strikes by angry civil servants and factory workers demanding better conditions have also become a fact of life.

The president says he has been left with no options but to rely on Muslim Brotherhood members and Islamist allies after the opposition turned down his national reconciliation endeavors.

The opposition, in turn, says Morsi's calls for dialogue are never sincere and insist on early elections.

With the circle tightening around him, the president gave a televised marathon speech on Wednesday night in a bid to upstage the massive demonstrations planned by the opposition on Sunday.

In his interview with Ms Hadidi last night, Heikal gave this feedback on Morsi’s televised speech 24 hours earlier:

The president was unclear as to what he intends offering or doing.

He substantiated Egyptian society’s polarization by choosing to sound like a party leader. You can’t speak as a part leader when addressing an invited audience of state officials. The party is one thing and the state is another.

The president we saw on screen (Wednesday night) looked baffled, yet his words resonated with drumbeats of war.

I think Morsi is under immense pressure. At the same time, the office of president has taken his breath away. For instance, he kept repeating, “I am Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and Police…”

His attack on the media was totally misplaced. It showed him fighting the wrong battle at the wrong place and time, the country being already stirred up.

Because of its poor political performance in office, the Brotherhood-Islamist partnership has seen its popularity-rating plummet to 30% from 60% in the last parliamentary elections.

The reason for this, I think, is the Muslim Brothers’ misplaced arrogance. I saw them when downtrodden first and then arrogant. Some of them now sound more pompous than Queen Victoria.

Morsi expressed a compassionate concern for the poor, but failed to give them hope in the future.

“Pre-emptive demonstrations” organized by the Muslim Brotherhood and fellow-Islamist in the countdown to June 30 are misguided.

The role of a regime is to persuade people with deeds, not muscle and rhetoric. A ruling party does not kick-off bolstering its position with “political armies.”

Morsi was unclear about what he intends doing and how. I don’t understand, for example, how he can complain about inheriting a debt-ridden economy and then go out and borrow more to settle the national debt.

Also a head of state does not publicly criticize Ahmad Shafiq when legal proceedings against the presidential runner-up remain pending.

In truth, the Muslim Brothers assumed power and offered nothing. They simply kept leaping in the dark. And the wrong steps they took over the past four weeks risk plunging the country in civil war.

The Egyptian army is the people’s -- not the Emir’s – army. It is Egyptian nationalism’s godfather and brainchild. Its latest statement sounded the alarm, saying we are all at risk.

The Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood ought to come forward and address the people in person because what is taking place in Egypt gives the lie to the modern state and to transparency. Governing the country out of sight of the public is impermissible. Whoever holds the strings of power must be called to account by the public.

Who are you with, Israel or Assad?

Aftermath of Sunday's air raid in Damascus

"Who are you with: Israel or Assad?"

I asked myself the same question while hearing yesterday’s depressing evening news.

I confess robotically answering in my mind: Israel.

One person agreeing with me today is Saudi Arabia’s most eminent journalist, Abdurrahman al-Rashed, who heads Alarabiya TV news channel.

In fact, the title for my post is a translation of his daily column’s headline in the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat.

Israel or Assad?

I am sure the question popped up in many people’s minds after hearing news of yesterday’s Israeli airstrikes in Syria.

The Israeli warplanes struck several critical military facilities near Damascus and killed dozens of elite troops stationed near the presidential palace, a high-ranking Syrian military official told the New York Times today, Monday.

A doctor at the Syrian military’s Tishreen Hospital said there were at least 100 dead soldiers and many dozens more wounded, the Times reported.

A Western intelligence source told Reuters Sunday’s attack, like the one 48 hours earlier, was directed against stores of Fateh-110 missiles in transit from Iran to Hezbollah.



People were woken in the Syrian capital by explosions that shook the ground like an earthquake and sent pillars of flames high into the night sky.

Syrian state television said bombing at a military research facility at Jamraya and two other sites caused "many civilian casualties and widespread damage," but it gave no details.

So here is Rashed’s cutting rejoinder this morning as appears in Arabic in Asharq Alawsat:

Who are you with, Israel or Assad?

You don’t need to support either.

When Israel attacks the Syrian regime, she is defending her security and interests.

Ditto for us when we rejoice at Israel attacking Assad forces and arsenals, because that would hasten the regime’s fall and deprive it of weapons to kill extra thousands of Syrians.

Only Iran loyalists are protesting and condemning the Israeli air raids because they fear for Tehran’s allies, namely Hezbollah and Assad.

It is not true that their protests are motivated by their hostility to Israel.

Two years of massacres, which left tens of thousands of unarmed Syrians dead, exposed the biggest lie in the history of this (pan-Arab) nation – the ploy of “resistance and objection” that were never meant to challenge Israel or defend Palestine.

Few people were aware of this fact and all the rest were simply misled.

Hezbollah and its operations against Israel had nothing to do with either protecting Lebanon or defending Palestine.

Hezbollah is nothing other than an Iranian battalion planted for more than 30 years to serve the objectives of the ayatollahs’ regime in Tehran.

The Iranians, Assad the father and Assad the son sought to hijack the Palestine cause to rule Syria, occupy Lebanon and serve Iranian interests. Pitching in were such groups as Abu Nidal’s, Ahmad Jibril’s PFLP-General Command and other “boutiques” trading in so-called struggle.

They shared a common cause: to assassinate Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) chieftains when the late President Yasser Arafat led it.

By emulating Iran and condemning the Israeli airstrikes against Assad forces, the administration of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was – for all intents and purposes – backing Assad without denouncing Israel.

The Morsi government could have been excused for standing by Iran, which is on Assad’s side, if it were an active promoter of the Free Syrian Army.

But the Morsi administration’s avowed position so far is pro Iran and Russia, both blatant Assad supporters.

The Morsi government went further. It joined Moscow and Tehran in calling for a political solution on the sole premise of national reconciliation between the Assad regime and the opposition.

Other than being shameful, the proposal is nonviable, coming after two years of mass killings and destruction by Assad forces and shabiha.

Notwithstanding the Egypt-Iran censure, what is certain is that the Syrian people were happy to see the strikes against Assad’s bunkers, forces and weapons, irrespective of Israel’s motives and targets.

The Syrians would have felt even happier had Turkey retaliated in kind to the violation of its territory and airspace by Assad forces, instead of sufficing with a barrage of wordy denunciations.

Syrians have had their fill of oratory declarations, which provoke them more than give them hope.

They are unmindful of regional political considerations and of whether Israelis, Westerners or Arabs launched the airstrikes on Assad.

More important for them is the demolition of the killing machine being flagrantly fed by the Russians, Iranians and Hezbollah.