Far From Over -- The State Strikes Back

1953: A mob hired by Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in Tehran

2011: Hired pro-Mubarak thugs attack demonstrators in Cairo

More events than I can possibly address have occurred in Egypt since my last post.  While protests have turned ugly as the regime has allowed its lackeys to attack innocent and unarmed people, the government has been making moves to preserve itself and weaken the popular movement against it.  Scholars are busy speculating on Egypt's fate, and predictions range from unduly rosy to overly grim.  There is an abundance of thorough coverage of every minute of the protests and all of the side plots as they develop, and like most of my colleagues I have been glued to my news feed since last Tuesday watching events unfold as closely as I possibly can. 

When a story is constantly changing and dramatic events are constantly coming to light, there is a danger of losing our perspective, and missing the greater significance of these events.  If I take a step back from what is immediately going on, I am sad to say that the situation in Egypt looks very bleak to me.

A few months ago -- when nobody expected an uprising in Egypt on the scale that we have witnessed -- the major question of Egyptian politics was what would happen after Mubarak left the presidency.  There was a significant chance that he would be too infirm to run for reelection in September 2011, and it was also possible that he could pass away well before then.  While it seemed that his son Gamal may have been preparing to take over for his father, intelligence chief Omar Suleiman was also considered a top candidate for the presidency.  There was no sign that the succession would bring about any meaningful reforms of Egypt's highly dysfunctional political system or its moribund economy, but optimists saw an opportunity to press for change through a newly energized opposition movement with the possible leadership of Mohamed ElBaradei.

Circumstances today, in spite of all the dramatic and wholly unexpected events that have taken place in the interim, are much the same.  The end of Mubarak's presidency is imminent, and succession seems likely now to fall to Omar Suleiman (perhaps the one definitive difference between now and early December 2010 is that Gamal Mubarak will certainly not replace his father).  Reforms are possible, and they are actually being discussed by the regime, but there is no guarantee of such reforms besides the word of the routinely insincere regime leadership.  ElBaradei is still the only feasible leader for a unified opposition, which is far more motivated now, but still has no meaningful say in how influence is brokered within the government.  Meanwhile the police continue to brutalize the people, the military is complicit, and Mubarak clings to power.

In short, Mubarak's pledge to step down is virtually meaningless.  While he may leave office in September, he could also drop dead tomorrow, and this possibility is no different that it was before protests began on January 25.  The military continues to govern in Egypt, and the regime has set about destroying whatever momentum the protests created, allowing chaos to deflate the demonstrators and using violence to drive them back into their homes and force Egyptians to beg their president for order.  

What has taken place in Egypt is a far cry from true revolution, and has not yet caused any substantive change in the order of things.  Mubarak and his cronies know that they can outlast the protestors -- eventually people will need to return home and take care of their families, and they are completely outmatched by well-armed security forces that are unafraid to use violence.  If the situation continues as it is, these protests will become a footnote to the story of how Hosni Mubarak named a successor and how Egypt's military regime continued to govern with indifference and even contempt for its people.  A few weeks out of Mubarak's thirty year tenure, preceded by thirty years of prior dictatorship, followed by who knows how many years of ongoing dictatorship (and yes, Joe Biden, that is what this is called).

Still, it is difficult for me to believe that all is lost.  There is no denying that the opposition movement in Egypt is as strong as it has ever been, and that the current moment is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for democratization.  Egypt is in dire need of a more effective and legitimate political system, and a failure to bring that about now would be a crushing tragedy.  The United States can still play an important role in facilitating true change, and the protestors could still turn the tide if the military can be convinced that it needs to support democracy and take on a more constructive role in Egyptian society.  I will address how I believe the uprising in Egypt can be redeemed, and how it could become a true democratic revolution, in my next post.