Turkey and Egypt?

The Financial Times writes today that Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a passionate speech in Cairo yesterday has said the “Israel must pay a price for its aggression and crimes”. They also write that this has alarmed Israel and that it worries the US. Erdogan also calls for the acceptance of Palestine as a state via the UN.

Turkey has now permanented its policy shift with this tough stance against Israel where it also tried to work up an aggression among other states in the area. Erdogan has also said that he will bring a Turkish naval escort to a new Ship to Gaza flotilla at the same time as he says the Mavi Marmara incident was an act of war.

In the mean time rioters attacked the Israeli embassy in Cairo. Israel brought home some 80 embassy personnel but has since said that they will try to restore the for them important mission in Egypt. After all, Egypt is one of two countries in the Middle East that has a diplomatic relationship with Israel. The other one is Jordan. The Turkish diplomatic relationship is on hold as is the earlier close military collaboration. Turkey has, though, agreed under the flag of NATO to harbor radars for missiles from Iran on their territory. It seems like Erdogan is forcing the US and NATO to choose him or Israel.

Erdogan is currently on a trip to Egypt, Tunisia and Libya hopefully as a model for Arab modernization. It would be of great concern if the trip in reality turns out to be forging a coalition against Israel in these fledgling states. The problem at hand is that Erdogan is not acting favorably to a fellow democratic nation but rather walks the religious line.

Conspiracy Theory about the revolt, not revolution, in Egypt?

Amir Taheri writes a column about Egypt and its military in The Times this weekend. Apparently the military and all its "tentacles" represent 10% of the population in Egypt. It is a state within the state. And the people of Egypt loves it as we know from the debacle at the Tahrir square.

Mubarak was part of the military!?

Isn't the easiest solution for this equation that the military staged a coup, which Taheri also suggests. They let the revolt happen and made sure they would look good as a result of it.

The good news for the 90% non-military people of Egypt could be that the Western educated forces within the military now can concentrate of rebuilding Egypt, with their newly won popular mandate, to something that is economically more efficient although I doubt that we will see much of liberalism. The question is rather how Chinese it will become? After all we witnessed severe anti-Western sentiments during the revolt especially during the attacks on the foreign press.

What is it the demonstrators in Egypt want?

There is on the Tahrir square a large sign held by the demonstrators that informs that people want to get rid of the "regime". Perhaps it is not so much Mubarak, as the regime. Now what do people mean by this?

Probably they want to get rid of "Secret Service", whatever that means. Perhaps it is sleepless nights in pain after what some unknowns interpret as insubordinations?

Some people think this is advanced and blame the West and Israel. Others blame Iran, apparently. However, there are no signs for requests for democracy that I have seen and the attacks recently on foreign press ought to mean that the regime wants to do what they are good at in "peace".

What seemed impossible actually happened in Tunisia, or did it? My guess is that "Secret Service" is still there and what is important is to improve the quality of this entity in order for it to be more similar to those in the West. The central question is, how do you achieve that?

It is possible that what we are seeing in the Middle East and The Mahgreb is due to the relative decline of the West. Muslims thus feel empowered. As was pointed out recently in polls at least anti-American sentiments are strong in countries like Egypt and the Tunisians did not like France. There are calls for an "orderly transition", but again, to what?

My guess is that the Arab world, due to their anti-Western sentiment, has to find their own order. The experience from Iraq shows that. Things looked very fortunate, from a Western standpoint, on Tuesday. But it was apparently not possible for Mubarak, due to his loyalties, to step down. Instead the regime fought back by sending in the hooligans to create "chaos" in order to shout "stability". An outrage in Western eyes?

Reform in the Middle East?

I saw today on the news that Iran relish the idea of an Islamic Middle East as a result of revolutions in many of the countries with secular governments. Jordan is for example coming down with demonstrations today and the king has fired the Prime Minister presumably as an early response that he hopes will quell the problem.

Is Iran's idea good or bad? Charles Krauthammer, an American conservative, does not think anything good will come out of this in the short run. The experience in Iraq would indicate that so called "real" democracy is quite far off, although it might be better with an endogenous development. Another problem is that the more countries involved the less chance for the West to help. The Swedish Radio correspondent Cecilia Uddén mentioned also that people on the street are irritated over the reluctance of the West to back them. Erdogan of Turkey entered the fray today, perhaps to take that point, and suggested to Mubarak to listen to the people. A development along the lines of Turkey, rather than Iran would be of course be preferable.

What about more theocracies like Iran then? Perhaps a hint from history might give an indication apart from the general viciousness of the Iranian regime and its apparent lack of potential compared to Turkey. Timur Kuran, a Turkish-American academic from Duke University in the US has published a book called The Long Divergence where he claims that the reason for the non participation in the European revolution of ideas and economy after the 16th century was the presence of sharia according to a column in The Economist. This despite the fact that The Prophet actually was a merchant.

If Dr. Kuran is correct, and the effect of sharia would be the same despite what we know today, this might also be important for a country like Sweden where we today have 5% Muslims, a figure that will double to 2030. It would be an argument for integration without sharia.

Reform in Egypt?

When George W Bush visited Israel a while ago, May 2008, he held a speech concerning the sixty year prospect of the region. The occasion was the sixty year celebration of the State of Israel. Most people in Sweden would probably doubt his vision of a prosperous region in peace. The question is if the current events in Tunisia and Egypt are stepping stones in the right direction or if we only can assume we will see changes of faces around the spider web the "secret service" constitutes? Even Syria starts talking about reforms.

Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State in the US, thinks military restraint and democratic reform would be preferable. It is interesting to note that the military seems to become friends with the revolutionaries in both Tunisia and Egypt. Although, apparently Mubarak showed himself with the army chief on television in a possible attempt to gain some goodwill.

The fact that people are so fed up that they begin to risk their lives for change is a good thing, since it will have effect on the debate of for example the rule of China. Freedom matters. Autocratic means of governance seems to fail, given some time depending on the culture in question. It must also be good for the people in Iraq to see that their suffering through their civil war might have the effect of moderation on the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. Heard one Tunisian activist that said they would not do the same mistake as the Iraqis. What is happening is of course very serious, already 100 people have lost their lives in Egypt. It is tempting to assume that people in Tunisia and Egypt have compared their lives with those of friends and relatives in Europe who live a more free life.

There was an estimate that the Muslim Brotherhood would get 80% of the vote in a fair election? Sounds high but this could of course mean trouble for the region since it might become a giant Gaza in the eyes of Israel. Hamas stem from this organization. The problem is then that there might not be any other solution on the present crisis. Despite this the Obama wants "real" democracy. It is a tough call.