By Orkhan Sattarov, exclusively to VK
The upcoming Munich security conference won’t be easy for diplomats: a year has passed since the last session; and a lot has changed in the world. The participants of the conference will have a lot of urgent topics to discuss, almost all of them connected to the so-called ‘Arab spring”, events in Syria and Iran's nuclear program.
The Syrian crisis has been in the focus of the world’s attention for 10 months, and it seems there is no chance of resolving it any time soon. Discussions on whose fault it is that Syria has fallen into a state of civil war – its authorities, who chose to suppress riots with military force, or the West and the monarchies of the Persian Gulf – could be endless. These discussions, however, won’t make the lives of the Syrian people better. The UN Security Council proved to be incapable of doing its job and resolving the situation as it was turned into a platform for the world’s leading powers’ competition.
The events in Syria and the aggravation of the Iranian nuclear program problem are links of a single chain, so one should analyze these questions together. In the case of these two complicated issues it is still clear (more or less) what geopolitical interests are being followed by the main players and what their next moves would be. The recent violent outbreak in Egypt, however, took everyone by surprise. It is symbolic, tough, that during the last year’s Munich Security Conference the participants had to monitor Egyptian revolution developments on-line, and now, a year after, the situation in the country hasn’t yet stabilized.
The unrest that started with a mass fight of football fans in Port-Said that resulted in 74 casualties and hundreds of wounded but later gained a political context spread to other Egyptian cities. Football fans outraged by the actions of the police in Port-Said organized several demonstrations, the most numerous one took place near the main police office in Cairo. The wave of rallies and clashes with the police also caused injuries and two casualties in Suez.
All these happened despite the fact that the governor of Port-Said Province and the Egyptian Football Union’s administration were dismissed right after the tragedy in Port-Said and three days of mourning were declared. Nevertheless, protestors took to the streets again demanding the dismissal of the government and the prosecution of the Interior Affairs Minister.
It is rumored among the protestors that the reprisal executed over the radical Al-Akhri FC fans was orchestrated in advance and was carried out with the deliberate connivance of the police. The videos from the tragedy seen provide some evidence for this claim, as they show that police and troops merely standing by and observing the carnage. Media also report that controls at check-points passed through by the fans as they entered the stadium was inattentive and selective, which allowed the Al-Akhri fans’ opponents to carry weapons. It is worth reminding that the Al-Akhri FC fans were one of the most active moving forces of the Egyptian revolution, and now the fans believe that the military has decided to execute revenge over them.
It seems unlikely, however, that any given political force in Egypt would like to avenge Mubarak, while the military made quite a profitable bargain: it gave up Mubarak but kept its leading political role. The presidential powers passed on to the Supreme Military Council, while the Muslim Brothers control the parliament, but the parliament doesn’t control the state. The parliament could demand the resignation of the head of the Interior Affairs Ministry, but it would be only a recommendation to the government. The military still holds the real power in Egypt, but that may change when a new president is elected this July.
The current instability that could be the fruit of an elaborate provocation can give the military a pretext to delay the presidential election. Martial law has already been enacted. The Muslim Brotherhood, the major political force in the country, are already warning people of a "generals’ plot" to take over the state. Such juntas are not uncommon, and sometimes they pass power to a duly-elected civic government after having stabilized the situation, as has happened more than once in Turkey. However, there are other examples when junta governments usurp power for a long time.
It is interesting that, despite the violence against the protestors, EU capitals and Washington fail to condemn the actions of the Egyptian police. The US can’t ignore the risk of radical Islamists taking over in Egypt if the military government steps aside. Islamist parties are now the most popular among the Egyptian population, and Washington can’t change that. However, the US can try to use the Egyptian military to bring the Islamist forces to their senses and lose their radicalism, at least as far as their policy towards Israel is concerned. And there’s also the example of Algeria, where the Islamists were pushed away from the political scene and the reforms were given a ‘fresh start’. So it seems that the Egyptian generals have been given carte-blanche from Washington to crash radical protests.
In any case, this new spike of instability in Egypt vividly shows that any given revolution isn’t the best tool to build a stable social and political system. The instability created by the ‘Arab spring’ appeared to be far too strong. Right now Egypt still has a chance to conduct democratic reforms, but one shouldn’t abuse the ‘popular unrest’ method: in Kyrgyzia, for example, it led to a new revolution in 5 years.
