Egypt: As Tahrir Square Goes So Goes The Middle East?
05 February 2011By Franklin Lamb
It is difficult to overstate the potential for
Egyptian citizens advancing universal aspirations for
freedom, dignity and basic human rights now spreading
from the determination of those who for more than a
week have risked their lives while inspiring much of
the World at Cairo's Tahrir ("Liberation") Square.
Tahrir public plaza near central Cairo has been the
traditional site for numerous major protests and
demonstrations over the years, including during the
1977 Egyptian Bread Riots and the March 2003 protests
against the American war in Iraq. Washington DC and
Tel Aviv are reportedly shocked by the rapidly
unfolding and unpredictable revolution.
One can quickly recall a long list of geographic place
names that are indelibly etched in the annals of
humanity's quest for freedom and whose very
geographical place name connotes resistance to
aggression, oppression, occupation and tyranny. Names
like Le Place de la Resistance, Tiananmen Square, the
Gdansk Shipyards, Bunker Hill, Iran's Azadi Square,
Bogside, Martyr's Square, Karbala, Aita Shaab, among
scores of others. Tahrir Square has become a name
symbolizing every people's willingness, indeed
insistence, to make personal, potentially life taking,
sacrifices to achieve freedom from an illegitimate,
corrupt, brutal, treasonous dictatorship or from
occupiers or aggressors.
Less than one week after few outside Egypt had heard
of or much less could locate on a blank map of Cairo,
"Tahrir Square" the World now realizes it as the
epicenter of the Middle East's unfolding and
unpredictable earthquake event. The Tahrir Square
uprising has led to one Arab diplomat, currently
posted to Beirut, observing yesterday: "If there were
to be an Arab League meeting this week attended by all
the Arab Heads to State, an honest participant might
suggest to the assembled potentates to look to their
right and then look to their left and realize that in
perhaps 24 months close one third may not be attending
subsequent Arab League summits.
The Tahrir uprising may, following a cursory
examination, appear unconnected with much outside the
Egyptian publics urgent longings to escape poverty,
unemployment, lack of educational opportunities,
caused by decades of regime economic mismanagement,
police brutality and government torture chambers, and
pervasive corruption that has seeped into nearly every
aspect of Egyptian life. But increasingly it appears
that other forces are influencing recent events as
noted below.
The eyes, hope and solidarity of much of the Middle
East are on Tahrir Square and the bloodied but unbowed
Egyptian people, who, old and young, religious and
secular, illiterates and lettered, paupers and
moneyed, all of whom today, following upon the glow of
a spontaneous intifada in the cradle of civilization
stand to win or lose so much for the region.
As the Mubarak regime plots a path for the beleaguered
President to stay in power it is employing the well
tested bromide of most despots including citing the
need for stability, orderly transition, prevention of
religious fanatics and extremists from taking over and
the need for fighting "terrorism." The pro-Mubarak
Egyptian daily Al-Yawm Al-Sabah is claiming that Hamas
is behind much of the instigation to violence in
Tahriri Square and other areas of the country.
Not buying all of these scare tactics, the Obama
Administration's is revving up its "now means three
days ago and counting" demands. Mr .Mubarak told CNN
on 2/3/11 that he's fed up and would like nothing
better than to step down but chaos and the Muslim
Brotherhood would surely follow. His closest political
confident and just appointed Vice-President Omar
Suleiman also predicted chaos if Mr Mubarak resigned,
saying it would leave a body without a head. The White
House is still leaning toward Omar Suleiman but
believes that Suleiman was aware of the campaign in
recent days to intimidate the opposition, and are
staffers are wondering whether he is still an
acceptable choice. Late word from the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee is that the Obama Administration
may support Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa,
who has joined anti-Mubarak protests in Tahrir Square,
and is hinting he may run for president in the
upcoming election. Israel would support him over
Mohammad al Baradei who many view as pro-Iranian.
Still, the Mubarak regime is not without supporters.
Former Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer
has defended Egyptian President Hosni Mubrak, saying
his collapse will be a "tremendous loss" for Israel.
The former army general praised Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak for supporting Israel for thirty years,
Israel's Arutz Sheva newspaper reported. "When I
watched his speech in which he said he would step
down, it pained me to see his collapse," Ben-Eliezer
said on 2/2/11 about Mubarak.
Both Washington and Tel Aviv are were reported shocked
by the speed of the Egyptian revolt and their
intelligences agencies admit not seeing it coming.
Much of the American reaction is being scripted by
AIPAC and other Israel lobby agents who regularly
contribute campaign cash to 90 percent of the US
Congress , including 390 of the 435 Members of the
House of Representative ( 89.7%) who voted to support
Israel after it committed repeatedly condemned serial
murders of innocent civilians and myriad crimes
against humanity in Gaza. These Israeli-pushed
"American" initiatives will likely range from possibly
terminating aid to Lebanon ( some Obama Administration
friends of Israel claim there is a a link between the
South Beirut Hezbollah neighborhood of Dahiyeh and
Cairo's Tahir Square events ) and cutting off Egypt's
nearly 30 years of annual multi-billion dollar cash
grants as well as massive military hardware.
The US-Israel imperative appears designed to
immediately regain control and co-opt the Tahrir
uprising and quickly channel the uprising into a
political cul de sac until Egypt can be returned to
"normal", meaning US-Israel shared hegemony.
What will ultimately determine in which ways the
Middle East moves following Tahrir Square events is
not the armed might of the regional super power or the
weapons of the global superpower. Both Israel and the
US can have a short term impact but the former is
shaking while the latter, equally impotent to subdue
83 million Egyptians and perhaps soon millions of
Palestinians, Jordanians, Yemenis and others, is
trying to stall any major regime change in favor of
cosmetic adjustments to the current government. Even
the Obama Administrations current public choice, Omar
Sulieman is meeting with increasing resistance in
Washington as details of his CV emerged including
being a torture specialist and possibly a Mossad
agent.
What both Israel and the US fear most is a determined
and successful grass roots movement than will liberate
Palestine from Israeli occupation. The Obama
administration can be expected to continue to
temporize events as best it can while calculating how
to insert its choice of a compliant President in
Mubarak's palace. As one Congressional commented by
email: " The last thing the White House or Israel want
is an Egyptian Chavez, or even someone like Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Completely
unacceptable would be anyone with even the hint of
pro-Iranian or Hezbollah leanings. The State
Department favors another strong man, with an
essentially rubber stamp Parliament after "free
elections" as long as there are no troublesome
Algerian, Gaza, or Lebanon style election results. The
US-Israel bottom line is that Egypt's next government
must be one that will guarantee that the 1979 Camp
David Accords and Egypt's willingness to continue
accepting a total of more than three billions in US
taxpayer dollars annually as bribe money to
collaborate with Israel against Palestine.
History is filled with ironies. One of them is the
coincidence that two of the fundamental causes of the
unfolding Egyptian revolution happened within months
of each other both 30 years ago— soon to be followed
by the beginning of the current Mubarak
dictatorship---the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the
US sponsored Camp David Accord. The Camp David
giveaway and cave-in to colonialist Israel was never
accepted by the Egyptian people, by the Islamic
Republic, or by any but a small percentage of the
people of the Middle East.
The hegemonic objectives of the 1979 Camp David have
rolled across the region for three decades, being
rejected and increasingly confronted by a growing
culture of Resistance set in motion with the 1979 Imam
Khomeini-led revolution. Both 1979 events fueled
myriad other more immediate causes including those
noted above and significantly inspired the current
Egyptian eruptions, some of the paths of which are
predictable while the results are unknown.
There are many other Tahrir Squares in the Middle
East. One of which is Al Aksa square in Jerusalem, the
eternal and indivisible capital of Palestine. It
remains to be seen when or if Palestinians will revive
Jerusalem as a modern day resistance place name and
whether like Tahrir Square, Egypt, Jerusalem will rise
up in support of increasing cries for Palestinian
liberation as the inspiration and revolution of their
neighbors in Tahrir Square spreads.
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EsinIslam.Com
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