'A truly democratic, sovereign Egyptian gov't cannot possibly remain a slave of US foreign policy.'

[seafan]

Pepe Escobar writes in Under the (Egyptian) volcano:

February 15, 2011

.....

It's easy to explain why the CIA never saw it coming. The agency may have excelled in doing extraordinary rendition business with Sheikh al-Torture, but overall it has been imprisoned by a major ideological strait jacket since the Ronald Reagan years. The CIA simply does not talk to anybody who's not a vassal - from Iran to Hamas to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB).

.....

What's with these communique junkies of the Supreme Council? The street knows they are all Mubarak cronies, mostly in their 70s - starting with coup leader, Defense Minister Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, 75 - very close to the Pentagon's Robert Gates (crucial; Tantawi got to the top after being the commander of Mubarak's private army, the Republican Guards).

They are all US-enabled stakeholders (via billions of dollars of "aid" year after year) of a vast military-owned business dynasty controlling entire sectors of the Egyptian economy. There's no way a new Egypt may be born without overthrowing this whole system. Ergo, the street has to take on the army.

Expect major fireworks ahead.

.....

This has been not only a youth-driven revolution, but is now also a mass working class-driven movement. In the next stage, the working class - and the peasantry - will be increasingly crucial. As blogger Hossam El-Hamalawy has put it, "We have to take Tahrir to the factories now." The regime's final crackdown happened when strikes spread like wildfire. There's increased conceptualization of direct democracy from below leading to a state of permanent revolution. The "West" is quaking in its Ferragamos.

At the same time, the January 25 leadership is aware that Washington, Tel Aviv and Riyadh - plus Mubarakism's comprador classes - will do absolutely anything to derail Egyptian democracy. Everything will apply - from a Walhalla of bribes to shady manipulation of laws and the electoral process. Expect at least one general to run for president; certainly not the incredibly vanishing CIA asset "Sheikh al-Torture" Suleiman, but most probably army chief of staff Sami Anan, 63, who has also spent a lot of time in the US and is closer to many in the Pentagon than Tantawi.

.....

Juan Cole summarizes succinctly in his Top 5 Effects of Egyptian Revolution:

February 14, 2011

5. Thousands of protesters marched Sunday on the presidential palace of Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Salih, who has ruled since 1978. The United States has increasingly forged a relationship with the Yemeni military aimed at destroying the alleged al-Qaeda operatives in that country.

4. After 3,000 protesters came out in Algiers on Sunday, organizers announced that they would hold rallies every Saturday in their quest for the resignation of President Abdel Aziz Bouteflika.

3. Fearful of a Palestinian uprising against it, the Palestine Authority in the West Bank is instituting some reforms. Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has dismissed his entire cabinet in favor of a smaller, leaner body.

2. Clashes broke out Monday morning between police and demonstrators over the latter’s plans to hold protest rallies in Manama. Reuters has background.

1. Iran’s Green Movement and its plans for big rallies in Iran on Monday are raising regime fears that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards may split, on facing the prospect of attacking innocent civilians.

Cole wraps it all up with this:

US interests are affected by each of these. Algeria is a petroleum producer, and supplies are tight, increasing the value of stability in each of the OPEC countries. Bahrain has a bit of oil but its main importance is as a US naval base. Yemen is an object of anxiety about al-Qaeda, with which Saleh has been cooperating. Iran is a major target of US foreign policy angst and any significant change there will affect the tenor of the debate in Washington.

And Escobar concludes:

.....

Apart from the fact the Egyptian revolution - still in its infancy - is the most earth-shattering strategic shift in the Middle East for the past three decades (since Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982), what stands out is the abject fallacy of everything from Islamophobia to the reductionist "clash of civilizations" theory to the neo-con chimera of a Greater Middle East. The Egyptian street opened a highway to democracy in only two-and-a-half weeks. Compare it to the Pentagon democratizing Afghanistan in nine years and Iraq in seven.

Way beyond the inevitable clash in Egypt of demographic explosion and economic crisis, what is literally freaking out the West is that its elites know what the vast majority of Egyptians don't want. A truly democratic, sovereign Egyptian government cannot possibly remain a slave of US foreign policy.

Things may start at a minimum with lifting the siege of Gaza and re-examining the export of natural gas to Israel at subsidized rates; then they will move to reconsidering the safe passage of the US Navy in the Suez Canal and finally rediscuss the holy of holies - the 1979 Camp David accords with Israel.

From now on, any increasing degree of freedom enjoyed by Egypt will be directly proportional to the increasing degree of fear felt by Washington, Tel Aviv and Riyadh.

.....

Thanks to the incisive analysis of Escobar and Cole, we now can more closely scrutinize the actions of Washington, Tel Aviv and Riyadh, as their fears of true Arab democracy intensify.

[former9thward]

1. If Egypt does not want to be a slave to U.S. foreign policy

it has to stop accepting U.S. foreign aid. And in the long run I think they would be better off if they did. I don't agree with the OP advocating that Egypt go to war with Israel.