Thursday, February 3, 2011

The People win Egypt if the Army wins.

I don’t believe the Egyptian situation will get out of hand in the short term.   The situation is firmly in the hands of the army.  They are capable and willing to impose order if necessary and have so far shown restraint.  They even rescued a CBC cameraman from a mob yesterday.

Nobody will win unless the army wins.  It’s an army that is well funded by the United States.  $1.5 billion goes to Egypt every year from the US alone.  I don’t believe they will allow themselves to become involved in the Muslim Brotherhood’s war on the west.  That would see them cut off and targeted, if not attacked at some point in the future.  As supreme as the Egyptian army is over a mob, armies of the west would similarly dominate over Egypt’s army. 

Why would they get involved in all that anyway?  Healthy economies live in friendly countries.  The economy is the whole problem.  The people are angry about food and oil prices.

Egypt makes plenty of money off of Suez traffic. This traffic hasn’t stopped.  Egypt also makes plenty of money in tourism.  That has stopped but if the pyramids could wait out the Romans, they can wait out a mob.  The mob can also wait out their current government while the electoral infrastructure is built and the constitution rewritten. 

Its become clear that the “Pro-Mubarak” protesters were infiltrated and inflated with plain clothes police and army.   It’s a not so subtle hint to the “democracy” protesters.  They have won.  There will be elections.  Now its time to go home.  At some point, all that will be left are radicals who want to fight the army.  Perhaps that is why cameras are being confiscated from balconies and smashed on the streets.  The army will clear the mob at some point. 

There is very little chance that this will affect the flow of oil except through fear or an expectation that oil will be scarce.   The market already isn’t buying into it.  Jeff Rubin even said that oil will skyrocket and the recovery is finished, which gives me great confidence that it’s all going to be fine.    

Chaos is the thing to avoid.  A velvet revolution would be a beacon to peoples like the Persians in Iran.  Egypt would become the first self initiated Muslim democracy in the Middle East and it would look great on them.  For the first time in a long time things would be looking up in that part of the world.       

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well the army thought it had control in Turkey, but they are gradually losing power as the Islamic against a secular Turkey change the constitution and change the judges.

Anonymous said...

too bad about the cameraman.

Anonymous said...

How about we stop being patronizing and thinking we know better for the 80 million people in Egypt than they themselves do. Having never traveled to Egypt nor having studied it's internal politics much, I'm not going to pretend to be a player when I'm really just a spectator. I think it's best to just chill out and watch this shit than to pretend that you know this shit.

John said...

Well said anon #3. I've had a gut full of "informed opinion" over the last few years from asshole journalists and bloggers alike.

Watch and listen and STFU.

Anonymous said...

People who've never been in the army or police are always the first ones to have "informed opinion" about how the military or police should or will act.

Unknown said...

@ Anon1: if people in Turkey choose that, then its their fault, and the results be on their heads. The Nazi's were democratically elected in 1933. Something everyone forgets.

@Anon2: A shame. Media are being targeted and I havn't yet heard about why. You think they would answer that question first. I think that camera's are the only thing preventing a massacre right now.

@ anon3: I think I can safely say that chaos isn't good for 80 million people and niether are dictators or Islamic socialists. You are wrong about being player too. What happens with the canal affects everyone. I win either way, but my concern is for the people who don't even know they are players.

@John: Everyone knows predicting the future is a crapshoot. Thats not going to stop you or me or anyone else from trying. If you really want us all to STFU then you just have to click the little x in the top right corner of your window. You can cut yourself off from all the bloggers and journalists in the world an have nothing but the contents of your guts to keep you company. Instead of asking us to shut up, I suggest you trust your guts and respectfully get lost.

@anon4: -And what do you know about where I've been and what I've seen? How would experience in our voluntary military equip you to guess what a dictator's conscript military will do next? You would be unwise not to look at insurrections of the past in that very country and others in the region. It would also be wise for you look at the past performance of that army and others in the region to know they can't fight worth beans. Conscripts are little more than slaves and they fight like a slave army. Would the Canadian military join a pro-Canada mob in the FLQ crisis? No, I beleive your comment is invalid.
So why don't you tell me what you think will happen? Tell me what insight you might have from your presumed service? That would be usefull and interesting. If your in the shutup camp please see teh instructions for John above.

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