Popular Uprising: Eve of the End of Era of Domination and Transition to New World Order( Part XII)
The so-called US military assistance to Egypt covering 80% the defense budget put the country’s Army under Washington’s total dependence. In return to such assistance, the Egyptian government became subservient to the US agenda in the political, military and security domains. This article would highlight Egypt’s political subservience and the eventual popular uprising against the servant regimes in the country.
Part XII
The so-called US military assistance to Egypt covering 80% the defense budget put the country’s Army under Washington’s total dependence. In return to such assistance, the Egyptian government became subservient to the US agenda in the political, military and security domains. This article would highlight Egypt’s political subservience and the eventual popular uprising against the servant regimes in the country.
The political subservience of Egyptian regimes
The signing of the Camp David agreement in 1978 by President Anwar Sadat caused deep resentment on the part of the Egyptian people and the entire Arab world. As a result, the Egyptian government faced acute political isolation in the Middle East leading to severing of diplomatic relations with Cairo. Moreover, Egypt was suspended from membership in the Arab League. But after Housni Mubarak came to power, he did his level best to normalize Egypt’s relations with the Arab countries through pretending to champion the Palestinian cause in particular and that of the Arab world in general. In the process, Mubarak not only managed to normalize his country’s relations with other Arab states but also influenced some Arab nations to adopt the Egyptian political stance, thus inducing them fall in line with the defeatist attitude.
On the other hand, the US administration exerted maximum efforts not only to present Egypt as the ‘symbol of a courageous and exemplary move’ but also in inculcating this attitude in the minds of ruling circles in the Arab world. And in due course, a number of Arab politicians began to follow suit. As a result, during the period 1960-1980 the firm Arab anti-Israeli stance began to diminish, and that maintaining covert or overt contacts with Israel become a common practice. Also by the end of the 90s, the notion of co-existence with Israel won acceptance on the part of the PLO leadership owing to Egypt’s continuous agitation. This ultimately led to the signing of the Oslo Agreement. As President Isaias Afwerki underlined at that time, such agreement constitutes a time bomb that could explode any time rather than a seemingly breakthrough. Time also proved the validity of this truth.
Henceforth, Egypt came to play the role of Washington’s main messenger as regards implementing the latter’s strategy through conducting shuttle activities between Israel and the Arab states, as well as Israel and the Palestinian. Hence, by becoming Washington’s puppet, Egypt lost its former influential role in the Middle East. It is to be noted that Egypt used to give due attention to Sudanese issues, but later on, it kept totally silent in Sudanese affairs. And if at all Egypt was to say something about the Sudanese issue, it had to first secure the green light from the US.
Consequently, this state of affairs gave rise to a situation in which many leaders in the Arab world became mere puppets of the US administration in order to prolong their stay in power. It is obvious that the byproduct of subservience in the end is that of becoming disgraceful. If one takes the case of Egypt, its political stance as regards regional issues over the past 30 years exposed it to shame. The fact that Egypt supported US invasion of Iraq both in the years 1990 and 2003, as well as its failure to opposes Israel’s aggression against Lebanon and Gaza rendered it a despised state having no decision of its own. All said, the hypocritical utterances Housni Mubarak made in connection with Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia in violation of the UN Security Council resolution is but a manifestation of the total bankruptcy of the Egyptian regime.
The weakening of Egypt as a regional power prompted several Arab and African countries to fill the vacuum. For instance, exploiting the visible political weakness of Egypt, the TPLF regime made futile attempts to incite the Nile Littoral States rise against Egypt. Beyond that, the prime minister of Ethiopia, a country which ranks first in the list of the world’s poor nations and one with weak military capacity, was seen making empty utterances: “We have no problem in defeating Egypt in the event of war.” This shows the extent to which Egypt got disgraced in both the political and military domains.
It goes without saying that Egypt turned into a meaningless state with an unimaginable political, economic and military collapse over the past 30 years. The country’s resources have been looted through gross corruption, while the socio-economic hardship of the people reached the climax due to the government’s prescribed role of servitude. After going through immense hardship under autocratic rule, it is natural that the Egyptian people would rise up against such state of affairs. Various questions have for long been raised on the part of Egyptian intellectuals calling for change. But, in the wake of the strong popular uprising in Tunisia that led to the ousting of President Zein Al-Abdin Bin Ali, the hitherto suppressed problems in various countries of North Africa and the Middle East began to surface. After the popular uprising in Tunisia, the Egyptian youth mounted stiff challenge to the Mubarak regime; and it took not time for the entire Egyptian people to join the strong uprising.
Although observers have been predicting such developments in North Africa and the Middle East, the events, nonetheless, came as a shock to the Egyptian government and its masters. The US administration was equally disturbed by the dramatic popular uprising in Egypt. The ever changing statements issued by the US administration in the course of the popular uprising amply demonstrate the extent of shock Washington officials experienced.
It is natural that people cannot endure oppression forever; a nation belongs to the people and not to a handful of individuals. The Egyptian people have long been enduring hardship and disgrace under the rule of a subservient regime. They eventually succeeded in toppling Housni Mubarak from power through staging strong popular uprising at the Liberation Square that continued uninterruptedly for 18 days and nights. Despite this, however, long journey still lies ahead for the Egyptian people in order to achieve genuine transformation. This is so because the former forces of domination that have lost their regional interests would not rest idle to turn the clock back. It is possible that the Egyptian people’s revolution could move in the direction of plunging the country into disintegration. Hence, time will answer whether the revolution would bring about genuine change or end up in being a short-lived spark.