Will Egypt Burn?

Muslim Brotherhood Internal Opposition Positions Itself for Change

 

   … by Jim W. Dean, VT Editor    … with Press TV

–  First  published  on  Press  TV  on  July  16th,  2013  –

 

[Editors Update: The MB is betting the farm on the return of Morsi which is a lost cause. They could back off and funnel all their energies into the new elections to regain their mandate, but don’t seem interested in that path.
Is it because they know they would lose, and prefer a confrontation with lots of deaths to enrage their supporters in a classic “if we can’t have it we will burn the house down”?
Sparing is now going on as to who is reacting to whom. Are the Morsi prison break charges a planned psy op to make sure he cannot run in the elections along with the others involved in the prison break?
Has Hamas been supplying the Sinai militants with ammo and weapons who have been killing the army’s soldiers there? Is that why the tunnels were shut down? Hamas has been deathly quiet. Are the Israelis silent benefactors or active participants?
In Iraq a military type assault breaks hundreds out of jail, including many so called AL Qaeda convicts. Within two weeks a larger military assault on a Benghazi prison releases a 1000. These are operations that can only be run by Intelligence agencies. Who are they? What do they have planned for these people? Will they be on Saudi Arabia’s, Qatar’s or the US payroll next week while fighting in Syria?
A Tunisian politician is assassinated and the people want to shut the government down in a broke county like that will be some kind of improvement. Parts of these events are being controlled for sure. But if anyone, I don’t care how big they are, thinks they are in control of how they will eventually work out, they are smoking crack…Jim W. Dean]

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Will New MB leadership Emerge in Egypt?

– July 16, 2013 –

 

 
Adding to the political chaos, an earlier prediction I had made might be coming true. If the older Muslim Brotherhood leadership pursued an ‘all or nothing’ strategy of having Morsi re-installed, that would never happen. New leadership challenges would then emerge from those Brothers who do not want to ride the Good Ship Morsi to the bottom of the Red Sea.
 
The Brotherhood will always be a significant voting block in Egypt and have a lot of influence on not only Egypt itself but the political and social platforms desired by its supporters. To throw all of that out the window and have nothing to show for it, I suspected many Brothers would oppose such a short sighted strategy after their long struggles and sacrifices.

I did not have to wait long. The initial group of 1400 is small but definitely brave as they have started a no confidence petition not against Morsi, but Mohamed Badie the MB Supreme Leader himself. They call themselves the Brotherhood Without Violence. The Western press is comparing them to having 1400 Catholic priests call for the removal of the Pope.

I had already feared that the Brotherhood might consider pulling a counter coup by pouring their supporters into the streets to confront the army in a way to create a lot of martyrs to lay at the doorstep of the interim government and stain the army’s popularity.
And yes, I do believe that there are many leaderships in the world today who would use their own people as cannon fodder to inflame those remaining to fight to the death. It is a tactic that has been used throughout humanity.
Ahmed Yehia, an attorney and the new coordinator for the movement explained the group’s motivations on a July 12th during a television interview giving some background. He described the shootings and killings at the Republican Guard Club as a contrived incident to create martyrs…fifty MB killed, plus four soldiers.

“After (Morsi’s government) came to power, they changed and forgot about Islam and tolerance and the call to Islam, and entered into a stage of how to protect themselves, find a safe exit and regain power.”

Yehia also described in another interview how the Brotherhood leaders had told the protest leaders the day before that they had to a duty to help get Morsi released from the Republican Guard at any costs…a recipe for disaster as the troops would be forced to fire on them.
Yehia claimed the MB leaders were not there, I assume distancing themselves from the anticipated violence.
It did not work. Egypt’s public prosecutor has called for the arrest of seven of the Brotherhood leaders for funding and inciting violence. I suspect they have witnesses and phone intercepts to prove their case.
The army would certainly have anticipated this potential move and planned to use it to remove the Brotherhood leadership from participation in the new elections. This of course would clear the way for a leadership battle among the Brotherhood…or even worse for them…their splintering.
The current MB leadership has already turned down any participation in the interim government, so the minister positions that would have gone to them could get scooped up by the new splinter group. This would give them the visibility needed to pull more of the movement over to their side…those who do not want to sit out the election and win nothing.

The Brotherhood pulled a lot of support in the initial elections, but that did not consist or a huge membership in the millions. They have a 100,000 hard core members and probably around 500,000 to 600,000 regular supporters.

That gave them a key organizational edge in the first elections along with campaign funding from the Persian Gulf States wanting to have major influence on Egypt’s evolution.

If the MB leadership finds themselves in jail on major felony charges, responsible for deaths, that would take the wind out of American calls for the army to stop making political arrests. With no one at the leadership helm and the old brotherhood sitting out the election, the scramble would be on to pick up those voters who went with the MB the first time.

Those former MB voters could find themselves being the swing voting block who determines who the new president will be. The Brotherhood could call for these former voters to sit the new election out but I can’t see big numbers doing that, especially if there is a ‘New Brotherhood’ who has picked up the active political banner.

Will there be claims that the Brotherhood Without Violence is a CIA-American puppet group acting as a spoiler? I expect there will be. A close analysis of where their money comes from usually reveals that. Both sides have been trading charges of the other being the Western stooge.
Morsi’s unexpected closeness to the Israelis, shown by his keeping the Gazans locked inside their outdoor prison, took some shine off his initial gleam. On the other side, the young Tamarod group and the Salafist Nour Party both shunned meeting with the top American emissary William Burns. And they shared the same reasoning…what Egypt is doing now is none of America’s business.
That showed some political maturity when the liberals and the conservatives can pull together in realizing the establishment of a credible national identity requires showing that they will not be America’s, and hence Israel’s, new dancing partner. It is an indication that the Arab street has grown wary of the divide and conquer games where foreign countries are sought out to be kingmakers.

America’s foreign policy reputation, despite being led by our Noble Peace Prize winner, lays in tatters. It is a policy of military might, money, and seeking natural resources control over potential long term opponents. The Arab Spring Egyptians do not see Russia, China, Iran, or the BRIC countries playing ambulance chaser as the New Egypt emerges from it’s Cold War past.

Of course the army will continue to be America’s ace in the hole, and Israel’s, too.
The Sinai is heating up with the army having to now make a credible deployment and show they can defend the country from more than protesters. There has been unusual silence in corporate media as to who is behind the Sinai militants.
The army already looks bad. For the four soldiers killed in the Republican Guard’s Club attack, the large and powerful Muslim Brotherhood may find most of its leadership in jail and the old guard eliminated from the new election political scene.
But when a similar number of soldiers are killed in the Sinai, the army seems concerned about inflaming the militants there. It has admitted that the militant leaders live with their families in villages. “but we don’t want things to take us to a stage that affects our national security”, according to an AFP report.

The Egyptian Army must not forget that it has a reputation to lose, also. If they need to be reminded what a threat to national security is, all they have to do is call the Syrian or the Iraqi armies. They would love to just be fighting Sinai militants in their countries.

Editing:  Jim W. Dean

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