Egypt’s army looks beyond Mubarak

Subject: Egypt’s army looks beyond Mubarak Wed Feb 02, 2011 10:27 pm

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Egypt’s army looks beyond Mubarak Ee2a9e72-2efc-11e0-88ec-00144feabdc0

Egypt’s army looks beyond Mubarak Ee2a9e72-2efc-11e0-88ec-00144feabdc0

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Mubarak will go. His fate was decided on the eve of Tuesday’s mass
demonstration when the army said the protest was legitimate and that it
would not fire on the people. Its statement on Wednesday, calling on
protesters to go home and allow normal life to resume after having made
their point, also marks a decisive intervention. Mr Mubarak may not go
this week as the protesters want – and Wednesday’s clashes p

oint to
potential turmoil ahead – but he will by September at the latest.

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The army may justifiably be said to have created the Egyptian republic
by overthrowing King Farouk and ending the monarchy in 1952. But its
role today is considerably more subtle and more conservative. If it was
waiting to assess the extent of anti-regime hostility before deciding
its next move, then Tuesday’s demonstrations appear not to have tipped
the balance in favour of telling Mr Mubarak to leave now.

The decisive moment has passed. The army has signalled it will not
instigate more rapid change. Sentimentality about the army being “with
the people” aside, it is not clear why we should expect it to do
anything other than help rebuild the regime, albeit with new constraints
intended to curtail abuses by the internal security forces and curb the
more rapacious behaviour of powerful figures in the former government
and ruling National Democratic party and their business cronies.

What the 470,000-strong army wants is not power, but stability. Senior
officers have been telling interlocutors for several years they will
uphold any constitutional government, even one headed by the Muslim
Brotherhood. This suggests the army has been uneasy for a time with the
prospect of a hereditary presidency, the worsening social and economic
strains arising from the way in which the economy has been liberalised
and privatised, and the deepening lack of legitimacy of the political
order. All this has dissipated any political capital Mr Mubarak once had
because of his air force career.

The army’s desire for stability has several implications. First, it will
prefer the recent democratic advances to continue, albeit in a
controlled manner, to ensure an arrangement that will allow it to stay
out of politics and off the streets. The appointment of an ex-general as
prime minister may have been meant as a sop but the injection of
ex-officers into the cabinet is unlikely to have been an army demand.
There will be no return to military rule, not even a partial one.

Second, the army will resist radical shifts in foreign policy,
especially vis-à-vis Israel, not least because of the risk to US
assistance, which is crucial for an army that is heavily dependent on US
military hardware and technology and on the assured supply of spares,
training and know-how. The behind-the-scenes role that it is no doubt
playing cannot but be prompted by a desire to prevent changes that might
destabilise the cold peace with Israel and jeopardise the special
relationship with the US military.

Third, the army will seek to preserve its control over its own internal
governance and protect its reputed economic “empire”. This is
considerably more modest in volume than is commonly believed, and has
probably shrunk in proportion to a national economy that has grown by
more than 3 per cent annually since 2003. However, although a few
generals are rumoured to have become rich, the main purpose of ensuring a
separate income stream that is

off-limits to government auditors or
parliamentary oversight is to ameliorate the impact of a rapidly
privatising economy on the living standards of officers.

The army has a real interest in securing a gradual transition to the
post-Mubarak era, and has reacted with remarkable precision and calm to
rapidly unfolding events. The coming days will show whether it has read
public opinion accurately or not. If the demonstrations prove to have
been the start of a swell rather than a crest of popular protest, then
it may find its hand is forced. It will then have to choose between
implementing the government curfew and opening fire on protesters, or
expediting the pace of Mr Mubarak’s departure.

A de-escalation of the protests clearly serves the army best. Any other
scenario will draw it into a more direct political role than it wishes,
and may expose the limits of its ability to play such a role. Unlike its
Turkish or Algerian counterparts, it lacks a command council that can
act as a forum for policy debates or political decision-making. The
National Defence Council provided for under the constitution has never
emerged from the shadows of the president and defence minister (who has
almost always also been the army commander-in-chief).

So a prolonged crisis will take the army into territory uncharted since
the 1970s, when President Anwar Sadat demilitarised the cabinet and
depoliticised the military. The army may yet be pushed on to this
terrain, but even then will seek an outcome that will restore stable
government and allow it to exit the stage. This conservative
inclination, if nothing else, may prove the critical factor that keeps
the army in favour of a gradual opening up of Egyptian politics, even if
the popular protests recede or are crushed in the meantime.

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