10/15/12 – Adam Morrow – The Scott Horton Show

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So how are things?
Things right now seem to have settled down.
As you probably know, this weekend saw some sort of limited clashes in Tucker Square again allegedly between supporters of the president and opponents of the president, although exact circumstances remain vague and it's not entirely certain who was behind it.
But there's a lot to suggest.
But there might be people who are sort of claiming to be supporters of the president, but actually in turn it turns out not to be the case.
So it's sort of uncertain what exactly happened.
But the mainstream Islamist groups have all sort of, you know, distanced themselves from what happened.
So it remains, as usual, in the aftermath of all of these things, it sort of remains unusual who exactly was responsible for triggering the violence.
All right, now, even without knowing exactly, you know, who's leading which group or whatever, can you tell us what it was that they were, you know, fighting about?
Was there substance to any of this or just give us power, not them?
Sure.
Well, apparently the new Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, made a move to replace a Mubarak-era prosecutor general.
And that triggered this sort of conflict or this dispute between the presidency and the judiciary.
Now, because the Constitution is still in the process of being written, a lot of these powers are still uncertain, you know, as to, you know, who has power over how these different branches of government interreact and what their relative powers are.
It's still very ambiguous.
So that led to a conflict which eventually led to the president backing down and the prosecutor general staying on.
Now, what happened after that was two twin protests were both called for Tahrir Square, one of them in support of the president and the second one organized by opponents of the president.
On Friday morning, by Friday afternoon, there were clashes reported between the two sides.
But from what I understand, the Islamist groups, primarily the Muslim Brotherhood and the big Salafist parties, had both issued directives, and both of which, by the way, are very eager to avoid clashes.
They're really, they're not, they don't want to rock the boat right now.
They're trying to basically consolidate their power after, you know, after their electoral victory in Parliament and for the presidency.
So the last thing that they want is clashes.
So it would seem very strange, it seems very strange to me that they would actually be promoting or instigating violence with their opponent, with their political opponents.
So what it looks like is that early on when they sort of realized that, you know, that these twin rallies were going to result in violent confrontations between the two sides, they issued directives to their followers to withdraw and to stay away.
But then you still did have people that were there.
You still did have people that were there, at least claiming to be supporters of the who were fighting with and attacking the other, you know, the other demonstrators.
Well, again, as usual, unfortunately, we're left with these conflicting reports.
And it's, you know, in the aftermath of all of these things that you're always left with with a high degree of uncertainty as to who exactly is behind it.
But what's what's for sure, maybe nobody.
Right.
You can have just some people in a crowd of protesters screaming at each other and they're not necessarily being directed by anyone other than their own retarded emotions, you know.
That's true, but I do think there's been a lot of evidence over the last couple of months in the in the 18 months or more now since the revolution, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that there are groups out there that might be they might be loyal to the old regime regime.
They might be you know, they might be, you know, indirectly in the employ of foreign powers.
But there's definitely there are definitely groups out there that are actively trying to sow chaos and to sort of, you know, to just sort of promote general instability, whether it be in the form of labor strikes or whether that's in the.
For example, what we saw outside the the embassy, I can't remember if we spoke in the wake of the embassy thing.
I think I don't think we did, but that was that was a very good example.
And very similar to what happened recently, where you basically have something happen.
You know, you basically have like the appearance of this movie that basically enraged everybody because it because it made fun of because it mocked Islam and and Mohammed.
And that got people out on the streets.
Now, now, the original plan was for a peaceful, entirely peaceful demonstration.
But what happens is you it seems that in most cases you seem to get these hotheaded instigators who get in there.
These aren't Muslim Brotherhood people.
They're not celibate people there.
They're they're just these, you know, random youth, you know, and they don't they don't look Islamist either.
You can look at them by what they're wearing, by their beard.
These are these are younger guys, you know, jeans and T-shirt tights that are in there.
Some of them say that they're you know, they're young guys who might have tangled with the police in past demonstrations and just sort of have scores to settle with the security agencies.
Some of them are just, you know, young hotheads who just want to get a piece of the action, you know, who just want to sort of who just want to hit the streets just for the thrill of hitting the streets.
And I think these groups, these these young guys are very easily manipulated.
And I think I think there are powers behind them that are sort of pushing them to or instigating, instigating this sort of violence.
So we can rewind just a little bit.
Basically, Adam, what you were saying was the recent clash in Tahrir Square that at least, you know, nominally appeared to be between young liberal anti-regime types and regime supporters could well have been somebody else could have just been local 17 year olds being 17 year olds could have been a number of groups who want to make it look like there's something for the Muslim Brotherhood and the liberals to fight about in order to perhaps preempt some deal they might make at some point in the future or God knows what.
Right.
There's a hundred different people playing this game of Chinese checkers.
Right, exactly.
Well, it's not a hundred different people.
It's more like two general forces that you can you know, you've got the Islamist forces on one side and then you've got the sort of former regime forces on the other side.
That's how you can sort of very broadly break down the you know, the sort of political climate in the country.
Now, you do have a lot of liberals and leftists and this this this, you know, these sort of groups and trends, but they actually don't have they don't represent much of the public.
I mean, you're only talking about 10 percent probably or less of the entire Egyptian public.
So they're not they're not as representative of one was one might think reading the Western press where you would you think half of Egypt are, you know, are secular liberals and that sort of thing.
No, no, no.
They're actually much smaller than that.
So you have these two these two overriding forces.
And again, that's the sort of Islamist side.
And then you've got the former regime side, which was which was epitomized by Ahmed Shafiq.
If you remember, he was the he was the guy that Morsi beat in the last presidential election.
And then and then you you you have what appears to be like this.
So what what what looks like it's some kind of third party constantly being referred to here as a third party or a hidden hand that that that seems to be constantly trying to set fires, you know, however it can be instigating violence.
One of one of the tricks that they use is indicating a sectarian sectarian strife between Egypt's Coptic Christian minority and the Islamic and Muslim majority, neither of whom have any interest in fighting one another and would live together peacefully for for literally for centuries.
And all of a sudden you've got these very strange sectarian clashes suddenly breaking out where a church will be burnt by a by a you know, by a mob of guys who are never later identified.
And this will cause this will this will ignite the you know, the entire country will sort of will sort of, you know, explode because of this because of this particular incident, the perpetrators of which are never brought to brook.
So it's very easy.
Also, bear in mind, also, the climate here is so it's been so emotionally charged, especially since the revolution, you know, emotions are running very high.
I think I think in Arab culture in general, there are people tend to resort to emotionalism very quickly.
So it's very easy to sort of set, you know, to set the public on fire.
You know, it's very easy to rile up the public and get them and sort of get two sides angry at one another.
If you can, if you manage to, you know, a little bit of well-placed sabotage at the right time can really set, you know, set things on fire.
So I think there's a lot of that going on.
There's definitely hidden hands at work trying to cause problems right now for the for Egypt's new Islamist administration.
I think that's I think that's safe to say right now.
Always.
Where's the CIA in this?
Are they just desperately trying to make friends again with the Muslim Brotherhood because that's the best they can do?
Or are they working to unseat them both?
Well, this is one of the things that the critics of the Muslim Brotherhood have been have been charging for the past couple of months after they realized that it was impossible to stop their electoral advance.
Their next move was to basically accuse them of being in bed with the United States, which I find a little a little hard to swallow, given given traditional American antipathy towards Islamist movements and Islamist governments and that sort of thing in the region.
Well, but it's only a new thing and we're taking it back.
You know, we're fighting for the Islamists in Libya and in Syria right now and the Sunni ones.
Right.
But yeah, no, I think we talked before about that.
There's this great book by Robert Dreyfuss from The Nation called Devil's Game, how the United States helped to unleash fundamentalist Islam, about how the CIA found a good partner, a willing partner in the Muslim Brotherhood back during the Cold War because as right wing religious types, they were opposed to the nationalists and the socialists.
And so they were great.
Same reason that Israel preferred and created Hamas to counter the PLO.
Right, right.
Well, I'll tell you this.
One very interesting thing to look at is is Egypt's position or Morsi's stated position on the Syria crisis, because there's definitely two sides of the of the crisis in Syria right now.
I mean, what what what I believe is being portrayed in the Western media of this of this popular uprising by, you know, by these downtrodden Syrians who just want who just want their freedom.
I don't I don't think that's the case at all.
I think it might have been that way in the very beginning.
There might have been a small a small minority, a small activist community that might have been staging anti-Assad demonstrations and that sort of thing.
But what you right now what you have now in Syria is definitely is an armed insurrection, heavily armed insurrection that's being heavily supported by by the U.S., by extension, Israel, certainly being supported by Turkey.
I hear it's being supported by Jordan and Qatar and Saudi Arabia also are both both both supporting it.
So you basically this is basically a regime operate regime change operation that you have going on in Syria that's being portrayed both in the Western media and the Arabic language media as a as a popular uprising along the same lines as what we saw in Egypt and Tunisia, which is absolutely not the case, because, I mean, Egypt really was an entirely peaceful, entirely unarmed, popular movement.
Although, you know, last year on the same thing can be said for Tunis for the most part.
Whereas, again, what we have in Syria right now.
I would assume that Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt would be for what's happening in Syria, at least it wouldn't be too badly against it because the Muslim Brotherhood stand to be the biggest beneficiaries, right?
Exactly.
Exactly.
So that's quite an interesting development.
I was I had been waiting to see how you know what position were the Brotherhood.
I'm quite sympathetic to the Brotherhood.
I make no secret to the fact that I think they are the best.
Well, I think they're the most qualified group to run the country right now because nobody else has the sort of organization that organizational capacities that they do.
You know, you might you know, people might disagree with some of their stands on certain issues when it comes to civil liberties and some smaller things like this.
But ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, I know there's really no alternative to them, you know, in order to you know, Egypt right now needs administration more than anything else.
And it's a massive country of 80 million people.
So it really needs, you know, some kind of group or power with strong organizational capacities.
And no one has that except the except the Muslim Brotherhood.
Well, it was so obvious from the beginning with the group.
That being said, I was taken aback by their by by Morsi's latest position on, you know, stated position on Syria, which he articulated.
I think he articulated for the first time about a month ago when he went to the non-aligned non-aligned movement summit in Tehran.
And then I think he reiterated it again at the United Nations General Assembly meeting last month.
So I was quite surprised that he came out strongly in support of the Syrian Revolution, you know, which which, like I said, seems to be some kind of you know, I know the I know the Americans certainly support it.
So you so you do see you are seeing sort of a confluence now of interest between the most between the Muslim Brotherhood here and and, you know, American foreign policy, foreign policy interests, at least in terms of Syria.
And it's also interesting because there was some talk that, you know, the election of an Islamist president here would eventually usher in restore renewed relations with Iran, which Egypt Iran relations have been frozen since nineteen seventy nine.
So there was so there's been a lot of talk that, you know, the brotherhood, the brotherhood came to power.
It would restore it would restore or resume diplomatic relations with Tehran.
That hasn't happened.
And it appears like it looks like it's it's actually not going to happen in the immediate future.
And a big part of that is because because of Egypt's stated position on Syria, which is for for the for the revolution, for the for the for the insurgency there.
Whereas, you know, as you know, Syria represents one of Iran's sole sole allies in the region.
You know, if you if you take Syria out of the equation, Iran will be most entirely isolated.
I mean, it will it will it won't have a friend in the region.
Yeah, well, see, I guess I didn't even realize that Morsi had come out so strongly in favor of the Syrian.
Yeah, I just assumed that he would have to be on the neutral position.
But no, he really came out.
I think he said the Assad regime had lost all legitimacy and that it and it has to go, which is quite strong, which is really quite strong language.
Well, yeah.
Well, and of course, the situation in Syria is like in Egypt, one where the Muslim Brotherhood is basically the only group that was legal at all.
Or actually, I don't know if it was legal, but at least it was strong enough unofficially that they're like you said, in the situation in Egypt, they're the only ones prepared to take power.
Same thing right now in Syria.
If you get well, I don't know if you just change somehow, you know, someone just shoots Assad in the back of the head or something that may be different.
But it seems like, you know, what's going to take for regime changes to bring down the entire Syrian state?
And then in that case, who's left to take it over?
But the Muslim Brotherhood, there's nobody else organized to do it.
Right.
Right.
I know in the case of Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was formally outlawed, but it was tolerated.
And it's and it even even to the extent that if people were allowed, if people were allowed to run in parliamentary elections, as long as they ran on an independent ticket ticket, you know, whereas in Syria, I think they were like totally banned.
I mean, I think I think they were arresting that they were detaining anybody who was even remotely connected to the to the to the to the group.
Yeah, I guess I should know more about that before I go spouting off.
But my understanding is that basically it was still second place to the state of Syria, and they were the most organized force there.
But I don't know.
Hey, maybe al Qaeda is now, you know, I'm an al Zawahiri, says all good suicide bombers go to fight for Obama bin Laden in Syria.
Well, this is another bizarre thing that's made that's made, you know, that's made viable Middle Eastern analysis so difficult, so problematic right now in this post Arab, post Arab spring era is where I mean, where you now have a situation where al Qaeda, which is, you know, the the archenemy of America, is now sort of on the same page with the US against the fighting against the regime or cropping up in Libya, or it's really becoming extremely confusing.
It's very difficult to tell who's on whose side, you know?
Yeah.
You know, sometimes we're fighting for the Ayatollah Khomeini, other times we're fighting for I'm an al Zawahiri, and then we switch back again.
It's so hard to keep track.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
A lot of weird, you know, very strange bedfellows and shifting alliances and that sort of thing that's making it extremely frustrating to read, you know?
Yeah.
One thing's for sure.
None of this has to do with protecting Americans as a first thing to do with protecting America's interests, no matter how broadly defined.
Right, right, right.
No, your phone just went to pot on me again.
We'll have to leave it there, damn.
See, because I still wanted to ask you about what Morsi had said about, well, maybe America needs to start living up to their side of the Camp David agreement.
But your phone is toast.
Next time, Adam, Adam Morrow, everybody, IPS News dot net for all the best of Adam Morrow.
Sorry, we lost you there.
We're almost out of time.
You got to go and I got to go.
So we'll have to leave it there for now.
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