Mubarak Must Go. No More US Aid Money Until Democratic Elections.

[onedomino]

It is time to cut off the Egyptians from the Washington money trough. We pay this hostile Islamic country $2 billion per year. For what? To spew anti-American venom in their hate-filled state media? To vote against America efforts in the UN? To permit Egyptian jihadists to kill Americans in Iraq? To “be good” and not cause even more trouble in the Middle East? Egypt tolerates Israel because it has to, not because it is bribed by the US. Egypt knows that if it increased its support of anti-Israeli terrorism that it would be on the receiving end of IDF F15s. Mubarak is a two-bit dictator and needs to go. America should support democracy movements inside Egypt and destabilize the totalitarians. Some say that the Egyptian government resulting from democratic elections would be hostile to the US. More hostile that the current mob? Is that really possible? America should renew its financial aid to Egypt if a moderate democratically elected government emerges.

Mubarak, $2 Billion and Change
By Max Boot
Los Angeles Times, February 10, 2005

http://www.cfr.org/pub7776/max_boot/mubarak_2_billion_and_change.php

And the great and proud nation of Egypt, which showed the way toward peace in the Middle East, can now show the way toward democracy in the Middle East. -- President Bush, the State of the Union address, 2005
Strong words alone will not dislodge an entrenched dictator like Hosni Mubarak. Obviously we're not going to send the 3rd Infantry Division to achieve regime change in Cairo. How, then, is Bush going to back up his demand for democracy? Here's a modest proposal: Reduce or eliminate altogether the $2-billion annual U.S. subsidy to Egypt unless there's real economic and political progress.
Since 1975, Washington has provided Cairo more than $50 billion in military and economic aid. Initially this largess had two justifications: first, to keep Egypt out of Soviet clutches; second, to reward it for concluding a peace treaty with Israel. The first rationale no longer applies. And the second? Egypt has lived in peace with Israel, but so for the most part has Syria -- and it hasn't gotten a cent from U.S. taxpayers. Arab states coexist with Israel because they have failed to destroy it, not because they've been bribed.
More recently, a fresh rationale has been offered for propping up the decrepit dictatorship in Cairo: the need to buy cooperation in the war on terrorism. It's true that Egypt has been a close ally in fighting Al Qaeda and its ilk, but so have lots of other countries that receive little or no U.S. financial aid. Mubarak fights the Islamists not as a favor to us but because they pose a mortal threat to his rule.
Mubarak has been an expensive but hardly a model ally during his 24-year reign. His most recent outrage was the arrest on Jan. 29 of Ayman Nour, head of the liberal Ghad party, on trumped-up charges of forging signatures on a petition. Mubarak's economic ineptitude is also a given. The Egyptian economy, with its high unemployment rate and low growth rate, recalls the glory days of the Warsaw Pact. Notwithstanding recent reforms, no serious liberalization is likely as long as U.S. subsidies prop up the status quo.
What's really disturbing about Mubarak is that he tries to deflect the anger of his impoverished and oppressed populace toward convenient scapegoats, Israel and the United States. According to the Middle East Media Research Institute, Egypt's state-run news media routinely glorify anti-Israeli suicide bombers, deny that the Holocaust occurred and compare the U.S. and Israel to Nazi Germany -- unfavorably. In 2002, Egyptian state television aired a 41-part series based on "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a notorious century-old anti-Semitic forgery.
The Egyptian media also love more-modern conspiracy theories. They accuse the U.S. of dropping poisoned food packets in Afghanistan and spreading AIDS in Africa. Almost every terrorist outrage, including 9/11, is blamed on Americans or Israelis. Ibrahim Nafi, editor of the government newspaper Al-Ahram, wrote last year: "The West, and specifically those that are at the helm of their empire of evil, are the real terrorists.... The West is currently engaged in a war of annihilation against Muslims...."
Given the poisonous climate of opinion fostered by the Mubarak mafia, it is little wonder that the leader of the 9/11 hijackers was Egyptian or that Osama bin Laden's deputy is Egyptian. Egypt has long been a breeding ground of Islamist extremism. Mubarak uses this to his advantage by telling the West that if he falls, the fundamentalists will take over. To forestall this catastrophe, the 76-year-old generously proposes to "run" for a fifth term this fall as the only candidate on the ballot. But there is little evidence that Islamists are popular enough to win a free election in Egypt. They have flourished mainly because little mainstream opposition is allowed. The U.S. government should be funding the opposition, not the apparatus that represses it.
We've seen in the past that threatening to cut off subsidies has helped modify Egyptian behavior. Dissident Saad Eddin Ibrahim credits U.S. pressure with helping to win his release from prison in 2003. And that involved a threat to withhold merely $130 million in supplemental aid. What might a threat to cut off $2 billion accomplish?

 

[Annie]

I believe that Egyptians are just behind Syrians and Saudi Arabians in sending folks to cause problems in Iraq. Even fewer Iranians, which of course speaks to the Iranian leadership, than Egyptians.

 

[onedomino]

Bush is definitely having an effect:

Egypt Seeks Multi-Candidate Presidential Race
Sat Feb 26, 2005 01:33 PM ET

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=7747759

By Edmund Blair
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian President (dictator) Hosni Mubarak on Saturday proposed more than one candidate should be able to stand in presidential polls, a change welcomed by Washington and opposition groups as a step toward a more open political system.

The move, announced by Mubarak in a televised address, would allow the first multi-candidate presidential elections since the 1952 revolution, and follows pressure from the United States for political change and mounting opposition calls for reform.

Mubarak, 76, said he had proposed parliament change the constitution "to give the opportunity to political parties to enter the presidential elections and provide guarantees that allow more than one candidate to be put forward to the presidency for people to choose among them freely."

Analysts said the step was both a response to calls from Washington for political reform and an increasingly vocal opposition inside Egypt, emboldened by the U.S. pressure. Cairo has always insisted that reforms are home-grown.

"As a friend of the Egyptian government and people, we've urged Egypt to broaden the base of political participation," said State Department spokesman Steven Pike. "This appears to be a step in the direction of a more open political system."

Under Egypt's existing system, parliament, dominated by Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), has to approve a sole candidate, who then must be approved in a public vote.

The next presidential vote was due in September.

"I took the reins of this initiative in order to start a new era ... on the way of reform," Mubarak, who has ruled since 1981, told a gathering in the Nile Delta, north of Cairo.

Although an economic reform program was launched with a new cabinet in July, there has been little movement on the political front until now.

Parliament met on Saturday to discuss the proposed change. Parliament speaker Fathi Sorour said the constitutional change would "enable any person to be nominated for the position of president under certain conditions."

He was quoted by the official Middle East News Agency as saying parties could make nominations and independent candidates would need the backing of a number of members of parliament and local councils, but he did not say how many. (?) (That does not sound like democracy)

EGYPT UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT

Egypt has also come under the spotlight for the detention in January of Ayman Nour, the leader of the opposition Ghad (Tomorrow) party. Rice expressed Washington's "very strong concerns" and said she wanted the case resolved swiftly.

Egypt says the Nour case is a judicial matter.

Nour, who went on hunger strike on Tuesday, ended his protest on Saturday after Mubarak's announcement.

His wife, Gamila Ismail, said Nour described the move as "an important step toward the party's and the Egyptian people's demand for extensive constitutional reform."

The Muslim Brotherhood, which is officially banned in Egypt, welcomed the move as "a positive step on the way of sought after political reform." But it also called for other reforms, such as more freedom to set up parties or launch newspapers.

"What the president proposed today is a just a crack in the wall ... This step is not enough," said Abdel-Halim Qandil, editor of an opposition newspaper and a campaigner for reform, adding that Mubarak should not be allowed to stand again.

Mubarak, who has been in power since 1981, is currently serving his fourth six-year term, and is widely expected to run for a fifth term although he has not announced his intentions.

"This is a historic step. (It's historic PR; we'll see if it is democratic.) For the first time since the days of the pharaohs, the Egyptian people will choose their ruler," said Mohamed Ulwan, assistant head of the opposition Al-Wafd party.

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[Annie]

Yes there is something afoot. I posted similar about Condi cancelling the trip yesterday to Egypt, now this came out today. Wonders what consistency will do.

All in all pretty good day, with Putin putting off signing with Iran.