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Interview
With Richard Haas, Council on Foreign Relations
Egypt's Need for Presidential Change
January 31, 2011
Overall meaning: we started the protests in Tunisia and Egypt but now Egypt's getting out of control.
Article introduction
The Egyptian army announced it will not fire on protesters, who hope to stage a "march of millions" February 1. CFR President Richard N. Haass believes Mubarak's days in office are numbered. He says the United States should be very circumspect in its public statements, but privately be "pushing very hard for a transfer of authority," perhaps in the form of a caretaker government or a constitutional reform process. He notes that "TIME IS NOW THE ENEMY," AND THAT IF THE CURRENT SITUATION DRAGS ON, IT COULD UNDERMINE THE LEGITIMACY OF THE ARMY, either for allowing chaos or for protecting Mubarak. Haass also points out that if the situation in Egypt doesn't stabilize in an orderly way, "Egyptians [could] say things are so bad that they will support anyone or anything other than the Mubarak-led status quo." Additionally, any new democratic Egyptian government is likely to be "less favorably inclined" toward Israel, given popular sentiment, says Haass.
Haass says
...I believe in order for the army to act like an army, there needs to be a chance for a new political authority. So, I would be urging Mubarak to step down and set up some sort of caretaker or process as quickly as possible...
meaning: we've bought the army so we've ordered them to put in power new people who can fool the people. Mubarak and other dictators are getting too big for their boots and have been making investment deals with the Chinese, so we want him out and others to stop it.
Question:
Does Mubarak have some good advisers that the United States deals with?
Haass:
...The person many Americans know best, besides Mubarak himself, is the new vice president, Omar Suleiman...
Meaning; He’s on the CIA payroll.
Question:
When ElBaradei was head of the IAEA, I think the Bush administration didn't think much of him.
Haass
...I've always had a good relationship with him, and even when I was in the George W. Bush administration, we continued to have a pretty good relationship...
Meaning: the Neo-Cons didn’t like him but he’s George Soros’ man.
Haass
…The Muslim Brotherhood, like everybody else, seems to be playing catch up. The danger obviously is that they will catch up, and that they will exploit this situation. What we've learned over the years, say in Iran [after the revolution in 1979], is that these processes take a while to play out and often have many phases. So in this first phase the opposition is disorganized and is largely led by secularists, but that doesn't mean that phase two, three, or four will continue to have that complexion…
Meaning: If things get out of hand, we’ll unleash our Muslim Brotherhood on the Egyptians.
Question
Would it help if President Obama sent over a special emissary?
Answer
...That might be too visible..
Meaning: we haven't got the power to invade them like Bush wanted so we have to manage things quietly behind the scene but since we have sent one, we’re losing control.
Question:
Do you think the unrest is likely to spread to other countries, like Syria?
Haass
...Much more repressive places like Syria are so wired and so repressive that it's difficult for popular uprising to spread there...
Meaning: they arrested the people we sent into Syria.
Haas
...Exactly. I don't think the Gulf states are, for the most part, threatened, simply because with the exception of Saudi Arabia, they are more city states and are so small...
Meaning: we ain’t bothered about the farty little states, it’s Saudi Arabia we’re worried about. Saudi Arabia is too risky to destabilize but they should watch it and they’ll lay off this Middle East gold-backed currency idea to rival the dollar in the region.
Question:
If a new government is formed in Egypt, does this threaten the equilibrium in the Middle East? Israel is obviously nervous about this after nearly thirty-two years of a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.
Haas
…If sooner rather than later, you have a managed transition to a more democratic government that's able to maintain order and introduce a degree of political reform. Then this could be a very positive development in the region… It seems to me that the Israeli/Egyptian relationship could be going through an extraordinarily difficult phase...
meaning: if our plans work out then that’s not a problem but if they don’t, we’re in big trouble
Haas:
...I think many of the people at Davos were more concerned with financial issues, from the future of the euro, to the better-than-expected U.S. growth numbers, to the challenge coming from China and the rest of Asia...
Meaning: our plans to mess up the Euro failed because of those b***** Chinese.
Question:
I guess people want to know who is going to be the next Russian president.
Haas:
...Most people I know pretty much think it's going to be Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The consensus is that Russia will remain a somewhat risky place to invest in. There is a lot more comfort investing in Latin America and Asia and even in some parts of Africa. There is real concern about Europe and Japan in the sense of their growth, and I don't think anyone came away thinking that was going to change any time soon...
Meaning: we’ve totally lost control of what’s going on in Russia, but we can run things in parts of Latin America, like Colombia and Peru get them to declare war on countries like Venezuela and we can run parts of Africa, by destabilising them and organising 'tribal conflict' but not in Zimbabwe because of those b****** Chinese or South Africa because the people will eventually figure out what we're up to.
Comments
Hide the following 7 comments
US paid for revolution.
02.02.2011 13:11
All all the while, the US President goes onto TV to say to "deplore" violence, the very same violence his country is sinking its dollars into creating.
When the tide turns, consequences...for the US and for the UK.
anon
CIA involvement? CIA control?
02.02.2011 14:35
Secondly, I'd like to see some evidence to support the claims people are making. I haven't seen any evidence yet of CIA involvement, let alone control, of the Egyptian uprising.
Finally, even if the CIA/US are supporting this uprising, that doesn't automatically mean we as radicals should oppose it! There are more than one set of oppressors in the world, and we should oppose them all!
internationalist
a bit too simple maybe, simon?
02.02.2011 15:30
sceptic
@internationalist
02.02.2011 16:00
Victory to Egypt
CIA inspired revolution?
02.02.2011 16:22
Many in the Middle East regard Wikileaks as a CIA-Mossad operation. Nonetheless, leaks suggests the US planned this,
The US wants to get rid of Mubarak. They are using the army to do this. The question is that the people want more than just ousting Mubarak. What's the army going to do if they don't shut up and go home?
simple simon
Crap Basically.
02.02.2011 23:04
So it makes no sense that they would do something that is doing them so much damage. It does though explain why Britain has actively been supporting Mubarak since Monday (31/1) night.
Sovereign
Since when?
03.02.2011 14:04
Crap Basically.
02.02.2011 23:04
The situation in Egypt puts the Americans in an almost unbelievibly difficult position. If they support the protesters then they face accusations of threatening Israel's national security. If they don't support the protesters they lose all credability as supporters of democracy...
How ridiculous. As if the US has had a profile in the region that is about supporting democracy.
It’s not as if Iraq is an obviously example. The US invades an allay and claims they are doing this to promote democracy. Who in the MIddle East believes this was done to promote democracy? In your terms, this does not make sense.
Why did the IMF order Egypt to cut its food subsidies? This would make protests more likely.
Why did the head of the Egyptian armed forces visit the Pentagon a week before the protests? Or was this a conincidence?
Why isn’t the US giving more support to its allay? Why did a former ambassador come on Channel 4 News and say that the US does not need Mubarak and that they get on well with the army?
Why is the army, that receives $1.3bn from the US, supportive of the protestors?
Since when did the US policy of 'supporting stability' get replaced with 'supporting democracy'?
simple simon