Post-revolution polls in Egypt

The military, perhaps feeling the eyes of the Egyptian people as well as the world weighing heavily on them, announced their fast-track timetable for revising the Constitution and holding new elections.

The Brotherhood, of course, just as quickly announced that they're having none of it.

We'll see if this was the right move.

Maybe it was better to have the MB screw up for another two years and vote them out.

But at least in the current scenario, the Islamist constitution is being redrafted.
 
We'll see if this was the right move.

Maybe it was better to have the MB screw up for another two years and vote them out.

But at least in the current scenario, the Islamist constitution is being redrafted.
Have Islamists ever been willing to compromise on anything? Does God compromise?

This is the problem with mixing government and religion. Give religious nutjobs the power to codify their beliefs into law and the only possible outcome is repression and violence.
 
We'll see how democratic Egypt can be when someone tries going after the army's corrupt business empire.
 

This thread is not about the nature if the Iranian regime.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Cleon
 
Cleon: if it was you that moved the Iran stuff to AAH, thanks.

Insofar as the coup, the continued aid to Egypt that is an annual 1-2 billion bonus (much of it actually spent in the US for stuff) was discussed and IMO ought to be at more risk that it is.

Read a few news bits about Qatar and Turkey promising some billions in aid to Egypt. Wonder what form what will take.
 
Fixed for accuracy.
I was referring to modern times : since the Mahdi in the Sudan I don't recall religion featuring in affairs at all. Realpolitik, imperialism and ideology drove things until Iran in '79, and even that was muted by the Iran-Iraq War. Then in '90 Saddam Hussein made the most cynical appeal to religion ever seen outside the Vatican, and shortly after that bin Laden came on the scene.

Religion certainly played a part in Afghanistan but wasn't played up much in the Western media (it was, naturally, in the Eastern bloc press, but who pays attention to that?). It was presented as a freedom-versus-bullying-Soviets affair, not an educating-girls-is-forbidden one. So it's only since 1990 that Islam has become much of an issue.

It's generally true that religion has intruded more into public affairs since about 1990. Christianity in the US, BJP Hinduists in India, the weird new Judaism of the Israeli settler movement, it's not just Islam. Not at all what I was expecting in the 60's and 70's but there, strangely enough, it is.
 
Insofar as the coup, the continued aid to Egypt that is an annual 1-2 billion bonus (much of it actually spent in the US for stuff) was discussed and IMO ought to be at more risk that it is.
One idea I heard was cutting off military aid (which is what almost all of it is) and instead giving food aid or some such. Egypt is the biggest importer of wheat in the world and the US is the biggest exporter of the same, so that's one idea.

Read a few news bits about Qatar and Turkey promising some billions in aid to Egypt. Wonder what form what will take.

Apparently many billions have been pledged by the Gulf countries including Saudi, Kuwait and UAE. I guess that means they aren't big fans of the Muslim Brotherhood or democracy. They got along well with Mubarak before the revolution. In theory at least this aid is more than what the US gives Egypt. So far the "Arab Spring" has not spread to the Arabian peninsula and I guess they want to keep it that way.
 
I was referring to modern times : since the Mahdi in the Sudan I don't recall religion featuring in affairs at all.
I thin what you're really saying is you paid no attention to world events from 1900 to 1979.
 
What do you imagine I've missed?
The whole trouble the US had with Islamists in the Philippines from the turn of the century up almost to WWI, and the Philippinnes has had other Oslamic insurgencies all the way to the present. The start of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 which continues to strongly influence events even today, the 3-way power struggle in Iran between Islamisst, Monarchists, and Communists that ended up with a western-supported coup which ended up with the Shah in charge, to his overthrow 20 years later. There have also been some events in what you may vaguely recall as the British Mandate of Palestine. A whole country was created there as a refuge for Jews after WWII, which enraged Islamists who have been at the forefront of the effort to exterminate said country ever since.
 
The whole trouble the US had with Islamists in the Philippines from the turn of the century up almost to WWI, and the Philippinnes has had other Oslamic insurgencies all the way to the present.
The principle trouble the US had was with Filipino nationalists - the same ones who'd been fighting the Spanish. The Spanish and the US found it convenient to present them as religious fanatics. The final holdouts were indeed Muslims because they live in the most inaccessible parts, and have never been fully eliminated. The rest of the country, you'll be aware, has been firmly Catholic since the Inquisition. The Spanish had a policy for subject Muslims, which boiled down to "eradication".

The start of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 which continues to strongly influence events even today ...
I was referring to days before 1979, during which time the Muslim Brotherhood was kept firmly in check and had no influence on anything. Only recently has that altered at all.

... the 3-way power struggle in Iran betput down every other forween Islamisst, Monarchists, and Communists that ended up with a western-supported coup which ended up with the Shah in charge ...
There was no Islamist influence, there was a straight contest between democrats and the Shah's aristocratic (and kleptocratic) clique. Neither side hade any love for Islam, or concern for their power. Mosques only became important because the Shah's police state was so successful in closing down all other potential centres of dissent.

... to his overthrow 20 years later.
The power-struggle between Islamists, various types of liberal democrats, and leftists after the Shah ran away was what I highlighted as the first emergence of Islam (and subsequently religion generally) into modern public affairs.

There have also been some events in what you may vaguely recall as the British Mandate of Palestine. A whole country was created there as a refuge for Jews after WWII, which enraged Islamists who have been at the forefront of the effort to exterminate said country ever since.
The inhabitants were mostly Muslims, but the Christians and Jews were pretty enraged by it as well. The Jewish Homeland was not created for reasons of religion, nor was it opposed for that reason. It was created for the Jewish race, or more specifically the enlightened European Jewish race which was going to modernise its benighted brethren. It was and is a war over land. Zionists have always been very explicit about their nation being a secular one, and their war a race-war, not a religious one. That only changed recently, when the US's Islam button became such a hot one.
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23464036

Ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is being held over allegations of links with Palestinian militants Hamas and plotting attacks on jails in the 2011 uprising, it has been announced.

He is to be questioned for an initial 15-day period, a judicial order said.

Mr Morsi's supporters are holding a mass rally in Cairo with a big counter-rally also expected in the city.

Eleven people have been injured in clashes between rival groups, security sources say.

The order issued on Friday is the first official statement on Mr Morsi's judicial status since he was overthrown.
 
The military takeover in Egypt could represent a financial catastrophe for Hamas.

Hamas, it seems, is scrambling to contain the fallout from fast-moving events that have unseated an ally and placed the Islamist group in Egypt’s crosshairs.

In North Sinai, a restive area that borders Gaza, the military recently moved to close the smuggling tunnels that burrow under the Gaza-Egypt border.

The underground passages furnish Gaza with commercial and other cheap goods either too expensive or unavailable to them under Israel’s ongoing blockade of the territory.

Hamas, a sworn enemy of Israel, profited handsomely from the tunnel trade that ferries everything from petrol to cement and passenger cars into the strip.

But now, according to the United Nations, the Egyptian military has managed to close some 80 percent of the tunnels.
 
And the Muslim Brotherhood goes underground and turns to guerilla warfare in 3....2....1.....

Seems like Civil War is inevitible.

I have no love for the Muslim Brotherhood whatsoever(they had no problem with Authoritarian rule when they were in charge), but I have no love for Military Dictatorships, either.
Looks as if no matter what happens, Egypt is pretty much screwed.
 
Yup.

I'm surprised the "anti-imperialist" crowd isn't crowing on how Egypt was better off under Mubarak, as they do with Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc... (I know Syria is still under Ba'ath control).

Actually, I'm not surprised.
 
Good. Theocrats have no business in any political process.

Problem is that the Junta is going to label ANY opponents as being "Part Of The Muslim Brotherhood" as an excuse to silence them.
I dislike the Brotherhood as much as anybody (IMHO being a not so radical theocrat is like being half pregnant) but have a low opinion of the Generals also, since there early statments about their only taking control "temporarily" have proven to be a pack of lies.
 

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