Can #Hamas and the #PLO really kiss and make up?

Well, they say they can, the New York Times reports, noting that they've talked about it before and failed.

Related: should they? (That of course depends in part on who's asking that question.)

That said, politics, and political enemies, make strange bedfellows.

Given that Israeli prime minster Bibi Netanyahu is in bed with people in his cabinet that make him look halfway sane, it's no wonder that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have renewed unity government talks. And, this shouldn't have surprised either Israel or the US. Things like the PA (PLO) working to get officially accepted into more United Nations-affiliate organizations should have been a sign that the PA was tired of getting the back of the hand from the US as well as Israel.

This is yet another area where Dear Leader and both his current and previous foreign policy leaders, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, have been all talk and no show, except when the show's been to give the PA the back of the hand.

I have repeatedly blogged about this, like here, based on leaks to al-Jazeera and other things, where the US continually threatened to turn the financial screws on the PA unless it kowtowed to every Israeli demand. At the same time, Obama never threatened the foreign aid funding for Israel.

Say what else one will about Poppy Bush, I'll give him credit for being the only president in the last 30 years to link foreign aid to Israel to it not building settlements on the West Bank, that is, Palestine.

Of course, I still won't hold my breath too much. The Palestinians have long been their own worst enemies. At the same time, the fact that Egypt's new secular government is overseeing negotiations between Hamas and the PA means we shouldn't expect a guaranteed failure.

On the other hand, if this does pan out, the US will now have a Netanyahu who is even more foaming at the mouth than normal. And, a Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan willing to exploit this for domestic Turkish wag the dog reasons if nothing else. And, Bibi's intransigence, silently supported in Washington, is at root.

As for the "should," in a big picture sense? I don't want it to happen until Hamas officially rejects Holocaust denial, among other things. As for expecting jihad of some sort to make all of Israel and Palestine Muslim? I had a Lutheran seminary professor say that we ought to evangelize Muslims at the point of a gun then cut their heads off before they could reconvert, and this was a full decade before 9/11.

And, it was more than 2,000 years ago, but Google the two words of "Hasmoneans" and "Idumeans" or similar. Judaism, although much more rarely, has itself occasionally evangelized at the point of a sword.

Update, April 23: Israel has officially suspended talks.

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Related to all of this?

My ideal solution for Palestine would be:
1. Eliminate the Gaza Strip;
2. Give Palestine lands in the Negev in compensation;
3. Give Israel a decade to move people out of most of its settlements (the precise details of "most of" to be negotiated);
4. Without expecting a peace treaty, have a unified Palestine and Israel sign joint recognition documents, with the understanding that the PA and Israel will both likely want their equivalent of "presidential signing statements" as part of that;
5. Get the Saudis to give an under-the-table pledge to Israel that, unless it lurches further right, it will never be the target of a Saudi oil embargo.

And, now, I'll just crown myself as a more omnipotent version of John Rawls.

That said, Hamas has offered long-term truces to Israel before.

#U.S. and #Rome ... and #Egypt and #China

It's been fashionable for some time, but even more after 9/11 (sorry, have to reference it) to compare the United States to Rome. We did get rid of slavery, of course, but there are many parallels.

A republic that continually became more and more oligarchic? Check. We've not become dictatorial yet, but ... who knows who might exploit the War on Terror how far?

An empire, even if we have no emperor, and one that uses a mix of hard and soft power, force and money, alliances and more? Check.

A polyglot nation, with many ethnic and social groups? Check.

But, there's nations besides Rome that have lessons from ancient history.

Egypt? Divisions at semi-regular times between Upper and Lower Egypt reflect red-blue divisions today. Ultimately, both sides lost. (That said, when the divisions are ideological, on one side, the other side can't be so pragmatic as to play Preznit Kumbaya, either.)

Also, let's not forget that ancient Egypt, like today, had climatic variations. Global warming aside, anti-science attitudes in the U.S. could learn lessons. Egyptian pharoahs monitored Nile levels every year, so as to predict how good or bad the annual fertilizing flood would be.

At the same time, pharoahs eventually extended the trappings and sharing of power beyond blood lineage, co-opting exceptional commoners.

Finally, beyond authoritarian government, pharoahs co-opted religion in a way Roman emperors never did. That's a definite lesson for today.

China? Similar lessons to Egypt in some ways.

Throw out the Tibet and Xinjiang which ethnic Han dynasties didn't always control. China proper was often split into competing northern and southern empires at the same time. In the north, especially, weather issues with the Huang Ho (Yellow) River were important. Chinese emperors didn't co-opt religion in the same way as in Egypt, but did claim the "mandate of heaven." And, Chinese developed their mandarians, complete with Confucian schools and exams for civil service.

In America today, if it stumbles further, it's not because America is no longer a "Christian nation." It's because the belief that we were in the first place has both ossified and become malignant at the same time. It's because (as what partially happened in Egypt) geographic distinctions get appropriated for religious or other ends. It's when the elite let themselves be co-opted to the national security state, even if it doesn't have an emperor or pharoah at the top.

With both ancient nations, they should advise anybody not a Christian fundamentalist that claims we are a "christian nation" not only are ossified, they mean nothing when enlightened by the stark realities of history.

Finally, given larger forces of history, Rome and China, at least, maybe needed to fall, from sheer size, both geographically and in terms of population. Let's not forget we have more than 310 million in America now.

Neocolonialism, Asian-style

South Korea, China, India, et al, are buying up more and more Egyptian farmland on the banks of the Nile River. Where will Egyptians, who rioted about bread prices three years ago, get their own food? Will they have yet another revolution against the hypercapitalists in their own country who sold this land? Will they attack the Chinese, Indian and South Korean overlords, or their local viceroys?

None of this can be good for the future stability of North Africa and the Middle East.

Juan Cole at least part wrong on Libya

Juan Cole, in defense of President Barack Obama says Libya is not Iraq. It's not that Cole doesn't make some valid points, it's that some of them are irrelevant, or, per a Glenn Greenwald, could be applied to dozens of countries besides both Libya and Iraq. In short, Cole comes close to becoming a Wilsonian interventionist, if not embracing it fully.

Civilians massacred? Happens in many countries.

Arab League support? C'mon, Juan, they're trying to deflect attention away from their own nasty suppression of Shi'ites in the Gulf.

None of the UN anticipates putting boots on the ground? Well, France and the UK still are making noise about hoping to topple Gadhafi.

Libya 2011 more a threat than Iraq 2003? Please, Juan. Maybe it would be to Tunisia, but to Egypt?

Internet freedom meets strong-arm governments

Here's more on why Teapot Tommy Friedman is full of baloney when he talks about crowds of Tweeters in Cairo: It's easy, no, very easy in some cases, for an authoritarian government to shut down Internet access.

Start with this, re Egypt:

One of the government’s strongest levers is Telecom Egypt, a state-owned company that engineers say owns virtually all the country’s fiber-optic cables; other Internet service providers are forced to lease bandwidth on those cables in order to do business.

Or, hell, Friedman ... look at the U.S. If the Bush Administration was able to get AT&T to roll over so easily like a dead dog and put in that Internet splitter, even in a allegedly free country .... what else could be done here in the USofA under the name of "War on Terror"?

Back to Egypt. Some people could claim Mubarak's shutdown didn't work, but many cyberexperts, without passing political judgment, say rather it was that he waited too long.

But, what about the "decentralized" Internet? Not so fast:

Yet despite this decentralized design, the reality is that most traffic passes through vast centralized exchanges — potential choke points that allow many nations to monitor, filter or in dire cases completely stop the flow of Internet data

.
What about Western media in Egypt?

If they were based on wired broadband, Egypt could cut them off, too, if it wanted, I'll venture. On wireless? If those networks were state-controlled, ditto. If on a satellite-type system, like a satellite cell phone, the government might be able to try jamming that.

Now, Egypt might not be able to pull that off. But China? Or our USofA?

Just what does a Muslim democracy entail?

I appreciate that the Muslim Brotherhood claims it represents a third option, neither secular democracy nor authoritarian theocracy.

But, what does that mean? We still don't know in Iraq. In Afghanistan, the Taliban would win elections today; it won acclamations or whatever in the past. We had a brief Muslim democracy in Algeria in the past.

I mean, I'm not Faux News paranoid about the Muslim Brotherhood, or even close to it. But, I'm not buying that it's all sweetness and light, either; there's a PR line that's being told to us.

Let's put it this way: If I said "Christian democracy" I could go one of two ways. Were I in Europe, I'd be thinking Angela Merkel. Were I in the U.S., I'd be thinking Sarah Palin.

While I don't think the Muslim Brotherhood is Sarah Palin, I don't think it's Angela Merkel either. And, it's at least as close to Palin as it is to Merkel, I'm guessing.

Tzipi Livni, full of PR smoke

Oh, NOOOOOWWWWW Kadima's leader and Israel's former foreign minister is wanting to do more, including "linkage," to a genuine two-state solution in the Middle East.

Rather than kicking Mahmoud Abbas in the nuts like she did a year ago, per Al Jazeera's Palestine papers.

What this is is the "fear of Egypt's future" fallout starting to hit Israel.

Meanwhile, Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo is on full bipartisan foreign policy establishment suck-up mode on this one, saying she's been saying the same thing in public for years.

He still said that, with a straight face, AFTER I e-mailed him links and comments from two Guardian stories based on the Palestine papers.

From one of the Guardian stories:

In an emotional – and apparently humiliating – outburst to Barack Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, in Washington in October 2009, the senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat complained that the Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership wasn't even being offered a "figleaf". ...

(W)hen Palestinian leaders balked at the prospect of an entirely demilitarised state, Livni made clear where the negotiating power lay. In May 2008, Erekat asked (Tzipi Livni, Israel's foreign minister): "Short of your jet fighters in my sky and your army on my territory, can I choose where I secure external defence?"

"No," Livni replied. "In order to create your state you have to agree in advance with Israel – you choose not to have the right of choice afterwards."

And more ...

Here’s Lipni, again from the Guardian, favoring “transfer:”

In several areas, (then-Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni) pressed for Israeli Arab citizens to be moved into a Palestinian state in a land-swap deal, raising the spectre of "transfer" - in other words, moving Palestinians from one state to another without consent. The issue is controversial in Israel and backed in its wholesale form by rightwing nationalists such as the Yisrael Beiteinu party of the foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman.

Seems pretty clear, Josh, if you want to open your eyes.

That said, Josh is, if not a Zionist, highly uncritical of Israel's current bipartisan foreign policy establishment. Also, he seems to have little love last for Al Jazeera. He's not given it and its coverage Mention No. 1 during the current Egypt crisis. And, on further reflection, I don't think he did a single blog post about the Palestine papers. For lack of a better word or phrase, I'm creating the new tag of "semi-Zionism."

Oil, Egypt and Obama at a crossroads

Now that it seems the Egyptian Army's no-fire policy is designed to help pro-Mubarak protesters, will President Obama push Mubarak to stop? How much are U.S. oil concerns, Israeli fears and Arab petrodollars intersecting here? Arguably, a fair amount.

White House sells out Egyptians

Supposedly the White House is negotiating a transitional government for Egypt. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/world/middleeast/04diplomacy.html Will it be led by Mohamed ElBaradei?

Nope:

The Obama administration is discussing with Egyptian officials a proposal for President Hosni Mubarak to resign immediately, turning over power to a transitional government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman with the support of the Egyptian military, administration officials and Arab diplomats said Thursday.

That's our bipartisan foreign policy establishment!

The story does note that this decision could be contingent on the mood in the "Egyptian street." That said, for Team Obama to even consider this - and even more, to announce its decision for public consumption - is pure-D dumb.

Muslim Brotherhood - incompetent, not evil

As we wonder if and when Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will depart and who will replace him, one question in the air is: What of the Muslim Brotherhood? Is it eeevvulll like neocons say?

Anthropologist and scholar of religion Scott Atran says it's incompetent, if anything, so such co-opting is unlikely. And, Atran says it's a "carpetbagger" as much as some claim ElBaradei is:

Ever since its founding in 1928 as a rival to Western-inspired nationalist movements that had failed to free Egypt from foreign powers, the Muslim Brotherhood has tried to revive Islamic power. Yet in 83 years it has botched every opportunity. In Egypt today, the Brotherhood counts perhaps some 100,000 adherents out of a population of over 80 million. And its failure to support the initial uprising in Cairo on Jan. 25 has made it marginal to the spirit of revolt now spreading through the Arab world.

That said, Atran adds that this is two wrongs definitely not making a right.

This error was compounded when the Brotherhood threw in its lot with ElBaradei, the former diplomat and Nobel Prize winner. (W)hen ElBaradei strode into Tahrir Square, many ignored him and few rallied to his side despite the enormous publicity he was receiving in the Western press. The Brotherhood realized that in addition to being late, it might be backing the wrong horse.

Very, very interesting.

If this is all the case, then how did we get here? Atran goes on, to talk about exactly that:

The British, King Farouk, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar el-Sadat all faced the same problem that Hisham Kaseem, a newspaper editor and human rights activist, described playing out under Mr. Mubarak. “If people met in a cafe and talked about things the regime didn’t like, he would just shut down the cafe and arrest us,” Mr. Kaseem said. “But you can’t close mosques, so the Brotherhood survived.”

If Egyptians are given political breathing space, Mr. Kaseem told me, the Brotherhood’s importance will rapidly fade. “In this uprising the Brotherhood is almost invisible,” Mr. Kaseem said, “but not in America and Europe, which fear them as the bogeyman.”

Atran adds that, in the wake of 9/11, President Mubarak had good reason to demonize the Brotherhood as well as pump up its alleged size — that meant more military aid from Bush, and more of a license to crush dissent of all stripes. Which he did in spades.

Kaseem wants his countrymen to go slow on the transition, too:

“Egypt is missing instruments essential to any functioning democracy and these must be established in the transition period — an independent judiciary, a representative Parliament, an open press,” Mr. Kaseem said. “If you try to push democracy tomorrow we’ll end up like Mauritania or Sudan,” both of which in recent decades have had coups on the heels of democratic elections.

If there's enough people like him around, there's hope for Egypt's future indeed.

Egypt ... post-Mubarak? In 48 hours? And, who leads?

What could Egypt look like after the departure of President Hosni Mubarak? And how close, or far away, is that day?

A post-Mubarak Egypt, assuming it's not run by son Gamal or CIA-loving thug Omar Suleiman, will probably be a lot like Turkey. Unless you're an American exceptionalist of the bipartistan foreign policy establishment, there's nothing wrong with that. Might even be some good in it.

Anyway, if the bipartisans think we can't live with that, we'll have to learn. And, maybe Israel needs to start being less intransigent with Palestinians about now, if Egypt does become another Turkey. In light of Al Jazeera's Palestine papers, might be some good there, too.

And, how close are we to that post-Mubarak era?

Well, de facto opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei reportedly gave Mubarak 48 hours to get out, from Wednesday night. And, Obama's having a designee meet with ElBaradei.

What of the Muslim Brotherhood? Is it eeevvulll like neocons say? Will it co-opt Mubarak, and make him Egypt's Abolhassan Bansadr?

Scholar of religion Scott Atran says it's incompetent, if anything, so such co-opting is unlikely. And, Atran says it's a "carpetbagger" as much as some claim ElBaradei is:

Ever since its founding in 1928 as a rival to Western-inspired nationalist movements that had failed to free Egypt from foreign powers, the Muslim Brotherhood has tried to revive Islamic power. Yet in 83 years it has botched every opportunity. In Egypt today, the Brotherhood counts perhaps some 100,000 adherents out of a population of over 80 million. And its failure to support the initial uprising in Cairo on Jan. 25 has made it marginal to the spirit of revolt now spreading through the Arab world.

That said, Atran adds that this is two wrongs definitely not making a right.

This error was compounded when the Brotherhood threw in its lot with ElBaradei, the former diplomat and Nobel Prize winner. (W)hen ElBaradei strode into Tahrir Square, many ignored him and few rallied to his side despite the enormous publicity he was receiving in the Western press. The Brotherhood realized that in addition to being late, it might be backing the wrong horse.

Very, very interesting.

Meanwhile, if ElBaradei is "the man" ... and it may be somebody flying below the West's radar screen, instead, Juan Cole says Egypt is not Iran 1979.

I know a lot of people have said that's the case because Egypt doesn't have oil.

No, but it does have other resources, like tourism. And, a theocratic Egypt could decide to deliberately cut off the West, while marketing to the Muslim world.

We shall see.

And, let's hope ElBaradei or whomever has a thicker skin than the criticism-sensitive Mubarak. Looks like Hosni has a thin skin.

What's behind the change in Egyptian army?

Has the Egyptian military reached an accord with President Hosni Mubarak and/or his apparent designated successor, Omar Suleiman, already? I can't see what else would lead the army, after saying Monday it wouldn't fire on protesters, to now tell them, in essence, they've been heard and they need to go home.

And, how many will listen? How many will listen if the bullets start flying? How many soldiers will start the bullets flying?

So far, the military hasn't fired those bullets; violence has been between pro- and anti-Mubarak citizen groups, the former allegedly largely comprised of paid young street toughs.

As I said yesterday, I think something further "gives," one way or other, by the end of this week.

I expect that by Friday evening, the army will have taken a good measure of both Mubarak and the opposition, any promises by Mubarak and other issues, and will know more about where it wants to stand.

Egypt 1-31 — what's next?

First, will Egyptians really accept Mohamed ElBaradei as possible leader of a new government, or will they treat him as a Johnny-come-lately and carpetbagger?

Meanwhile, with the Egyptian military, for now at least, not firing on protesters, this may not be just an academic question.

And, Salon has an excellent piece on ElBaradei's partner, for now at least, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Time frame? I would say that, by the end of this week, President Hosni Mubarak is either back in the saddle firmly, or else negotiating an exit.

Egypt, the U.S., Mubarak, 9/11, Arab democracy

Ross Douthat, in what might just be his best column ever, completes a circle of sorts by reminding us that the U.S.'s continued propping up of Mubarak was surely a major factor in 9/11. Remember, mastermind Mohamed Atta, among others, was Egyptian. He notes that the thuggish nature of Mubarak's crackdown on the Muslim Brotehrhood, as we turned a blind eye to that, caused people like Atta to develop.

The column is good enough, as far as it goes.

But, it gets better, as he calls out the neocons and other democracy-promoting idealists who lose their idealism when Islamic political parties become part of the mix. Or, when other things don't go according to the plans on paper.

I'm making a long, deserved, quote:

The memory of Nasser is a reminder that even if post-Mubarak Egypt doesn’t descend into religious dictatorship, it’s still likely to lurch in a more anti-American direction. The long-term consequences of a more populist and nationalistic Egypt might be better for the United States than the stasis of the Mubarak era, and the terrorism that it helped inspire. But then again they might be worse. There are devils behind every door.

Americans don’t like to admit this. We take refuge in foreign policy systems: liberal internationalism or realpolitik, neoconservatism or noninterventionism. We have theories, and expect the facts to fall into line behind them. Support democracy, and stability will take care of itself. Don’t meddle, and nobody will meddle with you. International institutions will keep the peace. No, balance-of-power politics will do it.

But history makes fools of us all. We make deals with dictators, and reap the whirlwind of terrorism. We promote democracy, and watch Islamists gain power from Iraq to Palestine. We leap into humanitarian interventions, and get bloodied in Somalia. We stay out, and watch genocide engulf Rwanda. We intervene in Afghanistan and then depart, and watch the Taliban take over. We intervene in Afghanistan and stay, and end up trapped there, with no end in sight.

Sooner or later, the theories always fail. The world is too complicated for them, and too tragic. History has its upward arcs, but most crises require weighing unknowns against unknowns, and choosing between competing evils.

To me, this is another part of American exceptionalism — the idea that American politics, and foreign policy, is so great that other nations should just automatically line up. It's also another part of American exceptionalism — that the general public, as well as the bipartisan foreign policy establishment, can maintain directly contradictory ideas in place at the same time, because we're America, dammit.

ElBaradei, Muslim Brotherhood rapproach in Egypt

Both the New York Times and Ha'aretz from Israel report that Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the Muslim Brotherhood have reached rapproachment on forming a national unity government, broad based, to include everybody but current Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's National Democratic Party.

From Ha'aretz:

"I have been authorized -- mandated -- by the people who organized these demonstrations and many other parties to agree on a national unity government," (ElBaradei) told CNN.

The NYT notes that ElBaradei is not afraid to call out the Obama Administration for continuing to prop up Mubarak.

“It’s better for President Obama not to appear that he is the last one to say to President Mubarak, it’s time for you to go,” Dr. ElBaradei said.

Given how he refused to sign off on BushCo bullshit in Iraq, while running the IAEA, this should be of no surprise.

It is seeming more and more clear that the police aren't strongly in Mubarak's corner. The military, with hardware largely paid for by the U.S., still seems strong for the moment. But, remember, Nicholas II lost the gendarmes first, then the military, in 1917.

So, too, did a certain Reza Pahlavi in 1979. Will Mubarak's path follow the late Shah of Iran's, who, ironically, lived his last days in Egypt, which led the Muslim Brotherhood to assassinate Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, which put Mubarak in power?

Former President Jimmy Carter, who is certainly in a position to remember Iran and the Shah's fall in 1979, agrees that Mubarak is eventually likely to go.

And, speaking of that, will ElBaradei pull this off? Or, will Mubarak try to co-opt him, to make him, in essence, Egypt's Shapour Bakhtiar? I doubt ElBaradei can be co-opted. If we were talking about former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, that would be different. Indeed, that might be Mubarak's next move.

And, Ross Douthat completes a circle of sorts by reminding us that the U.S.'s continued propping up of Mubarak was surely a major factor in 9/11. Remember, mastermind Mohamed Atta, among others, was Egyptian.

However, it is possible that ElBaradie could be undercut by the Brotherhood at some point, and become Egypt's equivalent of Abolhassan Banisadr.

Meanwhile, here's more on Omar Suleman, the thuggish CIA pal that Mjbarak has lined up to replace him, it seems.

And, further meanwhile, here's Hillary Clinton pushing for "real democracy" in Egypt. (Muslim parties, of course, need not apply.)

Mubarak, Egypt, The Shah, Iran

When the protests in Egypt against President Hosni Mubarak first started increasing in intensity, I thought — this could be like Iran 1979.

Turns out I'm not alone — former President Jimmy Carer, who is certainly in a position to remember Iran and the Shah's fall, agrees that Mubarak is eventually likely to go.

Egypt and US hypocrisy - a thumbnail

First, what every story has been saying the past 24 hours — US demands real reform in Egypt rather than the fake reform we've tolerated for years.

The State Department's chief spokesman, Philip Crowley, said in a Twitter message that the Egyptian government "can't reshuffle the deck and then stand pat. President Mubarak's pledging reform must be followed by action."

But, the reality was expressed by Crowley just seconds later, when Hosni Mubarak named his intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, as vice president. The story notes that his is despite the fact he's never held that post during his tenure.

The administration appeared to react positively to Suleiman's choice. Crowley said in another Twitter message that Suleiman "is somebody we know well and have worked closely with."

I.e., someone "we can do business with."

Real message of Crowley? Between the lines:

Reshuffle the deck, then visibly cut the cards twice, to avoid the appearance of standing pat.

And, what if the Muslim Brotherhood gets elected in free elections? What then, self-righteously opining Elliott Abrams and other Bush-loving neocons? We've already seen how precious you and Chimpster consider democracy when it involves Hezbollah or Hamas.

So STFU and shut your piehole.

More reasons not to send more troops to A-stan

Ted Rall has a whole laundry list.

There’s no guarantee it will do anything about opium/heroin production.

Our troops may actually be the cause to, not the solution for, anarchy in Afghanistan.

It doesn’t get at the jihadi roots in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Obama may be deliberately mischaracterizing the situation there.

Read the full column for more.