The bloodshed on the streets of Egypt is a disaster for the country. It also creates a desperate dilemma for the West.
Nobody yet knows how many people have been killed. But the random nature of some of the victims – a British television cameraman, a 17-year-old-girl – suggests that the death toll will be very high. Beyond the immediate tragedy, the killings in Cairo end the prospect of any reconciliation between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood. They also end any hopes for a democratic Egypt, at least in the immediate future. That vision – which seemed almost irresistible after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in early 2011 – is now over.
Egypt may hold elections, at some point. But it is inconceivable that the army – having effectively declared war on the Muslim Brotherhood – will risk allowing them to win elections, again. Many Egyptian commentators argue that the Brotherhood are, anyway, much less popular than when President Morsi won election. But it seems highly improbable that the army will risk testing that proposition at the ballot box. If Egypt has any elections in the near future, they will be a sham. Repression of the Muslim Brotherhood is also bound to mean mass arrests and censorship. Earlier this month, John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, said that the military’s intervention had been intended to restore democracy. But the idea of a liberal coup was always an illusion.
Yet a return to a new version of the Mubarak regime will also be very hard to achieve. Too much has happened in the last two years to make that plausible. Under Mubarak, the Brotherhood were kept well away from real power – but were part of Egyptian society, performing social work in the slums and organising at universities. It seems unlikely that they will be granted that latitude in future. Nor, after the overthrow of an elected president and mass killings on the streets, are the Islamists likely to reconcile themselves to military rule. A resurgence of violent Jihadism – followed by further repression – seems likely. Egypt’s liberals, so prominent in the original Tahrir movement, will not know which way to turn.
The US and Europe are also in a huge quandary. Some pose the dilemma as a face-off between principles and interests. According to this theory, Western principles point to support for democracy and a severance of ties with the military government. Western interests point to tacit support for the repression of an Islamist government.
But, in reality, things are more complicated than that. If the repression leads to a resurgence of al-Qaeda and the Islamist threat, it is emphatically not in western interests. Backing a violent, anti-democratic coup would also rip the coherence out of any western approach to the Middle East – or indeed the world. If the US and Europe do not harshly condemn events in Egypt, how can they continue to condemn the Assad regime’s war in Syria? It is true that there is a question of scale. Around 100,000 may have died in Syria – while the death toll in Egypt so far probably runs into hundreds. But the principle of violent repression seems similar. A failure to convincingly repudiate the military government in Egypt also creates dilemmas beyond the Middle East. How can the US or Europe condemn milder crackdowns in Russia or China, if they tolerate events in Egypt?
Yet severing ties with the Egyptian military government would pose its own set of dilemmas. The Egyptian economy is teetering and the country is clearly at risk of severe civil strife – or even civil war. If the West simply backs off now, would it find itself as powerless to influence events as it is in Syria? And if so, who or what would fill the vacuum of outside influence? The Saudis, the Qataris, a revived Brotherhood, al-Qaeda?
There simply are no easy answers to these questions, which is why all that was heard from western capitals – as events unfolded in Cairo – was confused spluttering.
Gideon Rachman
Fonte: FT
