To the title of this post in a moment, but first--read my first post about the situation in Egypt or the people discussed in this one won't make any sense.
I spent a semester in Cairo in the spring of 2009, and I discovered that in many ways, Cairo is a city of excesses. I wrote down a long list of statements about Cairo that all began with "too much," "too little," "too many," or "too few." Here is a sampling of those statements:
Too many people: Cairo's population is estimated to be around 20 million. That's a quarter of the total population of Egypt.
This picture is indicative of the type of housing found in most of Cairo--crowded ramshackle apartment buildings that are not terribly structurally sound.
Too many houses: A 1 million unit housing surplus in
Cairo
That too few people can afford: The surplus are all in the upscale suburbs of Cairo, subsidized by the government in an attempt to un-crowd downtown Cairo, but they are more expensive than most Egyptians can afford.
Too many homeless: Depending on whose statistics you believe, there are between one and five million people living in the Cities of the Dead, the sprawling mausoleum complexes on the outskirts of the city with no electricity, sewage, etc. Even many of those who can afford to live in apartments often do so in slum housing like Garbage City (to the right). Roughed in electric and sewage are the norm, and living conditions are pretty abysmal. That's the Mosque of Muhammad Ali in the background--perfectly indicative of the chasm between rich and poor in Egypt today.
Too many college graduates: Like any good socialist country, higher education at public universities is heavily subsidized.
Too few jobs: A 1964 law guaranteed civil service jobs to college graduates. Now graduates far outnumber the jobs available, leading to massive underemployment.
Too much power: A very large army and an even larger security force have allowed the National Democratic Party (NDP--the ruling party) to concentrate its power
In the hands of too few: Restrictions on political activity have limited the options for opposition parties to the NDP, and cronyism has led to all of the wealth in Egypt being held in the hands of a small cadre of NDP loyalists.
All of that being said, I told a number of people when I returned from Egypt that it seemed to me that Egypt was on the edge of a cliff and it wouldn't take much for it to fall or be pushed over the edge. One of the worst kept secrets in Egypt is that Hosni Mubarak was grooming his son, Gamal, to take over as president, quite possibly in the elections to take place in September of this year. While I think Gamal could have been just what the doctor ordered, he faces two obstacles. First, he's Hosni's son. The feeling in Egypt was that they fought not that long ago to get rid of the monarchy. They have no desire to invite hereditary succession back to their country. Second, he isn't a member of the old military guard that surrounds his father. These guys are all octogenarians who were in the military and are still imbued with the revolutionary spirit of the Free Officers. They don't trust the suave, young Mubarak who has never served in the military. So the nightmare scenario is this:
Gamal takes over, but his presidency is undermined from within and without. The NDP old guard (including the likes of Omar Suleiman), infuriated by the young upstart, starts to undermine his reign from within the party. Opposition parties also move to undermine him through other means. The baby Mubarak regime comes to an end and a power vacuum emerges which has to be filled. As the best organized opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood steps into that vacuum. With the Brotherhood in power, more radical Islamist groups feel like they can come in from the cold, and return home after more than a decade in exile with al Qaeda and other savory characters. Border crossings with the Gaza Strip go mysteriously unmanned, weapons and other materiel flow freely across the border, Hamas re-radicalizes, and the entire region is thrown in to chaos.
This--the nightmare scenario--is where I get to say I told you so. If I could see this, or some permutation of this, coming 18 months ago, why in God's name does it seem that no one in Washington was prepared for it? And I don't even have security clearance. Give me security clearance, Washington. Give me security clearance and I can go save the world.
I spent a semester in Cairo in the spring of 2009, and I discovered that in many ways, Cairo is a city of excesses. I wrote down a long list of statements about Cairo that all began with "too much," "too little," "too many," or "too few." Here is a sampling of those statements:
Too many people: Cairo's population is estimated to be around 20 million. That's a quarter of the total population of Egypt.
This picture is indicative of the type of housing found in most of Cairo--crowded ramshackle apartment buildings that are not terribly structurally sound.Too many houses: A 1 million unit housing surplus in
CairoThat too few people can afford: The surplus are all in the upscale suburbs of Cairo, subsidized by the government in an attempt to un-crowd downtown Cairo, but they are more expensive than most Egyptians can afford.
Too many homeless: Depending on whose statistics you believe, there are between one and five million people living in the Cities of the Dead, the sprawling mausoleum complexes on the outskirts of the city with no electricity, sewage, etc. Even many of those who can afford to live in apartments often do so in slum housing like Garbage City (to the right). Roughed in electric and sewage are the norm, and living conditions are pretty abysmal. That's the Mosque of Muhammad Ali in the background--perfectly indicative of the chasm between rich and poor in Egypt today.
Too many college graduates: Like any good socialist country, higher education at public universities is heavily subsidized.
Too few jobs: A 1964 law guaranteed civil service jobs to college graduates. Now graduates far outnumber the jobs available, leading to massive underemployment.
Too much power: A very large army and an even larger security force have allowed the National Democratic Party (NDP--the ruling party) to concentrate its power
In the hands of too few: Restrictions on political activity have limited the options for opposition parties to the NDP, and cronyism has led to all of the wealth in Egypt being held in the hands of a small cadre of NDP loyalists.
All of that being said, I told a number of people when I returned from Egypt that it seemed to me that Egypt was on the edge of a cliff and it wouldn't take much for it to fall or be pushed over the edge. One of the worst kept secrets in Egypt is that Hosni Mubarak was grooming his son, Gamal, to take over as president, quite possibly in the elections to take place in September of this year. While I think Gamal could have been just what the doctor ordered, he faces two obstacles. First, he's Hosni's son. The feeling in Egypt was that they fought not that long ago to get rid of the monarchy. They have no desire to invite hereditary succession back to their country. Second, he isn't a member of the old military guard that surrounds his father. These guys are all octogenarians who were in the military and are still imbued with the revolutionary spirit of the Free Officers. They don't trust the suave, young Mubarak who has never served in the military. So the nightmare scenario is this:
Gamal takes over, but his presidency is undermined from within and without. The NDP old guard (including the likes of Omar Suleiman), infuriated by the young upstart, starts to undermine his reign from within the party. Opposition parties also move to undermine him through other means. The baby Mubarak regime comes to an end and a power vacuum emerges which has to be filled. As the best organized opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood steps into that vacuum. With the Brotherhood in power, more radical Islamist groups feel like they can come in from the cold, and return home after more than a decade in exile with al Qaeda and other savory characters. Border crossings with the Gaza Strip go mysteriously unmanned, weapons and other materiel flow freely across the border, Hamas re-radicalizes, and the entire region is thrown in to chaos.
This--the nightmare scenario--is where I get to say I told you so. If I could see this, or some permutation of this, coming 18 months ago, why in God's name does it seem that no one in Washington was prepared for it? And I don't even have security clearance. Give me security clearance, Washington. Give me security clearance and I can go save the world.
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