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From: Office of Terje Rod-Larsen Subject: June 26 update Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2012 21:46:35 +0000 26 June, 2012 Article 1. The Wall Street Journal What to Expect From the Muslim Brotherhood Fouad Ajami Article 2. Guardian The Muslim Brotherhood connects with Egypt's rural majority Magdi Abdelhadi Article 3. The Daily Beast Mohamed Morsi Will Have His Hands Full Uniting a Deeply Divided Egypt Tarek Masoud Article 4. The Washington Institute Morsi's Victory in Egypt Robert Satloff Article 5. The Newsweek What Israel knows, and doesn't know, will change the world Niall Ferguson Article 6. The National Interest How to Stop the Lose-Lose Game Hossein Mousavian & Mohammad Ali Shabani Article 7. The Financial Times Our obsession with Iran obscures the bigger threat Gideon Rachman Anicic The' Wall Street Journal What to Expect From the Muslim Brotherhood EFTA01178295 Fouad Ajami June 25, 2012 -- With the triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate in the presidential election, Egyptian history can be said to have closed a circle. This "Second Republic" marks a return to that tumultuous time, six decades ago, when the military officers overthrew the monarchy in 1952 and announced the birth of a new order. Two forces inherited the wreckage of the Egyptian monarchy: the officer corps and the Muslim Brotherhood. For a fleeting moment, the Brothers thought the men in uniform were their allies. They dubbed the military seizure "the blessed movement." But the coup makers had a different script in mind. The Muslim Brotherhood would come in for decades of repression. Mohammed Morsi, the president-elect set to be handed the reins of power on June 30, has done time in prison and is now poised to be his country's first civilian president. Ever since its founding in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood yearned for power as it ran afoul of the authoritarian state. Its adherents dreamt of and agitated for an Islamic state even as its sly leaders understood the limitations imposed by the poverty of Egypt, its need for the kindness of strangers, reliance on foreign aid and the revenues of tourism. This is not a country that can shut out the world. Mr. Morsi himself embodies the contradictions of modern life in Egypt. The quintessential conservative, heir to a tradition of anti-Westernism, in 1982 he earned his Ph.D. in engineering from the University of Southern California and taught at one of the state's universities. Two of his sons are said to hold U.S. citizenship. Mr. Morsi promises a presidency for all Egyptians—a role for the Copts, for women, for secularists. The promises of the day could be erased by the night, as an Arabic expression has it. But Mr. Morsi, who won Sunday's run-off election with a slim majority (51.7%-48.3%) over Ahmed Shafiq, a man promising to rein in the Brotherhood but hobbled by his ties to the Mubarak dictatorship, cannot boast a strong mandate. To begin with, there is the power of the officer corps. Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi and the two dozen commanders around him see themselves as the guardians of Egypt's order, the keepers of its modernity. EFTA01178296 In the mind of Mr. Tantawi and his colleagues, they had held their fire during the revolutionary tumult that brought down Hosni Mubarak in early 2011. There is no way of knowing, with precision, what would have unfolded had the army set out to crush the Tahrir Square protesters. But it's likely the country would have drowned in blood, and the bonds between the army and the population surely would have been shattered. It was the better part of wisdom to let the protests go forth, to cast Mubarak adrift and maintain the idea of the army and nation as one. The terror unleashed on the people of Libya and Syria by their own militaries is anathema to the self-image of the Egyptian military. Still, Field Marshall Tantawi is no devotee of democracy: Two days before the runoff election for the presidency, the army enforced a decree that dissolved the parliament. The decree had been issued by a judicial body, the Supreme Constitutional Court headed by a Mubarak appointee, on dubious grounds. Next, an oddly named writ issued by the army, the Constitutional Declaration, all but hollowed out the powers of the presidency. It gave the army vast powers over a wide swath of political matters. A National Defense Council leaves all military and security matters—war and peace, relations with Israel, military cooperation with the United States, the budget of the military and their economic prerogatives—in the hands of the officers. Yet for all the powers of the military establishment, this new order was no gift the army had granted and could take back. The crowds who defied the dictatorship, who conquered their fear and reclaimed political life from the military, once again rose up, sending a clear message to the officer corps—the days of pharaonic despotism are over. But at what cost? Lawlessness has come to Egypt, and if it is to be rolled back, the army and the Brotherhood will have to reach a workable compact. The Brotherhood will not mind leaving the matters of war and peace, the security treaty with Israel, to the officers. This way the peace can be kept while giving the Brotherhood the alibi that such is the choice of the military. If any overarching political vision inspires the Brotherhood, it is the Turkish model. The Iranian theocracy claims Mr. Morsi's victory is a vindication of its model, but nothing could be further from the truth. The Shia theocracy is anathema to Egypt's Islamists, alien to their idea of Islam and its workings and rituals. EFTA01178297 Turkey is a different story: a Sunni country where Islam came to power via the ballot box, then rode and facilitated an economic renaissance that made Turkey the envy of its neighbors. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's depiction of himself as the Muslim leader of a secular country is something that the Brotherhood would be wise to behold. And it carries with it the subversive but quiet promise that in time the political process will confine the military to the barracks as has been the case in Turkey. Many are eager to rebuke this Egyptian interlude. Those who had given the reign of Hosni Mubarak three decades of indulgence are unwilling to see in the last 18 months the birth pangs of a democratic possibility. They forget or ignore even recent history, how the Egyptian people had abandoned politics and all but given up on their country. A new hope has arisen in that weary country. Are Egyptians not entitled to a decent interval before we consign them, yet again, to a despotic fate? Mr. Ajami is a seniorfellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and the author most recently of "The Syrian Rebellion,"just published by Hoover Press. Artick 2. Guardian The Muslim Brotherhood connects with Egypt's rural majority Magdi Abdelhadi 25 June 2012 -- The Muslim Brothers have been hounded and persecuted throughout their long history, so their resilience and tenacity is not only to be admired and respected, but should also be held as an example for those who wish to make a difference in Egypt's vibrant but chaotic post-Mubarak political landscape. You may not like their populism, conservatism and anachronistic ideology, but as an organisation they are impressive. I don't ever recall visiting their EFTA01178298 headquarters or talking to their leaders without feeling a strong sense of discipline, focus and commitment. Their history is evidence that they have paid a heavy price for their belief in an idea. Their founder, Hassan al-Banna, was assassinated by state agents in 1949. One of their best-known intellectuals, Sayyid Q1. was hanged by Nasser in 1966. Many have languished in jails for years. It would have been profoundly unfair to deny them the fruit of their long and unwavering political struggle. It's true that notorious jihadi groups have been inspired by the teachings of Qutb — namely that modern society is pagan and ungodly and that true Muslims should reject it and take up arms against it. But the Muslim Brotherhood of today has distanced itself from such ideas and is committed to normal politics. The organisation may be run by old men, but it has proven to be nimble, astute, pragmatic and far-sighted. Its repeated electoral victories are ample evidence. Although it had originally promised not to contest the presidential election, in the end it had to. Critics accused it of opportunism and lying. On the contrary, contesting the election was a far-sighted decision which was finally vindicated. The reason for the Brotherhood changing its mind lies in the bumpy and chaotic political struggle with the ruling army generals on the one hand, and secular forces on the other. The Brotherhood knew that there was a big risk that the constitutional court would dissolve the parliament where it had a majority. Fearing that it might be left out in the cold, it fielded its strongman, Khairat El Shater. But suspecting that Shater might be disqualified on technical grounds (which he subsequently was) the Brotherhood had a plan B: Mohamed Morsi who — against all the odds — won the race. If that's is not politics of the highest order, I don't know what is. Despite Morsi's obvious drawbacks — dullness and lack of charisma and his being the movement's second choice — he won. He was certainly aided in that by many secular voters who, despite their visceral dislike of the Muslim Brothers, voted for him to prevent a return to the old regime. The electoral campaign was not as slick and costly as that of Ahmed Shafiq, which was paid for by Mubarak-era businessmen now hiding in EFTA01178299 Europe. The Brotherhood's history and reputation were subjected to a relentless campaign of scaremongering and character assassination in state as well as private media. Yet it fended off all that. The Brotherhood was also the first to produce a credible vote tally that showed Morsi as the winner. Many disagreed, but the tally was largely confirmed when the official result was announced. That too should be added to the Brotherhood's score sheet. This is an organisation based on a commitment to an idea, years of training and discipline. That's how you build a political party. Parties built around a person or a group of people will eventually die when they pass away or when they fall out, as often is the case in Egypt. There are so many people who hate the Muslim Brothers in Egypt and beyond. But no one can deny that they have proven to be the most successful grassroots movement across the entire region. The Brotherhood is the closest one can find in Egypt today to an independent political institution where established practices and commitment to an idea seem to trounce blood ties and financial interests. It's not only populist, but also truly popular. Its members are drawn from all walks of life — middle-class professionals as well as workers and peasants. Although the leadership is made up mainly of academic and professionals, they tend to come from a rural environment. That makes them more organically linked to the social fabric of the countryside (where a majority of Egyptians live) than the urban-based secular parties. Their hospitals and other charity work have been a key component in their history to evolve as a movement from and to the people. This has often been criticised by their rivals as bribing the electorate. That may very well appear to be so at times of election. But their bond with their constituencies is not seasonal. Care for the poor and the weak is central to Islamic teaching, and they would not have enjoyed the support they do if they had not lived up to those ideals. Egypt's "liberal" millionaires may be able to open party headquarters up and down the country and spend lavishly to buy support but they will not produce commitment based on belief in an idea. I have frequently heard liberals complain that Tahrir Square had been hijacked by the "riffraff', or "backward" Egyptians from the countryside EFTA01178300 on days when the majority of those demonstrating there were supporters of the Muslim Brothers and other Islamist groups. This goes to show not only how cut off the secular minority is from the rest of country, but how little respect they have for the poor and ordinary people. Egypt is certainly not in the middle and upper class enclaves of Zamalek and Mohandiseen of Cairo. The majority of Egyptians live in the countryside. Unless the liberals and other secular forces learn from the commitment and organisational skills of the Muslim Brothers, leave their affluent ghettos in the big cities and venture out in the countryside, they will remain condemned to a handful of seats in any future election. Artick 3. The Daily Beast Mohamed Morsi Will Have His Hands Full Uniting a Deeply Divided Egypt Tarek Masoud June 25, 2012 -- This week, the Presidential Elections Commission, the judicial body that oversaw Egypt's first relatively free and fair contest for the country's top job, finally certified Mohamed Morsi Eissa al-Ayat, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, as the victor. The election had actually concluded a week prior, and while the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) announced its candidate's triumph almost immediately, the PEC demurred, first saying it would release the result last Thursday, and then postponing until Sunday. Many believed that the delay was that so the judges, and Egypt's ruling military junta, could figure out a way to cook the numbers to show a Morsi defeat. This was not the first time that Morsi has had to cool his heels in limbo while a judge would figure out whether (or how) to steal an election from him. I first met Morsi eight years ago, when he was running for reelection to Egypt's 454-man Parliament. A representative from the Nile delta town of Zagazig, he had been one of 17 Muslim Brotherhood legislators, and had earned a reputation as one of the body's most vociferous critics of the government EFTA01178301 of Hosni Mubarak. Perhaps because of this, the word on Morsi's campaign was that his seat was not safe, and that the regime was intent on removing him from the assembly. The night of the election, I (and what felt like a thousand Muslim Brothers) stood outside the building in which the votes were being tallied by the judge (in the 2000 and 2005 elections, judicial oversight of vote counting was thought to provide a modicum of integrity to the process). Morsi and his opponent were inside the station, observing the judge do his work. Throughout the evening, we received reports on what was going on inside from a Brother who was in cellphone contact with Morsi or one of his aides. At one point, we began to hear that the numbers were showing a Morsi victory. Shortly afterward, we heard that the judge was now on the phone with superiors in Cairo. Finally, the word came that the judge had been ordered to swap the two candidates' figures, and Morsi was arguing with him, pleading with him to fear God and do the right thing. The judge, who likely had plenty of more worldly things to fear if he actually took Morsi's advice, was reportedly apologetic. As he put pen to paper to complete the foul deed, he allegedly turned to Morsi and said, "All I ask is that if you want to curse someone, please just curse me and not my children." Morsi is the decisive break with the past that many Egyptians have been hoping for. It's not yet clear whether he also represents a bridge to Egypt's future. By the time Morsi emerged from the building, we all knew what had happened, and I remember thinking that the crowd was going to erupt in violence—they were Islamic "fundamentalists" after all. But instead of a call to revenge or mayhem, Morsi gave a short speech in which he recounted regime abuses, celebrated the fact that the Brotherhood had as a whole won more than five times their old number of seats in the assembly, and then asked everyone to go home peacefully. With tears in their eyes, they did. Who could have predicted that a mere seven years later, Morsi would face the same scenario, except this time it would go his way and hand him the presidency? Morsi assumes Egypt's highest office at an incredibly dangerous time in the country's history. The ruling military junta, which had earlier promised to hand over power at the end of June, now seems unlikely to go anywhere. A judicial decision to dissolve Egypt's Parliament in the days before the presidential election means that legislative authority reverts to the generals, EFTA01178302 and they can be expected to make their voices heard. Meanwhile, the political landscape remains bitterly divided—not just between supporters of the two presidential candidates, but between young and old, urban and rural, between those who want Islamic law and those who don't, and between those who want gradual change and those who want radical transformation. One may legitimately ask, then, whether Morsi is the right man for the job. After all, he wasn't even the Muslim Brotherhood's first choice—that honor went to a businessman named Khairat al-Shater, who was disqualified by the PEC due to a Mubarak-era conviction. And the Muslim Brotherhood's stock has plummeted in recent months. Non-Islamists chided the group—and its allies in Parliament, the more conservative Salafis—for attempting to dominate the constitution-writing process, and for reneging on its earlier promise not to back a consensus candidate for president rather than fielding one of their own. In his acceptance speech last night, Morsi nodded to the importance of building national unity when he vowed to be the president of all Egyptians. But it's not even clear that he's the president of everyone who voted for him. The Brotherhood may be the strongest political force in Egypt, but it's worth remembering that it did not win the presidency on its own. In the first round of voting, Morsi earned only a quarter of votes cast—around 5.7 million votes. In the runoff, he more than doubled his tally, to 13.2 million. Those extra 7.5 million voters were mainly Egyptians who believed that their revolution would not be worth its name if it discarded Mubarak only to replace him with his protégé. Morsi is the decisive break with the past that many Egyptians have been hoping for. It's not yet clear whether he also represents a bridge to Egypt's future. Fighting the military while restitching Egypt's tattered political fabric will require a politician of incredible skill, flexibility, and strategic acumen. Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's executive committee or "guidance bureau" for the past seven years, has certainly demonstrated his ability to operate within a large organization, but it's not clear to me that the skills that make one a successful Muslim Brotherhood apparatchik are those that make a successful national leader. Morsi is known for ideological rigidity, and younger Muslim Brothers in Cairo often lament his increasing influence within the organization. But his rigidity was an asset during his time in EFTA01178303 Parliament, when he was known for standing up on the floor of the assembly and delivering broadsides against the regime. And while many accounts of his parliamentary record focus on the religiously conservative bits of his agenda—it's true that his first speech on the floor of Parliament was an indictment of interest-based banking, which is forbidden in Islam— he was just as likely to call the government to account for the country's crumbling infrastructure. One of his proudest achievements as a parliamentarian, in fact, was the building of a flyover that traversed a set of railroad tracks on the way to his district. But Egypt's current moment requires something more than a gifted organization man or the faithful representative of a dusty rural electoral district. An inordinate amount of commentary about Morsi in recent weeks has focused on the man's personality—in particular on his alleged lack of charisma. This focus, I believe, is in part a function of the fact that Morsi's new job is going to require him to seduce, cajole, and sometimes bully a wide range of political actors. It is true that Morsi is not a typical politician, with none of the glad-handing bonhomie that is characteristic of that species. This is not surprising—he's a materials engineer and university professor, careers that do not usually attract political animals. He is not a terribly arresting speaker—his acceptance speech included a long and somewhat painful portion where he name checked practically every professional group in Egypt, from diplomats to rickshaw drivers, prompting one wag (OK, it was me) to ask whether he was giving a speech or enumerating a census. And he's not afraid of alienating people. I once saw him reprimand female worshippers at a mosque in his hometown of Zagazig for chatting too loudly—and this was when he was running for office and presumably needed every vote he could get. But charisma is a relative thing—he may not have it in the absolute sense but compared with the plodding Mubarak, Morsi has it in spades. The question is whether he has enough of it, and enough imagination, creativity, and flexibility, to unite Egyptians for the fight ahead. Morsi's opponents are legion. Not only will he have to deal with a power-hungry and paranoid military, he will also have to cope with Egypt's so-called deep state. After all, Mubarak had almost 30 years, and his predecessors another 30 years before that, to establish a state apparatus that was distinctly inhospitable to the Islamist project. We saw some of this in the clash between the Egyptian judiciary and the MB, as judges (with EFTA01178304 the blessing of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) not only disqualified the Brotherhood's original presidential candidate but also dissolved the first constituent assembly, before putting paid to the Muslim Brotherhood—dominated Parliament. And coping with the judges will be easy compared with the Ministry of the Interior, which was not only the boot of the Mubarak regime on the necks of the Egyptian people, but a body of men with guns whose defining ideology is resistance to the Islamist political project. Morsi has spoken soothing words to the police, but these are not likely to overcome years of indoctrination or change the institution's raison d'être. Moreover, any concessions Morsi makes to the deep state risk being seen by his allies as a betrayal of the revolution. Morsi will have his work cut out for him abroad as well. Though it appears that the junta will retain control of foreign affairs and defense portfolios, Morsi can still have a lot of influence in these areas. And for many Americans, who have not followed Egyptian politics closely enough to be able to distinguish among different types of Islamists, it might as well have been Osama bin Laden rather than a bookish university professor who had been elected president. Opponents of Morsi have brought up a 2005 interview that he gave to CNN, in which he rather foolishly questioned the official narrative of 9/11, saying that there "is something fishy" about it. "An airplane or a craft just going through it like a knife in butter?" he asked his interviewer, "I don't see that. Explain it to me." Though it would of course be preferable if Egypt's next president were someone who understood what really happened on 9/11 (not least because we still require Egyptian cooperation in fighting terror), there's a significant difference between someone who denies it happened and someone who thinks it was a good idea. The former is misinformed (or a crank); the latter is the face of modern evil. Morsi is more Jerry Falwell than Osama Bin Laden. During his 2005 parliamentary campaign, he talked a lot about the United States— remember, this was only two years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq—but more to critique its social model than to rail against its international malfeasance. He lived in Southern California in the late '70s, so one can imagine that he saw a lot of decadence in his day. On the stump, he would often tell audiences that families in America had so come apart that hospitals were forced to register newborn babies under their mothers' last names (since, the implication was, rampant promiscuity had rendered the EFTA01178305 institution of marriage irrelevant). There was comparatively less America bashing in his presidential campaign—no doubt in part because the crowds were bigger, the number of eyes watching him at home and abroad exponentially greater. But it's also because Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have grown a lot in the last seven years. We are fond of saying that the Muslim Brotherhood is the most organized political force in Egypt, but this does not mean that they are alone. For several years, liberal and leftist activists have become a force to be reckoned with in Egyptian politics, and to earn their support the Brotherhood has had to compromise. In 2007, when the movement put forth a party platform that rejected the possibility of a female or Christian president, and which proposed a council of religious scholars to advise the Parliament on whether its legislation was sharia-compliant, it came under blistering attack from its would-be allies and, as a result, backtracked. The Brotherhood now declares that only sitting judges have the authority to review laws, and Morsi's presidential platform says almost nothing about sharia or any of the other traditional themes of political Islam. In fact, the word that appears most frequently in Morsi's platform is "development." This doesn't mean that Morsi won't try to implement a conservative program, but he'll be on a very tight leash. In the coming weeks, we'll see just how short that leash will be. Morsi— who has just begun settling into Mubarak's old office—is already heading for a fight with the junta by demanding the reinstatement of the Islamist- dominated parliament that was dissolved by court order in early June. Many Muslim Brothers and other revolutionaries have decided to remain in Tahrir Square until their demands are met—which will make it difficult for Morsi to backtrack or compromise with the generals. Whatever happens in the coming days, it appears that Egypt's new president will have a very short honeymoon indeed. Tarek Masoud is an assistant professor ofpublic policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Anicic 4. The Washington Institute EFTA01178306 Morsi's Victory in Egypt Early Implications for America and the Broader Middle East Robert Satloff June 25, 2012 -- While the authority of Egypt's new president may be circumscribed, it is a mistake to underestimate his ability to influence political change at home and abroad. Before any further embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood leader, the Obama administration needs clarity on how Morsi's policies are likely to affect critical U.S. interests. For both Middle Easterners and Americans, Muhammad Morsi's victory in Egypt's presidential election is a watershed moment. Eighty-four years after an obscure schoolteacher founded the Muslim Brotherhood, and nearly sixty years since the Egyptian army overthrew the king and established a republic, Morsi's success raises the prospect of Islamist governance in the most powerful and populous Arab state. For the United States, Morsi's election, coupled with Usama bin Laden's killing a year ago, underscores a shift from the threat of violent Islamist extremism to a new, more complex challenge posed by the empowerment of a currently nonviolent but no less ambitious form of Islamist radicalism. Strangely, this is not how "conventional wisdom" sees Morsi's victory. The New York Times, for example, described his election as only a "symbolic triumph." That is because the military men who are hanging on to power in Egypt -- the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) -- stripped the presidency of considerable executive authority when they issued a "constitutional declaration" last week, arranged for the dissolution of the Islamist-controlled parliament by judicial authorities a few days earlier, and created a situation in which they retain control over both the process of writing a new constitution and the timing and rules for new parliamentary elections. It would be a grave error, however, to fixate on the obstacles the army has put in the way of the Islamists without appreciating the latter's remarkable ability to fill any political vacuum they are permitted to fill -- first, by stepping into Tahrir Square to inherit a revolution waged by secularists, second, by trouncing all corners in winning three-quarters of the seats in parliamentary elections, and third, by taking the presidency. At every point EFTA01178307 in the past seventeen months, when Egypt's Islamists have faced a political challenge, they have triumphed. Betting against them now, merely because the SCAF has neatly executed a rearguard holding action, is probably unwise. And depending on how the SCAF plays the cards left in its hand, the obstacles it has thrown in the path of Islamist monopolization of power may not be tools to derail the Brotherhood's ambitions, but instead gambits to negotiate the best deal possible and retain military prerogatives in an Islamist-controlled state. ON THE REGIONAL STAGE It is difficult to exaggerate the regional implications of a Morsi victory. The key is not that Egypt will begin to flex its muscles in Middle Eastern politics -- quite the contrary. With domestic politics sure to be roiled for at least the balance of 2012, Cairo will continue to be the nonplayer on the Arab, African, Mediterranean, and peace-process stages that it has been for quite some time. But the potent imagery of Brotherhood victory is likely to transcend that gritty reality. Even with Morsi's powers hollowed out by military fiat, and even with the drama of his victory whittled down by the nearly weeklong wait for confirmation, the example of Ikhwan political success will be a powerful intoxicant for some, and a poison to others. While confirmation of Morsi's victory may spare Egypt a potentially violent faceoff between Islamists and the military, the shockwaves will be felt across the Middle East. This ranges from the wilderness of Sinai, where more-violent Islamists will push the Ikhwani leader toward confrontation with Israel; to the suburbs of Aleppo and Damascus, where the Morsi example will be a fillip to Islamists fighting Alawite rule; to the capitals of numerous Arab states, especially the monarchies, where survivalist leaders mortified by the prospect that Islamist revolutions could trump their claims of religious legitimacy will double-down on their velvet-glove/iron-fist strategies to fend off the fervor for change. Reactions will differ by country. Wealthy Gulf states, more fearful of the Brotherhood's populist message than welcoming of its Islamist content, will offer aid to Egypt, but only enough to keep the country hungry without starving. Jordan, caught between an Egyptian Islamist rock and a Syrian jihadist hard place, will move closer to Washington and Israel. For its part, Israel will cling to the SCAF, with whom it has more intimate contact and EFTA01178308 better relations today than at any point in years. In other words, everyone will play for time. IMPLICATIONS FOR WASHINGTON The Obama administration is clearly not distraught at the idea of a Morsi presidency. Fearful of the mass violence that could have broken out at the announcement of an Ahmed Shafiq victory, the White House no doubt heaved a sigh of relief when the winner was declared. Even when it had the chance -- before the second round of presidential voting -- to signal its concern that a Morsi victory could negatively impact U.S. interests in terms of regional security or civil liberties, the administration chose not to do so. Instead, it limited itself to anodyne statements about "building a democracy that reflects [Egypt's] values and traditions" -- whatever that means, given the country's 5,000-year history of Pharaonic and autocratic rule. Indeed, only when it no longer mattered -- after the Morsi victory announcement -- did the White House issue an official statement specifically underscoring the importance of "respecting the rights of all Egyptian citizens -- including women and religious minorities such as Coptic Christians," and noting that it is "essential" for Egypt to maintain its role as "a pillar of regional peace, security and stability." Those are powerful words that might have resonated with key constituencies if issued earlier. Assuming that the election was reasonably clean, that same message -- delivered publicly and personally by the vice president or the secretary of state before the election -- could have affected the outcome. Morsi's victory may have averted a domestic Egyptian crisis in the near term, easing the burden for a U.S. administration that already faces at least two other urgent Middle East crises (the collapsing nuclear negotiations with Iran and a Syrian-Turkish flare-up that might suck Washington into the anti-Assad war it is avoiding at all costs), but its longer-term implications are potentially dire. Even with his powers circumscribed, Morsi will have considerable sway over three key national decisions: first, whether Egypt's new government addresses its urgent economic problems by acceding to populist demands for "social justice" or international and business-oriented demands for investment-focused market reforms; second, whether it prioritizes the Islamization of public space as a way to reward supporters and counteract the bitter pill of economic austerity; and third, EFTA01178309 whether an emboldened Brotherhood will export its political success to the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, or elsewhere as part of an effort to invigorate Egypt's dormant regional role. It is difficult to imagine a Morsi-led Egypt adopting policies that align with U.S. interests on all three of these questions; indeed, he may well pursue problematic policies on each of them. Figuring out Morsi's direction on these issues -- and gauging his reaction to costs Washington should consider imposing in the event he chooses a confrontational course -- is a top U.S. priority. Morsi's early calming words notwithstanding, President Obama should refrain from giving further stamps of approval until the incoming leader and the government he will head clarify their approach on these core issues. In policy terms alone, it makes little sense to embrace Morsi before then, never mind the political downside of scheduling an early Washington visit for a doctrinaire leader who extols Hamas, promises to "revise" the Egypt- Israel peace treaty, founded the Committee to Fight the Zionist Project in Sharqiyah, and drafted the Brotherhood's anti-women, anti-Coptic election platform just five years ago. Such clarity will also offer a clue to an even more fundamental question. A decade ago, bin Laden offered a model of Islamist governance -- austere, Manichean, and bloodthirsty -- that the Muslim masses rejected not for its ideological goal of creating an Islamic state, but for its sadistic, inhumane tactics, especially regarding innocent Muslims who were either targets or incidental victims of bin Laden's butchery. The Brotherhood's model of Islamist governance is undoubtedly different from bin Laden's, but is it a difference in means, ends, or both? Before that model goes viral across the Middle East -- with what many Middle Easterners view as Washington's blessing, no less -- the Obama administration should fashion a series of policy dilemmas for Egypt's new president and his colleagues to clarify answers to that key question. Given the blood and treasure expended to prevent the spread of al-Qaeda's message, failure to secure clarity on this critical issue could spell disaster for America's remaining partners in the Middle East. Robert Satloff is executive director of The Washington Institute. EFTA01178310 A,tklc 5. The Newsweek What Israel knows, and doesn't know, will change the world Niall Ferguson June 25, 2012 -- Israel is the land of argument. Each June its president holds a conference in Jerusalem to which people flock from all over the world to argue. Every weekday the prime minister has meetings with his cabinet colleagues at which they argue. There is even a white board in his office on which the latest argument is recorded. He could not get up to greet my wife and me because his leg recently had an argument with a soccer ball. The old joke still applies: as soon as you bring together two Israelis, you have three arguments. And that is the other thing I love about Israel. It is also the land of jokes. The fact that Benjamin Netanyahu injured his leg in a soccer match with Jewish and Arab youths strikes even him as pretty funny. Yet the situation of Israel today is no laughing matter. The phrase "Arab Spring" is now considered something of a joke as people nervously await the latest developments in neighboring Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood is poised to take power. The Israeli government is convinced the Iranian government is merely playing for time in the negotiations over its nuclear-arms program and that the timeline to an Iranian nuke is measurable in months. Meanwhile, the prospects of reaching some kind of agreement with the Palestinians look bleak. As veteran U.S. diplomat Dennis Ross reminded delegates to President Shimon Peres's conference, the maps used in schools in Gaza and the West Bank don't even show Israel. What basis is that for the long-discussed "two-state solution"? Two days in Jerusalem forces you to put your worries in perspective. Here it helps to remember Donald Rumsfeld's classification. Start with the known knowns. First, the crisis of excessive debt in the West is very far from over and that means low growth in Israel's principal trading partners. EFTA01178311 Second, the "great reconvergence" as the East catches up to the West is likely to continue, creating in the process the biggest middle class in the world in China. Israel is between these two worlds. Growth is down below 3 percent this year, but is forecast to bounce back next year. Now for the known unknowns. There will be conflict in this region, in addition to the civil war already raging in Syria. Unfortunately, that's all we really know. Because wars are not predictably distributed, we don't have any way of knowing when and where they will occur, or how large they will be. Let's just say that if there is going to be a military showdown with Iran, September or October look like the most likely months. What about the unknown unknowns—the black swans that almost nobody is currently predicting? My guess is that technology will once again surprise us. Maybe we are underestimating the impact of big data mining, ARM processor architecture, and fiber-optic cables. Maybe we're about to drive smoothly, cleanly, and silently into the future in electric cars. Or maybe some mega-virus will abruptly shut down the Internet and the power grid. Either way, high-tech Israel will play a key role. But there's another category that Rumsfeld forgot to mention: the unknown knowns. These are the things that people who ignore history don't know, but historians do know. First, there's the point that all our wonderful information technology has helped make the world more integrated than ever before. But highly integrated networks, though they enhance efficiency much of the time, are very prone to occasional, massive crashes. Globalization has collapsed before. Second, the rising middle class in emerging markets means not just soaring demand for Western brands. It also means soaring demand for Western rights. A revolutionary bourgeoisie in Asia is about to start demanding the rule of law and no taxation without representation. That is what the bourgeoisie has been doing since 17th-century England. Finally, the resurgence of China and the stagnation of the United States remind us that it's precisely when great powers change places that you need to watch out. Last week I suggested that China rather than the United States should lead any intervention in Syria on the grounds that China's economic interest in the Middle East will soon exceed that of the U.S. I was being at least half EFTA01178312 ironic. Yet on the very day of publication, the semi-official Iranian news agency Fars announced a joint Chinese-Iranian-Russian exercise, involving 90,000 personnel, 400 airplanes, 900 tanks, and 12 Chinese ships, to take place in ... Syria. Small wonder Israelis like arguments and jokes. The real challenge in the Middle East is telling those two things apart. Artick 6. The National Interest How to Stop the Lose-Lose Game Hossein Mousavian & Mohammad Ali Shabani June 26, 2012 -- Although the nuclear talks in Moscow did not achieve concrete results, there is still time to get past the nuclear impasse. The Obama administration clearly isn't interested in offering the Islamic Republic the kind of concessions that would allow it to back down. The key questions now are: Will President Obama, if reelected in November, be more flexible? And will Iran muster confidence that Obama can get U.S. political support for any agreement? Chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili went to Moscow resolved to get sanctions gradually lifted and recognition of Iran's right to enrich uranium to 3.5 percent. In exchange, he offered a freeze on 20 percent enrichment, confidence-building measures on the 20 percent enriched stockpile, a commitment to cooperate with the IAEA to resolve remaining ambiguities and agreement to address the IAEA's "possible military dimension" issues. The last point concerns inspection protocols and related matters. However, the P5+1—the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany—offered Jalili essentially nothing Iran wants, so there was no reason for him to budge. A week before the Moscow talks, after meeting with his Russian counterpart in Tehran, Iran's foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, aptly EFTA01178313 described the mood in the Iranian capital: "Sometimes the process slows down and sometimes it accelerates, but overall I'm optimistic about the final outcome." Salehi understands that domestic politics would become far more radical should dialogue collapse, with unpredictable consequences. While positions on the likely framework of a final accord actually moved closer at the Istanbul talks in April, things went in the opposite direct in Moscow, largely because of disagreement on incremental confidence- building measures. The shift was reflected by in remarks by Catherine Ashton, the European Union's foreign-policy chief, who hinted at a return to emphasis on Iran's "international obligations" under UN Security Council resolutions calling on Tehran to halt enrichment entirely. At the same time, she maintained that the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty remains the basis of the talks, although many signatories to the NPT enrich uranium at low levels for peaceful purposes. The NPT, to which the Islamic Republic is a signatory, does not deny Iran's right to enrich uranium. And, even though the upcoming talks in Istanbul will be lower-level and "technical" in nature, the main point is that they will continue. Iran and the P5+1 have not engaged in dialogue this consistently since Jalili was appointed as Iranian top nuclear negotiator in 2007. The two main factors determining the pace of negotiations are the Iranian economy and the U.S. presidential election. However, Israel's efforts to block a face-saving solution by threatening to drag the United States into another war in the Middle East should not be ignored. Consider the Iranian economy, which is nowhere near collapse. The reality is not that "Iran is on the verge of a choice between having a nuclear program or an economy," as Cliff Kupchan, a senior analyst on the Middle East at the Eurasia Group, insists. To put things into perspective, the Islamic Republic has lost some 40 percent of its expected oil income this year, according to the International Energy Agency. The European Union embargo on Iranian oil, due to go into full effect on July 1, has practically already been implemented. Moreover, the Obama administration has already given six-month waivers from sanctions to most other countries purchasing Iranian crude. Assuming even an annualized 60 percent loss— which cannot be taken as absolute truth due to the opaque nature of Iran's EFTA01178314 crude exports—the Islamic Republic will still rake in an estimated $40 billion from oil this year. That's roughly twice as much as when Mohammad Khatami was president a decade ago. It is no coincidence that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has dubbed this Persian year "the year of national production, supporting Iranian labor and investment." He adds that the "economic Jihad" is "never-ending." This is not to say that ordinary Iranians aren't suffering from the sanctions. A recent Gallup survey showed that at times during the past year, almost half of Iranians didn't have enough money to buy food needed by their families. That's three times as many as when the first UN Security Council sanctions were passed against Iran over its nuclear program in 2006. But Iranians increasingly view the sanctions as designed to encourage a popular revolt against their government rather than an effort to drag the Islamic Republic to the negotiating table. Iranians recall Ayatollah Khomeini's famous quote when an aide raised concerns about inflation: "This revolution was not about the price of watermelons." His successor, Ayatollah Khamenei, recently told the Iranian nation that "what the enemies of Iran fear, and must fear, is not a nuclear Iran, but Islamic Iran." In other words, Iran's leaders emphasize the sanctity of the revolution over Western pressures. Another not-so-concerning effect of the sanctions for the Iranian leadership is the blowback aimed at Western governments. The same Gallup poll showed that fewer than one in ten Iranians now approve of U.S. leadership. Crucially, the behavior of Western negotiators in talks this year has convinced Iranian officials that the United States and the EU don't want to remove sanctions. More ominously, with new UN Security Council sanctions unlikely after Libya and what's going on in Syria, Tehran knows that the West has little in its arsenal. In Iran's eyes, the United States is running out of bullets short of the military option, which is seen as unlikely. The Iranian leadership thinks it has many more unilateral ways to increase the pressure on the United States than vice versa. For example, Iran could change the current status quo in the Strait of Hormuz, increasing the U.S. cost of a gallon of gas to $5 to $6 prior to the presidential election. And most likely, it will continue amassing capabilities designed to be traded off in a final accord. EFTA01178315 Bottom line: the Islamic Republic is willing to agree on a face-saving solution that would induce it to give up the cards it has gained over the past years. Meanwhile, it is becoming increasingly obvious that domestic political considerations are pushing the Obama administration to drag its feet on the negotiations while seeking to keep them alive. This approach allows the White House to remain tough on Iran by not offering any sanctions relief without completely discarding dialogue as an instrument to solve the nuclear issue. This is a lose-lose game, benefiting none of the involved parties. For the forthcoming talks on July 3, the P5+1 should prepare a comprehensive list of all possible measures guaranteeing that Iran will agree to a maximum level of transparency and cooperation with the IAEA, ensuring that there is no breakout capability and that it will remain a nonnuclear weapon state forever. In exchange, the P5+1 should recognize Iran's legitimate rights for enrichment and agree to gradually remove sanctions. Ayatollah Khamenei has enough strength to strike such a deal. But is President Ob