Dalia Ziada

The ill performance and unwise decisions of the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood are the main reasons why the Muslim Brotherhood has failed in ruling Egypt.

Nine years ago, the Muslim Brotherhood were given a once in generation opportunity to rule Egypt, and they wasted it. The unexpected rise of the Muslim Brotherhood group to the topmost of power, in Egypt, followed by a quick and loud fall, has shattered the group into unassimilable pieces. The Muslim Brotherhood leaders had dug the grave of the group with their own hands, by insisting on placing their Islamist identity above the nationalist identity, that Egyptians dearly embrace.

Then, they shot the group right in the heart, by inciting their young followers to practice acts of violence, under the flag of defending Islam, against civilians, policemen, and state facilities in a vengeful reaction to their ouster from power. Even after fleeing Egypt, they continued to hurt their grassroots supporters, whom they left behind with no protection or support, by creating meaningless internal battles over the group’s leadership and finances. The ill performance and unwise decisions of the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood are the main reasons why the Muslim Brotherhood has failed in ruling Egypt.

The Opportunity

Before becoming a president, in 2012, Mohamed Morsi had not been known to most Egyptians, including those who identify with the Muslim Brotherhood. Morsi’s marginal victory with 51.7% against Ahmed Shafik, the former military aviator and the last prime minister of Mubarak’s regime, marked a plot twist in the decades-long rivalry between the military institution and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Morsi’s victory was widely celebrated by western media and academics as a step towards containing Islamists within an organized political system. But, inside Egypt, there was a heightened sense of shock and defeat, especially among the liberal and pro-democracy activists. The majority of the young Egyptians, who participated in the revolution against Mubarak, had not planned or expected to see Egypt turning into an Islamic theocracy governed by the Muslim Brotherhood in presidency and the far-right Salafist movement, in parliament.

Neither the military nor the liberal activists dared to challenge the results of the elections. The military could not afford exposing the country to the threat of initiating a civil war by not accepting the new reality of Islamists taking over. The chaotic aftermath of the Arab Spring offered a perfect environment for this hellish scenario. Likewise, it was easier for the pro-democracy activists to accept the results of the elections, even though they do not ideologically agree with the Muslim Brotherhood, than letting Egypt fall back into the sludge of dictatorship on the hands of Mubarak’s associates.

Meanwhile, the majority of Egyptians, pushed by fear of losing the secular Egypt that they know under the pressure of systematic Islamization of the state by the new rulers, chose to quietly retreat to their safe caves of apathy. “The couch party” was the term used by analysts to describe this phenomenon of Egyptians sudden withdrawal from political participation, at that time. The political ascendance of the Islamists instigated a shuffle in the relationship dynamics between the Islamists, the military, and the general public.

That was the beginning of a whole new chapter, where the average citizens started to reconsider the legitimacy of the Arab Spring revolution that ousted Mubarak from power, and the viability of the democratization process if it will happen on the expense of risking state security and stability.

The Mistake

The Muslim Brotherhood did not care to address the concerns of the public, or to console the defeated liberal activists. They did not even try to negotiate a political deal with the powerful military generals. On the contrary, they purposefully marginalized everyone who adopted a political or religious ideology that is different to them, and kept the hardcore Salafists as the only political allies. The Muslim Brotherhood took every step in the wrong direction of alienating themselves and stirring popular anger and resentment.

First, the Muslim Brotherhood turned against the military generals. On the first week of August 2012, nearly one month after Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi was seated as president, Morsi fired the two most popular leaders of the Armed Forces: Field Marshal Mohammed Tantawy, the Minister of Defense, and his Army Chief of Staff, General Sami Anan. Together, Tantawy and Anan had complete control over the military for years. Both commanders were highly respected by the Egyptian public and counterpart militaries, worldwide. Ironically, what the Muslim Brotherhood thought was a bold step to control the military institution, turned out to be their most unwise decision. The new Minister of Defense, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who was appointed by Morsi after the removal of Tantawy played a tremendous role in overthrowing the Muslim Brotherhood regime from power, a few months later.

In parliament, the performance of Muslim Brotherhood allies, was not only shocking to the public, but also threatening to the liberal and democratic values that motivated the young activists to lead a revolution against Mubarak. The legislations discussed by Islamist Members of Parliament were not about improving economy or advancing democracy. Rather, they were pre-occupied by making new laws to legalize child marriage, allow the return of the horrific practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), and prohibiting women from working in certain fields that they believed should be reserved exclusively to men.

They went as far as marginalizing the Coptic Christian citizens and disregarding their needs for individual freedom and security. This explains why women and Coptic Christian citizens represent the majority of El-Sisi’s electoral constituency. They are, also, the two main social groups that supported the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood regime from power, in 2013.

Yet, the most shocking behavior by Islamist parliamentarians was when they refused to stand up to honor the Egyptian flag when the national anthem was playing, claiming that this is a non-Islamic practice. Even worse, some Salafist Members of Parliament used to disrespectfully disturb parliamentary discussions by standing up without permission and loudly reciting the Islamic “Azan” (the call for prayer), and then leaving the room in groups to perform prayer.

One of the biggest mistakes that the Muslim Brotherhood committed when in power was tolerating the discriminative practices of the Islamists against women and non-Muslim citizens, in order not to lose the support of their grassroots followers. That is despite the fact that, on another level, the Muslim Brotherhood took the effort to end its own discriminative rhetoric against women, to please western allies. For the first time ever, the female members of the Muslim Brotherhood were allowed to take leadership positions inside the political party that the group created after the Arab Spring revolution. These women were, in fact, the wives and daughters of the leaders of the group. They had no political experience and they were acting as instructed by the top leaders.

The Downfall

The victory of Islamists in presidential and parliamentary elections, in 2012, was a result of disgraceful manipulation of people’s religious piety and starvation for democratic change. The slogan the Islamists used in parliamentary elections, for example, was: “we are your way to Allah’s Heaven.” They deceived the religious pious grassroots citizens into believing that voting to political Islamists is voting to Allah. However, it did not take Egyptians more than a few month to realize that they committed a mistake by voting political Islamists in presidency and in parliament.

A series of surveys ran by Ibn Khaldun Center for Democratic Studies, between July 2012 and June 2013, about the public citizens’ satisfaction with presidential performance marked sharp declines in Islamists’ popularity and credibility among grassroots citizens. In July 2012, only one month after Morsi was elected, the survey showed that 40.3% of Egyptians were satisfied with the performance of the president. During this month, Morsi – the then new president – gave an endless list of flowery promises that included improving the economy and empowering women and religious minorities into decision-making positions, in a clear contradiction to his group’s ideology and principles. But, in November 2012, as public rallies surrounding the presidential palace to protest government’s failure were received by violent resistance from Muslim Brotherhood militia, the citizens’ satisfaction index dramatically declined to 8.5%.

By the end of June 2013, in coincidence with Morsi’s first anniversary in power, the Egyptians decided that the Muslim Brotherhood have wasted their opportunity and does not deserve to remain in power, any longer. The persistence of Egyptians to overthrow the Muslim Brotherhood from power was clearly expressed through a number of nonviolent tactics that built up to the momentum of nation-wide protests that eventually overthrew Morsi from power.

Towards the end of 2012, ordinary citizens, especially in Cairo, started to hang banners outside their houses and shopping stores located on main streets, portraying Islamists as Machiavellian manipulators. Soon after, a massive petition signing campaign, under the name “Tamarud” (Rebellion), was launched by young liberal democratic activists to mobilize the “couch party” citizens to express their rejection to the Muslim Brotherhood regime. Tamarud petition collected more than twenty-two million signatures in less than three months, between February and June 2013, exceeding the number of those who voted to Morsi in the presidential elections.

Tamarud petition called upon Morsi to resign and for the constitutional court to set a date for new presidential elections. In parallel, young liberal activists organized protests, on regular Fridays, outside the Presidential Palace and the Muslim Brotherhood’s headquarters. As the police forces and military guards at the presidential office refused to use violence to control the protesters, the Muslim Brotherhood’s leaders ordered the militia affiliated to the group to clash with them.

The decline of the military and police forces to obey the presidential orders to violently repress the protesters, awakened people’s desire to see the military coming back in power. By March 2013, the protests against the Muslim Brotherhood started to incorporate slogans calling for military’s return to political leadership. In addition to the regularly used slogan of “down with Muslim Brotherhood rule,” the people started once again to chant the revolution’s slogan “people and the military are one hand.” This renewed confidence in military, encouraged the Minister of Defense, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, to instruct the military institution to take the side of the people against the Muslim Brotherhood.

On the 1st of July, as the protests calling for Morsi’s resignation multiplied and expanded, El-Sisi made a public statement, in his capacity as the Minister of Defense, giving Morsi an ultimatum of forty-eight hours to resign, in compliance with people’s demands. On the 2nd of July, Morsi responded by a televised speech about his electoral legitimacy, asserting that he was willing to defend it even by “shedding blood.” A few minutes after the speech, violent clashes between Muslim Brotherhood supporters and anti-Morsi protesters erupted at several locations across Egypt, resulting in fatalities. On the 3rd of July, El-Sisi announced the removal of Morsi from his position as president and transferring presidential powers to the president of the constitutional court until writing a new constitution and holding a presidential election.

The Polarization

Not all Egyptians observe the June 30th anniversary the same way. The perception varies with great degrees, based on the political tendencies of who is looking back at the day that initiated the new political reality of Egypt and the entire region of the Middle East.

For the Egyptian state, and its supporters, June 30th anniversary represents two significant events. It is the day, in 2013, when the Egyptian people rallied nation-wide to protest the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood and call upon the military institution to intervene to force convening early presidential elections. On the same day, exactly one year later, the retired Major General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi was sworn in as the new president of state, after an overwhelming majority of Egyptians elected him in reward to his central role in ridding Egypt of the Islamists’ rule.

Pragmatically, the people, also, believed that El-Sisi is the only person who can restore security and stability because the military is backing him. In his inauguration speech, El-Sisi made sure not to make promises to the people about what he can achieve. He only asserted that his main task is to save Egypt from the “people of evil,” and asked the Egyptians to help and support him on that mission.

On the flip side, the Muslim Brotherhood members and sympathizers remember the June 30th anniversary as a coup d’état against a democratically elected regime, that derived its legitimacy from the constitution and the will of the citizens who voted the group in.

In the middle, the pro-democracy activists, who led the Arab Spring revolution against Mubarak’s autocratic rule, and then supported the uprising against the Muslim Brotherhood, out of fear of a probable theocracy, are wondering, with a sense of guilt, if they have recklessly wasted Egypt’s rare chance for democracy when they cheered the early purge of the elected regime of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Article first published on Liberal Democracy Institute.

Dalia Ziada

But, very bravely MBS decided to take the challenge of smashing the idols of extremism and freeing Saudi Arabia from the heavy burden that tied it down for centuries

For better or worse, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is rapidly transitioning into a new geopolitical structure, with new centers of influence and diverse agendas of individual and collective priorities. The ongoing transition process started over a decade ago with the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutions (2010 – 2011), and reached a peak point, last summer on August 2021, following the haste and chaotic withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan. The main characteristic defining the new regional order, in light of this unavoidable transition, is the fracture of Egypt and Syria as the main complementary poles responsible for keeping the MENA region in balance, and the growing reliance on Arab Gulf monarchies, especially Saudi Arabia, in designing and leading the future of the Middle East.

Arab Youth Look Up to Saudi Leadership

Given the fact that the vast majority of the population of Arab countries are youth under 35 years-old, the data provided by the “Arab Youth Survey” of Asda’a-BCW, on annual basis over the past thirteen years, could further clarify the new reality of the region, in quantitative terms. For the past six years, in particular, the surveyed Arab youth selected Saudi Arabia as the most influential leading power in the Arab region.

For example, in 2020 and 2021, the survey ranked Saudi Arabia as the Arab country that has the most influence over the Arab world; respectively with 39% and 29%. Meanwhile, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) used to interchangeably occupy the second position, with 34% for Qatar in 2020, and 23% for the UAE, in 2021.

In contrast, Egypt, which used to lead the Arab world for many decades before the Arab Spring, has been ranked at the tail of the list. In 2020, Egypt was seen by only 5% of the surveyed Arab youth as an influential regional power. However, in the 2021 Arab Youth Survey, Egypt’s position dramatically leaped, with 11%, to the third rank after Saudi Arabia and UAE. That is perhaps due to Egypt’s successful mediation in the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, during their latest round of war in May 2021.

Saudi Monarchs’ Game-Changing Interventions

In fact, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the Third Saudi State of King Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, has always been a key player in determining the course of events in the Middle East and neighbor regions. Even when Egypt was the one holding the steering wheel, calculated political interventions by Saudi monarchs, at critical times of political and security turbulences, kept the region moving on the right track.

One recent example is KSA’s immediate intervention to clean the mess of the Arab Spring and rescue affected countries from political failure or economic collapse. In the 1990s, Saudi Arabia played a tremendous role in managing the Gulf War and helping Kuwait recover from the Iraqi aggression. In the 1950s and 1970s, KSA challenged western powers to support Egypt in its war with Israel, which paved the way for Egypt to eventually win the war in 1973 and restore peace in the region. The current Saudi King, Salman bin Abdul Aziz, and his brothers, personally volunteered to fight as soldiers in the ranks of the Egyptian army against the British and French aggression, in 1956.

Despite Saudi Arabia’s glorious history of rescuing brotherly Arab countries, at critical moments, stepping up to the forefront of leading the Middle East towards and throughout the new era will not be an easy mission. That is not only because of the many geopolitical and security complications of the region, but also because the new regional order dictates the death of old pan-Arab values and the birth of a whole new culture that values individuality and pragmatism, among the states of the region, when handling domestic and foreign affairs.

Challenges of Shaping the New Regional Order

At least, since the severe political earthquake of the Arab Spring, the Nasserist ideology of Arab Nationalism, which remained the mantra of the region for decades, has disappeared. In the past two years, we have seen an increase in the number of Arab countries, extending from the ocean to the gulf, that took individual initiatives to normalize ties with regional non-Arab neighbors (e.g., Israel, Iran, and Turkey), which were labeled, in the recent past, as rivals of the Arabs.

Around the Valentine’s Day this month, for example, UAE showered the Turkish President Erdogan with love at a festive reception in Abu Dhabi, while Bahrain warmly received the Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, with playing the Israeli national anthem in the Capital City of Manama. A month before that, UAE’s National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoun Bin Zayed paid a rare visit to Tehran to meet with senior political and security leaders in the Iranian regime to explore means of normalizing ties, following the same pattern of rapprochement that his country used with Turkey and Israel. However, unfortunately, such a positive initiative did not deter the Iran-backed Houthis militia, in Yemen, from targeting Abu Dhabi, in January, with Iranian drones and missiles.

As the big sister of the Gulf region, and thus the most politically and diplomatically experienced, the Saudi leadership has been calmly working on fixing strained ties with neighbor non-Arab countries, with the understanding that building steady foreign relations requires time and guarantees. This is also the same approach that Egypt adopts, in that regard. For the past few months, diplomatic, security, and economic talks between Saudi Arabia and Turkey, on one hand, and between Egypt and Turkey on the other hand have been building up towards the ripe momentum of renewed friendship.

Cleaning After Flawed Western Policies

Sadly, some western powers, who claim to be allies to Saudi Arabia are purposefully making decisions to weaken KSA in face of the rising Iranian threat, at its borders. In the United States, for example, immediately after President Biden’s inauguration, in January 2021, the U.S. State Department decided to review Trump Administration’s decision to designate the Houthis in Yemen as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).

The next day, the State Department announced holding for review arms and ammunition sales agreements that the Trump administration signed with Saudi Arabia, and to temporarily pause the sale of F-35 fighter jets that are due to UAE upon a contract signed with Lockheed Martin under the Trump administration. Meanwhile, the Biden administration announced its intention to revive talks with Iran on the nuclear deal and ease the suffocating economic sanctions imposed by Trump.

In less than a year, Saudi Arabia and the UAE started to pay for the flawed policy of the Biden Administration. The missile and drone attacks launched by the Houthis on Saudi Arabia intensified and frequented, targeting strategic economic sites in Saudi main cities. By the beginning of this year, the Houthi started to expand their operations to target the UAE with a deadly drone attack that hit an oil facility close to Abu Dhabi Airport.

There is no logical argument that can appropriately explain why the American President is adopting such a policy that is militarily weakening Saudi Arabia and the UAE, while re-empowering Iran and its affiliated proxies and militias.

The rise of Taliban in Afghanistan, following the United States withdrawal and the revival of the Islamic State (IS) terrorists in Syria and Iraq are additional threats at the eastern gates of the Arab Gulf region, that are not expected to fade away any time soon. Out of this reality, Saudi Arabia’s main role in the next phase will be forming new coalitions, inside the Middle East, and with neighbor regions and countries, that can block the rising security threats and keep the region moving in the right direction.

One proposed coalition, with high potential of success, is composed of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey. The new coalition, which is currently being formed, on a very slow pace though, could mitigate and control most of the strategic threats the region is currently facing or expected to face, in the future. That is mainly because of these countries’ strategic geographic locations, at the gates of the main three continents, as well as the complementary military and economic powers they have.

Fresh Blood in the Saudi Leadership

In face of the aforementioned complications, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is blessed by a young leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who understands the size of the challenge and is actively preparing himself and his country for it, despite the many obstacles thrown on his way by some western powers.

In a TV interview, in April 2021, the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, discussed the most critical mission of developing the Kingdom’s economy, through the ambitious “Saudi 2030 Vision.” He admitted that this requires modernizing the Saudi society and changing the state system in a way that encourages foreign investment and opens Saudi Arabia to the world, without risking the country’s unique cultural heritage. But bravely, the Crown Prince said he is up to the mission that promises to modernize the entire Middle East region, not only Saudi Arabia or the Gulf countries.

In the interview, Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed threats against the Saudi national security and the need to neutralize them, especially the threat posed by the Houthi militia and their backer Iran. The prince confirmed that his hands are always extended with peace for those who want peace, including Iran. At the same time, his country will continue to develop the military system and strengthen the army, which has already become among the five most powerful militaries in the Middle East region. According to Global Firepower ranking for 2022, Saudi Arabia comes in the fourth place after the strongest and oldest armies in the region: the Turkish, the Egyptian and the Iranian militaries.

Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also, discussed the most critical issue of developing the economy. For this to happen successfully, it should be accompanied by opening the Saudi society and changing the way the government and the political leadership system in the country works. That is not an easy mission. One of the most important features of the economic development that Saudi Arabia seeks to achieve by 2030, according to Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is openness to foreign investments and the development of tourist areas with a pure Saudi identity capable of attracting tourists from all over the world. This shall create more jobs that will help decrease unemployment. The prince confirmed that there is an urgent need to end the dependence of the Saudi economy on oil as the only source of income.

Since Prince Mohammed bin Salman took office, in 2017, he has been aware that his many ambitions for modernizing Saudi Arabia should be preceded by smashing a few idols that has tied Saudi Arabia down for a long time. The most challenging idols are eliminating extremism and empowering women to play an influential role in public life.

In November, the Crown Prince said in a public speech that “Saudi women in the past could not travel without a permit, could not attend sports shows and cultural events, could not drive a car, could not do a lot of work, and could not appear for their legal cases at court without a male guardian. Women suffered from that for decades. But today Saudi women are experiencing an unprecedented phase of empowerment. We have worked to empower Saudi women in the field of work and personal status, and today they are effectively a partner for the Saudi man in the development of our entire homeland without discrimination. I do not only address the issue of women driving cars, but also driving the development process, in the broadest sense. For example, the rate of women’s participation in the labor market doubled from 17% to 31%.”

On another note, the Crown Prince spoke about the phenomenon of extremism among Saudis and described it as “rampant”. He said: “We reached a stage in which we aim, in the best case, to coexist with this scourge, and eliminating extremism was not an option, nor was it possible to control it. In 2017, I promised to eliminate extremism immediately, and we have actually started a serious campaign to address the causes and address the phenomena. Within one year, we were able to eliminate an ideological project made over 40 years, and today extremism is no longer acceptable in the Kingdom, and it no longer appears on the surface”.

Let’s Embrace the Change!

Anyone in the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s shoes would have preferred to build on what he found, without trying to change it. But, very bravely MBS decided to take the challenge of smashing the idols of extremism and freeing Saudi Arabia from the heavy burden that tied it down for centuries. Saudi Crown Prince’s efforts will not only benefit Saudi Arabia, but also the entire Middle East during this critical transition. This could be the end of the Middle East as we know it. But it will be the beginning of a stronger more stable and more powerful region, that can rely on its own feet to stand tall. The current reshuffling of political alliances and leading roles in the Middle East, based on pragmatic, rather than fiery and emotional, agendas may be the beginning of establishing long-term peace and stability in the ever-boiling region. Let’s not fear the change. Almost always, change leads to positive outcomes.

Article first appeared on Meemcenter.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

Dalia Ziada

The current IMF leadership is way more rigid than the previous IMF leadership of Christine Lagarde in terms of applying the loan-attached conditions of state policy and structural reform.

The contradicting positions of the Egyptian public towards the current and the previous loans received from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are particularly interesting. When the Egyptian government announced the pursuit of a loan from the IMF in 2016, most Egyptians applauded the decision and vowed to stand behind the political leadership to complete the comprehensive economic reform program attached to the loan. In contrast, the Egyptian public is skeptical and pessimistic about the new IMF loan approved last month. What has changed?

The political leadership of President El-Sisi is the same recipient and moderator of the former IMF loan. The people who supported the loan conditions in 2016 are the same ones who are irritated by the current loan conditions, despite their seeking to achieve the same economic reform goals. However, the only factor that has changed from 2016 to 2023 is the perspective and priorities of the IMF leadership toward the importance of national development projects. That, in particular, is what is making Egyptians feel insecure this time.

The current IMF leadership is way more rigid than the previous IMF leadership of Christine Lagarde in terms of applying the loan-attached conditions of state policy and structural reform. From a compassionate and understanding position, Lagarde gave the priority to directing the Egyptian government to make tangible progress on the social development agenda. However, the current IMF leadership is giving the ultimate priority to fast-forwarding the market liberation process even if it happens at the expense of slowing down the national development projects and crushing the middle class.

In 2016, the Egyptian government received an IMF loan of $12 billion over three years through the IMF’s Extended Fund Facility. The loan and the linked technical support program provided a tremendous buffer for the Egyptian economy against the challenges of the reform program, especially those related to the first shocks of inflation and the floating of local currency. When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in 2020, the IMF intervened with two additional financial support instruments to support the Egyptian economy against the consequences of the pandemic. In May 2020, Egypt received US$2.8 billion in emergency financial assistance through the IMF’s Rapid Financing Instrument. Then, in June 2020, the IMF’s Standby Arrangement availed US$5.4 billion for Egypt to withdraw over a period of twelve months.

Thanks to the success of the IMF’s technical support program, Egyptians started to report tangible improvements in their living conditions and greater flexibility in their microeconomic decision-making in the first months of 2022. Around the same dates, Egypt was reaffirmed by the three Credit Rating agencies (Fitch, Moody’s, and S&P Global) at B and B+ with a stable outlook. In December 2021, an IMF report expected that Egypt, by the end of 2022, will become the second largest economy in Africa, after Nigeria, and the second largest economy in all Arab countries, after Saudi Arabia, with a record Growth Domestic Product (GDP) that exceeds US$438 billion. And, then, Russia’s President Putin decided to invade Ukraine!

When the effects of the Russia-Ukraine war started to reflect on the Egyptian economy, the first instinct of the Egyptian government was to knock on the doors of the IMF once more. After almost a year of negotiations between Egyptian government officials and IMF executives, a sudden cabinet reshuffle, and a change in the leadership of the Central Bank of Egypt, the IMF finally approved a small loan of three billion dollars to Egypt in mid-December. The small loan will be paid to the Egyptian government in installments over a long period of 46 months and may be frozen or completely withdrawn if the Egyptian government does not show steadfast progress on the list of harsh conditions.

The list of macroeconomic reform policies that the Egyptian government approved and committed itself to them, in order to receive the $3 billion IMF loan include but are not limited to: floating the Egyptian pound against the US dollar, removing subsidies on oil and gas to match international prices, slowing down the mega infrastructure and social development projects, accelerating and widening the process of collecting taxes, selling state-owned assets to private investors, and listing military-owned enterprises at the stocks market (The Egyptian Exchange).

The middle class is the core of the Egyptian economy. Despite that, the middle class is the citizen group most concerned about the consequences of the IMF loan conditions on their lifestyle and standard of living. Such conditions are expected to downgrade their purchasing power and thus curtail their ability to provide for themselves the basic services that the government is not offering them, such as quality health care and subsidized food and energy products.

Egypt is the second largest lender of the International Monetary Fund, although the Egyptian public has an unpleasant history with IMF loans. The loans saved consecutive governments, since the 1960s, from collapsing under chronic economic crises. Yet, on the flip side, the policy conditions attached to these loans have always been a nightmare for middle-class citizens. The only exception was the IMF loan supervised by Christine Lagarde in 2016. It magically helped the Egyptian government to transform the miserable socio-economic circumstances and brought hope to the hearts of the Egyptian people, especially the poor. However, these important gains are at great risk now, as the Egyptian government is trying to adapt to the strict conditions of the new IMF loan, despite being much smaller in size and more rigid in making conditions.

Article first published in Sada El-Belad.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

Dalia Ziada

Sooner or later, the new Taliban will follow the steps of their ancestors by threatening the security of other countries in the east and the west

It did not take long for Taliban to show their ugly face, proving wrong those who were optimistic about their rule wrong.

On Wednesday, Taliban leaders gathered directors of schools and local community leaders to inform them that women are no longer allowed to attend or work at schools and universities. The decision of the extremist group is the last item on a long list of similar decisions targeting to bury women and girls alive under the claim of preventing “the female vice from corrupting the society”. Banning women from participating in public life is at the core of the extremist ideology adopted by Islamist extremist organizations, including Taliban.

In response to this appalling move, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayib, issued a statement harshly condemning the discrimination against women by Taliban. “Preventing the Afghan girls from university-level education is a shocking procedure that contradicts Islamic Shariah”, El-Tayib stated. “Shariah explicitly urges men and women to continue to seek education from cradle to grave. Several women have proven their scientific and political genius over the long history of Islam. Women’s education should be a source of pride and admiration for every Muslim devoted to Allah, His Messenger, and His Shariah”.

Taliban took power in August 2021, following a hasty and chaotic withdrawal of the United States and allied forces from Afghanistan, followed by an inevitable surrender of the army and the government to Taliban. At the beginning of their shockingly effortless ascendence to power, the extremist group’s spokesperson told the media that they would not practice discrimination against women like their founding fathers did in the 1990s and 2000s. They even claimed that the new Taliban is more “open-minded” and urged the world to wait and see.

Some western politicians and observers echoed Taliban’s false claims, perhaps out of ignorance. Even the U.S. Administration of President Biden urged the international community to give Taliban a chance, under the claim that “the new Taliban is different from the old Taliban” and that Taliban rule is what the Afghan people want. The hundreds of thousands of Afghanis who fled the country since Taliban took power a year ago are proof of the falseness of these relaxed claims.

Among all the shocking statements made by world leaders, such as the European Union and UNICEF, about their optimism toward Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan, one particular statement stood out. In an interview with Sky News TV, a few days following the U.S. and allied forces’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Chief of Staff of the British Army, Nick Carter, described Taliban fighters as “country boys” that the world needs to be patient on and give them a chance to prove that they are “more reasonable” than the old Taliban.

Forcing women to cover from head to toe, stoning women in public, and preventing women from participating in public life through work or education were daily practices under the rule of the former Taliban. Sadly, the current Taliban is gradually heading in that direction by first banning women from working at certain occupations, now preventing women from education, and very soon preventing women from going to markets or appearing in public.

Taliban’s unapologetic discrimination against women is proving wrong the claims of officials and media personnel who were so optimistic that the existing Taliban is different from the former Taliban, which appeared in the 1990s and turned Afghanistan into a haven for Al-Qaeda, one of the most dangerous Islamist terrorist organizations knows in history. Sooner or later, the new Taliban will follow the steps of their ancestors by threatening the security of other countries in the east and the west. It all starts by suppressing women under the silent and passive watch of the free world. 

Article first published on Sada ElBalad.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

Dalia Ziada

Munir’s document is carried through in a conciliatory tone, while the Change Front’s document is loudly voicing a jihadist revolutionary approach.

The “war of documents” is the theme defining the latest episode of the internal conflicts within the Muslim Brotherhood group. In mid-October, the London-based front, under the leadership of Deputy Supreme Guide Ibrahim Munir, published a “Political Document” to forestall the announcement of the Change Front’s document. The Change Front is a jihadist youth faction inside the Muslim Brotherhood that introduces itself as an alternative to the fighting elders.

Jihadists and Politicians

The conflict between the group’s leaders reached a peak  last year when the standoff between the Istanbul-based Mahmoud Hussein front and the London-based Ibrahim Munir’s front escalated from randomly throwing media statements at each other to exchanging serious accusations of administrative and financial corruption. The leaders’ rivalry pushed the century-old group to the edge of a cliff, especially as it coincided with a sharp decline in funding and popular base support.  

Amidst leadership conflicts, the Muslim Brotherhood’s younger members, who have been working under the umbrella of Hussein’s front in Istanbul for seven years, decided to use the momentum of polarization and division inside the group to ascend as the new leaders. They have been active since 2015 under the title of “Kamalists.” In late 2020, they changed their title to the Change Front, ran internal elections, and designed their own bylaws separate from the rules set by the group’s leadership.  

The Kamalists are a group of Muslim Brotherhood youth, who were trained by Mohamed Kamal, one of the most prominent mid-level leaders of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.  Between 2013 and 2014, Kamal organized several violent attacks on civilians and state facilities in Egypt in order to avenge the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood regime from power. He used the anger of the group’s youth to fuel those attacks. His goal was to cause extreme chaos that would force the military to return the Muslim Brotherhood regime back to power.

After Kamal was killed in a clash with the Egyptian police forces in late 2014, his affiliated youth groups went on to form their own militias. The most famous of these militias are HASM and Liwa Al-Thawra, which are designated as foreign terrorist organizations in the United States. HASM leaders fled to Turkey in early 2015. From there, they continued to command operations using the younger Muslim Brotherhood members who could not leave the country. Senior state officials and police and military personnel were the main targets of HASM-led operations. Their biggest crime was the assassination of the Egyptian Attorney General, Hisham Barakat, in June 2015.

Two of the HASM leaders spoke at the Change Front’s conference which was held in Istanbul earlier this month. They endorsed the Change Front document and asserted the importance of “waging jihad against the Egyptian state.” The Egyptian people and leadership watched the scene with much disappointment in Turkey’s leadership, which previously promised to limit the Muslim Brotherhood activities on Turkish land as part of a political rapprochement with Egypt. The Turkish state has previously declined to extradite the Muslim Brotherhood members living in Turkey to the Egyptian authorities. The Egyptian judiciary has already charged most of them with committing acts of terrorism. HASM leaders are at the top of the list. The reappearance of HASM in Istanbul openly inciting violence against the Egyptian state will most likely harm the already slow reconciliation process between Cairo and Ankara.

The Rebellion

The so-called ‘Change Document’ carried the logo of the Muslim Brotherhood and was introduced in the name of the group’s General Office. In the lengthy document, the Change Front leaders, took the liberty to speak in the name of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian people, and even the Egyptian Arab Spring revolution. They tried to introduce their vision, which mostly revolves around the concept of violent jihad, as the best solution to the ongoing leadership crisis in the group, as well as the ongoing economic crisis in Egypt. They clearly called for a revolution against the existing ruling regime in Egypt.

The Change Document started by reviewing the mistakes committed by the Muslim Brotherhood leaders during the recent political stages through which the group has gone, extending from “the revolution and the [Muslim Brotherhood’s] state ruling phase, as well as the mistakes committed by the group’s allies and competitors, in the context of the Egyptian revolution.” The purpose of this review, as the document explains, is to build a new vision to liberate the Egyptian people from the grip of what they call a “military capitalist” system. The vision, however, is set to be implemented by “establishing a system of governance that is compliant with Islamic Sharia.”

Later in the document, one may not be surprised to see that the Muslim Brotherhood’s Change Front is playing with terminology to falsely hide their self-centered goals in the details of the bigger picture of Egypt’s political scene. When they speak about “freeing Egyptians,” they actually mean releasing the detainees of the Muslim Brotherhood from prisons by applying force on the existing regime.  In their new guiding document, the Change Front describes the Muslim Brotherhood prisoners as “hostages to the military authority in Egypt.” They claim that the successor military-led regime that ruled Egypt detained the members of the Muslim Brotherhood “to protect their rule and bury any expected revolutionary spark against them.” 

In what seems to be direct permission to the group’s prisoners to manipulate the Egyptian authorities, the document encouraged them to do whatever they think is necessary to convince the Egyptian authorities to release them. That includes, for example, lying about their willingness to renounce their ideological beliefs and disown the Muslim Brotherhood. This tactic has been used by several extremist groups in the past to deceive the authorities and leave prison.

“The detainees are the masters of their own minds when it comes to dealing with the military authority… Every prisoner has the right to choose his strategy to obtain freedom,” stressed the document after declaring that the Change Front, which assigned itself as the new leading power of the group, will not force the Muslim Brotherhood prisoners to abide by collective decisions.

Nonetheless, the document asserted that individual attempts of the prisoners should happen in parallel with applying external pressure on the Egyptian leadership to force the release of the Muslim Brotherhood prisoners. “The authoritarian regimes throughout history do not release political detainees voluntarily except under real pressure exerted by the forces of change and liberation movements,” emphasized the document. “The military regime in Egypt will not resolve the political detainees’ crisis unless a revolution applies pressure on it to do so.”

Ironically, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Change Movement is introducing itself as the master of this prospective revolution and the one who will take Egypt’s leadership after it happens. They even proposed a “social contract” between the citizens and their prospective Sharia rule. With utter illogical contradiction, the so-called social contract speaks about empowering civil society, fighting corruption, and encouraging co-existence and freedom of speech.

Most of the principles of this so-called social contract are playing on the soaring strings of the current economic crisis in Egypt, by focusing on redefining the economic relationship between the state, the military institutions, and the private sector businesses. The Muslim Brotherhood’s contract claimed to be, “guaranteeing economic competitiveness, increasing the national productivity and sources of income, eliminating poverty, and encouraging the peaceful transfer of political power.”

The fun part, though, is what the document describes as the methodology by which the Muslim Brotherhood’s Change Front is going to implement its plan of mobilizing the public to start a revolution that brings the Muslim Brotherhood back into power. They said that they will free themselves from the centrist approach that led to the failure of the group’s rule in 2013. They insist on practicing political activism “within the general framework of national concerns,” by discretely infiltrating into other political factions whose interests intersect with theirs.

“We will allow the Muslim Brotherhood members, youth, specialists, and scholars to engage in political activism through working under different [Egyptian] political parties and movements that correspond to our vision of national renaissance,” the document noted. That seems like permission to the youth of the Muslim Brotherhood who still live in Egypt to start joining liberal and leftist political parties and movements to revive the social power of the group among grassroots citizens the same way the previous generation of the Muslim Brotherhood did in the late 1990s and early 2000s, under the Mubarak regime.

The Reconciliation

In clear contrast to the Change Front’s rebellious approach, the Ibrahim Munir front in London seeks reconciliation with the Egyptian people and the military institutions. On more than one occasion, Munir confirmed that he and his followers are giving up on political competition for power in Egypt. “We completely reject violence and we consider it outside the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood – not only the use of violence and arms but to have a struggle for power in Egypt in any form,” Munir told Reuters in an interview in July. “We reject the struggle for power even if between political parties through elections organized by the state. This is rejected by us.”

On the eve of the Change Front’s conference, Munir’s front allowed affiliated news sites to publish a “Political Document” that was internally distributed in mid-September. The Political Document echoes Munir’s press statements about the group’s desire to reconcile with the Egyptians and return to practicing social, rather than political, activities inside Egypt. The document avowed that “seeking power is not anymore one of the group’s goals.” Similar to the Change Front’s document, Munir’s document is implicitly assuming that the current Egyptian state is about to collapse amidst the current economic crisis in Egypt. It thus introduces the group’s vision of what the Muslim Brotherhood will do when this happens.

Munir’s document sets three political priorities for the Muslim Brotherhood, regarding its work in Egypt, in the coming period, which the document describes as a “critical moment in Egypt’s history.” These priorities are,  “closing the political detainees’ file, reaching societal reconciliation, and building a broad partnership with national factions that responds to the demands of the public, in terms of achieving political and economic reform.” The document asserted that realizing these priorities requires the Muslim Brotherhood to “overcome the power struggle in a political environment dominated by polarization and incitement, and in a society facing the specter of division.”

The Political Document also emphasized the group’s need for national collaboration with other active political and social groups, similar to what the Change Document noted. However, Munir’s front sees this political collaboration as a means to “contribute to saving the nation” through working with a “national coalition, that excludes no one, to achieve the ‘Bread, Freedom, Social Justice, and Human Dignity’ [which was the main slogan chanted in 2011 revolution].”

Munir’s document also highlighted the need for reforming the governance system, ending corruption, and guaranteeing freedom of expression and freedom of belief to all Egyptians. That carries a direct message to the Egyptian Coptic Christian citizens, who were among the socio-political groups that most vigorously opposed the Muslim Brotherhood rule in Egypt in 2013. “We are responsible, along with other national partners, to exert the necessary effort to build a national consensus that befits the sacrifices of the Egyptians,” Munir’s document asserted. “This inclusive partnership will happen through full democratic practice, which sincerely embraces the Egyptian national fabric, Muslims, Christians, Islamists, liberals, and leftists. Men and women, old and young, labor and businessmen, educated and illiterate.”

The Power of Words

Guiding documents have always been the main tool of communication between the Muslim Brotherhood leadership, younger affiliates, and supporting bases. They have always been kept for the internal use of the members, as they are usually loaded with instructions and plans about how the group should behave in a specific political context at a specific timeframe. The guiding documents were written by the group’s founding father Hasan Al-Bana in response to political and social issues, and had been used to set the group’s constitution which the Muslim Brotherhood members still follow up to this day.

During and after the Arab Spring revolutions, which witnessed a quick rise and fall of the Muslim Brotherhood as a powerful political actor, the group’s leadership used the guiding documents on a broader scale to communicate with the general public in the countries in which they operate. That was very clear in the examples of Arab Spring countries Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria. The documents released recently by the conflicting fronts of the Muslim Brotherhood leadership are not only directed to the members of the group. They carry political messages to the Egyptian people, political parties, and the Egyptian state leadership.

The Political Document and the Change Document are almost identical in terms of the goals and the priorities that they suggest. Yet, Munir’s document is carried through in a conciliatory tone, while the Change Front’s document is loudly voicing a jihadist revolutionary approach. Munir’s document is mainly addressing the Egyptian people from a political perspective, which they believe is likely to be accepted among the Egyptian grassroots citizens who previously rejected the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule in 2013. In contrast, the revolutionary approach of the Change Front’s document is mainly talking to the young members of the group who still live in Egypt. Most of the Muslim Brotherhood youth have lost confidence in the group’s leadership, especially after the outbreak of conflicts between the leaders scattered between Britain and Turkey.

Each of the two documents proposes a vision for the future of the Muslim Brotherhood’s role in Egypt, in anticipation of the collapse of the current Egyptian state under the escalating economic crisis. There is no real evidence to support the Muslim Brotherhood’s assumption about the Egyptian state’s potential loss of power at any time in the foreseeable future. However, such claims serve as a tool to keep the group’s foreign sponsors interested and popular supporters inside Egypt engaged, even by hanging on the worn rope of false hope.

Article first published on Al-Majalla.

Dalia Ziada

In the long term, the fall of the Iranian regime could be a relief for the Egyptian state, as well as most Middle East countries.

The Egyptian people and leadership are watching the popular uprising in Iran with a sense of hope and dread. The hope is embedded in the potential of ridding the Middle East of the Iran-sponsored proxies and militias that have been wreaking havoc all over the region for decades.The fear, however, stems from the predictable political and security chaos that may result from the inevitable collapse of the Islamic Republic in Iran, under the pressure of the ongoing highly disciplined protests that are growing in size and effect every day.

Iran exploited the power vacuums created by the Arab Spring revolutions, in 2010-2011, to infiltrate the security structures of countries with critical geo-strategic locations around the Arabian Peninsula. Iran empowered Shiite armed groups in Yemen and equipped them with missiles and UAV drones to attack civilian homes and economic facilities in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries. That renewed the Arab armament race that reached a peak point in the past five years.

In addition, Iran sponsored Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq to fight the Kurds inhabiting the northern territories of the levant, control the decision-making process in these countries, and even hinder the Turkish military operations against terrorist groups there. Needless to mention Iran’s decades-long political and military sponsorship of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah, established on the premise of fighting Israel, contributed a big deal to destroying Lebanon from within. Hezbollah dragged Lebanon to a geopolitical conflict that is way bigger than its size and capabilities. It, also, played a clear role in enlarging the existing political and economic miseries of the Lebanese people, to serve the interests of Iran.

Ironically, Hezbollah used to be highly respected by many Egyptians, especially on the back of its brief war with Israel, in 2006. I still remember scenes of the Egyptian media proudly celebrating Hassan Nasrallah, the founding leader of Hezbollah, as an Arab and Islamic hero. This changed a couple of years later when the mask of ‘fighting Israel’ fell off, and the public saw the true face of Nasrallah and his group.

The same media outlets fried Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader who became the president of Egypt following the fall of Mubarak, on the background of traveling to Tehran and meeting with his Iranian counterpart. After the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood regime, in 2013, Morsi was taken to an espionage trial and charged with “passing state secrets to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.”

In the past year, news has been circulating about secret talks between the Iranian and the Egyptian leaderships that may pave the way for reconciliation. The Baghdad Summit in August 2021, which brought Arab, Turkish, and Persian leaders into the same room for the first time since the 1980s, heightened the speculations about a potential rapprochement between Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab countries. But the Negev summit, held in March of this year, killed such buzzes as the leaders of Israel, Egypt, UAE, Morocco, and Bahrain held hands to send a clear message of Arab-Israel solidarity against the regional provocations of Iran.

The current Egyptian state believes in the viability of ‘working with the devil that you know.’ While the Iranian top diplomates told the media that the talks with Egypt have been promising, the Egyptian side indirectly hinted that the discussions are only limited to security considerations. Egypt is justifiably concerned that its growing relationship with Israel may inflame an Iranian offensive on Israeli targets in Egypt, specifically the natural gas facilities that the two neighbors operate in the eastern Mediterranean.

In the long term, the fall of the Iranian regime could be a relief for the Egyptian state, as well as most Middle East countries. But this comes with a price that has to be paid in advance. The collapse of the Mullah regime will eventually contribute to the disappearance of armed militias and proxies and allow a healthy space for restoring relationships between the Arabs, the Turks, and Israel. In the meantime, a power vacuum in Iran will expose the eastern gates of the Arab Gulf region to distressing security threats that will ultimately echo in the Egyptian domestic economy and political stability.

Such a development will intensify Egypt’s economic and security uncertainties. Therefore, it is wise for the Egyptian state to prepare itself for the worst-case scenario while watching the developments in Iran.

Article first published in Sada El-Bilad.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

Dalia Ziada

As Saied contemplates his next move, the country’s political Islamists plot their way back to power

Tunisia’s path is not yet clear, either to Tunisians or to the world. The country that lit the flame on the Arab Spring is at a crossroads. The threat of authoritarianism has once again reared its head and there are worrying signs that Tunisian democracy may be its victim, but are these distant clouds on the horizon, or is this already a looming spectre?

Elected at the end of 2019, the Tunisia of today is increasingly the ‘new republic’ of Tunisian President Kais Saied. At least, that is what he has been trying to achieve ever since his unforeseen power grab in July 2021, when this retired law professor and defender of the constitution dissolved parliament and decided to rule by decree.

Any ‘new republic’ will be free from the Muslim Brotherhood, which is worthy of celebration if it does not simultaneously open the political door to the political Salafists, as was seen in Egypt. Concurrently, Saied’s new system of state governance may represent a reversal of hard-won civil and political rights, swept away under the prerogative of economic reform. The potential for regression here is worthy of worry.

The New Republic

The new constitution has been perfectly tailored by Saied to enhance his presidential powers. To outsiders, it stands as a warning that Tunisians may be growing more tolerant of slowing political reform in return for accelerating economic reform. Tunisians have been bragging about their decade of peaceful political transformation since the overthrow of former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and of being the only Arab Spring country to continue along this trajectory, but today’s toxic mix of inflation and unemployment may yet put the brakes on this transformation, while simultaneously creating fertile ground for Saied’s one-man enhancement project.

The term ‘new republic’ is originally Egyptian. It was first coined by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to highlight the social and economic developments made during his first seven years in power. El-Sisi played a central role in ousting the Muslim Brotherhood from government in Egypt in 2013, which prompted a new constitution to be written and El-Sisi to be voted in as state president.

Saied, the conservative retired law professor, waged a war on officialdom when the mood on Tunisian streets was febrile. Protesters had been calling for the political elite to be held accountable, particularly for corruption and economic mismanagement, which was seen as having exacerbated the consequences of the pandemic. The protests only stopped on 25 July when Saied decided to use the exceptional powers given to the president in Article 80 of the constitution, allowing him to dissolve both the government and the parliament, which was dominated by the Islamist Ennahda party.

Saied then moved quickly to centralise power. He issued a video message reassuring Tunisians that he was no dictator and that these were arbitrary procedures necessary to control public outrage and end economic suffering. “There is no withdrawal from respecting rights and freedoms, and there is no room for infringement or assault on them,” he promised, adding that he stood with the people to “preserve the unity of the state and protect it from the corruption that is decaying its joints”.

Saied concluded the video by saying: “Insha’Allah, we will win! It is a war, but without bullets or blood. It is a war based on the law. A war for justice and freedom. We will keep our oath and our responsibility, all the way.” Surprisingly, the angry masses applauded Saied’s power grab and chose to believe him. In part, this was because the country’s ‘three presidencies’ system of governance had become unpopular and was being blamed for the state’s failure to meet its people’s needs.

With many still fearful of a so-called ‘deep state,’ the post-revolution constitution in Tunisia had tailored a system of governance that was neither presidential nor parliamentary but balanced between three decision-making authorities, or ‘presidencies’, namely: the President, the Prime Minister, and the Speaker. Yet while the system kept political elites happy, it led to a state of governing paralysis. Competing agendas and visions led to inconsistencies and contradiction. With the economy wobbling, calls for reform soon became nationwide protests.

Saied responded, popularly promising an end to a broken system, but soon began using that momentum to increase his grip on power, first by removing state officials from the government, parliament, judiciary, even the security forces, replacing them with loyalists, then by rewriting – and ultimately, passing – a new constitution that handed power to a largely unaccountable president, namely, him.

The New Constitution

Last week, one year on from Saied’s power grab, a minority of Tunisians approved the new constitution through a poorly attended referendum. Just 2.75 million of the country’s 9.3 million registered voters (30.5 percent) turned up. According to the official Electoral Commission, 94.6 percent of these voted in favour of the new constitution.

Saied’s political supporters and all those concerned about Ennahda’s return have celebrated the result. However, his political opponents, not to mention several civil society groups, have referred to some acts of fraud, challenging the legitimacy of the constitution and of President Saied himself.

The Administrative Court is already looking at appeals submitted by those protesting the results, yet there are other worries for Saied. The authenticity and transparency of the referendum is now being called into question. Analysts point to the questionable independence of the board of the Elections Commission, whose members have recently been selected by none other than President Saied.

Others point to the exceptionally low voter turnout in the referendum, asking how the state could justify changing its constitution when seven out of every ten eligible voters stayed at home. Again, commentators have said this is an abnormally low figure, given the well-known dedication to democracy of the Tunisian people.

Concerns abound elsewhere, too, not least in the timing and context of the constitution’s rewrite. Major revisions penned by a powerful president’s cronies during times of transition and political turmoil risk, by their very nature, a lack of permanence. On the contrary, constitutional tinkering during times of political stability, with the active participation of all political blocs and civil society representatives, stands a much better chance of permanence.

Another cause of furrowed brows is Saied’s new constitutional ability to hire or fire any state officials of any rank or position, up to and including the Prime Minister and the Speaker of parliament. In addition, the new constitution makes him the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, making him immune from military coup. Furthermore, Article 100 of Saied’s new constitution gives him the exclusive right to “set the public policy of the state and define its essential choices”. As if that weren’t enough, his pet projects will get “priority consideration by parliament”. There is a catch, though.

If the Administrative Court annuls or rejects the appeals against the referendum results, the new constitution comes into effect on 27 August, after being ratified by its presidential author. As soon as it takes effect, Saied could find himself in legal trouble, because he was elected president based on the old constitution, not the new one, and the change of constitution necessitates the re-election of all electable governing bodies and officials, including the president. Under such a scenario, the legitimacy of Kais Saied would end when the new constitution kicks in, but this shrewd former professor of law will almost certainly tailor another decree to protect himself.

The Future

The political scene in Tunisia is muddled. Saied has largely ruled on his own for a year through public statements and presidential decrees. Mired in a dire and worsening economic situation, the Tunisian people are slowly burying their dream of living in a democratic state. According to the Tunisian government, unemployment is running at more than 17 percent and the economy recently contracted by a record 8.2 percent. According to the World Bank, poverty rates in Tunisia reached 15.2 percent in 2020, with three out of every ten families fearful of running out of food.

In recent days, reports have circulated claiming that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is considering lending two billion euros to the current Tunisian government. If true, it is unlikely to solve the economic crisis, but it would further enhance Saied’s grip on power. As Saied contemplates his next move, the country’s political Islamists plot their way back to power, as the world watches the Arab Spring’s great democratic hope fall further from grace. Where is Tunisia heading? Nobody knows. But many suspect it is not towards the sunlit uplands Tunisians once hoped to see.

Article first published on Al-Majalla.

Dalia Ziada

The American president’s decision to go back to doing business with Arab leaders is wise and legitimate.

After a successful tour in the Middle East, the American president, Joseph Biden, got quarantined for a period of five days to deal with a COVID-19 infection. Fortunately, he is now recovered and ready to proceed working on the many files sitting on his desk. Yet, first, President Biden may need to handle the media aftermath aroused by the far-left movement around his recent visit to Saudi Arabia and meeting with certain Arab leaders. That is important to guarantee better performance for his Democratic Party candidates in the mid-term elections of the congress, scheduled in November. The far-left activists represent the majority of Biden’s electoral constituency, and their satisfaction with administration’s performance is crucial.

Hither comes an important question about the real reasons behind the far-left exaggerated dissatisfaction with Biden’s outreach to Arab leaders. Their media platforms have been reproving Biden for laughing with the Saudi Crown prince and calling the Egyptian president ‘a valuable friend’ during their meetings in Jeddah, in mid-July. The lack of state respect to human rights and democracy, in these two countries, is introduced as the only reason behind the far-left irritation. The undeclared reason, however, has much to do with the rising influence of the political Islamists on the American leftist activists.

We have not seen, for example, the American pro-left media criticizing Biden administration’s reach out to other Arab monarchies, that also deal with citizens’ civil and human rights as less priority, such as Qatar. On the contrary, when the Qatari prince visited Washington, in January, the media platforms, which described Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia as a ‘betrayal,’ celebrated and applauded Biden-Tamim summit. It is clear that the radar of the leftists turns on only when it comes to certain Arab leaders –Saudi crown prince, Mohammed Bin Salman; Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi; and UAE president, Mohammed Bin Zayed.

Why these three Arab leaders in particular? Because they are the ones who had been the most active on chasing and smashing the Muslim Brotherhood group. Following the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt, in 2013, several members and sympathizers of the most populous political Islamist group fled to the United States. There, they got welcomed by the political Islamist organizations and activists, who helped them to connect with pro-democracy groups to lobby against ruling regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and UAE, under the flag of human rights.

Then, under the pressures leveled by the former Trump administration’s rollback on minority rights, especially Muslim immigrants and American Muslims, the political Islamists seized the opportunity to merge into the then quickly rising American far-left movement. Muslim student associations and the young Muslim activists played an important role in this. The majority of the young Muslims in America are second and third generations of immigrant families, who have been born and raised in the United States. They are very active in their ethnic communities and more tolerant, compared to their parents, to the controversial issues of individual freedom that the far-left embraces.

Fast forward to this day, the political Islamists are abusing the electoral power of the American far-left to take revenge on the Egyptian, Saudi, and UAE leaders, by lobbying the U.S. administration against them. Since the early days of Biden’s electoral campaign, the far-left, which is deeply infiltrated by Islamists, have pressured to keep the new U.S. administration aloof to these three Arab leaders, in particular. They, even, lobbied to pressure president Biden to boycott and penalize them, under the flag of standing up for human rights in the Middle East. However, after eighteen months of hesitance, the U.S. leadership realized that its foreign and domestic success is highly dependent on positive engagement by Middle East leaders.  

Finally, U.S. president Biden, and his team, have decided to shake off this unprofitable approach towards the Arabs, especially Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to focus instead on fruitful collaboration for the good of all. In an opinion article, president Biden explained: “As president, it is my job to keep our country strong and secure … To do these things, we have to engage directly with countries that can impact those outcomes. Saudi Arabia is one of them, and when I meet with Saudi leaders on Friday, my aim will be to strengthen a strategic partnership going forward that’s based on mutual interests and responsibilities, while also holding true to fundamental American values.”

The American president’s decision to go back to doing business with Arab leaders is wise and legitimate. The world is changing and the United States cannot remain on the top, as the most influential superpower, if it chooses to ignore or marginalize a region as important as the Middle East. Biden should expect high waves of criticism every time he engages with one of the aforementioned three Arab leaders, in the coming two years of his first term. Yet, he has to make sure not to let the Islamists indirectly dictate the future of the American nation through deceptive and manipulative interventions with the American far-left movement.

Article first published on The Levant News.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

Dalia Ziada

Qatar has not only returned to pour huge investments in the Egyptian tourism and natural gas markets, but it also stopped funding the Istanbul-based media outlets of the Muslim Brotherhood.

On his first visit to Cairo, after six years of diplomatic tensions and media wars, the Qatari Prince, Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, made sure to congratulate his Egyptian counterpart, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, on the June 30th anniversary. The kind diplomatic gesture by the Qatari ruler, who is known for his substantial support to the agenda of political Islamism in the region, is raising a lot of questions about the future of the Muslim Brotherhood group, if Qatar eventually decides to abandon it, in compliance to the demands of its neighbor Arab states, especially in the Gulf region.

The June 30th anniversary represents two significant events for the current Egyptian state. Initially, it is the day, in 2013, when the Egyptian people rallied nation-wide to protest the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood regime and call upon the military institution to take over. After three days of protesting, the Egyptian Armed Forces, under the leadership of El-Sisi, who served then as minister of defense, had to respond to people calls by forcing the Muslim Brotherhood regime out of power.

On this same day, one year later, in 2014, an overwhelming majority of Egyptians elected El-Sisi to become the new president of the state, in reward to his historic role in ridding Egypt of the Muslim Brotherhood rule. The people, also, thought that he is the best candidate that can lead the country through an economic renaissance, while making sure it remains protected against the vengeful acts of violence that the Muslim Brotherhood members organized and committed between 2013-2015, against Coptic Christian citizens, policemen, and state facilities, allegedly with generous funding from Qatar.

Most of the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, who fled Egypt after the June 30th revolution, were welcomed mainly in three cities: Doha, Istanbul, and London. From there, they organized themselves into independent civil organizations; some of them claimed being representatives of the Egyptian political opposition, while others called themselves defenders of human rights in Egypt. They roamed the western forums, from Washington to Brussels and Geneva, with the goal to lobby the international community to treat Egypt as a politically and economically secluded country.

Sadly, several reports by local and international observers have referred to Qatar as the main sponsor and financier of the Muslim Brotherhood activities in that regard. In fact, Qatar-owned Al-Jazeera TV was among the first media outlets, worldwide, to promote that the June 30th uprising was a coup d’état. For years, the Qatari prominent media platform turned into an open stage for promoting the claims of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders, in the diaspora, about the Egyptian state. Qatar has, also, been funding some media outlets that the Muslim Brotherhood and their sympathizers were running from Istanbul and London to attack the Egyptian state and president.

Ultimately, Egypt alongside Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain formed an Arab quartet to fight against the Muslim Brotherhood and its sponsors, especially in Qatar and Turkey. The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was also one of the strong supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, to the extent that he explicitly attacked and threatened to punish the current Egyptian president, on their behalf. That caused a deep political rift between Turkey and Egypt that has not been resolved up till this day.  

One of the most shocking actions that the Arab quartet had to take to control the Muslim Brotherhood, at that time, was to announce a diplomatic boycott of Qatar, in May 2017, unless it abstains from supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and shuts down Al-Jazeera. The Arab boycott of Qatar, which was latter labeled as the ‘Gulf Crisis’ continued for four years, until the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, took the initiative to reconcile and unite Arabs, by signing Al-Ula declaration, in Saudi Arabia, in January 2021.

Since then, the relationship between Qatar and all of its Arab neighbors, especially Egypt, has been steadily improving. Qatar has not only returned to pour huge investments in the Egyptian tourism and natural gas markets, but it also stopped funding the Istanbul-based media outlets of the Muslim Brotherhood. In coordination, the Turkish government took serious steps to prevent the Egyptian affiliates and sympathizers of the Muslim Brotherhood, living on its land, from attacking the Egyptian state, either via traditional or social media platforms.

Obviously, Qatar, Egypt, and all the other Arab countries are keen to restore stability to the region, especially during the unjustified withdrawal of the United States Administration of President Biden from the Middle East. In the process, the countries of the region are growing more pragmatic and strategic in managing their intra-affairs. Qatar’s Prince, despite his relatively young age, is one of the craftiest leaders, when it comes to setting long-term strategies and appropriately following them to a successful end result.

In that sense, should we assume that Prince Tamim is making an overall change to his strategy of supporting political Islamist activities against established regimes in neighbor Arab countries. Or, is it only a partial modification to Qatar’s existing strategy, in preparation for Biden’s prospected visit to the region, in mid-July?

Let me be optimistic and assume that Prince Tamim is already changing his strategy, in good will, to a new one that prioritizes cooperation, rather than conflict, with his Arab neighbors. That new approach, in addition to his already successful relationships with Turkey and Iran, should guarantee making Qatar, in a positive way, one of the most influential countries of the Middle East.

Article first published in Levant News.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

Dalia Ziada

UAE’s chase of the Islamist organizations is expected to intensify under Sheikh Mohammed leadership

At the age of 61, the world-renowned Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed has become the third president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). After the death of his elder brother Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed, on May 13th, the UAE’s Federal National Council elected him to lead the country that he devotedly participated in making one of the most powerful actors in the region, during the past decade. Even more, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed’s ascendance to the peak of power marks the beginning of a new era, not only for the UAE, but more broadly for the Gulf region, and consequently, the entire Middle East.

Many observers are wondering about what to expect from the new president of the UAE. But this is the wrong question to ask. No big shifts in the UAE’s domestic or foreign policy are expected to occur upon the change of the country’s leadership. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed has always been in charge. He is the man who, publicly or discreetly, engineered most of the impressive reality of today’s UAE. From a Bedouin desert where people could not aspire for more than day-to-day living, the family of Zayed Al-Nahyan created a coveted country with a vision and mission that exceed its geographic borders and limited space. At least for the past 15 years, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed has been in the center of the decision-making circle that built on Sheikh Zayed’s legacy and continued the path to UAE’s growth.

The general stability of the economic and political system, and the lack of competition among the ruling families of the sister Emirates that comprise the federal state, will save Sheikh Mohammed a lot of time in selecting and appointing the co-leaders who will act as pillars of support to his rule. That includes the royals who will replace him in the positions of the Crown Prince and the Deputy Minister of Defense. As soon as he gets done with that, the new President will have the time and the space needed to focus all his efforts on enhancing and accelerating his foreign policy vision, in the region and beyond.

The core theme of the UAE’s foreign policy could be summarized in three key points. The first is about fighting against all forms of religious extremism. That is not limited to jihadist organizations, such as the Sunni Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State terrorists (Daesh), and the Shiite Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon. It, also includes, political Islamist organizations, like the Muslim Brotherhood and their flanks and sympathizers in the Gulf. As UAE’s chase of the Islamist organizations is expected to intensify under Sheikh Mohammed leadership, that may renew the rivalry between the UAE and its neighbor Qatar which adopts a contrary policy of supporting Islamists of all types.

The second point the defines UAE’s foreign policy is about reaching out and enhancing ties with the non-Arab countries of the Middle East; namely Turkey, Israel and Iran. Over the past three years, in particular, the UAE has been valiantly active on breaking one political taboo after the other, starting from signing the Abraham Accords with Israel, in 2020, up to fixing broken ties with Iran and Turkey, following the hasty withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan last summer.

The third key point in UAE’s foreign policy vision is about continuously boosting the defense power and armament capabilities of the UAE military. That is mainly through pouring large investments in acquiring high-end weapons from the United States and Europe. In 2020, the UAE signed a deal with the former U.S. Administration of President Trump to acquire the advanced F-35 fighter jets and other weapons for 23 billion dollars. When the following Administration of President Biden delayed the fulfilment of the deal, the UAE moved on with making another deal with France to purchase 80 pieces of its trademark Rafale fighter jets for 19 billion dollars.

Any other movement by the UAE on the world stage is basically motivated by one or more of these particular three key points. That includes the UAE’s firm stance, in conformity with Saudi Arabia’s position, towards the Russia-Ukraine war, despite the several pleas by western leaders for the Gulf countries to side with the west against Russia. The UAE and Saudi Arabia are not necessarily supporting the Russian offensive, by refusing to side with the west. In fact, they voted against the Russian invasion on Ukraine in the United Nations Security Council. However, they cannot side with the west if the west is not helping them fulfil their foreign and defense policy goals.

In that sense, the right question to ask is not about what Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed is expected to do as president. That we can easily derive the answer for. However, one should ask how the world should prepare to deal with a tenfold more powerful UAE under the leadership of the staunch and invincible Mohammed Bin Zayed.

Piece first published on Levant News.