Would Kerry support a military coup like that in Egypt in the US, against Obama, where millions of birthers, racists and Tea Party-ers would support it?

US Secretary of State John Kerry claims the military coup against elected President Mohammed Morsi was “restoring democracy” because it was supported by millions of people (‘Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood 'disappointed' by John Kerry's remarks’ Guardian 1st August)  (1).

While there were many naïve liberals and socialists who backed the coup, there were also large numbers of former members and even MPs from Mubarak’s NDP party (2) – (4).

The Tamarod movement which ran the petition against Morsi didn’t even realise it’s main funders were businessmen who supported Mubarak’s regime (5).

Some of Tamarod’s members left the movement shortly before Morsi’s overthrow, saying it had been infiltrated by Mubarak supporters and secret police (6).

Morsi was accused of “mismanaging the economy” resulting in petrol shortages and electricity black outs. Yet these crises miraculously disappeared as soon as Morsi was overthrown – because they too were organised by pro-Mubarak businessmen and probably the military, which owns much of the Egyptian economy, including many petrol stations (7) – (8).

There are millions of birthers, tea-party-ers and racists in the US who would support a military coup against President Obama, who they also continually claim is acting unconstitutionally and undemocratically. Would that make it legitimate?

Kerry also claims “the military did not take over”.

General Sissi has made himself Commander in Chief of the military, Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister (9).

Sissi appointed the interim President, Adly Mansour, originally made a judge by Mubarak, who lifted the ban on members of Mubarak’s dictatorship standing in elections (10).

The Chief Prosecutor sacked by Morsi for acquitting Mubarak’s security officials of ordering protesters killed is back (11) – (13).

Secret police units disbanded after Mubarak was overthrown are back too (14).

So the military and officials from the old dictatorship are back in power.

Some of the supposedly liberal and democratic opposition also seem more personally ambitious than concerned with democracy. For instance the head of the Tamarod movement told General Sisi that holding a referendum on whether Morsi could stay on as elected President was unacceptable – he had to be “recalled” or overthrown. This leader has also said he has an ambition to be President of Egypt himself (15).

Having some civilians, some of them dupes from among the secular protesters, who naively believe they are in charge, the rest former dictatorship members, as a fig leaf for military rule is something any impartial observer should be able to see through.

The coup government has killed more protesters in a month than died in a year under Morsi – and unlike under Morsi, when each side’s protesters were killing the other, with as many pro as anti Morsi protesters killed, this time almost all the dead are anti-coup protesters and Morsi supporters.

As long as the Obama administration continue supporting the military coup and bloody counter-revolution by the military and old regime any claims Obama makes of supporting democracy or human rights are empty.

 

(1) = Guardian 03 Aug 2013 ‘Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood 'disappointed' by John Kerry's remarks’,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/02/egypt-muslim-brother-john-kerry-remarks

(2) = Wall Street Journal 05 Jul 2013 ‘Egyptians Open Door to Mubarak's Allies’,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324260204578587872719316196.html ; see 4^th, 17^th, 19^th , 20^th paragraphs ‘Mohammed Abul Ghar, the head of Egypt's secular-leaning Social Democratic Party and a leader in the National Salvation Front, the leading opposition group to Mr. Morsi…After Mr. Morsi claimed authority over Egypt's judiciary in November, many of the young secular activists behind the revolution against Mr. Mubarak made common cause with Mr. Shafiq's supporters and other NDP loyalists… The party decided to accept former NDP members who weren't close to Mr. Mubarak and whose records were clean of corruption allegations… Gamal al Zini, a former NDP parliamentarian from the Nile Delta city of Damiet, said he has had regular meetings with local youth activists, Tamarod leaders and members of Mr. ElBaradei's Constitution Party since May..’

(3) = Egypt Independent 20 Feb 2013 ‘Former NDP members to form new party’,
http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/former-ndp-members-form-new-party

(4) = Ahram Online 11 Feb 2011 ‘NDP Offshoots’,
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/33/104/26897/Elections-/Political-Parties/NDP-Offshoots.aspx

(5) = NYT 10 Jul 2013 ‘Sudden Improvements in Egypt Suggest a Campaign to Undermine Morsi’, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/world/middleeast/improvements-in-egypt-suggest-a-campaign-that-undermined-morsi.html?_r=2&

(6) = Reuters 08 Jul 2013 ‘The Egyptian rebel who "owns" Tahrir Square’, http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/07/08/egypt-protests-tamarud-idINDEE96702M20130708 ; ‘One Tamarud activist who spoke to Reuters said she resigned three days before the giant protest because she was concerned that the secret police and former Mubarak supporters were infiltrating the movement. …"Many of the people I'd worked with left, and some of the new faces I knew were felul (remnants), nostalgic for Mubarak, or justifying the work of state security."’

(7) = (5) above

(8) = Al Jazeera 15 Feb 2012 ‘Egypt military's economic empire’,
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/02/2012215195912519142.html

(9) = Independent 24 Jul 2013 ‘Showdown in Cairo: Egyptian general demands permission to take on the ‘terrorists’’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/showdown-in-cairo-egyptian-general-demands-permission-to-take-on-the-terrorists-8729903.html

(10) = BBC News 04 Jul 2013 ‘Profile: Interim Egyptian President Adly Mansour’,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23176293

(11) = Al Ahram Online 04 Jul 2013 ‘Prosecutor-general sacked by Morsi reinstated’,
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/75698/Egypt/Politics-/Prosecutorgeneral-sacked-by-Morsi-reinstated.aspx

(12) = Amnesty International 02 Jun 2013 ‘Egypt: Mubarak verdict fails to deliver full justice’,  http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/egypt-mubarak-2012-06-02 ; ‘However, the acquittal of all the other defendants, including senior security officials, leaves many still waiting for full justice…Six senior security officials, including former head of the now-disbanded State Security Investigations service (SSI), were acquitted…Corruption charges against two of Mubarak’s sons, Gamal and Alaa, and his business associate Hussein Salem, who was tried in absentia, were dropped.’

(13) = VOA News 08 Jun 2013 ‘Anger Erupts in Egypt Over Mubarak Retrial’, http://www.voanews.com/content/anger-erupts-in-egypt-over-mubarak-trial/1677958.html ‘Anger erupted Saturday in the Egyptian court retrying ousted president Hosni Mubarak for complicity in the killings of hundreds of protesters, after a judge barred the participation of lawyers representing families of those killed.’

(14) = Guardian 29 Jul 2013 ‘Egypt restores feared secret police units’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/29/egypt-restores-secret-police-units

(15) = Reuters 08 Jul 2013 ‘The Egyptian rebel who "owns" Tahrir Square’,
http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/07/08/egypt-protests-tamarud-idINDEE96702M20130708

Why Gaddafi running out of fuel or money or being killed would not guarantee an end to the war in Libya

There have been reports that Gaddafi’s forces may be close to running out of fuel altogether, mostly assuming that this will force his side to surrender. This assumption is based on the North African campaigns in World War Two, in which Rommel was eventually forced to surrender due to lack of fuel for his tanks (1).

However, while that’s possible, there is no guarantee of Gaddafi’s forces surrendering if this happens. They might, but it’s as or more likely that without a negotiated peace they would switch to using guerrilla, insurgent, terrorist or resistance tactics (choose whichever term you prefer), as happened in Iraq after the defeat of it’s military. The fact there are no large numbers of foreign troops occupying Libya (only a few special forces trainers and spotters for airstrikes)  might make this less likely or a smaller insurgency than in Iraq, but it’s still a possibility that has to be taken into account.

Gaddafi’s forces seem to only control one functioning refinery – at Zawiyah – and the oil pipeline to it has been cut by the rebels (2). This should certainly mean that sooner or later his forces will run out of fuel for their tanks, truck mounted Grad rocket launchers, mobile artillery and pick up trucks. How soon (or not soon) is still anyone’s guess, as no-one knows how much oil Gaddafi has stored in reserve in barrels in Tripoli that could be sent to the refinery. (This also raises the question of why NATO hasn’t bombed the refinery and why it tried to persuade the rebels not to cut the pipeline – issues I’ll cover in a separate post).

The claims by Libyan defectors that Gaddafi was running out of fuel and money were made before the 13^th of June though (and seem to mostly have been made by one defector – the former head of Libya’s central bank). He claimed that this would happen within days or a couple of weeks (3). So either it’s going to happen very soon, or else these claims are just based on guesses, wishful thinking, or are propaganda designed to encourage any of Gaddafi’s people hearing it to defect.

Fuel prices have certainly gone up massively in the parts of Libya controlled by Gaddafi’s forces (starting even in May), but it’s possible this is partly due to Gaddafi prioritising supplies to his armed forces (4) – (5).

Similarly reports that Gaddafi is running out of money are no guarantee of his regime falling, nor would an airstrike killing him (a strategy which has failed for over 100 days now and has never worked anywhere else). The assumption that Gaddafi running out of money will lead to the surrender of his forces assumes their primary motivation is money. That may well not be the case.

Assuming killing Muammar Gaddafi alone will end the civil war may be an assumption that turns out to be true, but could equally be as false as the assumption in Iraq that all the insurgents were Sunni and Ba’athist ‘dead enders’ who supported Saddam and that they would surrender when he was gone. In fact most of the insurgents weren’t hardline Ba’athists at all and many of them were Shia.

Bombing carried out by the US air force and the British RAF from 1991 to 2002, combined with sanctions, repeatedly failed to either kill Saddam or generate a military coup against him, so hopes of Gaddafi’s own forces, generals or ministers overthrowing him may be wishful thinking too.

US and NATO military planners are generally meant to plan for the “worst case scenario”, but instead most of their plans (and those of the governments giving them orders) are hugely optimistic and ignore the possible pitfalls and false assumptions involved. As a result most of them either fail, or only succeed at great cost in lives.

Saif Al Gaddafi has repeated that his father will accept elections overseen by international observers in return for a ceasefire (6) – (7). He may or may not be telling the truth, but given all the potential ways this war could drag on with heavy civilian casualties without a peace settlement, taking up the offer might be a sensible course for the rebels and NATO.

Even if it doesn’t work they at least get more Libyans and more people and governments around the world on their side by showing they were willing to try for a peaceful solution. Currently their refusal to accept any offer of negotiations that doesn’t include Gaddafi and his sons giving up power entirely before negotiations even begin is making a long civil war more likely. They have plenty of justifiable reasons to be angry at the Gaddafis’ dictatorship and to want rid of them, but the reality is that at least giving negotiations a try would be the best option.

(1) = The Economist 16 Jun 2011 ‘The colonel is running on empty’,http://www.economist.com/node/18837167?story_id=18837167

(2) = Channel 4 News 29 Jun 2011 ‘Tripoli Pipeline Attack ‘endgame’ for Gaddafi’, http://www.channel4.com/news/tripoli-pipeline-attack-signals-endgame-for-gaddafi

(3) = Bloomberg Business Week 5 Jul 2011 ‘Qaddafi Running Out of Money, Fuel, Ex-Central Bank Head Says’, http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-06-13/qaddafi-running-out-of-money-fuel-ex-central-bank-head-says.html

(4) = See (1) above

(5) = Guardian.co.uk 05 May 2011 ‘Libya faces fuel crisis as oil supplies dwindle’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/05/libya-fuel-crisis-oil-supplies

(6) = Guardian 4 Jul 2011 ‘Gaddafi's son says western powers attacking Libya are 'legitimate targets'’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/04/gaddafi-son-western-powers-legitimate-targets

(7) = Independent 16 Jun 2011 ‘Gaddafi would agree to supervised election, says son’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/gaddafi-would-agree-to-supervised-election-says-son-2298234.html