"Oh look! No Hosni here, no Hosni there, no Hosni there or there or there. Everything's fine. Like a nice cup of tea?"
That seems to be the subplot of talks now underway by Hosni Mubarak's successor, Omar Sulieman, and the loosely defined "opposition groups" demanding democracy for Egypt. It's hard to imagine what sort of talks Mubarak's outfit, the National Democratic Party, really has in mind.
What would democracy mean to the NDP and Egypt's military? Democracy comes in so many shapes, sizes and flavours that it can mean a great many, genuinely different things to a great many people or interests. The protesters are probably thinking along the lines of universal suffrage - one citizen/one vote. To the NDP and the military that must seem like the end of the earth, mob rule.
If there's going to be any legitimate democracy for Egyptians it's going to mean genuine, effective separation of powers. When you have a state in which civilian and military power have been so enmeshed for so many decades that's obviously where you have to begin. It's the sine qua non. You have to separate the two. And so, the price of democracy is going to mean reforming both the political and the military hierarchies.
How do you go about reforming a military like Egypt's? Real democracies, at least the healthy ones, are pretty good at keeping the military out of the political realm. It's a master-servant relationship and it has to be. The civilians rule, the military obeys. The status quo for Egypt's generals, however, has been a militarized political class. Ever since Farouk was sent packing, the top political spots have been held by former top generals. It was the support of the military, not the support of the public, that was instrumental in keeping a succession of presidents in power.
Egypt's military is unlike any Western military. It is not only a martial force that is enmeshed in its national political sphere, it is also a commercial institution. Like Pakistan, the Egyptian military hierarchy, the top brass, are also industrialists. The Egyptian military even makes televisions. It's pretty hard to get a two-headed genie back in that tiny bottle.
How do you get generals in uniform to break from generals in suits in the political and commercial arenas? Is that even possible? If that's not possible, on what terms can Egyptians find democratic freedom?
Most people understand that the Egyptian uprising was the culmination of a variety of discontents - political, social and economic. Those unemployed, educated college kids waving those placards wanted economic reform along with political reform. They know that the two are interwoven. They know they don't have much of a future unless the Mubarak model political-class along with its economic cronyism are uprooted.
You know how, sometimes, you can bend something and get a good idea of the point at which it will finally break? Maybe that's what Egypt needs, not bending but breaking. Where would that break point be? My guess is that Egypt needs to break between the majors and below and the colonels and above. You have to rid the military and the state of those senior officers who simply have too great a vested interest, military, political and economic, in the National Democratic Party. The military has to be an instrument of the democratic government, the public interest, if it is not be be an instrument of suppression of democracy and the public interest.
Yet it is precisely at this break point that the West will probably betray the Egyptian people. We don't want a reformed military. That would be far too risky. That could threaten the stability of our regional interests. I think Sulieman reads that unspoken message, that we'll always want Egyptian generals holding the balance of power, poised as a Sword of Damocles over the heads of whoever forms the political leadership of the country. We want something that looks like democracy but really isn't.
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