As Tahrir Square goes so goes the Middle East?
Franklin Lamb
Beirut
It is difficult to overstate the potential for Egyptian citizens advancing universal aspirations for freedom, dignity
and basic human rights now spreading from the determination of those who for more than a week have risked their lives
while inspiring much of the World at Cairo’s Tahrir (“Liberation”) Square. Tahrir public plaza near central Cairo has
been the traditional site for numerous major protests and demonstrations over the years, including during the 1977
Egyptian Bread Riots and the March 2003 protests against the American war in Iraq. Washington DC and Tel Aviv are
reportedly shocked by the rapidly unfolding and unpredictable revolution.
One can quickly recall a long list of geographic place names that are indelibly etched in the annals of humanity’s quest
for freedom and whose very geographical place name connotes resistance to aggression, oppression, occupation and
tyranny. Names like Le Place de la Resistance, Tiananmen Square, the Gdansk Shipyards, Bunker Hill, Iran’s Azadi Square,
Bogside, Martyr’s Square, Karbala, Aita Shaab, among scores of others. Tahrir Square has become a name symbolizing every
people’s willingness, indeed insistence, to make personal, potentially life taking, sacrifices to achieve freedom from
an illegitimate, corrupt, brutal, treasonous dictatorship or from occupiers or aggressors.Less than one week after few
outside Egypt had heard of or much less could locate on a blank map of Cairo, “Tahrir Square” the World now realizes it
as the epicenter of the Middle East’s unfolding and unpredictable earthquake event. The Tahrir Square uprising has led
to one Arab diplomat, currently posted to Beirut, observing yesterday: “If there were to be an Arab League meeting this
week attended by all the Arab Heads to State, an honest participant might suggest to the assembled potentates to look to
their right and then look to their left and realize that in perhaps 24 months close one third may not be attending
subsequent Arab League summits.
The Tahrir uprising may, following a cursory examination, appear unconnected with much outside the Egyptian publics
urgent longings to escape poverty, unemployment, lack of educational opportunities, caused by decades of regime economic
mismanagement, police brutality and government torture chambers, and pervasive corruption that has seeped into nearly
every aspect of Egyptian life. But increasingly it appears that other forces are influencing recent events as noted
below.
The eyes, hope and solidarity of much of the Middle East are on Tahrir Square and the bloodied but unbowed Egyptian
people, who, old and young, religious and secular, illiterates and lettered, paupers and moneyed, all of whom today,
following upon the glow of a spontaneous intifada in the cradle of civilization stand to win or lose so much for the
region.
As the Mubarak regime plots a path for the beleaguered President to stay in power it is employing the well tested
bromide of most despots including citing the need for stability, orderly transition, prevention of religious fanatics
and extremists from taking over and the need for fighting “terrorism.” The pro-Mubarak Egyptian daily Al-Yawm Al-Sabah
is claiming that Hamas is behind much of the instigation to violence in Tahriri Square and other areas of the country.
Not buying all of these scare tactics, the Obama Administration’s is revving up its “now means three days ago and
counting” demands. Mr .Mubarak told CNN on 2/3/11 that he's fed up and would like nothing better than to step down but
chaos and the Muslim Brotherhood would surely follow. His closest political confident and just appointed Vice-President
Omar Suleiman also predicted chaos if Mr Mubarak resigned, saying it would leave a body without a head. The White House
is still leaning toward Omar Suleiman but believes that Suleiman was aware of the campaign in recent days to intimidate
the opposition, and are staffers are wondering whether he is still an acceptable choice. Late word from the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee is that the Obama Administration may support Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, who
has joined anti-Mubarak protests in Tahrir Square, and is hinting he may run for president in the upcoming election.
Israel would support him over Mohammad al Baradei who many view as pro-Iranian.
Still, the Mubarak regime is not without supporters. Former Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer has defended
Egyptian President Hosni Mubrak, saying his collapse will be a “tremendous loss” for Israel. The former army general
praised Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for supporting Israel for thirty years, Israel's Arutz Sheva newspaper
reported. “When I watched his speech in which he said he would step down, it pained me to see his collapse," Ben-Eliezer
said on 2/2/11 about Mubarak.
Both Washington and Tel Aviv are were reported shocked by the speed of the Egyptian revolt and their intelligences
agencies admit not seeing it coming. Much of the American reaction is being scripted by AIPAC and other Israel lobby
agents who regularly contribute campaign cash to 90 percent of the US Congress , including 390 of the 435 Members of the
House of Representative ( 89.7%) who voted to support Israel after it committed repeatedly condemned serial murders of
innocent civilians and myriad crimes against humanity in Gaza. These Israeli-pushed “American” initiatives will likely
range from possibly terminating aid to Lebanon ( some Obama Administration friends of Israel claim there is a a link
between the South Beirut Hezbollah neighborhood of Dahiyeh and Cairo’s Tahir Square events ) and cutting off Egypt’s
nearly 30 years of annual multi-billion dollar cash grants as well as massive military hardware.
The US-Israel imperative appears designed to immediately regain control and co-opt the Tahrir uprising and quickly
channel the uprising into a political cul de sac until Egypt can be returned to “normal”, meaning US-Israel shared
hegemony.
What will ultimately determine in which ways the Middle East moves following Tahrir Square events is not the armed might
of the regional super power or the weapons of the global superpower. Both Israel and the US can have a short term impact
but the former is shaking while the latter, equally impotent to subdue 83 million Egyptians and perhaps soon millions of
Palestinians, Jordanians, Yemenis and others, is trying to stall any major regime change in favor of cosmetic
adjustments to the current government. Even the Obama Administrations current public choice, Omar Sulieman is meeting
with increasing resistance in Washington as details of his CV emerged including being a torture specialist and possibly
a Mossad agent
What both Israel and the US fear most is a determined and successful grass roots movement than will liberate Palestine
from Israeli occupation. The Obama administration can be expected to continue to temporize events as best it can while
calculating how to insert its choice of a compliant President in Mubarak’s palace. As one Congressional commented by
email: “ The last thing the White House or Israel want is an Egyptian Chavez, or even someone like Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Completely unacceptable would be anyone with even the hint of pro-Iranian or Hezbollah
leanings. The State Department favors another strong man, with an essentially rubber stamp Parliament after “free
elections” as long as there are no troublesome Algerian, Gaza, or Lebanon style election results. The US-Israel bottom
line is that Egypt’s next government must be one that will guarantee that the 1979 Camp David Accords and Egypt’s
willingness to continue accepting a total of more than three billions in US taxpayer dollars annually as bribe money to
collaborate with Israel against Palestine.
History is filled with ironies. One of them is the coincidence that two of the fundamental causes of the unfolding
Egyptian revolution happened within months of each other both 30 years ago— soon to be followed by the beginning of the
current Mubarak dictatorship---the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the US sponsored Camp David Accord. The Camp David
giveaway and cave-in to colonialist Israel was never accepted by the Egyptian people, by the Islamic Republic, or by any
but a small percentage of the people of the Middle East.
The hegemonic objectives of the 1979 Camp David have rolled across the region for three decades, being rejected and
increasingly confronted by a growing culture of Resistance set in motion with the 1979 Imam Khomeini-led revolution.
Both 1979 events fueled myriad other more immediate causes including those noted above and significantly inspired the
current Egyptian eruptions, some of the paths of which are predictable while the results are unknown.
There are many other Tahrir Squares in the Middle East. One of which is Al Aksa square in Jerusalem, the eternal and
indivisible capital of Palestine. It remains to be seen when or if Palestinians will revive Jerusalem as a modern day
resistance place name and whether like Tahrir Square, Egypt, Jerusalem will rise up in support of increasing cries for
Palestinian liberation as the inspiration and revolution of their neighbors in Tahrir Square spreads.
Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon