Triumph of the Deep State

Egypt’s Deep State is back in charge of the country, which may not be such a surprise— but what’s different is the enormous degree of popular support.  Demonstrations in the millions aimed at the overthrow of the democratically-elected Morsi government.  How could the Old Guard resist?

Not that the demonstrators precisely wanted the generals back.  And the generals are promising not to stay— we’ll have a revised constitution and new elections later in the year, and in the meantime civilians are ostensibly in charge, and the interim president, Adli Mansour, is offering to appoint members of the Islamic Brotherhood and the ultra-fundamentalist Salafist Nour Party to the government.  (The Brotherhood has declined, but Nour supported the coup.)

Anyway, I think the generals have made their point.

What Egypt’s brief experiment demonstrates is the difficulty of turning a revolutionary party into a ruling party.  The Islamic Brotherhood was underground for decades.  It was used to making policy in secret and relying on party discipline to carry it out.  While the organization had some experience in social welfare, none of its members had any experience in actually running a country, and were unwilling to trust those who did.

Morsi and his circle made their decisions in secret, tried to enforce them regardless of parliamentary, judicial, or popular opposition, and then blamed conspirators when the policies failed.  (Of course, in the Middle East, it’s never wise to disregard claims of conspiracy altogether.)

Thick-headed, stubborn, and zealous.  Hard to picture a worse combination.

So now the country teeters on the brink, perhaps to be saved by billions of dollars in grants from the United Arab Emirates and from Saudi Arabia, both of whom despise the Brotherhood and welcome the coup.

Most reports don’t seem to mention one of the prime causes throughout the Middle East, which is the rising costs of food and fuel.  Climate change is wreaking havoc with the supply of soft-shell wheat, a cheap staple throughout the region.  Unrest will continue as long as food prices remain high, food prices will remain high as long as there’s climate change, and climate change will continue so long as . . .

(And in all this, I’m struck not by the resemblance to my novel Deep State, but to my novel City on Fire, where Constantine seemingly surrendered the state to religious fundamentalists.  He let them run amuck for a time, until everyone got thoroughly sick of them, and then disposed of them in a military coup.

(Is everybody out there reading my books?  And if so, where are my royalties?)