Egypt: Options are Limited for Mubarak

It is apparent that Mubarak’s chances of survival suffered a blow when Arab League head Amr Moussa, a former foreign minister in the Mubarak government (pictured), called for a regime change. As Mubarak continues his struggle to hold on to his 30-year reign, the US and other foreign governments began mass evacuations of their citizens from Egypt. Mubarak has instructed intelligence chief Omar Suleiman to open talks with opposition groups that will answer protestors’ demands to discuss legislative and constitutional reforms. On 01 Feb, the newly appointed vice president, former intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, went on state television to announce that he had been instructed by Mubarak to meet with representatives of oppositional groups. Thousands of people continue to demonstrate in Cairo and other Egyptian cities.  In Alexandria, troops fired live bullets over the heads of demonstrators.

Mubarak has not said yet whether he will stand for another six-year term as president in elections this year. He has never appointed a deputy and is thought to be grooming his dear son Gamal to succeed him despite popular opposition. The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition group, is in talks with other anti-government figures to form a national unity government without President Hosni Mubarak. It would not accept any new government with Mubarak. Although the Muslim Brotherhood is officially banned from running for elections for parliament, some movement members have presented candidacy for parliament as independents.

Despite the regime attempts to terrorize and repress it, the popular movement broadening and deepening, already about 145 innocent people are dead from police attacks last week protesting against the continued dictatorship of President Hosni Mubarak. Angry protest organizers called for a “march of a million” to descend on Cairo’s Tahrir Square and the Presidential Palace to demand the resignation of Mubarak and an end to his dictatorial regime. The call for the biggest demonstration yet after seven days of continual protests represented a popular repudiation of moves by the Mubarak regime, urged on by the Obama administration, to give the impression of its willingness to reform and respond to popular economic and political grievances. However, demonstrators have refused to buy the US-Mubarak gimmicks. Thousands of people from all over the country are pouring into Cairo for the protest on February 02 to force Mubarak to quit and flee. While the military pledged not to use force to silence “legitimate” demands for reform, it deployed troops and tanks in ever greater numbers, erecting barricades in the center of Cairo and establishing control over access to Tahrir Square.

West, essentially the imperialist-colonialist bloc has been trying all tricks to keep the pro-West regime alive for some more time. Last few days, a flurry of statements keep pouring in from official quarters around the world urging an “orderly” and “peaceful” transition by Mubarak and the holding of “free and fair” elections when the scheduled presidential vote takes place in September. Taking their lead from the White House, the EU, individual European governments and the Arab League couched their calls for “reform” so as to leave open whether the transition will occur with or without Mubarak remaining as president. Statements from Washington have called for Mubarak to allow peaceful protest while admonishing protestors to keep the demonstrations peaceful, all the time stressing that it is up to the Egyptian people to choose their government. The Obama administration is spearheading international efforts to save the Egyptian state, pursuing a two-track strategy of transitioning to a new puppet regime, dominated by the military. Meanwhile, Mubarak is busy replacing the current ministers with military officers.

In the meantime, the USA is unofficially promoting its stooge the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei,a well-known representative of the Egyptian bourgeoisie and opponent of revolution, as its candidate to head up negotiations between oppositional forces and the Egyptian military. The US media, always a reliable mouthpiece for consensus opinion within the American bourgeoisie and state, is more openly boosting him. ElBaradei, returned to Egypt from his home in Vienna after the first major demonstrations last week, is looked on with suspicion by the mass of protesters, who rightly regard him as a representative of the rich and the US government. Maneuvers are also underway between the Obama administration and the Muslim Brotherhood, until now denounced by Washington for its Islamist views and demonized by Mubarak as a subversive force. The Muslim Brotherhood appears to be backtracking on making ElBaradei the chief negotiator for the opposition.

On the strength of popular mandate, the Mubarak regime has been pro-rich and ignored the legitimate concerns of common people. Over the past decades, free market policies of privatization and deregulation have increased the chasm between rich and poor in Egypt. Absolute poverty rose between 2000 and 2005 from 16.7 percent to 19.6 percent. Over that period, social disparities in Cairo have become increasingly marked, with the rich moving into gated communities on the outskirts of the city, leaving the mass of impoverished workers and unemployed to survive in teeming slums. These pro-business policies are also associated with Mubarak’s son Gamal, who had been slated to succeed his 82-year-old father until the revolutionary events of the past week.

Possibly the western strategists, like the Zionist regime, also consider the anti-Mubarak movement as the “rejection of Egypt’s normalization with Israel. A “million man march” has been planned as a final push to get Mubarak to leave office peacefully. How long will the USA continue its proverbial tightrope walk, trying both to be supporting and also not to be supporting Mubarak? In Israel, the national focus has turned to contingencies for a hostile regime moving in next door and open questioning of just how secure is Israel’s alliance with the USA. Army units along the Israeli-Egyptian border are being beefed-up in anticipation of a surge of African refugees attempting to enter Israel. Politicians and terror strategists have strongly criticized President Obama for “abandoning” President Mubarak. They also warn that the same thing could happen to Israel at any time. Israel must be toying with some terror plan over Palestine.

American predicament in the Egyptian crisis is understandably peculiar as it clearly does not want an anti-US regime to replace President Mubarak’s and thereby ignite a sea change in US-Arab and US-African ties. WB, IMF and their financial allies aiding poverty, global state terrorism (GST) and climate change have unleashed unpardonable economic burdens on the weak nations and global poor. Throughout the world social inequality- on account of proliferation of extra capitalism and squeezing of popular purchasing power - has reached staggering proportions. Indeed, according to some reports, income inequality in the USA is greater than that which exists in Egypt and Tunisia. Moreover, throughout Europe and the USA, governments are demanding and implementing massive cuts in social expenditures. Ever-wider sections of the working class are falling into poverty. Nearly 10 percent of the US population is unemployed.

Tunisia and Egypt are the very first two nations that stood against dictatorial. People have lost their fear. Maybe the revolution is only in its early stages in Africa and Mideast, seeking to humanize the regimes of the rich. The Egyptian revolution is dealing a devastating blow to the pro-capitalist triumphalism that followed the Soviet bureaucracy’s liquidation of the USSR in 1991. The people in these Muslim nations would take the truly Islamic way to ensure real, credible equality.