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COMMENTARY
December 3, 2011
Partitions
Egypt and Pakistan are lost as western allies, both now passed beyond the point of recall. I define this as the point at which they no longer feel our diplomatic pressure as that of an ally who must be assuaged, for the sake of common interests against common enemies. Henceforth we are simply an enemy, and they are looking for new allies with common interests, against us.This reality becomes ever more apparent. The overwhelming Islamist victory in the first round of the Egyptian elections fills only onethird of a legislature stacked by Hosni Mubarak. On paper, and under cumbersome Egyptian electoral rules, no government will change until next summer. But in the face of huge public demonstrations, and first-round results still streaming in, the succession is settled. Islamists of various stripes have tellingly swept both urban and rural constituencies. The Muslim Brotherhood, largest and best organized, will now be calling the shots, and the only question is how quickly their coalition shifts from initial tactical feints towards the tiny secular parties, to governing arrangements with the more radical Salafists. In Pakistan, the public outcry after the latest Afghan frontier incident has pushed the government a final notch towards open anti-Americanism. Hillary Clinton can say what she wants to Islamabad, but Islamabad won't hear. The huge amounts both countries receive in (mostly) American military and development aid will continue for a time, by bureaucratic inertia. But it no longer buys any influence. Conversely, cutting it off will be without serious cost, for the military factions in each country which looked westward for their sustenance are already isolated. Just as Erdogan of Turkey displaced the entire pro-NATO officer class, effectively overturning the old Ataturk constitution in doing so (they had a constitutional role as "guardians" of Turkish secularism), so the officers we once looked to in Egypt and Pakistan will be displaced. U.S. policy has anyway been, since President Barack Obama came to power, to abandon them as "impediments to democracy" - just as the policy of Jimmy Carter was to abandon the Shah of Iran. Think of this for a moment. Thanks partly to a common enemy in Soviet Russia, barely a generation ago, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan were firm western allies. This was in turn the source of order throughout the Middle East; a front which cracked only over Israel. Yet Israel itself had reliable allies, in Turkey and Iran. All of this is now swept away, Israel is very much "alone," and only Saudi Arabia is still standing in the pro-western column. From the emergent coalescence of forces we might dare to predict two things: That the regime in Saudi Arabia will also fall. And that a general regional desire to annihilate Israel will be acted upon. Bear these realities in mind when reading the glib reportage, in which different shades of Islamism are compared in the same way we once compared (imaginary) factions in the Communist politburos. Already we speak of "hardliners" and "softliners" without, really, the fondest idea what we are talking about. Not only Israel; Christians throughout the region are under existential threat. Half of the large Christian minority of Iraq has fled, in the face of Islamist intimidation since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Ten million Coptic Christians of Egypt now look to that horizon. Polite guarantees by the Muslim Brotherhood mean nothing; Copts are already routinely cast as scapegoats for every failure in Egyptian society, and physically targeted by the more radical Islamist factions - whom the Muslim Brotherhood will need to consolidate their own power. A "flight out of Egypt" is not impossible to foresee. And here, I challenge my reader to consider the deeper historical background, in order to appreciate the extent of current revolutionary change. The Christian communities in Iraq, Egypt, and throughout North Africa and the Near East, are older than the Muslim communities; Egypt itself was once the heart of Christendom. Through centuries they remained, in proportions diminishing only gradually. So were Jews to be found, in every Muslim country, where today there are none. So for that matter were Hindus and Sikhs present in large numbers, in what is now Pakistan, before the Partition of India. In a sense, the foundation of Israel was a Partition on that analogy: nearly all Jews throughout the region fled in 1947-'48, mostly to Israel. Simultaneously, many Muslims fled from Israel, but a substantial number remained. From Pakistan, nearly all Hindus and Sikhs fled; but while many Muslims fled the new India, a substantial number remained. This analogy is useful because it points to a future in which another "Partition" occurs, leaving no Christians in the Middle East, but substantial Muslim minorities in Europe and America. The geostrategic consequences of the Islamist revolution are large, and will grow larger. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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