Liberty, Not the Brotherhood

Since the massive street protests began across Egypt January 25, most American observers have had two chief concerns. First is that the extremist Muslim Brotherhood would take power. Second is the Mubarak regime’s own potential for violence, which it finally unleashed last week against demonstrators in Tahrir Square.

AP Images

It may come as a surprise to some conservatives, but the Obama administration is acutely aware of the former.

“This is not about trying to open up Egypt to the Muslim Brotherhood,” one senior administration official told me. “The Muslim Brotherhood is the opposite of democracy. They want to use the democratic process, exploit the democratic process, for their own ends. We have zero enthusiasm for the Muslim Brotherhood. We want a secular Egypt, a democratic Egypt.”

For more than a week after the first protests, the White House avoided taking sides. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Egyptian government was “stable.” Vice President Joe Biden dismissed a suggestion that Mubarak was a dictator. President Obama’s first televised statement made clear that the U.S. government expected to continue working with the Mubarak regime. When the demonstrations grew in size and strength, administration officials called February 1 for an “orderly transition.” But when reporters asked White House spokesman Robert Gibbs about the meaning of that phrase, he insisted that the administration was not calling for regime change.

That same day, Mubarak addressed his country for the second time since the protests began. To the American and international observers in his audience, the news out of the speech was that Mubarak had agreed to leave office in September, after Egypt’s previously scheduled elections. But to many Egyptians, particularly those on the streets, a different passage stood out.

The events of the last few days impose on us all, as people and as a leadership, choosing between chaos and stability, and brings in front of us new circumstances and a different Egyptian reality, which our army must deal with in the most wise of ways in order to protect Egypt’s interests and its children.

To many in Tahrir Square, this meant that Mubarak would not leave power easily. More ominously, the words suggested Mubarak intended to end the chaos with violence.

There had been other signs that things would turn ugly. In the hours before the speech, state-run Nile-TV peddled conspiracy theories suggesting that the demonstrations had been somehow directed by foreigners​—​the West, the Americans and, of course, the Jews. Nonetheless, the anchor downplayed the antigovernment protests as small and insignificant and insisted that the demonstrators were not representative of the country. He hopefully informed viewers that there were massive pro-Mubarak rallies in the streets​—​gatherings that somehow managed to escape the attention of the hundreds of independent journalists in Cairo. The anchor suggested that these pro-regime counterprotests would overwhelm the dwindling antigovernment agitators remaining on the streets.

At the time, the broadcasts seemed to reflect the paranoid delusions of a regime losing its tenuous grip on power. In retrospect, they look like a plan.

The crackdown came quickly. Pro-Mubarak elements gathered overnight to challenge the antigovernment groups. Snipers perched above Tahrir Square began to fire on the demonstrators. At precisely 2:15 p.m. February 2, pro-regime forces switched from chants to attacks. Mubarak loyalists, some riding horses and camels, simultaneously charged the square from each of its exits, whipping and beating anyone in reach. The unlucky ones lost their mount and were beaten, their government IDs taken by the antigovernment protesters and shown to journalists. Egyptian police began to systematically round up journalists and human rights activists. Government vehicles were turned into weapons. In one horrifying scene, a truck from the Interior Ministry accelerated into a crowd of anti-government protesters, leaving several bloodied, broken bodies in its wake. In another, a fire engine ran down a protester, crushing him.

Even in the aftermath of the bloodshed, the Obama administration was reluctant to accuse the Mubarak regime directly of condoning the violence. The White House and State Department lamented “coordinated” and “concerted” attacks on protesters but without any indication of who was doing the coordinating and concerting.