Blast at a natural gas pipeline that runs through Egypt's north Sinai disrupting flows to Jordan and Israel last Saturday confirmed Israelis' second major fear. Their first major fear is the fear of rejection of the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty brokered by the then US President Jimmy Carter in 1979 upon which the US has built up its diplomacy for the entire Middle East and Near East ever since.
It was also under Carter's watch when the Iranian Revolution in 1979 led to the removal of the Shah Reza Pahlavi, the US's gendarme in the Middle East, and the US embassy hostage crisis. It is interesting to note that former US President Jimmy Carter, the architect of Israel-Egypt peace treaty, has publicly stated as late as over a week ago that "People have decided". His "guess is Mubarak will have to leave...this is the most profound situation in the Middle East since I left office."
But 86-year-old Carter, who is more known for his works that he did after he left the White House than during his Presidency, has not so far shared his thoughts, at least publicly, on the future of peace treaty. The US did not foresee it. The Middle East was not even mentioned in President Obama's State of the Union address, points out former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. According to him, now Washington is required to improvise with a view to articulating a just and fair response to the unrest in the region. This region is composed of countries, many of which are artificial as a result of World War I and of division between the victors.
This is not true of Egypt. Egypt is an ancient country with thousands of years of history under different governmental structures. Egypt has a huge impact on the region. Egypt has been on the side of US since its switch in the late 1970s under President Sadat. So in the region there are pressures from Shia community, from Iran; there's an Arab-Israeli dispute; there's an issue of what we mean by `democracy'; the relationship between domestic structures of governments and their capacity to perform internationally.
Many of the regimes are traditional semi-feudal; the emergence of non-state actors that some time become as important and in one or two cases perhaps even more important than the state actors. These remarks were made by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the Charlie Rose show the other day.
It is highly instructive to know what Mubarak told this American broadcaster, Charlie Rose, in an interview in November 2009. Asked whether he was looking for another term, Mubarak said that he still had two years and was keen to implement his programme and not keen to run again and that his is a very large country with a constitution, which has been amended a number of times.
About the prospects of his son becoming his successor, he said Gamal was himself against joining the party; it was not on his mind to have his son inherit presidency. He answered in the affirmative when told that he was never comfortable with the Bush administration because of the latter's demand for political reforms, saying "that's why I didn't visit the US since 2004...we do not accept pressure in our internal politics from any administration...democracy has to be home-grown..."Bush's view is not merely simplistic, it is profoundly dangerous. Bush assumes that when people in the Middle East and people in the West speak of freedom, they have the same concept in mind. There is virtually no evidence to support that belief, according to Mubarak.
Mubarak's argument that Gamal was not on his mind was in fact reinforced by Stephen P Cohen in his talk on the Egyptian upheaval, saying that Mubarak was quite uncomfortable with this idea. Gamal had squandered the opportunity that he had got through his induction in National Democratic Party by failing to deliver. With the appointment of Vice President Omar Suleiman, he has removed the possibility of making his son his successor for he knew that he risked an assassination attack if he did so. Now Mubarak has his family safer. Both the US administration and the intelligentsia of this country appear to be quite sympathetic towards Mubarak, considering him one of the strongest US allies in the Middle East who has seen almost eight terms of US Presidents from Ronald Reagan to Barrack Obama.
One of the greatest contributions for US causes was his speech following occupation of Kuwait by Saddam Husain in 1991. "This is totally against the Arab traditions and principles," were his remarks that eventually helped shape up a global coalition against Saddam.
Writing in Israel's leading daily Haaretz, Yitzhak Laor, who is mostly known for his poetry on political protests, has raised some interesting questions: "Nobody knows where the revolution will end up: in an Iranian-style republic? In something along Turkish lines? Or perhaps something new, the likes of which we've never experienced? At the moment, there is no need to reply, but only to think and remember this: It doesn't all revolve around us. And in the face of the Egyptian people's heroism, we should bow our heads in humility."
In order to find an answer to the question raised by Israeli writer Laor about the final destination of the Egyptian uprising, one needs to find the answer to another question: whether or not the unrest will spread to all countries in the region-both pro- and anti-US. This brings under spotlight the famous observation of historian Bernard Lewis, though a pro-Israeli thinker his is the strongest voice in support of Turkey that the nation never committed any genocide of Armenians in contrast to what noted pro-Arab writer Robert Fisk strongly believes that Ankara did carry out massive killings of Armenians under a state policy, that he would not be surprised if Turkey will be turning into a theocratic state, while Iran abandoning the cloak of a theocratic state, becomes a secular one in due course.
(To be continued tomorrow)