Entropy in Egypt
As usual, the Middle East is dominating headlines. The bloody war in Syria drags on with no signs of slowing, Saudi Arabia is launching airstrikes at Yemen’s Houthis, ISIS continues its rampage into Iraq and Syria, and the U.S. is watching carefully to ensure Iran implements its part of the nuclear deal signed over the summer. Left out of these headlines is a country that is four years removed from protests of two million people, which led to two revolutions and three rulers in that time: Egypt.
Current Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has endeared himself to Western leaders by pursuing the twin goals of reforming extremist Islam and fighting terrorism in the region. In a January speech, Sisi called for a “religious revolution,” made necessary because “the Islamic world is being torn…by our own hands.” After wresting control of Egypt from the Muslim Brotherhood, Sisi is attempting to promote moderate Islam as an alternative to ISIS’ Sunni extremists.
Sisi has been equally insistent on combatting terrorism in his region. He launched a comprehensive campaign into the Sinai Peninsula designed to flush out Ansar Bait al-Maqdis (now known as Sinai Province), a terrorist organization affiliated with ISIS that has entrenched itself in the Sinai and has attacked Egyptian soldiers and civilians alike. Somewhat more surprisingly, Sisi’s Egypt has also been a staunch foe of Hamas, the terrorist group that runs the Gaza strip. During Hamas’ latest war with Israel, Sisi closed the aboveground Rafah crossing (Gaza’s only non-Israeli land border and shut down nearly all of the tunnels used by Gazans to smuggle military and civilian goods. There are more complicated political dynamics at work here; Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sisi’s primary domestic foe. Nonetheless, Sisi’s positions make him appealing to the West. Indeed, President Obama lobbied Congress in 2014 to pass a law that would nullify an existing law which prohibited the U.S. from continuing aid to Egypt after a coup. The new law was passed, and the U.S. transferred $1.5 billion to Egypt.
Unfortunately, Sisi’s national program contains more than these two planks. Arguably his most prominent policy is his violent repression of free speech and civil society. Sisi has enacted a slew of repressive laws that control NGOs and restrict speech that differs with the official position on terrorism. The Egyptian strongman has gone even further in practice, initiating mass arrests of over 40,000 protestors, killing over a thousand in the process, and sentencing over 500 more to death.
American support of Sisi in light of these policies reflects an inability to learn lessons from past military engagements. Sisi’s continuation and expansion of Mubarak’s repressive policies ignores that the 30-year dictator’s rule led to the largest popular protests in recent history. Even if Sisi’s iron fist is able to stamp out any possibility of a popular revolution, his association with the US will drive anti-American sentiment in Egypt. An increasingly desperate political situation can allow terrorism to thrive. Thus, while Sisi is materially combatting terrorism in Gaza and the Sinai, he is unwittingly supporting it in his own country.
This is another unlearned American lesson. Fighting terrorism isn’t like fighting a conventional army, in that you cannot defeat them with direct force alone. President Obama’s recent decision to delay the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan was made in large part due to the fact that, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, the Taliban occupies more territory in Afghanistan than at any time since 2001. ISIS has also made inroads. This is despite roughly a trillion dollars spent and 14 years of fighting from the most powerful army in the world.
Sisi’s mass imprisonments are particularly counterproductive. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed caliph of ISIS, was imprisoned by US forces in Camp Bucca in Iraq, and used his time in prison to radicalize his fellow inmates and build up a vast network of likeminded supporters. Sisi would do well to keep this lesson in mind as he fights against Baghdadi’s army: imprisoning vast numbers of people with similar ideologies for little reason will create a bitter distaste for Sisi’s Egypt (and by extension, a distaste for America), while gathering them together in a community. As one of Baghdadi’s inmates at Bucca reflected in an interview with the Guardian: “If there was no American prison in Iraq, there would be no [Islamic State] now. Bucca was a factory. It made us all. It built our ideology.”
Sisi’s methods are cruel and counterproductive, but that doesn’t mean he is completely useless as a regional partner for the U.S. He is committed to fighting terrorism where it appears, and has upheld Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel, both of which are crucial for maintaining stability in the volatile Middle East. Nonetheless, the U.S. has a variety of diplomatic tools (starting with the billions in aid) it can use to pressure Sisi into further supporting free speech, imprisoning fewer political dissidents. Those tactics may prove to be even more powerful in fighting terrorism in the long run than any army.