Jew World Order

Press TV on its Middle East Today program has interviewed Hisham Saffedeen, Middle East researcher in Beirut about the move by SCAF (Supreme Council of Armed Forces) to relinquish the powers of the incoming civil president to the point of illegitimacy and the lack of any outrage or faceoff by the Muslim Brotherhood whose candidate Mohammed Morsi is said to have the largest vote count.

Other guests on the program include political editor of al-Quds al-Arabi, Mr. Khaled Shami and from the Revolutionary Youth Coalition, Mr. Shadi Gazali Harb. What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Press TV: Whoever comes to power in Egypt do you think that they would have the representation and support of all the Egyptian people especially since the turnout was quite low?

Saffedeen: I think the question is, will they have the power to actually implement any kind of legitimacy that’s given to them by the people and the simple answer is unfortunately no.

It is very clear to me that since the revolution began up until now, the Military Council through a series of maneuvers, of deceptions, of conspiracies has tried to pretty much prevent any kind of legitimate representation of the people in terms of turning it into actual power.

So I don’t think whoever comes… especially the results, you know there is quite a strong division between Shafiq and Morsi. The rules of the game are constantly changing and the Military Council is the ultimate Party that is going to decide how much power the president is going to take.

I think that’s the real problem in addition to the fact that the vote is pretty much split, it looks like, between the two and there’s going to be a lot of disputes about the elections results themselves and we can talk about the comparison between that and the parliamentary elections a while back.

Press TV: Do you think that the real problem for the Muslim Brotherhood is that they weren’t able to reach out to the other groups especially the revolutionary groups?

Saffedeen: I think there are two problems that the Muslim Brotherhood is facing. The first one is indeed… shortly after they won the parliamentary elections I think they suffered some sort of a euphoria of power and they refused to really play in good faith with other parties including the Liberals including actually even the Salafis in order to create a front to face SCAF (Supreme Council of Armed Forces).

But there is a more I think deeper problem with the Muslim Brotherhood and that’s the fact that they seem to be still operating in the same mentality as they did under Mubarak i.e. it’s kind of telling SCAF we’ll take whatever you give us.

They keep objecting to things politically, but I haven’t seen anything concrete in terms of actually opposing SCAF. For example, after the decision by the court to dissolve parliament, you know, they come out and say we disagree with this, but we respect it.

There isn’t even a serious effort and I would have imagined them coming into parliament holding a marathon session, breaking through the ranks of whoever is stepping in front of parliament, seizing the actual physical building because power is about seizing physical buildings, it’s a about asserting their control. I understand that there might be a price for that, but they’re not being confrontational enough.

And after the Constitutional supplement… this supplement has actually taken away any serious power the president can hold. They can contest it as such, but who is going to come to the aid of a president if the president doesn’t have a parliament that support it; the Constitutional Court is clearly corrupt and clearly doing the bidding of the military Council.

So I’m not sure that this kind of contestation of the SCAF that’s not translating into things on the ground, where is it going to lead to with the Brotherhood – they’re losing a lot of political credit in my opinion and it’s going to backfire on them if they don’t take a more serious and more radical stance.

Press TV: Do you have a disagreement with our other guest Mr. Shami on the issue of the parliament?

Saffedeen: I agree with his assessment. But I also think the basic blame lies on them not doing enough to oppose SCAF. By that I mean… the executive power, in order to be able to grab executive power they have to be willing to stand up to SCAF.

I don’t think the issue was about the unconstitutionality of parliament itself. I think no one really knows… the problem is there are many parallel tracks of change that is taking place in Egypt.

There isn’t a process that’s very clear. They are trying to form a Constitutional assembly at the same time that they’re actually holding parliamentary elections at the same time that the Military Council is producing its own Constitutional decrees.

So the issue is not simply the unconstitutionality of parliament, it’s the fact that political power itself is not being produced in a proper way and like Mr. Harb has said, in a long term vision of how to actually strengthen state institutions without bringing back counter revolutionary forces, which is what SCAF is.

SCAF is not concerned about the stability of the country nor is it concerned about the divisions on the country. It’s very interested in sewing divisions because they really want to sustain the old regime that they were part of and continue to be part of.

Press TV: With this in mind do you think that we will be back to the emergency law that we had before that was just cancelled last month?

Saffedeen: I don’t think they need any emergency laws any more. They are actually producing now new legal decrees that will replace these emergency laws. They have created an autonomous set of rules to rule themselves so the military has almost complete immunity and they even elect themselves according to the supplement of the Constitutional Council. So they’re doing that.

Ideally they would like Mr. Shafiq come into power because like Mr. Harb said he is good to do businesses with. If Morsi comes they can blame any bad developments on Morsi while at the same time they will hold the strings of power.

So, we are going towards pretty much an institutionalization of military rule as opposed to what used to be kind of arbitrary Mubarak-based hierarchy of command.

Press TV: Do you think that the fact that we might see more insecurity in the country, that the Military Council might respond back with more brutal force against the people?

Saffedeen: I think definitely yes, especially if Shafiq wins. They will feel more secure in terms of actually eliminating all the political forces that have been bothering them.

If it’s just a matter of people going down to Tahrir Square they’ll probably allow for that, but they’re not going to allow for a more serious transformation of the political system that exists.

And that means that they will continue to manipulate the constitution; that means they will not grant the president any real power; that means if elections were to be held again for parliament, there is probably going to be a bigger comeback I think for Mubarak’s Party possibly, so…

This is all saying that the counter revolution has made a comeback, but at the same time given the economic situation they’re not going to I think be able to appease to Egyptians for a very long time.

And I hope at some point as you mentioned there will be an attempt by revolutionary forces to maybe get back together and this time around they will still have to insist on setting the ground for a civil state – these basic principles, you can’t compromise on them otherwise is becomes a struggle for power. And that wasn’t the reason why this thing happened in the first place.

Press TV: How will this impact other countries? Do we other countries for example like Saudi Arabia trying to keep the status quo in Egypt; is it good for it; does it fear that an Egypt revolution would also extend onto its home front?

Saffedeen: One of the more telling provision so of the supplement that came out is that the president cannot declare war unless the military approves of it i.e. the SCAF… and also the Ministry of Defense remains with them.

I think the first impact has to do with foreign policy: there was a lot of hope that Egypt at some point will be able to regain its position in the region as a major regional power, possibly facing Israel and the US and its greater geo-strategic wars against terrorist movements. That’s going to get a setback for sure.

The second one is in terms of Islamists, I think that is definitely an alarm bell, that even if Islamists yet after two decades of struggling without political legitimacy, even if they win power they are still going to have to contest with the military and also with other liberal powers involved.

So it will definitely also have a negative impact on the rise of Islamists and Saudi Arabia and other countries of course are probably going to still remain happy because that means that these Islamist forces will remain dependent on them in many ways as opposed to creating their own dynamic.

It will also mean that Saudi Arabia might be in opposition with the Muslim Brotherhood in other words the Wahhabis versus the Muslim Brotherhood…

Generally the Muslim Brotherhood unlike other organizations definitely has a lot more independence and they have their own grassroots support and they have their own funding. They are at odds with Saudi Arabia in some ways, but they’re not radically opposed to them so they are kind of like at arm’s length.

They certainly have an independent understanding of foreign policy, but also they’re not entirely in the ‘opposed’ camp – they’re nothing like what Nasser was before 1967, like kind of a counter balance to them.

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