Chuck Hagel keeps calling Egypt's new dictator. But is anything getting through?
By SHADI HAMID
January 12, 2014
Understood in this context, Hagel’s seemingly sincere encouragement of Sissi’s better angels—he sent him Ron Chernow’s 904-page biography of George Washington—appears to have been an exercise in futility. As Hagel explained it: “Well, the specific chapter that I focused on with General Sissi, with whom I have had conversations with many times: Are you going to be the George Washington or are you going to be the Mubarak of Egypt?”
Sissi, however, is nothing like either man. Mubarak was your run-of-the-mill autocrat, intent on restricting dissent, but also willing to tolerate a degree of opposition. He had no particular ideology except the preservation of power and, in his latter years, the accumulation of wealth. Sissi evinces no such modesty, hearkening back to the caudillos of Latin America with his populist paternalism. He is a compelling orator, comfortable speaking extemporaneously and with seeming conviction. Just weeks after his rise to power, Sissi, on state television, called for mass rallies to “authorize” him to do what was necessary in the fight against “terrorists.” A personality cult has grown accordingly, with Sissi-themed cupcakes and chocolates and even women’s nightwear featuring the general himself in dark sunglasses.
It is somewhat ironic that Sissi is the first Egyptian head of state, de facto or otherwise, to have lived in the United States, training at Georgia’s Fort Benning in 1981 and then spending, in 2006, an academic year at the War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. His English is good enough to speak to Hagel without an interpreter. Here, many U.S. officials must have thought, is a man we could do business with. Perhaps Sissi would demonstrate the value of international exchange programs? Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo suggested as much: “I’ll bet this total immersion in the West that he had for the better part of a year… is contributing to the fact that communications lines are open.”
Which makes it all the more interesting that the Sissi regime has taken Egypt’s already considerable anti-Americanism and amplified it, with state media running wild with conspiracies about U.S. officials hatching conspiracies with the Muslim Brotherhood to “divide” Egypt (Obama himself is regularly accused, in a weird feedback loop from Tea Party conspiracy theories, of being a Muslim Brotherhood member). While the government has aggressively clamped down on the most mild, even imagined, dissent—take, for instance, the investigation into a muppet accused of sending coded messages to terrorists—state-owned newspapers have not been above headlines calling the United States the “American Satan.”
Previously coy about his intentions, General Sissi appears to have made a decision. He has been driven by both personal ambition (a voice reportedly told him in a dream: “We will grant you what no one has had before”) and mounting public pressure. One pro-Sissi group filed a lawsuit in an attempt to “force” Sissi to run. Another pro-Sissi group, claiming 12 million signatures in support, would prefer to skip the formality of elections altogether.
What will Hagel say if Sissi finally succumbs to the pressure and the personality cult and formally announces his candidacy, as now seems all but inevitable? But, more importantly, will it matter?
Understood in this context, Hagel’s seemingly sincere encouragement of Sissi’s better angels—he sent him Ron Chernow’s 904-page biography of George Washington—appears to have been an exercise in futility. As Hagel explained it: “Well, the specific chapter that I focused on with General Sissi, with whom I have had conversations with many times: Are you going to be the George Washington or are you going to be the Mubarak of Egypt?”
Sissi, however, is nothing like either man. Mubarak was your run-of-the-mill autocrat, intent on restricting dissent, but also willing to tolerate a degree of opposition. He had no particular ideology except the preservation of power and, in his latter years, the accumulation of wealth. Sissi evinces no such modesty, hearkening back to the caudillos of Latin America with his populist paternalism. He is a compelling orator, comfortable speaking extemporaneously and with seeming conviction. Just weeks after his rise to power, Sissi, on state television, called for mass rallies to “authorize” him to do what was necessary in the fight against “terrorists.” A personality cult has grown accordingly, with Sissi-themed cupcakes and chocolates and even women’s nightwear featuring the general himself in dark sunglasses.
It is somewhat ironic that Sissi is the first Egyptian head of state, de facto or otherwise, to have lived in the United States, training at Georgia’s Fort Benning in 1981 and then spending, in 2006, an academic year at the War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. His English is good enough to speak to Hagel without an interpreter. Here, many U.S. officials must have thought, is a man we could do business with. Perhaps Sissi would demonstrate the value of international exchange programs? Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo suggested as much: “I’ll bet this total immersion in the West that he had for the better part of a year… is contributing to the fact that communications lines are open.”
Which makes it all the more interesting that the Sissi regime has taken Egypt’s already considerable anti-Americanism and amplified it, with state media running wild with conspiracies about U.S. officials hatching conspiracies with the Muslim Brotherhood to “divide” Egypt (Obama himself is regularly accused, in a weird feedback loop from Tea Party conspiracy theories, of being a Muslim Brotherhood member). While the government has aggressively clamped down on the most mild, even imagined, dissent—take, for instance, the investigation into a muppet accused of sending coded messages to terrorists—state-owned newspapers have not been above headlines calling the United States the “American Satan.”
Previously coy about his intentions, General Sissi appears to have made a decision. He has been driven by both personal ambition (a voice reportedly told him in a dream: “We will grant you what no one has had before”) and mounting public pressure. One pro-Sissi group filed a lawsuit in an attempt to “force” Sissi to run. Another pro-Sissi group, claiming 12 million signatures in support, would prefer to skip the formality of elections altogether.
What will Hagel say if Sissi finally succumbs to the pressure and the personality cult and formally announces his candidacy, as now seems all but inevitable? But, more importantly, will it matter?
Shadi Hamid is director of research at the Brookings Doha Center and a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. He is the author, with Peter Mandaville, of “A Coup Too Far: The Case for Re-ordering U.S. Priorities in Egypt.”
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