Starvation is the unstated subject of this weeks military coup. For the past several months, the bottom half of Egypts population has had little to eat besides government-subsidized bread, and now the bread supply is threatened by a shortage of imported wheat. Despite $8 billion of aid from Qatar and smidgens from Libya, Turkey, and others, Egypt is struggling to meet a financing gap of perhaps $20 billion a year, made worse by the collapse of its major cash earner -- the tourist industry... Nearly half of Egyptians are illiterate. Seventy percent of them live on the land, yet the country imports half its food. Its only cash-earning industry, namely tourism, is in ruins... Egypt probably can be kept on life support for about $10 billion a year in foreign subsidies, especially if the military regime can restore calm and bring the tourists back (although that is a big "if" -- one of President Morsis last acts was to appoint as governor of Luxor province an associate of the Islamist terrorists who massacred 62 tourists in Luxor in 1997).
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Only the crazy emir of Qatar, the patron of al-Jazeera television and an assortment of Islamist ideologues, had backed the Brotherhood -- and his son replaced him last week. The Saudi monarchy hates the Brotherhood the way Captain Hook hated the crocodile: it is the only political force capable of overthrowing the monarchy and replacing it... Former President Morsi seized power from the military in August 2012, the day that the visiting emir of Qatar appeared in Cairo with a $2 billion pledge to the regime. At the time I warned (in a note for the Gatestone Institute) that "Qatars check to the Muslim Brotherhood makes Egyptian stability less likely." I argued at the time:Qatars $2 billion is a drop in the bucket; it just replaces the reserves that Egypt lost last month. So is a $3.5 billion IMF loan, under discussion for a year. The Obama administration has been telling people quietly that the Saudis will step in to bail out Egypt, but the Qatari intervention makes this less likely. The eccentric and labile Emir is the Muslim Brotherhoods biggest supporter; its spiritual leader, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi (who supports suicide bombings against Israel) lived in exile during the Mubarak regime. Qatar funds al-Jazeera television, the modern face of Islamism. The Saudis hate and fear the Brotherhood, which wants to overthrow the Saudi Monarchy and replace it with a modern Islamist totalitarian political party. Qatar has only about $30 billion in reserves and cant sustain Egypt for long.The notion that this band of Jew-hating jihadi thugs might become the vehicle for a transition to a functioning Muslim democracy was perhaps the stupidest notion to circulate in Washington in living memory.
Qatar is something of a wild card: it is ruled by an Emir without even the checks and balances that arise from having a large family behind a monarchy, as in Saudi Arabia. The whimsical Emir just bought the Italian firm of Valentino as a gift for his fashion-conscious second wife -- not a dress, but the entire company. His support evidently emboldened the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to take on the military in the aftermath of the Sinai crisis. But that makes stability in Egypt less rather than more likely, because it gives the Saudis, the only funder capable of bailing out Egypt, reason to stand aside.
Qatar has spent nearly a third of its foreign exchange reserves in a Quixotic effort to project power in Egypt, which might explain why the old emir abdicated in favor of his son. With the Muslim Brotherhood out of the way in Egypt, the Saudis have uncontested influence with the military. Presumably the military will suppress the Brotherhood unless it chooses to dissolve spontaneously. No one should mourn the Brotherhood, a totalitarian organization with a Nazi past and an extreme anti-Semitic ideology.
The spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, for long one of the most authoritative voices in Sunni Islam -- and certainly a "radical," who, among other things, insists Muslims must always "obey the prophet, even if he tells you to kill" -- has just had his Qatari citizenship revoked and told to leave Qatar by its emir, Tamim bin Hamd bin al-Khalifa, in light of events in Egypt, specifically the overthrow of the Brotherhood and Morsi. Qaradawi has lived in Qatar for years, as he was exiled from Egypt under Mubarak for inciting terrorism. The emir has also ordered the closure of all Muslim Brotherhood offices in Qatar, adding "We are all Muslims [here], but we are not Muslim Brothers [i.e., of the Brotherhood]." Here, then, is yet another blow to the Muslim Brotherhood.
An Al Jazeera staffer told Reuters that at least five of his colleagues at the Mubasher Misr channel were arrested at the studio. The station was prevented from broadcasting from a pro-Mursi rally, and its crew there also was detained, Karim El-Assiuti said.
The Egyptian arm of the Qatari-owned media company began broadcasting after the 2011 uprising that topped President Hosni Mubarak and has been accused by critics of being sympathetic to Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood. The incident is a back-handed acknowledgement the Al Jazeera has been in the tank for the Muslim Brotherhood and is seen by the new military regime as a propaganda arm for the group.
You still aren’t getting it.
I said Qatar was wavering; you denied it. Now Qatar just closed the Muslim Brotherhood’s offices in Qatar...clearly wavering from Qatar’s commitment to the MB!
Now you think that the fight remains against Assad in Syria, even though Hamas is the biggest threat to Assad and Hamas just lost its Egyptian, Muslim Brotherhood, and Qatari support.
I can only lead a horse to water...