by DILIP HERO
While Hosni Mubarak resigned, the military remains in power – Egypt’s final arbiter. Generals, led by Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, withdrew backing for Mubarak as pressure by Washington became unbearable. Police, Interior Ministry paramilitaries and intelligence services remain intact. Nonetheless, a new chapter has opened in the chronicle of the Arab Middle East. It’s unlikely that Omar Suleiman, lieutenant general and head of the hated intelligence apparatus for nearly two decades, will enter the race for presidency.
Once emergency rule is lifted, the Muslim Brotherhood will rise as the leading political force. As a member of the National Association for Change, an umbrella organization of opposition groups, the Brotherhood participated in last year’s campaign to secure 1 million signatures for a petition to lift emergency rule and change election laws, collecting seven times more signatures than all secular factions combined. By Western estimates, the Brotherhood enjoys up to 40 percent popular support.
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Mubarak’s fall casts a dark shadow over leaders of Israel. Irrespective of party affiliations, they had forged strong intelligence and security links with Mubarak and Suleiman. Release of cables by WikiLeaks shows that Suleiman’s office maintains a hotline to the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, used almost daily.
Israeli leaders have two stark options: strengthen further its siege mentality by enhancing security and intelligence capabilities or de-escalate by making peace with the Palestinians and other Arabs along the lines offered by King Fahd of Saudi Arabia in 2002. The latter requires two independent states, with Palestine almost along the pre-1967 border and East Jerusalem as its capital. The starting point would be a complete freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
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