*Syria and Egypt Can’t Be Fixed<http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2013/06/18/syria-and-egypt-cant-be-fixed/> * *---* *don't tell that to the interventionists in our government. They won't believe you. * On Thursday, June 20, 2013 7:17:56 AM UTC-5, Travis wrote: > > > > > > PJ Media, June 18, 2013 **** > > **** > > *Syria and Egypt Can’t Be > Fixed*<http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2013/06/18/syria-and-egypt-cant-be-fixed/> > **** > > By David P. Goldman (Spengler)**** > > Cross-posted from Asia Times > Online<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-170613.html> > .**** > > > Syria and Egypt are dying. They were dying before the Syrian civil war > broke out and before the Muslim Brotherhood took power in Cairo. Syria has > an insoluble civil war and Egypt has an insoluble crisis because they are > dying. They are dying because they chose not to do what China did: move the > better part of a billion people from rural backwardness to a modern urban > economy within a generation. Mexico would have died as well, without the > option to send its rural poor – fully one-fifth of its population – to the > United States.**** > > It was obvious to anyone who troubled to examine the data that Egypt could > not maintain a bottomless pit in its balance of payments, created by a 50% > dependency on imported food, not to mention an energy bill fed by subsidies > that consumed a quarter of the national budget. It was obvious to Israeli > analysts that the Syrian regime’s belated attempt to modernize its > agricultural sector would create a crisis as hundreds of thousands of > displaced farmers gathered in slums on the outskirts of its cities. These > facts were in evidence early in 2011 when Hosni > Mubarak<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MB02Ak01.html>fell and the > Syrian > rebellion <http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MC29Ak02.html> broke > out. Paul Rivlin of Israel’s Moshe Dayan Center published a devastating > profile of Syria’s economic failure in April 2011. [1]**** > > Sometimes countries dig themselves into a hole from which they cannot > extricate themselves. Third World dictators typically keep their rural > population poor, isolated and illiterate, the better to maintain control. > That was the policy of Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party from the > 1930s, which warehoused the rural poor in Stalin-modeled collective farms > called ejidos occupying most of the national territory. That was also the > intent of the Arab nationalist dictatorships in Egypt and Syria. The policy > worked until it didn’t. In Mexico, it stopped working during the debt > crisis of the early 1980s, and Mexico’s poor became America’s problem. In > Egypt and Syria, it stopped working in 2011. There is nowhere for Egyptians > and Syrians to go.**** > > It is cheap to assuage Western consciences by sending some surplus arms to > the Syrian Sunnis. No-one has proposed a way to find the more than US$20 > billion a year that Egypt requires to stay afloat. In June 2011, then > French president Nicholas Sarkozy talked about a Group of Eight support > program of that order of magnitude. No Western (or Gulf State) government, > though, is willing to pour that sort of money down an Egyptian sinkhole.** > ** > > Egypt remains a pre-modern society, with nearly 50% illiteracy, a 30% rate > of consanguineal marriage, a 90% rate of female genital mutilation, and an > un- or underemployment rate over 40%. Syria has neither enough oil nor > water to maintain the bazaar economy dominated by the Assad family.**** > > Both were disasters waiting to happen. Economics, to be sure, set the > stage but did not give the cues: Syria’s radical Sunnis revolted in part > out of enthusiasm for the ascendancy of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and > partly in fear of Iran’s ambition to foster Shi’ite ascendancy in the > region.**** > > It took nearly two years for the chattering classes to take stock of > Egypt’s economic disaster. The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman, the > benchmark for liberal opinion on foreign policy, gushed like an adolescent > about the tech-savvy activists of Tahrir Square in early 2011. Last week he > visited a Cairo bakery and watched the Egyptian poor jostling for > subsidized bread. Some left hungry. [2] As malnutrition afflicts roughly a > quarter of Egyptians in the World Health Organization’s estimate, and the > Muslim Brotherhood government waits for a bumper wheat crop that never will > come, Egypt is slowly dying. Emergency loans from Qatar and Libya slowed > the national necrosis but did not stop it.**** > > This background lends an air of absurdity to the present debate over > whether the West should arm Syria’s Sunni rebels. American hawks like > Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, to be sure, argue for sending arms > to the Sunnis because they think it politically unwise to propose an attack > on the Assad regime’s master, namely Iran. The Obama administration has > agreed to arm the Sunnis because it costs nothing to pre-empt Republican > criticism. We have a repetition of the “dumb and > dumber”<http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/132459/dumb-and-dumber>consensus > > that prevailed during early 2011, when the Republican hawks called for > intervention in Libya and the Obama administration obliged. Call it the > foreign policy version of the sequel, “Dumb and Dumberer”.**** > > Even if the Sunnis could eject the Assad family from Damascus and > establish a new government – which I doubt – the best case scenario would > be another Egypt: a Muslim Brotherhood government presiding over a > collapsed economy and sliding inevitably towards state failure. It is too > late even for this kind of arrangement. Equalizing the military position of > the two sides will merely increase the body count. The only humane thing to > do is to partition the country on the Yugoslav model, but that does not > appear to be on the agenda of any government. > * > Notes: > 1. See Israel the winner in the Arab > revolts<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD12Ak01.html>, > Asia Times Online, April 12, 2011. > 2. Egypt’s Perilous > Drift<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/opinion/sunday/friedman-egypts-perilous-drift.html?ref=opinion&_r=1&;>, > > New York Times, June 15, 2013.***** > > **** > > ** ** > > ** ** > > > __._,_.___ > > > > > > > __,_._,___ > > >
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