Sam Keller defeats EA Sports in Ninth Circuit

Major decision out of the Ninth Circuit today -- and will have serious consequences for the O'Bannon case, which is also being tried in the Ninth Circuit.  I answer some questions for SI on today's developments.

20th Anniversary of Reggie Lewis Death & Its Sports Law Legacy

Today is the 20th anniversary of the death of Reggie Lewis, an all-star Celtics guard/forward who died from a heart attack on July 27, 1993, at the age of 27.

Growing up right outside of Boston, I was a big Reggie Lewis fan. He's still my favorite basketball player of all time. Lewis was one of the most efficient players in the NBA, and had he played today in an era of basketball analytics, he probably would have enjoyed higher star power and commanded discussion at MIT Sloan Sports Analytics and similar forums.

What made Lewis so good?  Terrific defense and all-out hustle were a big part of it.  So too was scoring efficiency.  Hitting close to 50% of his shots, Lewis averaged 21 points per game in each of his last two seasons (91-92 and 92-93) and in the 91-92 season did something that Larry Bird never accomplished -- he led his Celtics team in scoring, steals and blocked shots per game. As Celtics Blog highlighted, Lewis, who was 6'7, also famously blocked Michael Jordan four times in one game.

Lewis had the unenviable task of following Bird as the next great Celtic. It was a task that, had Lenny Bias not died from a cocaine overdose the night the Celtics made him the 2nd overall pick in the 1986 NBA Draft, Lewis would have shared with another potential superstar and the Celtics probably would have gone on to be one of the best teams in the 90s.

But that didn't happen.

On April 29, 1993, Lewis collapsed during a playoff game in Boston against the Charlotte Hornets. A "dream team" of 12 Boston cardiologists concluded that Lewis had cardiomyopathy, also known as "athletes heart" and a potentially fatal condition whereby the heart becomes too thick and beats irregularly. I've written about cardiomyopathy in the context of Eddy Curry and Alan Milstein addressed it when he argued on behalf of Curry that the Chicago Bulls had no right to insist on a DNA test as a condition of Curry's employment. This is also the kind of topic well discussed in David Epstein's new book The Sports Gene.

The doctors told Lewis that his basketball career was over.

Lewis then received a second opinion from Dr. Gilbert Mudge, a cardiologist who as Time Magazine reported, diagnosed Lewis with neurocardiogenic syncope, "a fairly benign fainting condition caused by nerve irregularities during or after peak periods of exertion." At a press conference, Mudge said, "I am confident that under medical supervision Mr. Reggie Lewis will be able to return to professional basketball without limitations." Mudge's opinion was later supported by other cardiologists, although some disagreed and supported the original diagnosis instead.

Lewis did not return to play for the Celtics, whose playoff appearance ended with a 3-1 first round loss against the Hornets, but he did resume a limited amount of practicing. Less than three months later, he would collapse and die while practicing his jump shot.

The death of Lewis raised two legal disputes.

1. Malpractice Lawsuit against Dr. Mudge

In 1996, shortly before the statute of limitations would expire, Lewis's widow, Donna Harris-Lewis, filed a malpractice lawsuit against Mudge. She argued Mudge was negligent in his advice and care of Lewis.  Mudge's key line of defense was that Lewis admitted to Mudge that he used cocaine, but the admission came months after Mudge's diagnosis:

Mudge had testified that Lewis admitted shortly before his death that he had used cocaine, making an accurate diagnosis impossible. Harris-Lewis adamantly denied the charge.

In other words, Mudge argued, he couldn't have provided reasonable care if the patient didn't inform him of a key (alleged) fact: the patient had a history of cocaine use.

The case took three years to litigate.  A jury was unable to reach a verdict and the case was ultimately declared a mistrial, a de facto victory for Mudge.  Harris-Lewis sued Mudge again, unsuccessfully, and an attempt at a third lawsuit was denied by a state appeals court in 2004.  Mudge is currently director of Brigham and Woman's Cardiovascular unit and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.

2. Threat of $100 million Defamation Suit against The Wall Street Journal

The second legal controversy stemming from Lewis' death was a threat by then Celtics owner Paul Gaston to sue the Wall Street Journal for $100 million for a front-page story it ran on Lewis in 1995. Authored by Ron Suskind, Deadly Silence: How the Inner Circles, Of Medicine and Sports, Failed a Stricken Star attracted the outrage of Gaston, who called it called libelous.  The story suggested that the Celtics deliberately misled their insurance company as to the cause of Lewis' heart condition and that Lewis may have used cocaine. An autopsy of Lewis did not find any evidence linking Lewis with cocaine use.

Among other hurdles for bringing such a suit, it was never clear why Gaston would have had standing to file a defamation suit on Lewis' behalf or for the parts of the story that allegedly defamed Lewis.  The article did suggest that the Celtics withheld information about Lewis' health in order to increase an insurance payout, which means the Celtics (though probably not Gaston himself) could have sued on those grounds.

Critics also questioned why Gaston picked "$100 million" and the merits of such a number.  Use of such an extreme, round number has the unintended effect of diminishing the seriousness of a claim (think Dr. Evil and "$100 billion").  Similarly, many doubted the Celtics would have been willing to go through the pretrial discovery process associated with bringing the lawsuit -- especially one against the Wall Street Journal, which had the financial wherewithal to put up a good fight.  The Celtics' insurers would have surely paid attention to any findings that reflected poorly on the team.

Despite Gaston's threats, he never got around to suing the Wall Street Journal, and the 3-year statute of limitations on a claim expired in 1998.  Here is what Peter May of the Boston Globe wrote on March 18, 1998, right after the statute of limitations expired:

"We spent quite a bit of time with a libel litigator, and as much as I hate the fact that some injustices go unpunished, I decided that this was one that was going to get away," Gaston said yesterday. "I don't see my job to go on a personal crusade against one of the foremost newspapers in the country. My job is to help rebuild the Boston Celtics and run the company which oversees them."   ...

Gaston immediately threatened to sue for $ 100 million, calling the article "defamatory and libelous." He said any proceeds from the lawsuit would go to the Reggie Lewis Foundation.

Several libel specialists contacted by the Globe expressed doubt that a suit would be filed. One said it would be an "uphill battle," and another added, "The last thing the Celtics want to do is bring this to court."

Gaston said a suit would have cost millions of dollars to pursue and that he felt the money could be more efficiently spent. "But, personally," he added, "I am equally disgusted now as I ever was by what appeared. That bitter taste will never leave my mouth."

Dick Tofel, vice president for corporate communications at Dow Jones, the Journal's publisher, said yesterday, "We said when we published the article that we were confident the article was fair and accurate, and we feel the same way three years later."

 For a really good video about Lewis, check out this tribute:



This post is adapted and expanded from a post I wrote three years ago.

New York's Legal Efforts to Combat Sexual Orientation Discrimination in Pro Sports

Earlier this year I wrote an article titled Loaded Question: Asking a draft prospect about his sexual orientation could land a team in a legal minefield for Sports Illustrated (page 16, March 25, 2013 issue). The article centered on the legality of NFL teams asking college players about their sexual orientation.

This week I spoke with Reuters Legal as a follow up to the article and specifically about recent efforts by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who has invoked New York state’s human rights law, which protects employees from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, in warning leagues about sexual orientation discrimination. The NFL has responded by clarifying its policies and MLB and MLBPA have agreed to a new code of conduct barring sexual orientation discrimination.

The full interview is available to Westlaw subscribers but here is an excerpt:

* * *

Reuters: Do you think these matters are in Schneiderman’s purview? Why or why not? 

McCann: My impression is that AG Schneiderman is well within his purview. For one, he is the highest ranking legal officer in New York and he’s entrusted with enforcing New York law. New York law clearly prohibits sexual discrimination in hiring. Second, the National Football League, Major League Baseball and Major League Baseball Players’ Association (not to mention several teams) are all headquartered in New York and a large extent of those leagues’ and union business activities run through New York. 

 
Reuters: Do you expect these policy efforts will make a difference in players’ and/or teams’ behavior in terms of the treatment and hiring of gays in sports? 

McCann: The policy efforts have already made an impact. The NFL has investigated teams that may have asked prospective players’ about their sexual orientation and the league has also pledged to aggressively enforce existing anti-discriminatory rules. MLB and Major League Baseball Players Association, for their part, have adopted a new code of conduct to strengthen protections against sexual discrimination. The more changes like these are made, the more I believe behavior will change.

* * *

To read the rest, click here.

More fan speech

Here. A fan attended a Brewers game at Miller Park wearing a shirt of Ryan Braun's uniform, with "Fraud" in place of the name. An usher made her turn the shirt inside-out, which she did. Although when she went to the media, the Brewers immediately apologized, invited her to another game, and threw the usher under the bus. And that was the right move--that shirt was unquestionably protected expression that should be encouraged at a forum such as a ballpark--what better place to speak out about cheating in baseball.  Two other things.

First, Miller Park is 71% owned by the government (the Southeast Wisconsin Professional Baseball Park District), so it is a prime candidate for my arguments that through joint participation, the team becomes, at least for ballpark purposes, a state actor subject to the First Amendment and its limitations.

Second, note the vacuousness of the Brewers' statement, which toes the common line on ballpark speech:

We welcome the opportunity for fans to express their opinions. The only circumstances that would warrant us intervening is if someone were to display a message or item that would be considered offensive to other fans.

But every message potentially could be considered offensive to other fans. A friend of Ryan Braun or a member of his family easily would be offended by that shirt. Of course, that is not what the Brewers mean--that mean what they--as the governing authority--would consider offensive to other fans. But we don't allow the governing authority (when subject to the First Amendment) to decide what speech is OK and what is offensive.

MEI Insight: Facing One's Demons: The Egyptian Military and the Brotherhood at a Crossroads

Introduction

Events in Cairo have all the hallmarks of a return to the repression under ousted President Hosni Mubarak that prompted millions of Egyptians two years ago to camp out on Cairo’s Tahrir Square for 18 days until the military forced him to step down after 30 years in office. Little in the unfolding drama in Egypt genuinely responds to the demands put forward by the protesters two years ago: an end to the police state, greater political freedom, respect for human rights, an end to corruption, and justice and dignity. Is Egypt going to change? Or is this a return to Mubarak-style politics?

Same-Same or Same-Different?

Egypt was seemingly united two years ago when Mubarak was ousted. There were no mass demonstrations against the ousting of the president. This time round, the Muslim Brotherhood’s mass protests against the removal of President Mohammed Morsi, post-revolt Egypt’s first democratically elected leader, complicates things for the military that sees itself as the guarantor of the state. The military has in recent days demonstrated that it has learnt lessons from its bungling of Egypt’s transition from autocracy to democracy when it ruled the country for 17 months in the immediate aftermath of Mubarak’s departure.

The military is seeking to pull strings from behind the façade of a military-appointed interim president, Adly Mahmoud Mansour, rather than taking the reins in its own hand. Whatever government emerges from the current crisis will nevertheless govern a deeply divided country in which one substantial segment believes that the disruption of the democratic process was designed to exclude it from participation.

The military-backed unruly coalition of anti-Morsi liberals, leftists, Salafis and remnants of the Mubarak regime has only common denominator: opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood. Its future is one of increased fracturing and dissolution. The opposition’s disarray despite its ability to stage one of the largest protests in human history gave the military license and ability to shape Egypt’s future in its own mold. Middle East historian Mark Levine adeptly characterised the features of 2.5 years of protest in Egypt that has effectively kept the revolutionaries going round in circles as: “tear gas, tanks, camels, horses, tent cities, marches, birdshot, live ammunition, ultras, great music, torture, rape, disappointments, spears, knives, Facebook campaigns, undercover thugs, military detentions, men with scimitars, show trials, elections, referendums, annulments, arson, police brutality, negotiations, machinations, committees, strikes, street battles, foreign bailouts, extreme theatre, revolutionary graffiti, television drama, Leninist study circles, and Salafi sit-ins.”^[1]

The opposition, like the military in line with its traditional understanding of itself, has gone to great lengths to portray intervention of the armed forces as an expression of the people’s will rather than a coup. There is no doubt that the military intervention had popular support. It is too simplistic to reduce events to a conspiracy in which the United States and Saudi Arabia together with the military decided that it was time for Morsi to go.

There is little doubt that the military felt that Morsi’s incompetence and intransigency was deeply dividing the country and risked leading it down a path of economic self-destruction, increased polarization, Islamization, anarchy, and chaos. To be fair, the military gave Morsi the opportunity to mend his ways and let Egyptians determine his legitimacy in a referendum. The coup was encouraged in an environment of revolutionary fervor that allowed it to tap into widespread popular discontent. Its preferred model was the Turkish military’s toppling of Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan in 1997. Like the Turkish military, Egypt’s military command issued a series of statements in the walk-up to the mass June 30 protest against Morsi and the immediate days that followed. It stepped in when Morsi defied those calls for the protagonists to achieve a negotiated solution and failed.

It is also too simple to exaggerate the impact of the flow of US and European democracy funds to various groups and leaders of the anti-Morsi coalition. US funding of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) promoting human rights and greater transparency and accountability was controversial since its inception under Mubarak, and was targeted by the military after it succeeded the ousted president. Nevertheless, the fact that NGOs fronting for opposition politicians and retired military officers were included in the funding is certain to deepen Islamist distrust of the United States.

Similarly, it is also simplistic to portray Salafi groups in Egypt as Saudi stooges because of backing by the kingdom. There is however a post-intervention divergence between the military and the Saudis on the one hand and the West on the Over the fact that the coup is proving not simply to be a correction in which the Brotherhood is removed from power in advance of new elections, but in which a witch-hunt against the group jeopardizes Egypt’s transition. This development creates the notion of a free and fair election on a level playing field a mockery.

Perhaps most ominous in tracing the process of engineering Morsi’s downfall is the evidence that the accelerating shortfall of shortages in electricity and other services in the last months of the Morsi government was as much the result of the president’s disastrous economic policy as it was artificially engineered by institutions of the state that he was unable to control.^[2]

The role of various arms of the state in opposing Morsi constitutes one key reason for Morsi’s demise. What Egyptians call the deep state but what in reality are key public institutions of the state – the military, the police and security forces, the judiciary and segments of the media – had only conditionally accepted the rise of the Brotherhood. They were willing to give Morsi the benefit of the doubt, committed to resisting attempts at reform that would have given the Brotherhood control of their institutions, and determined to intervene if he were to rock the boat.

If anything, the military’s intervention constitutes a reaffirmation of an understanding of itself that was first shaped by Gamal Abdel Nasser with his overthrow of the monarchy in 1952 and concentration of all power in 1954. The military sees itself as a separate caste and the ultimate arbiter of what is good for Egypt under the guise of executing the will of the people.

In a book published in 1955, Nasser formulated the concepts that guide the Egyptian military which has been maintained until today. “Were we in the army not obliged to do what we did on July 23, 1952? (…) The revolution of July 23 effectively fulfilled a great aspiration that throbbed in the heart of the Egyptian nation ever since it began, in the modern era, to be its own master and determine its own destiny.”^[3] Referring to the 1952 coup, he went on to say: “We felt with every fiber of our being that this task was our burden to bear, and that if we did not fulfill it, it would be as if we turned down a sacred task that Providence itself has imposed upon us.” ^[4]

Certainly, 2013 is different from 1952 for a host of reasons. Ranking high among those is the fact that the Egyptian military is a very different institution from the one that first took power 61 years ago. Those differences explain why the military bungled its 17 months in power immediately after the fall of Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and why a smooth transition towards a civilian-led democracy in Egypt in the coming years is unlikely.

Nasser’s military was highly politicized. Its officer corps, particularly in the artillery and cavalry, was reformist and in favour of democracy.^[5]Nasser’s defeat of the reformists set the stage for the police state created under President Anwar Sadat and perfected by Mubarak. It was and is a state dominated by forces controlled by the interior rather than the defence ministers with very different interests. Like in the first half of the 1950s, the security forces have much to loose in a transition towards democracy while the military has much to gain from liberalization provided it can retain its perks and privileges. The security forces had the upper hand in 1954 and that is also true in 2013 – if only because the military needs them.

The emergence of the police state involved the depoliticization of the military. As a result, the Egyptian military was effectively insulated from politics and consequently has proven to be politically naïve and inexperienced. In addition, the power balance between the two forces shifted. Egypt’s standing army counts half-a-million men; its security forces have ballooned to an estimated 1.5 million and are better connected to politics, business and crime syndicates. The military moreover relies on the security forces to prevent the destruction of what Egyptian sociologist Hazem Kandil terms the ‘dam of autocracy.’^[6]

This development meant that the security forces rather than the military became the face of repression under both Mubarak and Morsi in ensuring that protests in favor of social justice and greater freedoms did not produce anarchy. The need to guard against anarchy and chaos was reinforced by the fact that the non-Islamist opposition forces lack of cohesion and effective leadership. Additionally, the Brotherhood has yet to develop the wherewithal to make the transition from a clandestine, secretive, illegal social movement. In order to be able to effectively govern and reach out to its critics, the Brotherhood needed to expand its skill to survive, and its ability to mobilize as to include the tools and mindsets that would allow it to become an inclusive political organization.

Nonetheless, General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, the head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), left little doubt about the military’s role in shaping Egypt’s future when he addressed the nation to announce his roadmap drafted together with leaders of the anti-Morsi movement. Al-Sisi, who is deputy prime minister and defense minister in the post-Morsi government, repeatedly referred to the legitimacy of the people, but not once referred to their sovereignty. “The speech is the intellectual gloss on the July 3 coup. Its point is that Egypt is too important to be ruled by its people. Too many regional and world powers are vested in the direction this country takes and how it gets there. Its population will be corralled to the side and left to practice their charming folkloric political rituals with parliamentary elections and even presidential elections and what have you. An arena of electoral democracy will be constructed, but many matters of grave national import will be outside its purview. And anyway, its outcomes can always be reversed,” wrote Egyptian blogger Baheyya.^[7]

Morsi and the Brotherhood: New kids on the block

While there is little doubt that the Brotherhood was its own worst enemy and brought the coup upon itself, the question of whether Morsi was indeed rocking the boat and whether his string of ill-concieved moves would have fundamentally changed the nature of Egyptian society and turned it into an Islamic state is a matter of debate and perception. However, the debate on whether or not the military intervention constituted a coup or not is not one of definition but one of trying to shape domestic and international perceptions of recent events in Egypt, and in the case of the United States needing to circumvent the legal consequences – cut-off of aid and economic sanctions – of calling a spade a spade.
Military-appointed President Adly Mansour left no doubt about the nature of the military’s intervention by declaring that his authority stemmed exclusively from the statement made by Al-Sisi that was published in the Official Gazette as the law of the land with the suspension of Morsi’s constitution.^[8]The military’s transitional roadmap is however no better conceived than its attempt in the wake of Mubarak’s fall to shape Egypt in its mold.

It is driving Egypt down the very road that brought it to today’s crisis: a constitutional drafting process that has the formal characteristics of inclusiveness and participation but is drafted by a selected group of lawyers and appointees rather than by politicians. This deflects questions of real reform, professes a willingness to let people speak out with no guarantee that they will be heard, produces a series of rapid succession referenda, and elections that gives people little time to discuss and reflect, and a favoring of those who cooperated with the coup. All of this is occurring in an environment of produced xenophobia, repression of the Brotherhood, restrictions on the media, and an opposition that lacks unity, cohesiveness and agrees at best on what it does not want.

Neither the military nor the protesters – despite the expressions of support of the armed forces – have any illusions about the nature of their relationship and its inherent contradictions. The military’s authoritarian and patriarchal nature and goal of preserving as much of the status quo ante to guarantee its privileges and perks are in direct conflict with the protesters’ aims of a more open, transparent, accountable and just society. The two sides are opportunistically using one another playing a dangerous game that can only end in failure, if not renewed strife. To be clear, the millions that signed the Tamarrud petition demanding Morsi’s resignation and sparked the anti-Morsi protests signed up for new elections rather than a return of the military to politics.

The Brotherhood offered the military and his critics an open goalpost. Morsi was the wrong man for the job. His inexperience, his stubbornness, his enamour with the office and his lack of sensitivity to public opinion was his downfall.

It was by the same token unrealistic to expect that the Brotherhood, for the first time in office after decades of having operated clandestinely or in a legal netherland, would be able to – overnight – make the transition from a secretive to an open, transparent and flexible group. The Brotherhood’s traditional instincts not to seek sole government responsibility were correct. The Brotherhood displayed those instincts at the beginning of Egypt’s popular revolt when it initially was reluctant to join the anti-Mubarak protests and then promised not to seek a parliamentary majority or the presidency. Most believe that it was the seduction of opportunity and potential power that persuaded the Brotherhood to break those promises. The unexpected rise of the Salafis as a potent political force contributed to the Brotherhood’s change of mind as did likely advice by Qatar, the Brotherhood’s main foreign backer.

The justification for the Brotherhood’s cautionary instincts and the reason why the expectation of a stellar performance of the Morsi government lies in Turkey. It took political Islam in Turkey some four decades to get from the intransigence of Adnan Menderes who was executed by the military in 1960 via Erbakan who was forced out of office in the late 1990s to current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan, despite recent protests against him, is by and large a success story. He has achieved significant economic growth, enhanced Turkey’s regional status despite setbacks in Egypt and Syria, and yes, narrowed the gap between his country’s secular and conservative communities.

The reversal of the Brotherhood’s position was in fact predictable. The group’s history is characterised by continuous tension in deciding whether it is a social or a political movement. That tension explains its often disastrous decisions motivated by a hunger for power, to cut backroom deals with the military, and powers for which it has paid dearly in the past. The Brotherhood experienced perhaps the worst crackdown in its history two years after the coup in 1954 by the Free Officers. It opportunistically decided to drop its support for then president Mohammed Naguib, a reformist military officer, in favor of Nasser who had falsely led them, as well as the rest of the country, to believe that he would establish a democracy.^[9] In fact, Nasser, and more importantly the security forces he had created were establishing in cooperation with the United States and Britain. This would effectively be the model for Arab autocracy for decades to come: a state controlled by the police and the security forces rather than the military with multiple variations ranging from the military being totally cut out of the power structure to cases where it shared power.

Underlying Morsi’s downfall are two factors. Morsi and Turkey’s Erdogan share a majoritarian interpretation of democracy which leads them to believe that their legitimacy stems from victory at the ballot box. The events in Egypt and Turkey illustrate that the ballot box is one of two elements that constitute legitimacy. The other element is acceptance by those that did not vote for the incumbent. That acceptance was withdrawn in Egypt while the message in Turkey was: it will be withdrawn if you don’t change and take us into account.

More fundamental in Egypt are different conceptions of the state and society. The Brotherhood failed to recognize that the state is an institution with its own identity and interests rather than a vehicle to propagate and implement Islamic values and that society is more than just the Ummah, the community of Muslims. Ironically, the Brotherhood’s concept of the state mirrors concepts among some of its opponents that were long prevalent among the secular elite: the state’s function is to guarantee secular society if need be at the expense of democracy.

Morsi’s mistake was that he gave the forces arrayed against him reason. The deep state rejected control by the Morsi government but was not bent on intervening. Military intervention was an option but not a foregone conclusion. However, by late spring of 2013, that need arose in the minds of the military and others as a result of Morsi’s inability to successfully reach out to all segments of society and adopt a truly inclusive approach.

Military officers did not shy away from hinting broadly in the months before the coup that they were waiting for the right moment to unseat Morsi. The military sought to project itself as a selfless mediator and arbitrator unbound by partisan or commercial interests. But it undermined its own ambition with the post-coup crackdown on the Brotherhood and its failure to learn the lessons of Egypt’s so far failed transition. The deep state moreover did its part in exploiting Morsi’s weaknesses and engineering a situation that was bound to significantly complicate his life if not become a failure. Perhaps the single event that set the stage was last year’s disbanding of the lower house of parliament, the one institutionalized forum for debate even if it was dominated by religious conservatives. That left opponents of the Brotherhood with only one alternative: the street.

Fuelling that perception of need was Morsi’s failed attempt to acquire super-constitutional powers that would have freed him of judicial oversight. The rise of militant groups in the Sinai backed by attempts by religious figures to impose Islamic law in some parts of the peninsula, the threat to use military force against Ethiopia to enforce what Egypt long has viewed as its rights to the waters of the Nile, his suggestion that Egyptians could join the anti-Bashar jihad in Syria, his nomination of a governor of Luxor who was associated with a group responsible for assassination of Sadat and the killing of 57 tourists in the late 1990s, and his failure to stand-up for minority rights when he stood on the same dias as a Salafi preacher who denounced Egypt’s tiny Shiite community as infidels. The economic deterioration under Morsi and his inability to deliver let alone maintain services stood moreover in stark contrast to the Brotherhood’s provision of services that were lacking in the Mubarak era. To be fair, Morsi inherited an economy with huge structural problems that stem from a scarcity of resources, rapid population growth, decades of corruption and nepotistic authoritarian rule.

Nevertheless, the sum total of Morsi’s failures falls short of what could be described as a grab to take full control of all of the state’s key institutions, let alone Islamize the state in its entirety. This is witnessed by the continued independence of the deep state, Morsi’s efforts for much of his period in office to accommodate the military, his more-or-less hands-off approach towards the interior ministry and the security forces that are in dire need of thorough reform, and his failure to make effective inroards into the culture ministry. In fact, Morsi, while in government, gave the military what it wanted: the replacement of the old guard by the second echelon of command, and preservation of its privileges and perks – control of national security, protection of its independent relationship with the United States, immunity against prosecution, maintenance of its commercial empire that accounts for at least 10 percent of Egyptian GDP, and no civilian oversight.

Nevertheless, Morsi’s core failure may be his inability or unwillingness to take on the one segment of the deep state at the root of the resistance to Mubarak’s regime that was building up in the stadiums in the last four years of the ousted autocrat’s rule and exploded on Police Day in January 2011 on Tahrir Square: the Ministry of Interior and the police and security forces it controls. The gap between Morsi and the security forces was widened by Morsi’s efforts to evade police reform by legalizing armed private security services.

Morsi’s failure was compounded by the failure of the security forces, Egypt’s most hated institution because of its enforcement of the Mubarak era repression, to formulate a vision of their own in a post-revolt environment. Instead, they opted to lie low so as not to provoke further animosity. They hoped that their absence and a decline of law and order would position them as the force that stood between Egypt and the abyss. The failure of the security forces’ leadership to redefine itself in a post-revolt environment was encouraged by the military’s opposition to real reform and calls for independent police trade unions, improved accountability, rules governing promotion, and training by reformist officers who – if acknowledged – could have sparked a similar development within the armed forces. 

The armed forces have been more successful in ensuring cohesion despite differences between the middle class officers corps and the lower class rank and file. That cohesion notwithstanding, army chief Sisi, concerned about Brothehood inroads into the military, sent elite troops to units of the 2^nd Field Army, which is under command of Lt. Gen Ahmed Wasfy, immediately after meeting Morsi to demand his resignation. He then discovered that Morsi had sent envoys to the units. Wasfy and some of his units are believed to be potentially sympathetic to the Brotherhood. Denying allegations of a possible split in the military, Wasfy told the Associated Press: “We are united. The culture and principles of the armed forces don’t allow divisions.”^[10]

One reason why the police unlike the military has reformists within its ranks is the fact that military personnel enjoyed economic and financial personnel that lower level police offices lacked, making them on the one hand more corrupt, dependent on getting bakshish for their services and more connected to criminal networks that often were employed to do the Mubarak’s regime’s dirty work. On the other hand, this made many in the police more inclined towards change.

As a result, the police force is split. The force had little reason to support Morsi and the Brotherhood but significant segments of it are less committed than the military to the road on which Egypt has now embarked. The police and security forces have taken note of the fact that the military has succeeded in retaining a degree of popular support that they lack. Herein lies the danger that the fallout of Morsi will be a weakening of the reformists in the security sector in favor of those who see liberalization as an undermining of their power.

The Salafis and the Brotherhood:  Can they Weather this Crisis?

Recent events in Egypt are widely viewed as the Brotherhood having lost the upper hand to the Saudi-backed Salafists. The rivalry between the Salafis and the Brotherhood reflects not only political differences but also those between a majority of Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. One reason the Salafists did almost as well as the Brotherhood in post-revolt Egypt’s first parliamentary election was that they in many ways were closer to their grassroots than the Brotherhood. It’s the image of the upstart Salafi travelling to a poor neighboorhood in Cairo by public transport or cheap taxi versus the established Brotherhood politician arriving in his privately owned car.

Ultimately, however, the Salafis puritan worldview is even less attractive to a majority of admittedly religious Egyptians than that of the Brotherhood against which a majority revolted. The knowledge that the Salafis have strong roots in only a sliver of Egypt is what allowed the Nour Party to straddle both sides of the fence: first endorsing Morsi’s conservative constitution and then supporting the anti-Brotherhood revolt and military intervention.

Those Salafi groups and parties that were less adept than Nour at playing politics have threatened to revert to violence if political Islam is refused a seat at the table in the wake of Morsi’s downfall. It would be premature however to predict that Egypt is travelling down the brutal and bloody road that Algeria followed in 1991 after Islamists were denied the opportunity to consume their electoral victory. That road ended in years of civil war and a quarter of a million dead. The emergence this month of Ansar al-Sharia in the Sinai that claimed responsibility for attacks on the military, builds on the fact that since the successful crackdown on jihadist groups in the 1990s. There were only two groups that physically resisted the Mubarak regime: Bedouins in the remote, lawless desert and soccer fans in stadiums.

That is not to say that there will not be incidents of political violence. The Brotherhood unlike the Algerian Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) had a long history of moving from violence to non-violence and was initially allowed to take office. Despite its deep-seated sense of victimhood, critics within its ranks recognize that Morsi is as much as anyone to blame for the group’s predicament. In addition, Egypt unlike Algeria is in the throws of popular revolution with a majority. In contrast to Algeria, Egypt is supporting the role of the military. Its jihadists embarked on a non-violent path a decade ago after being crushed by the military. Egypt’s revolutionary fervor coupled with the role of the Nour Party is likely to continue to counter the assertion of Al Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and other jihadists that jihad is the only path that does not strengthen un-Islamic rule.

The intensity of the Saudi-led Gulf counter-revolution notwithstanding, it would be wrong to write the Brotherhood off. The Brotherhood has weathered adversity for much of its existence. It is its strength as well as it weakness. Nasser Square in Eastern Cairo and officials like Mohammed El-Beltagy – for whom there is an arrest warrant out – represent its strength. Hundreds of thousands are camped out in the Square much like anti-Mubarak protesters did in early 2011. El-Beltagy and others wanted Brotherhood executives are among them. The cost of executing their arrest warrants is not one the military and the security forces can afford. The Brotherhood’s mobilization capability and continued peaceful protest draw a stark contrast with the military’s arrest warrants and targeting of media and businesses owned by Brothers.

Moreover, Nasser Square constitutes living proof that Islamists in general and the Brotherhood in particular retain a significant popular base. The Brotherhood’s ability to maintain its base is fuelled by its sense of victimhood reinforced by the recent coup. Morsi’s failures have caused the Brotherhood significant damage. Some of that damage is countered by the failure of liberals, leftists, secularists and youth groups to develop credible alternatives in the 30 months since Mubarak’s downfall. They appear to be able to agree and mobilize only on what they do not want despite their creation of a loose umbrella, the National Salvation Front (NSF).

In a Pew Research Poll some six weeks before the coup, 52 percent of those queried gave Morsi a positive rating while only 45 percent approved of the NSF.^[11]Morsi’s ratings are likely to have dropped since. The question is whether the NSF is the beneficiary.

There is little reason to believe that various pillars of the anti-Morsi movement would perform in government much better than the ousted president. Initial indications from the military-backed government suggest the anti-Morsi forces have failed to ignore one key message from the president’s downfall: ignore the economy at your peril. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait – Gulf states hostile to the Brotherhood – have thrown the military and the military-backed government a life line with $12 billion in immediate aid. The aid has allowed the government to entertain rejecting like its predecessor a $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan that would have forced it to introduce the unpopular reforms needed to tackle the economy’s structural problems.^[12]

To be sure if Morsi would have had a checklist of what not to do, he would have ticked off every box. A different scenario may have unfolded if Khatter al Shatter, a powerhouse within the Brotherhood, would not have been disqualified for the presidential race because of a conviction under Mubarak on political grounds. Unlike Morsi, Al Shatter is a successful, wealthy businessman who may have better understood entrepreneurial spirit, risk, the give and take of negotiation, economic needs and communication concepts stemming from his familiarity with marketing. Morsi reinforced fault lines in which distrust and mutual suspicion run deep. Some of his measures like appointing party cronies to office that would have elsewhere been percieved as a normal practice deepened the divide and suspicion that the Brotherhood was not really committed to a pluralistic democracy.

Is There A Way Forward?

As a result, Egypt is rendered with two antagonistic camps that each sees itself as the defender of democracy and the spirit of the more than two year-old popular revolt. Each believes that it has the wherewithal and resources to fight this out in an environment in which mutual suspicion and distrust has been cemented.

Egypt’s coup puts the Brotherhood at a crossroads. It can opt for the Salafi model involving acceptance that its grassroots constitute a minority and that it needs to keep one foot in and one foot outside the system. Alternatively, it licks its wounds, learns lessons from its failure, and returns to its long-standing instinct of biding its time. The Brotherhood’s recent history and its long-standing desire to be a political group with a mass following, despite its most recent failure, mitigates towards the second choice. A key factor influencing its decision making is likely to be the military’s ability to demonstrate that it is serious about allowing the Brotherhood to compete as one among equals in the country’s next elections. Despite verbal statements by the military and the president to that effect, that is not the message the military has conveyed with its post-coup crackdown on the Brotherhood.

Complicating the Brotherhood’s decision-making process is the fact that it has seen a steady drain of its more progressive elements that started under Mubarak and gathered speed with the demise of the autocrat. That in part explains the difficulty the group has in making the transition from secrecy, its fear of external threats and a view of politics as a zero sum game associated with clandestinity and legal uncertainty to the kind of inclusiveness, outreach, and transparency that characterizes electoral politics. The question is whether the Brotherhood can shed its posture as a victim to recognize that what it decides, will – to a large extent– determine whether Egypt can progress towards democracy. Brotherhood participation in that process is a sine qua non.

The military crackdown allows the Brotherhood to delay facing its own demons. Continuous mobilization and confrontation with the military enables it to maintain cohesion and count on a repetition of history. The Brotherhood’s ranks and support swelled in the past whenever it was repressed. The crackdown also allows it to portray itself as the underdog and paper over divisions within the group that would likely only be deepened by debate over who is responsible for its most recent debacle. For now, the Brotherhood’s strategy is working witness the apparently large numbers of non-Brother Islamists who have joined the pro-Morsi protests out of fear of a return of the Mubarak-era repression.

The best case scenario for Egypt in the absence of a reform wing within the military that is able to assert itself is the emergence of an imperfect democracy, guided by the military in which over time the armed forces would be submitted to civilian control. Turkey is the obvious example but also an indictment of the failure of the US and Europe to help create the circumstances for real democracy. Prime Minister Erdogan was able to finally subject the military to civilian control because he was given a straight jacket: the prospect of European Union membership.

For all the efforts of the United States and the EU to strike a balance between their support for autocracy in a bid to maintain regional stability and  support for the development of a strong and healthy civil society they exempted the one force that inevitably would play a key role in any transition: the military. As a result in contrast to Southeast Asian nations, like the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar, there is no reformist wing of the military in Egypt, or for that matter in any other Arab country, that can lead the country from autocracy to democracy. The absence of such a reformist wing means that the military sees transition as a threat rather than an opportunity. Stay tuned: there is more drama to come.

James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg, and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

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^[1] Mark Levine, ‘L’Etat, C’est Nous: Who will control the Egyptian state?,’ July 6, 2013, Al Jazeera, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/07/201374131418638208.html

^[2]Ben Hubbard and David D. Kirkpatrick, ‘Sudden Improvements in Egypt Suggest a Campaign to Undermine Morsi,’ July 10, 2013, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/world/middleeast/improvements-in-egypt-suggest-a-campaign-that-undermined-morsi.html?ref=world&_r=2&pagewanted=all&
^[3]Gamal Abdel Nasser, Philosophy of the Revolution, 1959, Buffalo, Smith, Keynes & Marshall, p. 48; Shlomi Eldar, ‘When Nasser Came to Tahrir Square,’ July 12, 2013, Al Monitor, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/07/egypt-army-change.html
^[4]Idem.
^[5]Hazem Kandil, ‘Soldiers, Spies and Statesmen, Egypt’s Road to Revolt, 2013, London:Verso, p. 30.
^[6]Idem. P. 233.
^[7]Baheyya, ‘Military Tutelage, Egyptian-Style,’ July, 16, 2013, Baheyya: Egypt Analysis and Whimsy, http://baheyya.blogspot.com/2013/07/military-tutelage-egyptian-style_16.html
^[8]David D. Kirkpatrick, ‘Egypt Leaders’ Transition Plan Meets With Swift Criticism,’ July 10, 2013, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/world/middleeast/egypt-elections.html?ref=daviddkirkpatrick
^[9]Idem. Kandil,  p. 40.
^[10]Hamza Hendawi and Maggie Michael, ‘Mohammed Morsi’s Final Days: Egypt’s Former President Was Isolated But Defiant,’ July 5, 2013, The Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/05/mohammed-morsi-final-days_n_3550456.html
^[11]Pew Research Global Attitudes Project, ‘Egyptians Increasingly Glum,’ May 16, 2013  http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/05/16/egyptians-increasingly-glum/
^[12] New Egypt minister says no need for IMF aid now, July 15, 2013, Reuters, http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/07/15/uk-egypt-protests-imf-idUKBRE96E0AQ20130715

Rage against the Infield Fly Rule

The Infield Fly Rule is back in the news and ticking off baseball fans, but this time because the umpires didn't call it. On Wednesday, the Minnesota Twins had runners on first and second with none out. The batter hit a low looping pop-up to the side of the pitcher's mound; the pitcher let the ball drop to the ground, then threw to first to start a double play on the batter and the runner on first (who had to be tagged out). Video here (H/T: One of my team of RAs looking at baseball games and reports looking for Infield Fly situations).

This certainly looks like a play warranting an infield fly call--it was a fair fly ball that could have been caught with ordinary effort in the appropriate game situation. And it did, in fact, lead to a double play (although not the double play the rule is designed to prevent), providing the defense the overwhelming advantage that the rule is intended to avoid. The crew chief explained the non-call as follows:

"For an infield fly, we look for if the ball has arc and if the fielder can catch it with ordinary effort and if the fielder gets comfortably underneath," said crew chief Ted Barrett, who was working third base. "That one definitely had enough arc, but the fielder has to get comfortably underneath the ball to catch it. That's the criteria that wasn't met."

Ironically, that explanation arguably makes the call worse. It looks as if the pitcher was standing still and waiting for the ball; he wasn't settled directly under it only because he already had decided to let it fall to the ground and wanted to be in good position to surround it and pick it up. The better explanation would have been that the ball did not have enough arc (the rule does not apply to line drives, so the umpires would have to decide whether this was more like a pop-up or line drive). If he truly wasn't settled under the ball, it's only because the ball wasn't hit high enough.

As always, the play tells us some things. First, note the shorthand the umpires have developed for when a ball can be caught with ordinary effort. Neither the rule nor commentary says anything about arc or the fielder being settled under the ball, but the umpires have adopted those visual indicators as indications that a ball is catchable with ordinary effort.

Second, this play is an example of why the IFR is necessary. Without it, double plays on intentionally not caught pop-ups are possible (watch the runner on first and see how hung up he is and how he has to retreat close to the base) and that infielders will intentionally not catch the ball to try for the double play. True, this did not produce the double play the rule is designed to prevent; had the batter been running hard to first, he probably would have beaten the throw (he starts running hard only when he sees the ball drop). But look at the :06 mark of the video--both base runners are about two steps off the base; the pitcher easily could have turned around and start a third-to-second (1-5-4, if you're scoring at home) double play on the base runners. The point is that many double plays would be possible if fielders could seek out multiple outs by intentionally not catching an easily catchable ball.

Latest on Aaron Hernandez Murder Case

The Legal Aftermath of Ryan Braun's Suspension

I have a new article or SI.com on the legal aftermath of Ryan Braun's 65-game suspension.

Gulf rivalries spill on to the soccer pitch

vs. 

By James M. Dorsey

The battle between Iran and various Gulf state for the identity of the energy-rich region has spilled onto its soccer pitches. It’s the Persian Gulf League vs. the Arabian Gulf League.

The struggle erupted when the United Arab Emirates, alongside Saudi Arabia, the Gulf’s most fervent opponent of political Islam, recently renamed its premier league as the Arabian Gulf League. The Iranian football federation, whose own top league, the Persian Gulf League adheres to the Islamic republic’s position in the war of semantics, responded by blocking the transfer of Iranian players to UAE clubs and breaking the contracts of those who had already moved.

The war has stopped Iran’s national team captain Javad Nekounam from being sold for $2 million to UAE club Al Sharjah. "We had to stop him from joining the Emirati league. We will ask the president (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) to allocate" funds to compensate Mr. Nekounam for his loss, said Iranian football federation head Ali Kafashian.  Quoted by Fars news agency, Mr. Kafashian said another eight or nine players had also been prevented from moving to the UAE.

“The Persian Gulf will always be the Persian Gulf. Money is worthless in comparison to the name of my motherland. I received an offer from Al Sharjah three months ago and noone forced me to deny it, but I refused to do so myself. I would never join a team from a league offending the name of the Persian Gulf,” Mr. Nekounam said on Iranian state television.

The Iranian federation, which has long been micro-managed from behind the scenes by Mr. Ahmadinejad, made its move three weeks before the president steps down and is succeeded by president-elect Hassan Rouhani, a centrist politician and cleric who many hope will seek to improve strained relations with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

The kingdom together with the UAE and Bahrain have accused Iran of interfering in their domestic affairs by fuelling Shiite anti-government protests. They are also at loggerheads over Syria with Iran backing embattled President Bashar al-Assad and the Gulf states supporting rebels opposed to him. The animosity has fuelled a widening sectarian gap in the region between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

The UAE moreover has its own gripes against Iran because of the Islamic republic’s four decade-old occupation of three potentially oil-rich islands claimed by the Emirates that are located near key shipping routes at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz. The UAE last year declared a boycott of Iranian players which it did not implement in a bid to pressure Iran to return the islands and put its controversial nuclear program under international supervision.

A year earlier, the UAE became with remarks made by its ambassador to the United States, Yousef al-Otaiba, the first Gulf state to publicly endorse military force to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

The UAE has in recent years further worked to link more closely its security to U.S. and European security interests. France inaugurated in Abu Dhabi its first military base in the region. The base, which comprises three sites on the banks of the Strait of Hormuz, houses a naval and air base as well as a training camp, and is home to 500 French troops. Alongside other smaller Gulf states, the UAE has further agreed to the deployment of U.S. anti-missile batteries on its territory.

UAE clubs signaled this week that they would comply with the Iranian boycott in a move that strengthens Emirati resistance to Iranian policies. "We don't want to be drawn into a political warfare and if it is true, the club management will take necessary action to avoid any confrontations," said an official of the Sharjah club that was negotiating with Mr. Nekounam. Mr. Kafashian said it was negotiating with Ajman to break the contract of Iran’s Mohammed Reza Khalatbari who had transferred before the Iranian football federation declared its decision to bar Iranian players from moving to the UAE.

James M. Dorsey is Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

The US Bogeyman in Post-coup Egypt

RSIS presents the following commentary The US Bogeyman in Post-coup Egypt by James 
M. Dorsey. It is also available online at this link. (To print it, click on this link.). Kindly

forward any comments or feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentaries, at  

RSISPublication@ntu.edu.sg

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No. 136/2013 dated 22 July 2013

The US Bogeyman in Post-coup Egypt

By James M. Dorsey

Synopsis

The military overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi has presented the Obama

administration with a dilemma. While the US saw its tacit backing for the Saudi-backed

military intervention as a way of steering Egypt towards a more consensual transition to

democracy, the military viewed its toppling of Morsi as an opportunity to deal a body

blow to the Muslim Brotherhood. Consequently the US has become the bogeyman of

both the revolutionary youth movement and the Brothers.

Commentary

THE SAUDI-supported military overthrow of Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi on 3

July 2013 following massive demonstrations against him throughout Cairo and Egypt

presented the United States with a dilemma. The Obama administration was hard-pressed
to deflect the perception of US’ tacit support for the coup while calling for an inclusive

electoral process that would enable the Muslim Brotherhood to contest again for

parliamentary and presidential seats which they had been elected to before.

The US refusal to call the ouster of Morsi  a coup, combined with its long-standing financial

assistance to various pro-democracy groups, was perceived as proof that the US backed

efforts to create an illiberal democracy in Egypt.

Between democracy and stability

Such an outcome would prevent the return to power of Islamists who would challenge

the military’s efforts to contain the wave of change sweeping across the Middle East and

North Africa. Such a nuanced US message is hard to convey in a zero-sum environment

where anti-Morsi forces see the Morsi government as not inclusive while the Muslim

Brotherhood view Morsi’s overthrow as illegal.

The US reaction to the Egypt coup shows that its policy hinges on two ideas: democracy

and stability, which constitutes the dilemma. As a result this perpetually causes it

problems in the region. Moreover it has limited options because the Saudis are countering

the efforts of any potential cut-off of  US aid  while what constitutes US power has changed.

A small but significant sign of this change is that both the Brotherhood and the Tamarud

(Rebel) youth movement that had petitioned Morsi’s resignation refused to meet the US

Deputy Secretary of State William Burns when he visited Cairo last week; he could only

meet the military leaders.

The US parted ways with Saudi Arabia on Egypt when the military coupled its toppling of

Morsi with a crackdown on the Brotherhood, with mass arrests, legal proceedings, targeting

of Brotherhood-affiliated businesses and closure of Islamist media. The US tacitly agreed to

the removal of Morsi but not a witchhunt against the Brotherhood which will lead to an

illiberal democracy at best, and further volatility rather than a way out of the crisis.

The mass protest by the Brotherhood as well as its resolve to fight the coup and what it

sees as the illegal ouster of Morsi in the streets of Cairo and other Egyptian cities

demonstrates that it may be down but it is certainly not out. The crackdown as well as the

nature of the military-approved roadmap for Egypt’s return to an elected government

guarantees that the country will be at best a guided democracy - restricted or controlled

behind-the-scenes by the military.

Ignore the economy at your peril

The Obama administration’s message is further called into question by the fact that its

support for pro-democracy groups included aid to non-governmental organisations (NGOs)

that served as fronts for anti-Morsi politicians and even a former US-based police officer

who advocated violence. The US position is likely to be complicated as the broad anti-Morsi

coalition -- whose left-wing, liberal, Salafi, pro-ancien regime and youth wings agree on

little else besides Morsi’s downfall -- inevitably falls apart.

With the exception of the supporters of former autocrat, Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled

by a popular revolt in March 2011, few members of the coalition are likely to be happy with a government that may well  roll back hard-fought freedoms acquired two years ago.

Initial indications from the interim government suggest a return to Mubarak-era economics

that sparked the uprising in the first place. Anti-Morsi forces have failed to heed a key lesson

from Morsi’s failure: ignore the economy at your peril. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates

and Kuwait – Gulf states hostile to the Brotherhood – have thrown the military and the

government a life line with US$12 billion in immediate aid. This has allowed it to entertain

rejecting, like its predecessor, a US$4.8 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan that

would have forced it to introduce the unpopular reforms needed to tackle the economy’s

structural problems.

A no-win situation

The US’ dilemma is indicative of the contradiction between the Obama administration’s

rhetoric and its policy as well as its struggle to balance lofty ideals -- promotion of democracy

and human rights -- with perceived short-term interests. Wholehearted support for change in

the Middle East and North Africa would put the US at odds with almost all its Arab allies that

are governed by repressive, autocratic leaders and could endanger continued Egyptian

adherence to the peace treaty with Israel.

The contradictions mean that the US in effect responds to developments on the ground on a

case-by-case basis. By definition, that ambiguity makes it a target against the backdrop of a

policy that for decades saw autocrats as guarantors of stability at the expense of increasingly disenfranchised and discontented populace seeking social justice and greater freedom.

US options in Egypt are limited. Saudi Arabia has already pledged to compensate Egypt should

the US cut off its US$1.5 billion in primarily military aid.  Moreover, US power is globally

reduced by the fact that the world has changed. It no longer deals primarily with dependent,

poor nations playing both ends of the cold war. These countries have become largely

middle-income nations, and have alternative options in a multi-polar world. As a result the US

faces a no-win situation in Egypt.

James M. Dorsey is Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS),

Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of

the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog, 

The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

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