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They support a form of "lumpen development" -- to use the term originally coined by André Gunder Frank -- that imprisons the societies concerned in a spiral of pauperization and exclusion, which in turn reinforces the stranglehold of reactionary political Islam on society.

A strong, upright Egypt would mean the end of the triple hegemony of the Gulf (submission to the discourse of Islamization of society), the United States (a vassalized and pauperized Egypt remains under its direct influence), and Israel (a powerless Egypt does not intervene in Palestine).

The planned failure of the "Egyptian revolution" would thus guarantee the continuation of the system that has been in place since Sadat, founded on the alliance of the army high command and political Islam.  Admittedly, on the strength of its electoral victory the Brotherhood is now able to demand more power than it has thus far been granted by the military.  However, revising the distribution of the benefits of this alliance in favor of the Brotherhood may prove difficult.

“Washington must stop subcontracting Syria policy to the Turks, Saudis and Qataris. They are clearly part of the anti-Assad effort, but the United States cannot tolerate Syria becoming a proxy state for yet another regional power,” wrote Danielle Pletka, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (Washington Post, July 20).

Pletka was the biggest supporter of Ahmad Chalabi, the once exiled Iraqi, who she once described as “a trusted associate of the Central Intelligence Agency (and) the key player in a unsuccessful coup to overthrow Saddam Hussein” in the 1990s (LA Times, June 4, 2004).

Although the destruction of an Arab country is not a moral issue as far as the neocons are concerned, the chaos and subsequent violence that followed the US war in 2003 made it impossible for warring ‘intellectuals’ to promote their ideas with the same language of old. Some reinvention was now necessary. Discredited organizations were shut down and new ones were hastily founded. One such platform was the Foreign Policy Initiative, which was founded by neoconservatives who cleverly reworded old slogans.

“Citizens elect the government with a mandate to serve their interest and operate using public money,” Mendel told IPS. “So the idea that the government owns information is inconsistent with what a government is supposed to do.” The availing of information permits public engagement in the government process – everything from community planning to elections.

In May 2011, Tunisia became the second Arab country after Jordan to adopt freedom of information legislation, fulfilling a promise of its provisional government to end the media silence and unaccountability of the former regime.

After the uprising, however, the government sought loans from international donors to shore up the country’s battered economy. One of the conditions, sources say, was a tacit agreement to enact legislation that improves transparency.

This can be the only explanation for the theoretical and rhetorical acrobatics many are engaged in to reconcile their beliefs in democratic rights and revolutionary transformation with what is occurring right before their eyes in Egypt.

The popular use and acceptance of the term revolution to describe the events in Egypt over the last two years demonstrates the effectiveness of global liberal discourse to ‘de-radicalize,’ with the collusion of some radicals, even the term ‘revolution.’

there was no revolutionary process at all, in the sense that there was no transfer of power away from the class forces that dominated Egyptian society. No restructuring of the state; no new democratic institutions and structures created to represent the will and interests of the new progressive social bloc of students, workers, farmers, women’s organizations etc.; and no deep social transformation. In fact, the rapes and sexual assaults that occurred during the recent mobilizations were a graphic reminder that sexist and patriarchal ideas still ruled, untouched by this so-called revolutionary process.

Can the individual survive, grow, expand, within an international system in which national self-interest trumps human needs and legitimates repression as the means to achieving hierarchically imposed goals? 

Whether authoritarianism is a vehicle for capitalism, or capitalism, for authoritarianism, we see that advanced capitalist-industrial states, perhaps integral to their mature stage of development, require the total rationalization of the productive system and the human counterpart to that system–a purposely dry formulation of Max Weber’s rational-legal framework in his Theory of Social and Economic Organization in order to suggest (beyond Weber in this one respect) that human beings necessitate the same degree of control and predictability, which is what we mean by rationalization, as the productive order itself. 

Egypt, admittedly, seems a dot on the political-economic-ideological hegemonic landscape; actually, it is more—although circumstances have thrust it forward for purposes of analysis.  Possibly another hot spot would have dramatized as well the aforementioned dynamics of the world situation, yet the nakedness of the repression provides, given Egypt’s geographic location, a good departure point. 

My focus is going to be on the articles related to the military, and rather than follow a liberal interpretation of law, where law is seen as apolitical, this analysis will be based on a realist interpretation of law, where law is seen as the codification of a political relationship backed by force. Although still subject to change, the draft constitution can tell us volumes on the current power relations within the Egyptian polity.

The most visible article that has provoked substantial controversy is article (174), which allows military tribunals for civilians. The proponents of this article have argued that it has been severely restricted, compared to earlier versions, and that it will only apply to cases of "terrorism". This argument, however, does not stand the test of scrutiny. The danger of this article is that it allows military tribunals to be held for “transgression against the public property of the military”. Considering that the military has an extensive economic empire that some experts estimate reaches up to 40% of the economy, this places the Egyptian working class in severe peril. In other words, if workers in those military establishments go on strike, perform acts of civil disobedience or occupy the factories, they can easily be deemed to be “transgressing” the property of the military, and sent to military tribunals, where the presiding judge is also an officer. This effectively means that the largest “capitalist” in the country has the power to send his workers to jail without the right to appeal. Needless to mention, the military's vast economic empire is not mentioned in the draft constitution, nor does it require civilian oversight and it is not subject to taxation. The military economic empire remains intact and protected. 

The council’s aim is to develop the media according to standards of “professionalism”, “ethics” and following the prerogatives of “national security”. This, combined with the leaked video of El Sisi planning a media clampdown and the shutting down of Bassem Youssef’s popular satirical show, do not bode well for freedom of media in Egypt. It is already extremely difficult to come across any media outlet that’s willing to take a critical stance towards the military. This control is now being codified into law.