As has been reported elsewhere, the US is playing all ends of the Egyptian conflict in the sense that it has for decades sponsored Mubarak with full knowledge of his frequent use of torture, has for years infiltrated the Muslim Brotherhood, whose collaboration with Mubarak has led to diminished influence, and by infiltrating and training the April 6 movement, which has hosted events with the neoliberal Mohamed ElBaradai and no doubt wishes to maintain US aid but with different domestic policy. If Mubarak flees, the process presumably moves to setting up elections which often means for the US: first get your guy elected by hook or by crook, then try to prop up his legitimacy as much as you can.

Israel is sweating this out not because they're concerned that the US won't push - through ElBaradai or anyone else - to maintain Egypt's ties to them, but that they have to consider for a moment the popular will in Egypt and Jordan, two countries with which they've developed strong diplomatic ties since beating them on the battlefield. Elections in Tunisia (which despite being a pro-Western Italian beach resort hasn't for a while allowed those with Israeli passports in) and Egypt, and the possible political changes in Jordan, mean that Israel has to lie low for a while, and getting the US to publicly pander becomes counterproductive (which most likely won't stop them). The release by Al-Jazeera of the Palestinian Papers, which show total subordination and acquiescence of the Palestinian Authority to Israel, may not have sparked the North African revolts but will in some way affect the outcome.

The US-Israeli relationship here should be viewed in light of their shared function -- Israel gets an annual stock of military hardware to drop on Gaza and the US has, over the course of the last 50 years, used Israel to help wrest the geopolitical prize of the Suez Canal from European powers. Agence France-Presse writes "the US is leading international support for a new Tunisia, to the detriment of its former colonial power, France."

Col. Fletcher Prouty maintained that "The Egyptians receive 2-1/2 -- 3 billion dollars from us.. How does Egypt earn its money? It meters the Suez canal to oil and no oil goes through the Suez canal. So the movement of oil causes the tide of prices to rise all over the world." Around 2-4 million barrels a day of oil ships northbound through the Suez Canal and the Suez-Mediterranean Pipeline, though these numbers are subject to wide fluctuation and subsequent price changes, higher prices obviously bolstering the oil companies. Prouty has an interesting take on the US power play against Europe in the 1956 Suez Crisis:

"In 1956, just before the Arab-Israeli War, the British.. and the French.. had made covert plans to help the Israelis against Nasser for their own interests. Naturally, General Dayan wanted to defeat and roll back the Egyptians, and the British and French were more than willing to help re-establish some control over the Suez and relieve Arab pressures over Algeria. These three interested partners planned in secret to strike at Egypt, defeat the Egyptian army, and depose Nasser. A French undercover unit of navy commandos disguised as Arabs was in Cairo for the express purpose of killing Nasser.. Neither Britain nor France informed John Foster Dulles, the American Secretary of State, of their plans. As events progressed, Dulles played on this lack of formal coordination heavily, assuming the role of an unwitting and appalled outsider...

"For whatever reason, Dayan jumped off against the Egyptians with crushing air attacks about forty-eight hours ahead of the joint plans. This locked the British and French and called their hands... The French.. moved in swiftly to do away with Nasser. French and British forces steamed across the Mediterranean at top speed to join the action. It was certain that Nasser would be knocked out in a short time.

"John Foster Dulles, seeing all this.. demanded that the British and the French stop where they were and ordered Dayan to a halt. Over the shorter horizon, Khruschchev thundered that if the attack did not stop he would hurl missiles at all hostile targets in Europe. With pressure from Dulles, from Khrushchev.. England.. submitted. The Suez Affair.. prevented the British from re-establishing an enlightened control over the Canal, and it created a situation that made further French action in North Africa untenable.., unrest on the Arab-Israeli border.., (and had) a tremendous impact on the United States... (which) heard Khrushchev's threat to hurl rocket across Europe loud and clear," leading to the installation of inter-ballistic missiles in Europe. (Secret Team 392-3)

The Sinai Peninsula is considered an emerging area for oil exploration but drilling hasn't started, a major impediment to Egyptian drilling in the past being the Israeli occupation of it. Here again, the US's influence with Israel provides another form of leverage to control Egypt.

Noam Chomsky documents the conversion of Egypt into a client state in the mid-70s, when Kissinger was pressured by oil companies to fund Sadat and held off, but later sold the idea to Israeli interests after Egypt's show of military strength in 1973: a FOAI document of one such pitch has Kissinger proposing funding Sadat to "'ensure that the Europeans and Japanese did not get involved in the diplomacy concerning the Middle East,' 'to keep the Soviets out of the diplomatic arena,' 'to isolate the Palestinians,' so that they would not be a factor in the outcome, and 'to break up the Arab united front,' thus allowing Israel 'to deal separately with each of its neighbors' while of course remaining dependent on the United States." (World Orders Old and New 212-3)

Honest Diplomat Weeded Out of OAS

The Organization of American States' Haiti rep Richard Seitenfus was on his way out anyway, but he managed to hasten his departure by displaying candor uncharacteristic of OAS offiicals, freeing up the post for a lying prick. WKMA wishes Doutor Seitenfus the best in his future endeavors.

"Seitenfus said in the interview published Dec. 20 that the U.N. had 'imposed' the presence of its troops in Haiti despite the fact that the country was not involved in a civil war.

"Haiti is not an international threat. We’re not in a situation of civil war. Haiti is neither Iraq nor Afghanistan. However, the (U.N.) Security Council, given the lack of any alternative, has imposed the blue helmets since 2004, after the exit of the president (Jean-Bertrand Aristide),” the OAS diplomat told Switzerland’s Le Temps.

"The Brazilian diplomat, who had been scheduled to leave the post anyway in the coming months, also said in the interview that Haiti 'is on the international stage mainly due to its great proximity to the United States. Haiti has been the object of negative attention on the part of the international system. For the U.N., this is about freezing power and transforming the Haitians into prisoners on their own island,' namely Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic.

"The Haitians committed the unacceptable in 1804 (the year of their independence): a crime of lèse majesté for an anxious world. The West (was) then a colonial, slave-holding and racist world that based its wealth on the exploitation of conquered lands. So, the Haitian revolutionary model made the great powers afraid,” Seitenfus said.

"The OAS official also analyzed the role of non-governmental organizations in Haiti, in particular after the Jan. 12 earthquake, and he said that 'the cooperative (organizations) that arrived after the quake are not very old; they came to Haiti without any experience ... (and) after the earthquake, the professional quality fell a great deal. There exists a maleficent or perverse relationship between the NGOs’ strength and the Haitian state’s weakness.”

Who hired this guy?

The last line is one that particularly bears repeating: all those people 'doing good things' in Haiti are not only a poor replacement for autonomous civic institutions, but working almost exclusively on behalf of those who have systematically and persistently destroyed those institutions.

Haiti election preview

Since my promise to “comment further.. on the roman-fleuve sans Clef that the Haitian presidential field represents” there has been a procession of pro-Lavalas voices calling for a boycott of the election, and no shortage of reasons for its boycott, including the exclusion of a party with the overwhelming support of the public and piles of allegations of election corruption including charges by at least two candidates that the party backed by the incumbent is distributing weapons to its gangs for election violence. During that time, support by likely voters inclined to support Lavalas has coalesced behind Jean Henry Céant, a former Lavalas insider and close aid to Aristide that, though not as well-known as Yvon Neptune before the race, has run a much better campaign and has more unambiguously opposed Préval and spoken in support of Lavalas. One of the voices calling for a boycott is Aristide, which may lower turnout for Céant.

You can read the US papers and find out who the small upper class supports: Préval choice Jude Célestin, who supervises Haiti's backhoe equipment; Joseph Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly, who like Wyclef Jean is an anti-Aristide hip hop artist with friends in Duvalier's military; Charles Henri Baker, an industrialist that received 8% of the vote against Préval in 2006; and former senator Myrlande Hyppolite Manigat, whose husband, Leslie, received 12% for second in 2006. Célestin will be hurt by Préval's enormous unpopularity but he has name recognition from being on billboards all over the country and is the most likely beneficiary of corruption; Manigat may lead this set of candidates.

No reliable polls have been published, but with the choice of a vast majority of the voters somewhat unified and that of the elites more divided, with a clean election you could easily anticipate a margin for Céant above the 50% needed to avoid a runoff, but I'd expect a runoff of Céant and Manigat. I can't imagine Céant losing a runoff.

This is indeed an ugly election owing to Lavalas' exclusion, displaced voters, a notable percentage of voters without the required ID card, and a cholera epidemic which numerous health experts say is greatly exceeding reported numbers of victims and has led to widespread demonstrations against UN military presence. A victory for Céant offers the possibility of the restoration of Haitian autonomy, rebuilding of civic institutions which were lacking before the earthquake, and promise of legality of elections in which Fanmi Lavalas is allowed to field candidates in the future and Aristide's safety is assured after he's issued a new passport. Céant may betray these goals and I'm not going to offer prescriptions from my safe American home about boycotting or not boycotting, but holding out for justice for a wronged party apparatus may temporarily be less important than uniting behind someone who promises to restore it, even though Préval, not so long ago, made that same promise.