Global Upheaval and Why it Matters in the USA

Egypt, along with several other nations throughout Africa and the Middle East, has plummeted into chaos. Tunisia had its president ousted, Jordan’s king sacked and replaced his cabinet, and it’s tense in Yemen. On a positive note, the citizens of the Sudan recently voted to split the nation in two, which will hopefully end the bloodshed. So, why does all of this matter to the USA? Let’s focus mainly on Egypt here.

First and foremost is the question of who will emerge with control of Egypt. If the government falls, the Muslim Brotherhood is probably the only other entity that could take over. Conservatives in America tend to portray them negatively, citing their history of violence and ties to terrorist organizations like Hamas and al Qaeda. Liberals in America tend to portray them positively, citing their lack of recent violence and ties to Egyptian colleges, unions, and social programs (those three are also strongly liberal blocks in America; possibly a coincidence). As usual, the truth likely lies somewhere in between. I think there are both peaceful, non-threatening elements and violent, threatening elements within the Muslim Brotherhood.

Will Egypt will become to Obama (and US foreign policy) what Iran was for Jimmy Carter? I don’t know, but here’s how I’m pondering the question. There are some key differences and similarities, and three assumptions factor in. First, one must make an assumption about whether the Hosni Mubarak and/or Egyptian government maintains power or whether someone else takes over, like the Muslim Brotherhood. Second, one must make an assumption about how dangerous the Muslim Brotherhood truly is. Third, one must then make assumptions about how America would react based on the first two assumptions.

Thus, worst-case scenario, if the government falls, the Muslim Brotherhood is dangerous, and America screws up, then Obama absolutely could have his own Iran debacle like Carter had with the Shah and Ayatollah Khomeini. Under this scenario, odds are our friends in Israel would be in even more danger. On the flip side, the best case scenario is stability with a peaceful Egypt and Middle East. I don’t know what happens.

Who controls Egypt matters because of the Suez Canal. This is a big deal because it connects the Gulf of Suez to the Mediterranean Sea, dramatically shortening sea travel by creating a shortcut that allows boats to avoid sailing around all of Africa to move to/from Europe (see the maps below courtesy of howstuffworks.com). Shuttering/restricting the Suez Canal would have disastrous economic implications. This would dramatically increase the costs of trade for Europe, Asia, and Africa. The sputtering Eurozone economy needs a trade bottleneck like I need more snow (record snowfalls throughout New England this year). It could even be the next stage of the ongoing European economic debacle.

For America, it would increase trade and energy costs because of how much oil we get overseas. I had a talk about this with a friend over the weekend. We both agree on the need to break dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Where we differ is the timeline and how best to implement that. I contend that developing domestic oil production is the best short-term plan while we build our infrastructure for other cars (hybrid, electric, even natural gas versus gasoline/diesel), while he contends we should skip the drilling and just go straight to other cars and renewable energy. My concerns stem primarily from technological maturity and economics, but I’ll make that a separate post.

Lastly, the protesters in Egypt were communicating primarily through the internet with sites like Facebook and Twitter. The Egyptian government killed the internet. Google has teamed with Twitter to provide Egyptians with an audio, telephone-based version of Twitter.

I worry that these actions by the Egyptian government would inspire our government to try something similar. Last June, the “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010” came before the Senate courtesy of Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins. It passed the Homeland Security Committee in December, but died with the new Congress. Collins intends to reintroduce it. Don’t forget about the FCC’s recent passage of net neutrality, and don’t forget about Congressman Bob Brady’s bill in the wake of the Arizona tragedy to outlaw the use of certain imagery to describe politicians and judges. Free speech advocates like myself have plenty to worry about, and I’ll talk more about this later, too.

The bottom line is Egypt matters a lot more than one might think. Let’s keep an eye on it.