{"id":24067,"date":"2019-02-13T08:13:33","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T14:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=24067"},"modified":"2019-02-13T08:13:33","modified_gmt":"2019-02-13T14:13:33","slug":"the-slow-slide-back-into-the-pit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2019\/02\/13\/the-slow-slide-back-into-the-pit\/","title":{"rendered":"The Slow Slide Back Into The Pit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Egypt doesn’t really seem to care much for democracy – at least if they’re an Egyptian leader.\u00a0Shahira Amin of AL Monitor<\/strong><\/em> reports<\/a>\u00a0in a posting entitled “Egyptians split as lawmakers pave way for Sisi to be ‘president for life<\/em>‘”:<\/p>\n

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Egyptian lawmakers have proposed changes to Egypt’s constitution, including amendments to\u00a0expand the military’s powers and to\u00a0allow President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to\u00a0remain in office<\/a>\u00a0following the end of his second term, and potentially until 2034.\u00a0The amendments have sparked controversy in the country, drawing mixed reactions from members of parliament, analysts and activists.<\/p>\n

The suggested alteration to Article 140 of the constitution would\u00a0extend<\/a>\u00a0presidential terms from four to six years,\u00a0and\u00a0changes to Article 200<\/a>\u00a0would allow the military to\u00a0ensure “that the principles of the June 30 Revolution are observed,” which means preventing\u00a0Islamists from ever rising\u00a0to power.\u00a0The amendments are being packaged with progressive changes, to make them more palatable to\u00a0the public.<\/p>\n

Sisi’s supporters\u00a0praised the amendments<\/a>, arguing\u00a0that “four years are not enough” and that the president needs\u00a0“more time to complete the development plans that he started,” while\u00a0critics\u00a0decried the changes<\/a>\u00a0as an “Arab Spring in reverse”\u00a0and “a\u00a0coup against<\/a>\u00a0the Egyptian Constitution.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If his plans are all that wonderful, then his successors should be more than pleased to complete them. It’s a non-starter of an argument, in my view.<\/p>\n

But, more importantly, this will present challenges for other nations in the future. Does the United States want to be associated with an autocratic Egypt? It certainly was when Sadat and then Mubarak ran the country, but then we had the USSR to contend with. How about now? Is Iran a great enough adversary to require the submission of ethics to the challenge? Indeed, perhaps Egypt is only half a step away from being an autocracy right now. Treating the constitution as a bit of jello, to be deformed as necessary to satisfy ambition, feels like the next half-step – and leaves me wondering about his trustability when it comes to international agreements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Egypt doesn’t really seem to care much for democracy – at least if they’re an Egyptian leader.\u00a0Shahira Amin of AL Monitor reports\u00a0in a posting entitled “Egyptians split as lawmakers pave way for Sisi to be ‘president for life‘”: Egyptian lawmakers have proposed changes to Egypt’s constitution, including amendments to\u00a0expand the \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24067"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24080,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24067\/revisions\/24080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}