 I'm glad to see everyone here. We have C-SPAN taping this event. We will begin with a conversation we have with us, first let me introduce myself. I'm Leyla Halal and I'm directing the Middle East Task Force here. And we have with us today two distinguished guests and we're very excited to have this conversation at such a timely period in Egypt's history as we see from the news that it continues to face turmoil and upheaval. To my left is Rob Malley. He's currently the Middle East and North Africa program director at the International Crisis Group. He really probably needs no introduction for those of you here who are based in D.C. But prior to his tenure at the ICG he was special assistant to President Clinton for Arab-Israeli affairs and he was the executive assistant to Samuel Berger as a national security advisor from 1996 to 1998. He is published widely. He is a leading analyst on Middle East affairs and we're very glad to have him with us today. To my right is Ashraf Khalil, not from Washington and a fresh voice for us in D.C. He is a Cairo-based journalist and he's been covering the Middle East for 15 years. He was a correspondent with Los Angeles Times and covering Baghdad and Jerusalem were based in both places. He is previously reported for the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy in the Times of London and the Economist as well. He is a blogger at the very popular The Arabist which was founded by Asandra Al-Amrani. We are here largely to launch Ashraf's new book. It was published just last month. We have copies outside. It's entitled Inside the Egyptian Revolution and the Rebirth of a Nation, Liberation Square, a very sort of emotive cover. This book has been received to quite a critical acclaim. Salah noted that it was perfectly calibrated in its amount of background commentary and prognostication and above all a thrilling account. Thursday's week described it as an essential reading evoking the urgency and vitality of the Arab Spring's Egyptian chapter. The Daily Beast noted that it paints a full canvas of the tools of domination built by Mubarak's police state. We have copies of the book that will be arriving and afterwards Ashraf is available to sign and chat with you further as I think Rob has to leave immediately but we will try to cover as much ground as we can in the discussion. Just to begin with you Ashraf, your book sort of sweeps through three decades of Mubarak's rule before going into tracking the 18 days of Rebol the Tapultim and then you close with some commentary on the key transitional challenges ahead which are economic corruption, media freedom and security reform. I think with the developments in Egypt in the past 48 hours there's clearly a very current conversation to have about Egypt and I think events are changing quite quickly but I think it's also important to keep track and to note what led up to this revolution. In your book you, and just to note you've been based in Cairo for 15 years which means that you didn't just land in Cairo on January 25th, 2011 so you obviously saw this lead up and you describe in your book the increasing stranglehold of the regime and then the agitation of people on the ground towards it and I remember that as the Tunisian dictator fell many said that Egypt would not but in less than three weeks Mubarak was gone so was this a surprise to you? There was a lot of immediately after Tunisia there was a lot of chatter in Egypt. I mean the activist forces there were openly trying to figure out how to make the same thing happen and trying to lay the groundwork for a similar uprising but you heard so much oh that can't happen here that I remember talking to on the 26th actually the day after the start of the revolution when you had these unprecedented numbers turning out and really taking the country into uncharted waters I remember just getting in a cab and wanting to go to Tahir and having like the classic cynical cab driver who was basically like oh no we can't do what the Tunisians did. Tunisia is a civilized country. Even then Egyptians did not believe that they could pull this off and I think one of the stories of the Mubarak regime was is that it the people kind of lost faith in themselves. He really killed the sense of political engagement and really sowed this feeling of helplessness in the people. I mean as dictators go he wasn't Saddam Hussein, he wasn't Hafiz al-Assad, he wasn't Qaddafi, there will be no mass graves being unearthed in Egypt but he really sort of killed their spirit and it took a while but I mean people just lost faith in themselves and so one of the immediately before the revolution started the Arab League had a summit in Shon Mashiach an economic summit and it was right after Tunisia and right before Egypt and Egyptians were starting to set themselves on fire. You had that very disturbing little mini trend happening in Egypt and all the Arab League delegates were all like oh no it's not possible, this is not Tunisia. Everybody had a reason why Egypt could not, why the example could not be repeated and the one guy who was off message I give him credit for this was Amr Musa. From day one he was there and he was the head of the Arab League, he's supposed to be in lockstep with these guys and I was shocked by the quotes I got from him. He was basically saying no this is a wake up call, there's things that really need to change. This could spread, we have to be very careful, we have to sort of acknowledge the people will not be marginalized anymore, I remember the quote vividly. But this sense of marginalization and this resistance to it certainly did not, it wasn't a sense that people suddenly on January 25th or what was the date when Ben Ali fell early down? Two weeks, almost exactly two weeks before so about the 11th maybe the 10th. So it wasn't on that date that suddenly people realized that they have a grievance towards the regime and it wasn't that either that they hadn't tried to express themselves. I mean there were events leading up to the revolution that enabled it eventually to begin. You could say that Tunisia was a catalyst in the sense but it wasn't the sole reason for the uprising in Egypt. It certainly wasn't the sole reason, it wasn't the reason that people had grievances, it wasn't the reason that people felt the need to have a revolution but it did open the door of what was possible. It broke, it chipped, it didn't break it, they broke it on the 25th I think but it really chipped away at the sense of helplessness that it had taken hold over the previous decade plus in Egypt. Just seeing that it was possible really changed the game but obviously going back you have so many bad elections, you have so many cases of rampant police brutality and corruption. The case of Khedid Zayed, the young man who was beaten to death in Alexandria in June 2010 and whose name became just this touchstone for the lawlessness and unchecked brutality of the Interior Ministry under Mubarak, that was big. I tried to sort of mark out here was a turning point and here was a turning point but I still maintain that without Tunisia maybe there would have eventually been some sort of revolution but it does not happen like this and it does not happen on this timeline without the Tunisian setting an example. I'm going to ask you to just read quickly a passage from your book, the start of the first chapter which is entitled The Accidental Dictator. I think this chapter quite amusingly and humorously tells sort of the story and the attitude from the beginning of the chapter. Sure. Of the attitude of the people and perhaps now what's in their minds as they face their current struggle against the staff and This is chapter one, it's called The Accidental Dictator. Imagine for a moment that President George Bush, the first, had suddenly died in office leaving Dan Quail, a national punchline who nobody thought would ever wield any real power as president of the United States. Then imagine that nearly three decades later that same perceived lightweight was still running the country that an entire generation of Americans had never known any other leader that he and Marilyn Quail were busily renaming public buildings, bridges and libraries after themselves and that President for Life Quail was seemingly grooming one of his children to continue the family business of running the country. If that seems far-fetched it's not too far from the reality that Egyptians have been living through for nearly three decades. Put simply, Hosni Mubarak's era as Egypt's modern-day Pharaoh was never supposed to happen. One of the core ironies of Mubarak's 29-year death grip on Egypt was that he stumbled into what was probably the most important and influential job in the modern Middle East entirely by accident. It's a reality that became abundantly clear from the very beginning of the 18-day uprising in the winter of 2011 that finally toppled Mubarak. Once protesters succeeded in shattering the police state that had kept him in power, it became immediately clear that there really was no plan B. Mubarak's regime in its final days fell back on a parade of antiquated, insincere rhetoric, uninspired and tone-deaf concessions, and finally one last effort at vicious violence in a desperate attempt to retain control. It all served to underscore that hiding behind the truncheons and tear gas of the Central Security riot police was an intellectually bankrupt and cynical blank space of a regime. That's why there was a distinct undercurrent of bitterness and shame mixed in with the euphoria and the resurgent sense of empowerment coursing through the Cairo streets that February when Mubarak meekly left the stage. The sentiment was something approaching, I can't believe we let these guides run our lives for decades. Thank you. I think that that sort of speaks to the sentiment of revolution and when there's mass mobilization, that mobilization sort of creates a dynamic that creates sort of an unstoppable movement towards a new reality. And I think that we saw that very clearly in Egypt and the quick fall of the regime, but we also contrast it with a place like Syria where after 10 months of uprising and clear sort of public statements from the Arab League and the US and other major players for the regime to go, it still holds tightly to power. And I wonder what in these revolutions is the tipping point? What makes the difference in terms of changing the dynamic on the ground where to confront such entrenched power? And you were in Tahrir for those 18 days. In your observation, what point did the balance of power change? What was the tipping point? I think there was multiple small tipping points with Tunisia as the final shove over the cliff. I think you had multiple years of the relationship between the police, the interior ministry and its relationship to the citizens became toxic maybe 10, 15 years back and just stayed that way. You had so many cases of that. The economic situation is an underreported possibly element of this in that seeing not just how much harder life became as costs went up and salaries stayed the same, but seeing the top 5% obviously flourishing so well and obviously seemingly operating under a completely different set of rules than everybody else was operating under. That played a role. The November 2010 parliamentary elections was just such a clear slap in the face that just showed the ballot stuffing was so over the top that it just showed that the government was regressing as much as anything. This is kind of a corollary to the economic situation in that because of the economy, because of the lack of jobs you had successive generations of young men who had no hope of ever getting married. They couldn't find a good job. University degrees 28 years old, 35 years old. The only jobs available were ones that didn't pay them enough to even make it worth getting out of bed, which means they can never move out of their parents' halls, which means they can never get married and never really start their life. I actually think one of the under-reported aspects of this is how much pure sexual frustration played into the Egyptian Revolution and that we had generations that could never start their lives, could never go forward to get married. And you talk about that in the book. You note this film, cultural... Films like coffee, cultural film, yes. It's a humorous, slapstick comedy about these guys that are trying to find a place to watch the porno film. And because they're living at home, they have university degrees, but yet they're living at home in their late 20s, but because they can't get married, they can't find a place to be alone. They can't have sex. So they're stuck. But what is humorous is actually poignant because it tells the story of the frustration. And I met guys on the protest lines who might as well have been characters from that film and they tell me with two sentences, I know their entire life. They graduated, they have a good degree, but they don't have any influence. Their father couldn't hook them up with a job or didn't have an apartment waiting for them to get married in. So they're just 28 at home. But have these people returned to their homes? Are they still in the street? Because we're hearing of continued demonstrations and protests, but we're also being told of the silent majority, which doesn't support the protesters and the protesters are in the minority. So where are these frustrated youth? Are they just sort of overcome by a sense of pessimism? Or do they desire to just return to normality? Has the revolution become sort of a marginalized effort despite the continuing need for change and reforms? It's a good question. Some of these youth are still out there protesting and many of them have gone home. And the issue of whether to continue street action is a very divisive issue, as you said, in Egypt. The November and December clashes, you had two separate outbreaks of violence that were like in and around the electoral cycle. It was bizarre. You would have massive violence and people dying and people losing eyes. And a week later, five days later and three blocks away, you'd have a polling place open with a line down the block. And then a week later, there'd be massive violence on that same stretch of street. It was surreal. But I think you're right in that those protests especially in November and December were hugely unpopular. I can honestly say they did not represent the majority of Egyptians. But if you ask the protesters, they're totally fine with being in the minority. They think they were in the minority a year ago. They think the phrase that you hear in Arabic all the time is his bil kanaba, the party of the couch, which is their derisive term for the silent majority of fence sitters that basically sat at home nervously watching television and came out to join the party on February 11th. After this 10%, 15% hardcore minority did all the hard work for them. I'm just telling you what they're thinking. So they know they're in the minority at this point and they're totally fine with that. Right. So Rob, I'm just going to bring you in now and I think you were in Egypt in December and January and you had the opportunity to meet with a section of political actors and you have your own sense of what's going on there on the ground and recently in the past 48 hours we've seen that the demonstrations have sort of been renewed and there is a block of activists and liberal parties that have come out with a platform for the military to turn over executive powers to an elected civilian president. My sense from reading the news is that there's an effort to build public consensus around this demand for the military to hand over powers. But the military is resisting this and the understanding is that they want to maintain control over the drafting of the constitution in order to build in protections of their major interests. And yesterday when the protesters attempted to advance on the parliament, interestingly I think to hand their demand for a transfer of civilian power to this new elected body, the Muslim Brotherhood blocked that event. And so what I'm wondering is, are we facing the counter-revolution in Egypt? Is there an effort now to just solidify the new reality which people in the streets feel is not consistent with their original demands for empowerment, dignity, civil liberties, given the interim period where the staff has cracked down violently on demonstrators and asserted itself in a way that indicates that it wants to retain its prior control over the economy, over sort of foreign affairs. Is this the counter-revolution in your opinion? First, two preliminary comments. Thank you for your very nice introduction, so when you insist that Ashraf is outside of Washington you sort of depict me as a newt gingrich to his room. I try, I appreciate. Secondly, I highly recommend you all read the book which is both extremely informative and very entertaining. I want to touch on a few of the points that you did. First, you make the comparison between Egypt and Syria and others. I think there's one element which has been decisive in a number of these cases, which is what's the attitude of the security forces. I mean, in Egypt you could make the argument that it was both a revolution and a military coup and it's unclear which of those two was more important when. Military coup may be piggybacking on a popular uprising and trying to perpetrate Mubarakism without Mubarak whether they'll succeed or not is a different matter but I think that's part of the reason why things went so quickly. In Syria there's, I view, no such chance. You can't have the current regime surviving by deposing the power structure. They just, it's much harder to do. They may try but I think it's much harder to do because they feel like once Bashar goes, they may all go with him and that's a much more dangerous scenario. That's point number one and I think if you look at Yemen, if you look at Bahrain, all these cases, one of the key determining factors is how is the security apparatus constituted, what is its nature and what is its relationship with the regime. Second point, and this is, you mentioned the Arab counter-revolution, the title of the article that Hussein Aga and I wrote several months ago. One of the points we make in the piece is that the Egyptian revolution in particular was sort of an anti-Leninist revolution. Yes, I think Ashraf is right that they were people organizing it but there was no clear leadership. It was entirely nonviolent at least in terms of the protesters. There was no ideology behind it. There was not a program. You didn't have a communist manifesto. You didn't have, it wasn't even like the Iranian Revolution in that sense which was an extraordinarily powerful attribute of the uprising because it was almost impossible for the regime to tackle. They were much better prepared to deal with a violent uprising than they were with this because it's sort of like Jell-O. They didn't know how to go after it. But the strength of the revolution I think in many ways was a weakness after Mubarak was toppled because you didn't really have a party, a constituency, an agenda. You had protesters and I think that brings me to your main question which is what is today the power of these protesters and why is it that you have this tension between those in Tahrir Square and others may be the sign of majority. When I was in Egypt, lots of the conversations I had revolved around that and I think, I agree with Ashraf that a lot of the people on the street don't really care for their minority and they believe that they were minority then. Something has changed. There's been an election. And a number of the Egyptians I spoke to even who might have been sympathetic to the revolution at the time said, wait a minute, we just had an election. I'm going to come up with a number, maybe I'm exaggerating or not, maybe I'm underestimating, but I think about 80% of those are represented in parliament today. Have the view that the process that was agreed, you have elections and you're going to have a constitution that's going to have to be to referendum, then you're going to have the presidential elections and then the military is going to have to concede power. Most of the people, vast majority of those who voted and who are represented in parliament believe that that's okay. And then you have a large number of demonstrators that didn't perform particularly well in the elections who are calling for another trajectory, another timetable. It's hard today for them to have, in the long term, the legitimacy they had even as a minority during the revolution when you now have a legitimate process, I mean with faults and whatnot, but a legitimate process that put in power people are prepared to live with the timetable that was agreed. I think that's a real problem now for the people... That's a big distinction, you're right. It's a big, I'm sorry... Big distinction, you're right. Yes, and I don't know how, I think over time their legitimacy is going to erode. It will revive, in my view, if and when the politicians who are elected in power prove incapable of dealing with the big problems that Egypt has to deal with, whether it's the political transition, whether it's the economy, whether it's security. And perhaps the protesters can revive their legitimacy, but right now I think they have to make a calculation, which is how do we maintain legitimacy when most Egyptians who voted seem to have voted for something different, and I think the Muslim Brotherhood has been very clever so far in managing a complex sort of triangle relationship between itself, the staff, and the protesters, and their view, I think, is to say to the protesters, we agree with a lot of what you're calling for, but right now there's a political process in which is why they form this human shield to prevent the protesters from gaining access to the parliament. I think it's going to be a very interesting game now between what I see those three actors, the staff, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the protesters, all three of them sort of playing blind chess because actually worse than blind chess. They don't know what the other party is going on, how the other parties are going to act because it's a new game. They don't even really know how they're going to act because it's a new game for them as well. Ashif, can you comment a bit and tell us sort of how you see the relationship between the staff and the Muslim Brotherhood unfolding, the power of the protesters? Because I know I've heard you in other contexts say that the street has been able to extract concessions and you see that as an important dynamic, but what is the sustainability of those protests given that you have the elected parliament that people just want to see real change on the ground? Well, I do believe that one of the... If anything, the military has only itself to blame for the stubbornness, the enduring stubbornness of the protesters because the protesters can pick up a calendar and point to street action concession, street action concession. They cannot be blamed for thinking that the only thing that has produced genuine serious concessions from the military has been street action. You know, even the current timeline of the military departing in June 2012, that's a result of the hugely unpopular November clashes. But what we're heading into, Rob is very... he's correct in that the election, the flawed but largely successful and no one can say it was an insincerely run election and well attended, does change the math and does change their legitimacy and does affect a lot, you know, much of the country, as he said, agrees with what the protesters want, most of what the protesters want, but just wants some stability and calm and just now's not the time. What's the difference between if the military leaves on February 15th or if the military leaves on June 15th? Is that five months really worth holding up the country like this? And that's a very persuasive argument and now as far as internal protester dynamics, this alliance between the brotherhood and the military, it's been coming for a long time. They've been flirting for a while and had their quarrels, et cetera, but now we're seeing it made tangible where the brotherhood is now protecting the government, the parliament, and by proxy the military, I suppose, from the other protesters. So it's interesting to see that final piece click into place and I'm curious to see where it goes from here, but it's coming for a while, but that's new territory. I think that's a very important point that Ashraf makes about, and it goes to what I was trying to say about how nobody really knows how to play the rules of the game. I think the SCAF has been quite extraordinarily incompetent because it could have made a lot of the concessions before the protests, which would have really undermined and undercut the relevance of the protests, but as he says, every time they've reacted, which both emboldened the protesters and discredits the military. Up until now, I think the Muslim brotherhood has been able to be in a win-win situation. I'm not sure how long it will last. On the one hand, they have this tacit agreement with the military and they're not the ones who are causing chaos on the street, so they also appeal to those Egyptians who want normalcy. I think that's a large reason why they did so well because they were both an agent of change and a familiar figure that was in favor of stability. And they've been able also to take advantage when the protesters extract concessions from the military, they benefit. If there's more power turned over to the civilians, if you accelerate the timetable, that's benefited the Muslim brotherhood. So they've been able to both sort of placate the military and take advantage of the concessions of the protesters without themselves having to clash with the military. As I say, I don't know how long that lasts because at some point, soon, they're going to hold the reins of power. They're going to be responsible. People are going to turn to them when things are not going well in the economy, in the security or in any other area. But so far, I think they have been quite astute, probably a product of their great strategic patience and having learned over the years how to deal with adversarial conditions. So I think they've been able to play that game quite well. And one very quick thing I wanted to add as far as the military brotherhood relationship in that the brotherhood is counting on holding the military to this timetable of departure in June 2012. I remember being in Suez on Election Day and interviewing a voter and he was wearing a Freedom and Justice Party pin, a Muslim brotherhood party pin. And I flat out asked him, do you trust the military? And he gives me this huge smile and he's like, you know what? I don't need to trust them. It's not relevant whether or not I trust the military. And the implication there is if they drag their feet on this June 2012 they will all just go back to Tahir and they're not losing sleep over that because they know they've got the stick. Right, but I think also the complication becomes that you have this elected parliament and I think the people will be looking to the elected parliament. I don't think that the staff wants to retain the executive powers. I think it will turn over. But the question becomes how much power will they retain? The attempt to delay the transfer of power to a civilian president and holding of the elections for that, the attempt to delay it I think is to control the constitution-making process or have some control of it to retain their major interests. And I think that the brotherhood is perhaps willing to allow the staff to retain powers in foreign affairs, to ultimate powers, to have the immunity, to have control over the budget. And so it will allow the staff to do that but the question I have is there's clearly a mounting dissent in the public against staff's continued control and if they continue to maintain that control and the brotherhood is seen to be aligning with them, will the parliament lose legitimacy and what kind of democratizing role can it play in a contested atmosphere? And just to point out some of the developments that occurred, Amr Hamzawi who is a liberal member of parliament is proposing a resolution to allow the holding of elections in April and in order that the power be transferred by May 1st to a civilian president so that the constitution-making process isn't completely in military hands. And there were liberal members of parliament that walked out of the session yesterday because of their complaint that the speaker of the House who is from the Freedom and Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood Party was biased in his deliberation and who he was allowing to speak. So, I mean, there is a small chance that the parliament will be and if the protesters maintain a sit-in in front of the parliament, there is a chance that it will lose its legitimacy in the parliament, in this contested environment. Is that analysis, does it make sense in your mind? What is the support that the parliament enjoys in Egypt now? At this point, I think there's a lot of hope for them. I'm not sure if there's a lot of faith but there's a lot of hope and they are the product of, as we said, a flawed but not insincerely run and well-attended election. They are the product of, you know, by default but the best election Egypt has had in how many decades. So that brings them quite a bit of legitimacy. It's going to be wrong because it's going to be a mess. These are people who don't forget that no matter how well-intentioned everybody is, these are people who don't have that much experience as Democrats. I mean, the brotherhood for all their decades of struggling, they don't have a democratic structure internally necessarily and they're not going to, people are going to probably have temper tantrums and fall out with each other and mistake the natural processes of a democratic coalition-building experiment and take things personally when they probably shouldn't take things personally. It's going to be messy for a while. I'm just to two points. First, I've always looked at sort of the, not just the fact that Tunisia inspired Egypt but a lot of the problems that you have in Egypt are a magnified version of what Tunisia has gone through and right now, I mean, the elections in Tunisia went well but for those who are following it, there's a lot of fighting in parliament, there's a lot of suspicion of the Islamists, there's demonstrations of secular forces, so all that, I think Al-Sharif is absolutely right, we're going to see all that, that's inevitable. The question also that you asked is about how people are going to react to the militaries, not its attempt to control, as you said, I don't think they want executive power. I think they'd be very happy not to have to deal with what is going to be an extraordinarily challenging economic agenda. Yeah, they don't want the headache. I don't know why they'd want to control, they would like to have all their, well, they want to maintain some of their prerogatives, immunity from prosecution, clearly, no taxation towards their economic activities, maintain their economic activities, the secrecy of their budget and an overall leadership in foreign policy and national security affairs. My sense is if it was simply left up to the Muslim Brotherhood based on what I've heard from them, they could live with that. They could live with that number one because they're realistic and a lot of these things, really undermine their power. But also, again, as I said, they have a long view of history. Okay, as they put it, two years, three years, five years, a decade. Sooner or later, they have in mind several examples around the region. They don't want to be Algeria in the early 90s when the military got so afraid of a possible victory of the Islamic Salvation Front that there was a coup and massive repression. Number one, they don't want to be like Hamas either, where they're isolated, they can't govern, the international community tries to boycott them, so they want to have a coalition. They look at Turkey. It took the AKP many years. But today, the military is in its place, many of them in prison or these I'm going to be tried. If it takes them years, they can do it. They've been in the underground for so long now. Now, the question you asked, which is, I think, a very pertinent one, is will the people on the street and other forces start complaining and say this isn't good for us? In a way, the Muslim Brotherhood, as I said, could win either way. They could live with this arrangement, this pacted transition where it takes, you know, you have an agreement between the military and the political forces. They could probably also live with an acceleration of the transition and some of these prerogatives not being handed over so long as they feel like it doesn't provoke a reaction by the military that's going to compromise what they, and jeopardize their harder-earned gains. And I think the question, one question, is if they maintain these prerogatives, can there be the kinds of changes that will be the economic changes, the changes in the security forces, these important, the opening of the media, will you be able to have these sorts of institutional changes that will signal to the people that, in fact, it's a new era? Ideally, what we're going to need to see, I mean, we're focusing on sort of the macro stuff of the relationship between the government and the military and the control of the military's budget, but there are smaller revolutions that need to happen that would be significant victories, a genuine anti-corruption campaign, a genuine attempt to weed out dead wood and nepotistic hires from the government, a genuine attempt to instill responsible actual journalistic ethics within the media or just shut down the places like state television and I'm of the opinion that there should not be a Ministry of Information, but that might be too much to expect. I'm big on Interior Ministry reform. I've been trying to sort of figure out my list of metrics for how to judge the progress of the revolution and topping my list is civilian oversight over the Interior Minister, an Interior Minister who is not some career general who owes 30 years of favors to the other career generals and probably they all have secrets on each other and it's just unhealthy, a civilian and outsider Interior Minister and when you talk to police officers, they always say that it's hilarious because I think they all went to the same class on this. They all say, well, would you want a Minister of Health who's not a doctor? That wouldn't make sense. No, I'm not buying it. It's a civilian Interior Minister sent there by an elected government with a popular mandate to clean the stables, fire whoever you need to fire and change the culture and that's top three of things that need to happen regardless of what happens between the Brotherhood and the military. And I think that there's a question of how is that going to happen and at what point. Are you very resistant to it? So let's change and talk about the Brotherhood and the Freedom and Justice Party and the chances that it may fragment given their intention or what appears to be their movement towards accommodating, accommodation with the staff. We can't say that the Freedom and Justice Party is a monolith. There are generational differences that have been noted. Certainly there must be some Muslim Brotherhood members that were protesting in Tahrir. As there are fragments generally at the macro level of the Egyptian society one would assume that there will be fragmentation within the Brotherhood and what impact will that have in terms of the political dynamics in the country. Ashraf, what do you think the chances are for fragmentation? I think the fragmentation is already happening. It started immediately after February 11th and started immediately after the Warwick's departure. You had members of the Youth Wing break away and form I think it's called the Egyptian Current Party and that was founded by dissident young brothers. You had Abdel Minam Abul-Futuh who was a senior brother who had kind of been marginalized from the Brotherhood power structure in the preceding years and he broke away and is running for president and he's taking his followers with him. The splintering is already happening and will continue to happen but the Brotherhood is not going anywhere. They'll draw some new people they'll lose some people. It's inevitable that it's easy to keep your unity when there's a big bad that you're trying to topple. After that all the ideological differences come to the fore, maybe the power struggles become more prominent. So it's healthy but the Brotherhood is going to remain a primary player but the fragmentation, sure, it's happening, it'll continue. I think what's actually quite striking because it's true the fragmentation had begun and I went back and read some of what people were writing before and they said they're losing the youth, they're losing some of the more moderate Islamists and they're losing the Salafists. All true, in the end they performed beyond what I think most experts were saying even a week before the election. So yes, they've lost some people but as Asraf said they remain by far the strongest magnet and it's actually quite remarkable that there's so many splinter groups and you meet them all the time they were not able to capitalize on these tensions within the movement. I think it doesn't mean that the Muslim Brotherhood isn't going to face the challenges. Any movement, you know, just look at Hamas once they start governing all these contradictions come to the fore and they also have to compete with what is what you want to call it the right-wing version of Islam is the Salafists and how are they going to position themselves? They want to reassure both non-Islamists at home and the West and that anyone who meets with them that's the number one priority. They will tell you everything you want to hear. In my view they've mastered the art of saying of speaking a lot and saying nothing they want to make so sure that you're not going to say anything that somebody could be worried about but they are going to have members of parliament the Salafists who might introduce, if they want to embarrass them legislation on social issues on other issues that is going to make the Muslim Brotherhood have to make a real choice. Do we reassure and risk alienating our base or do we try to stick to our base where the Salafists want to drag us at the risk of alienating the West and those in our own country will be worried. I think that's going to be a challenge for the Muslim Brotherhood. I think they're more worried about the Salafists than they are either about their own internal problems or about the secular forces. But the Salafists are not going to take a position on foreign policy issues. Are their interests more internal? Because I think from the perspective of the U.S. when radical Islam becomes a problem it confronts foreign policy interests. And will it just be a matter of accommodation between the Brotherhood and the Salafists so that the Salafists can do their thing internally, domestically, socially? And then the Brotherhood and the military authorities can continue to control the foreign policy domain. Do you think the Salafists have an assertive agenda on the foreign policy? They might make a run at Camp David in some form or at least to modify Camp David that would be crowd-pleasing, I think. But beyond that, no, I think they're going to focus on a domestic agenda. And Rob points out a very interesting dynamic that could come forward and that the Salafists could really embarrass the Brotherhood in many ways and put them in comfortable positions where you bring forth some sort of domestic legislation that brings the country in line with whatever they think the Sharia is and you put the Brotherhood in a position of alienating the West and the secular liberal coalition partners by siding with this or you put the Brotherhood in a position of doing something that the Salafists can then say is non-Islamic. They can say, oh, no, power has changed them. They've gone soft on Islam. It's going to be fascinating. I'm kind of looking forward to watching this all play out. It's going to be amazing. I would say, though, because I do think that could be a dynamic. Right now, it's not what we're seeing. I mean, I met the Salafists in leadership in December and then in January. The progress, the evolution in a month was extraordinary. They've become the Muslim Brotherhood, when it took the Muslim Brotherhood years and years and years to become a moderate reassuring face. The Salafists are trying to do no matter of weeks. They've been taking PR crash courses. That's what the impression they gave. Absolutely. In December, I met with a leader and the answers he gave me were, you know, I wasn't entirely clear and I asked him, if I were sitting now with your Muslim Brotherhood counterpart, what would be the difference in what I'm hearing? And he said the difference is the Muslim Brotherhood would be lying. They tell you we want rights of women, respect the cops, democracy. They don't really believe it. We don't know if we believe it. We have tensions with them. I'm moving. It happened so quickly. So I can tell you now, some of us think, yes, we like democracy because it gives us a voice. Do we really believe that it's a right from a government? We're going through our learning process. Two weeks ago, I meet the leadership, all the right answers from a Western perspective. Yes, women. We don't impose show on anyone. It's an individual decision. We're not going to touch Camp David, as you say, PR classes, but at warp speed. I mean, it was very impressive to see how quickly they became those who they were denouncing only a few weeks earlier. No, it's going to be fascinating to watch. The cellophists especially, they're the wild card because these guys have not really had a live mic turned on them. They've been sort of in the shadows. And now they've got their own TV channels. They're being interviewed live on television. They're on the parliament floor. So, you know, having to build coalitions. So it's going to kind of be fun to watch. Yes, I just want to, I guess we have a very enthusiastic anxious audience. So I was going to just give it another five minutes. I just wanted to ask a little bit about U.S. foreign policy and whether or not the U.S. has a role in Egypt now. And, you know, given the internal dynamics, which, as you say, are very interesting and it will be interesting to watch, should the U.S. just play sort of a hands-off role and let the Egyptian politics sort of take their own turn? Is that even possible, given the U.S. support for the very strong, large support military assistance for Egypt? What is the perception of Egyptians and what is your sense of what role the U.S. can play in the context? I mean, definitely the U.S. is right to be treading carefully because, and I'm sure during the revolution, there was a lot of kind of debate and trepidation of where do we, what do we say, even if we, the U.S., are pro-revolution, if coming out pro-revolution could hurt the revolution. And I'm sure there was a lot of, you know, I always suspect, and Rob might have more insight into this, that, you know, in and around the military is much lauded and much praised decision to not fire on civilian protesters. I've always suspected there was a lot of very quiet, very firm U.S. arm-twisting on that or just kind of a quiet, don't you dare even think about it from Washington. So, you know, if that really happened, I'm grateful for it. But what should the U.S. do going forward? I'm sure it's very confusing, and I would kind of fall back to some of these metrics that I'm trying to devise as far as like, how do you judge a stable or a successful post-revolutionary landscape? And I think among the U.S. priorities should be is pushing a civilian, a genuine internal interior ministry reform, you know, be civil society, leaving civil society to grow without hindrance, without harassment, and that's obviously what's happening right now. My biggest concern, obviously in Washington, the big deal is the attack on the NGOs. And we're always mentioning IRI, NDI, Freedom House. There's a whole host of Egyptian NGOs that got raided on that day as well. And long after IRI and NDI get their files back and Sam LaHood gets on a plane and everyone hails a new era for Egyptian-U.S. relations, these Egyptian NGOs might be completely screwed. They might never get their files back. They might have had their work set back a decade. And I just hope that the administration keeps that in mind very sharp eye on leaving civil society to grow naturally without harassment. And to focus on the transitional reform that needs to happen. Two general comments. I'm sure we're going to get into more of U.S. policy and the question and answer, but point about relevance and then a point about effectiveness. You know, it's not entirely clear to me how much relevance the U.S. is going to have. I think it goes to the point Dashef was making about the rediscovery of domestic politics. Political leaders in Egypt are going to have an eye fixated much more on the street and domestic political opinion than they are on what's happening in the corridors of power in Washington. Very unlike the time of Mubarak where the relationship with the U.S. was a pillar of legitimacy. Today, that's not the case. So I think you're going to find, and I think the U.S. has already found to its detriment, that it doesn't have the kind of thought or you wouldn't see what you're seeing now with the NGOs, which is such a slap in the face, particularly, precisely at the time when the Egyptians need foreign assistance, they're doing that. I mean, it really tells you what they care about in terms of the balance between what they hear in Washington and what they hear on the streets of Egypt. Just an anecdote. I was doing a radio show and there was an Egyptian very well informed on it, and it was the day in November when, at three in the morning, I think the White House put out a statement criticizing the scoff for the violence against protesters. And at one point, the Egyptian journalist was asked, I think she was actually a journalist and politician, what did you think of the U.S. statement? She said, I know there was an EU statement. I think there was another statement. I didn't even know there was a U.S. statement, which I mean it was, and I know that the U.S. labored for hours about how to calibrate the statement. I think it said something about how less relevant the U.S. is, but then there's a question of effectiveness. And one thing that really struck me on this last trip, and you hear it all the time, and every time I hear it, it's hard for me to believe it, but the scoff and many other Egyptians believe it, so much that I can't dismiss it. They're convinced that the U.S. is engaged in a conspiracy to weaken, to fragment, to undermine Egypt's power. And that was certainly Mubarak's view, I think at the end of his tenure, but it's the view of the military establishment and perhaps more, that today what you're seeing on the street is very much a U.S. attempt. Part of this is pretextual. They want to blame an outsider. But I happen to believe that it's also a genuine belief they have. They can't imagine that all this wouldn't have happened with some foreign hand, and the most convenient foreign hand, or the most credible in their eyes, is the U.S. The U.S. also has a very mixed, is a generous word, reputation among other Egyptians. So you're not seeing Egyptians today rushing to ask the U.S. to intervene more, even on the NGO issue. I think there was a piece the other day pointing out how and many of the Egyptians we met were as critical of the U.S. funded NGOs as they were, or more so than of the SCAF. So I think the U.S. has to tread carefully, not just for all the bouncing of its own interest, but because it has the legacy of an extremely negative reputation having to do with its policies in Egypt, its policies in the region. And that means that sometimes what it's going to say is going to backfire because those, both in power and in public opinion, are going to react against what the U.S. says, not because of the content of what it says, but because of the perception and the problems of reputation that the U.S. has. Okay, we have a very anxious member of audience here. I'll give her the mic first. Thank you very much, Barbara Slavin, from the Atlantic Council. I want to talk about Egypt's role in the region. It's interesting that they would say that U.S. was trying to undermine Egypt's role since Egypt hasn't had much of a role in the last few years. The question is, can it play a role regionally? What factors do you see that might actually cause it to be able to overcome this domestic turmoil and play a role regionally? If Israel attacks Gaza again and kills a lot of Palestinians, will there be pressure to do something about the peace treaty? If Israel attacks Iran, will there be pressure to do something about the peace treaty? Or can we expect this year that it's just going to be Egypt focused inward desperately trying to get its affairs in order? Thanks. I think it's going to be a little bit of both. I think on the one hand, it's true that Egypt is much more internally focused, and the fact that the recent peace talks, if that's what they're called, are taking place in Jordan. It tells you something about diminishing Egyptian weight, which as Barbara, as you point out, is nothing new. And so I think it's going to take some time. I think for now, the main power Egypt has is a negative form of power. Sort of the power of the weak, as people used to describe when it comes to the Palestinians. When you go to Israel and you ask the Israeli officials about what leeway they have to do things in Gaza, for example, they say their main concern is how Egypt will react. Not that Egypt is going to react by military action, but they're going to be forced because of public opinion to cut diplomatic relations, to bolster their ties with the Palestinians, and they just don't want right now to have yet more problems with Egypt. I'm afraid that Egypt, because of its own public opinion, is going to have to take much more assertive stances. So when there was the attack against Elat several months ago, and there was speculation about whether Israel would re-enter Gaza, the Israelis I met said the key factor that led them to be more restrained in their reaction was that they were afraid of how a weak Egyptian regime would react. And I think that's going to be true for some time. At some point, Egypt will recover its role. I mean, part of Ashraf when he speaks very in his book and today about how a lot of this was Egyptians trying to recover their dignity and their role, I think there was an aspect of the sense that what role is Egypt playing in the region now? What humiliation, embarrassment is it that we now are a big player when Qatar and others are playing a much bigger role? I think that time will come. I once thought that it would come more quickly than I do now because I think the magnitude of the domestic problems is such that it's going to take a while for Egypt to recover its natural role but sooner or later it will come. I think that Egypt moving forward and it might take a while. They might be kind of self-obsessed and domestically focused for a while but I think a reforming Egypt could play a very positive role in the region. I think Egypt has been one of the factors dragging the region backwards for a decade plus. So an Egypt that's built around rule of law and a genuine meritocratic society and trusted national institutions could be a real beacon in the region. That's what I'm counting on. But in terms of current geopolitical issues certainly another flare-up in Gaza, another Israeli attack on Gaza is going to put the government, any government that exists under tremendous pressure to do more than has been done previously. And I don't think that means doing anything to Camp David. I don't think that the Camp David Treaty is under any threat in the short or medium term. I think there might be a request for some alterations to enable some more leeway on the Gaza border, on the Rafah border on what can go in and what can go out and that's a highly unpopular stance. Like basically Egypt being told from the outside what they can do on this border was a hugely humiliating thing for Mubarak that really hurt him domestically and I don't think they're going to let that one go by again. Beyond that, yeah, I think a lot of it, there's going to be pressure to treat Gaza differently and I think that's really the extent of it in the short term but I'd also like to say that having a situation where the Israeli government now has to worry about the opinion of the Egyptian people before taking an action, that's great. That's healthier than it's been in a long time because I think both sides, the way that Camp David has been practiced, both sides it's been unhealthy. I think Mubarak has known for decades that he could do whatever he wanted to his own people and he would still be a moderate as long as he kept to Camp David and the Israelis knew they could do whatever they wanted and not have to worry about public opinion in their largest and most powerful regional ally. That's not a real partnership, that's not actually peace. That's just counting on Mubarak to shove it down his people's throats. So I'm looking forward to, it's going to take a while and I'm not saying there's not going to be some serious bumps in the road but I'm looking forward to a much more mature Israeli-Egyptian relationship and this is the start of it. I want the Israelis to be worried about Egyptian public opinion. The Egyptians are worried about Israeli public opinion. Why not? I could piggyback on that because I think that's a very important point. I think that the relationship has been dysfunctional on both sides. The Israelis claiming that they're the only democracy in the region as if that was a bad thing but in fact they were very happy dealing with authoritarian regimes because they get away with things and the Egyptians clamoring for Palestinian rights rhetorically but in fact being perfectly happy to deal with whatever Israeli policies or US policies. So I think it's both interesting and positive. I agree completely. Ashraf mentioned Gaza. I just cut back from Gaza 10 days ago and it was interesting is when you speak to Hamas leadership in Gaza and they would echo a lot of what you said in terms of how they see Egypt. Number one, they don't think changes are going to come overnight. They're quite pragmatic. They say right now the people who are dealing with the Gaza file are the same people dealt with it under Mubarak but give it a year they say and policy towards Gaza cannot stay the same. Rafa cannot be dealt with as before. Egypt is going to have to be slightly more vocal and balance its relationship between Fatah and Hamas. They see this again as a longer term game but they certainly see sort of the winds of history blowing in their favor. At least I'm talking about the Hamas leadership in Gaza maybe slightly different elsewhere. Can you wait for the mic please because we have... I'm Farzani Rudi with Population Reference Bureau in Washington, D.C. Mr. Ashraf, you mentioned about the role of Tunisia played and the frustration of young people. My question and a lot it has been said about the role of young people. If Egypt had a population with age structure of Japan how would have you see this whole revolution would have evolved? Meaning a much older demographic? Right, I mean this young population were in proportion to the total population were less. I mean the impact of being so many young people... What percentage of the population is youth in Egypt? It must be 60 percent. What's the number that you've heard? I've heard any number of... 29 percent of the population is between the ages of 15 and 29. A third is between 15 and 29. Obviously there's this huge bubble of youth coming up and another wave before them that's this kind of lost generation that's 28 to 32 with nothing going on and no hope and no prospects. That was a huge factor. Of course the failure of the Mubarak government to provide economic opportunity to these multiple generations and possibly the failure to provide them with the skills to go out and earn some money for themselves without the socialist guaranteed public sector job infrastructure that's kind of going away. So no, it was huge. It was huge and part of it you can't blame the government for because it's a huge problem and I would hate to be the one in charge of solving it but a lot of money disappeared. A lot of jobs were handed out unfairly. I do blame the Mubarak government for failing to provide hope for these multiple generations and yes that did. That was one of the major factors fueling the revolution. But the youth were not the only ones in the street? No, the youth were not the only ones and one of the greatest things that I saw again and again during the revolution was multiple generation families in Tahrir and there was once a quote, the brief vice president, long time shadowy intelligence chief who served as vice president for like a week or two before Mubarak fell and he gave this obnoxious interview at one point too I think Christian Amanpour where he said, A, he mispronounced the Muslim brotherhood like four times, he called him the brother Muslimhood and B, he said, it's like oh yes, she asked what will you say to the protesters in Tahrir? He's like oh I will tell them to go home and I will tell their parents to come and get them and take them home. And I did a radio interview like that night with an American radio station and they mentioned that quote to me and I'm like that's hilarious because I just came back from Tahrir and I was talking to somebody who's there with their parents and their grandmother so that's not gonna fly. He's dealing with something much more than irresponsible reckless youth here and if they still think that's what's happening then that's why they're losing this game. I think it'll be interesting to see how the demographics of the protest movement change if at all going forward. We have a question here in the back. Gentlemen. Thanks, Zach Gold from Brookings. You started the conversation with one of the main reasons for the revolution was economics and yet we have not touched on the current economic problems that Egypt has as well as the insecurity police haven't been on the street banks are finally being robbed. I was wondering if you could address those issues. Thank you. I'll say very quickly and then I'd love to hear from Arshad but I think I did mention that those are gonna be the biggest challenges that the new government is gonna have to deal with. Economic situation which is, the paradox, one of the many paradoxes of the revolution was that it was fueled in part by economic distress and a sense of economic deprivation both of which have been made worse I can't say because of the revolution but because of the circumstances that exist today and so that's a huge factor and the insecurity which is both natural when you're in a state of uncertainty but also because a lot of the police who feel that they were sort of the scapegoats of what happened they're like, okay, see if you could deal with the situation without us and both of those I think are extremely dangerous and one of the things I felt again, I certainly haven't been in Egypt as much as Ashraf I felt a lot of pent up frustration and violence I saw more street fights in Cairo than I'd ever seen and I was there for five days and I saw some extremely brutal dangerous fights with people taking baseball bats and that's very anecdotal but my impression was here are people who are who don't really see a future the economy is not doing well, the tourism I mean if you go to the Cairo airport I was there a month before the revolution a year ago as a tourist and then I went back at about the same time this year and the airport was empty and the hotels are empty I mean for an economy that deals that needs stability for tourism that needs stability for foreign investment it's going to be, it's extremely harmful and this is one of the factors one of sort of the variables that I I don't know how they're going to deal with it and it could go very badly, very quickly if the economy doesn't recover if the security situation doesn't recover who knows what happens next but you live there every day Sure No exactly as Rob said I mean the economy wasn't going all that great before the revolution I mean it was one of those situations where Egypt was one of the IMF World Bank darlings but the situation on the ground was just it just wasn't tangible you just had more and more economic desperation and this visible and resentment flowing from seeing the haves seeing the top 7% just living so well right in front of you while everything else was so hard and since that from that humble beginning things have gotten much worse it is the tourism is a major thing and tourism is not just the seaside communities and the guys who live who work at the pyramids tourism is one of those things that extends into every aspect of the economy and that's dried up or is operating at very low capacity and every time there's one of these flare ups you know the irony is I keep saying street action is the only thing that produces concessions but every time you get shots of street violence on television that's like two more months of tourists going and it's huge and that is one of the aspects that has turned the population against the ongoing protests you know the phrase that keeps popping up and I see it in the newspapers and I hear it from everybody and it's agilite linteg the wheel of production we have to get the wheel of production moving and the first time I heard that I thought it was hilarious I thought it was this weird kind of Stalinist hangover of a term but it's important it's really people are listening to that and they think the protesters are holding up the wheel of production they think they're holding the country hostage for their irrational demands so that's you know the economic situation is not great and it's not getting better and the perception of insecurity is very bad and I do hold the curious thing to me is that people blame the protesters for the lack of security and I get into these debates with people they don't blame the police for not showing up for their jobs like I've had these arguments with people in Egypt where they kind of act like it's the protesters fault I was like I'm sorry I missed the part where we killed 100,000 police officers they're sitting at home why are you not mad at them and why are we not yelling at the interior minister to get these people back on the job so there's a bit of a disconnect there but yeah it needs to right itself fairly quickly and I'm not optimistic that it will it's one of the larger concerns Peck Simpson freelance writer I spent 10 years in Poland starting in 1990 and the average wage was $35 a month for everybody coal miners a little more doctors a little less but the whole system collapsed they really had no choice but to start over I'm curious as to how when you had robust tourism before the protests there still was this economic inequality and there still were these people who couldn't afford to have good jobs or get good jobs after they got their degrees to move out with a country that is still there the whole country hasn't collapsed you don't have an opportunity an obligation to start over again I don't know how you go about rebuilding an economy not just to get the old economy back but to rebuild it so that there is a wider opportunity for everybody I'll say a couple of things very quickly intangible things one, an actual, genuine, sincere and enforceable anti-corruption crusade that's going to make a difference not only in that less money will disappear but that's going to encourage foreign investment I mean, I think there's a whole host of multinational corporations that were willing it speaks volumes about how attractive a market Egypt is that all these corporations were willing to pay the 10-20% corruption tax overhead just to do business in Egypt those companies still want to do business in Egypt if we actually take away if we even reduce it by 50% the corruption if it's only 10% of the money that disappears that's going to be an improvement and that's not even taking into account the medium-sized businesses that look at Egypt and go oh, let's just stay out of that we can't afford the corruption overhead so you can fix things in a way that brings more money in and keeps more money in the public sphere actual tax collection the only taxes that are collected is if you're in a multinational or a big corporation it's taken from your paycheck but income tax not really there's so many loopholes I don't even know the percentage that's paid but there are ways a properly running country will have better economic prospects but my sense is that if you're going to run those campaigns and you have to accept sort of the status quo that's emerging so do you protest against SCAF or do you protest for anti-corruption and toward the minister of economics to do something about corruption so I think there's a conflict or a quagmire I'm conscious of the fact that we only have five minutes so I'm going to take a couple of questions and then you can answer them together we have one in the back here and one up here hi Mark Kim at first the question I have is about the upcoming policy debate thought I recognized you how are you good to see it's been a while been bagged at yeah exactly back couple years yeah the question is $1.3 billion that the US gives in foreign military financing that obviously there's going to be a great policy debate whether we should in fact give it this year recognizing the responsibilities of Camp David or if that should be used as a method with the SCAF some of who are here at present to make sure that they keep to their commitments is that a good enough or capable enough tool to get the attention of the SCAF and second question you talked a lot about Mubarak being the Pharaoh nobody's really talked about the Sphinx and that's Tantawi I'd be very interested in your comments about the Field Marshal how he's playing with the SCAF and is he the right guy to transition the SCAF out of a job yes thank you I'm Eric Moutou from the International Monetary Fund just to continue on the theme of the economy as you know the Egyptian authorities are currently discussing with the IMF and other international organizations on a possible package of financial assistance my question to the panelists is how do you see the potential role of the IMF and other international financial organizations in supporting financially the Egyptian transition avoiding a crisis and do you think the Egyptians themselves are ready to accept a role for the IMF and others recalling that in June there was a package of assistance worth $1 billion that was signed and sealed but that was subsequently rejected by the authorities so I'd be interested to hear your views on that thank you maybe I'll make a few points on the 1.3 billion I mean it's interesting obviously it got SCAF's attention they've been in contact between Tantawi and President Obama they've been trying to reassure but not enough attention that it's led the SCAF to reverse the decisions that were made on the NGOs yet in fact things got even worse with the prohibition on some of the NGO members leaving the country so I think at some level the Egyptian military can't even imagine that in the long run the US will withhold that money because they see it so much part of the post camp David architecture and they also believe that it's an America's strategic interest to have this kind of relationship with the US military so I suspect that they believe that ultimately it will all be fine they may be more aware now that this is not solely an administration decision that Congress has a real say on this and the mood on the Hill is not particularly favorable right now to the military particularly because of some of the very egregious steps they took so it's a difficult instrument to use because in some ways I think it does from the perspective of the administration it would be quite disastrous if they were to cut the building but on the other hand their hands are not completely free I've heard some Egyptians tell me that over time they'd be prepared to live without the 1.3 billion which in any event they say helps America's economy just as much because all of that as you know the money then has to be spent in buying weapons from the US I suspect that for now they're going to find a way out of this but I think it may be a taste of things to come is Tantari the right person I'm not sure that anyone has inherited the job they were prepared for because they all are sort of remnants of another era so I would not say Tantari was born and bred to be the person who has kind of transitioned Egypt from military to civilian rule the last thing I'd say and as we were discussing earlier the mismanagement just in terms of tactics if you know you're going to ultimately make a concession make it when it looks like you're doing it magnanimously not under pressure because you send all the wrong messages my sense is he's not actually the right person and we'll have to see what happens after June-July I mean does he still have that position some people say he'll leave other people say that there's temptation for him to run for president which I kind of doubt but no I think right now the military leadership is dealing with a deck of cards that it's not familiar with it's trying to protect as much of its interest as possible while at the same time transitioning to civilian rule which from their perspective will give them the power they hope will leave them with the power they want without the responsibility that they fear okay yeah using the military funding I like what Rob was saying that the I think the military is starting to come to grips with the fact that just having tight relations with the Pentagon is not enough they're starting to understand that their standing in Congress is not as good as it was a year ago and that that's important and I'm sure they're not quite sure what to do with that using the military funding as a lever I suspect as Rob said that the military would not take that threat credibly I think that they think at the end of the day the money's going to come from America and I'm not sure I don't know where I stand on that whether I think they're right about that or not as far as how it's used public perception of that I know within the activist community the quote-unquote Camp David money they don't think it's important at all they think that most of it doesn't stay in Egypt and that which does stay in Egypt stays in the military so it was never I know many long-time activists that have argued passionately that it's worth walking away from Camp David that the Camp David money is overrated as far as Tantawi I mean I'm not sure how many people here remember this a couple months ago it was like November-ish maybe October when Tantawi suddenly appeared downtown wearing a suit shaking hands kissing babies and acting for all intents and purposes like a man running for political office and then he just went away and nobody knew what to make of that like whether it was whether they were just messing with us or something or whether he was trial ballooning something but at the end of the day the guy is you know more than from the old regime super symbolic of the old regime he's well into his 80s and frankly he was rumored to be in very poor health long before the revolution so staying power the man to lead the country forward no I think it's much more there's always been a lot of speculation about some of the officers just below him a man named Sammy Anen who is I believe chief of staff would be his his title and he was actually in America when the revolution kicked off and he's very much an interlocutor between Cairo and DC Ahmed Shafiq who was a former head of the Air Force and former minister of civil aviation who served very briefly as prime minister here I guess he was Mubarak's last prime minister and lasted a couple of weeks after the revolution but he's still kind of I mean he's not active military anymore but he's a name and he's a player but yeah, Tantawi is I do think Tantawi is on his last legs okay we will have to close now as we've hit the scheduled end time so I want to thank everyone for coming Ashraf is going to stick around and he'll be here to sign copies of which have arrived okay so we have the books out in the lobby and Ashraf will stay and I want to thank Rob and Ashraf for the conversation and I thank the audience thank you