Istanbul on the Nile
Why the Turkish Model of Military Rule Is Wrong for Egypt
Steven A. Cook
August 1, 2011
In the weeks and months since Egypt’s military officers forced then
President Hosni Mubarak from power and assumed executive authority,
the country’s military rulers have shown an interest in applying what
many have taken to calling the `Turkish model.’ Spokesmen for the
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), along with some civilian
politicians, have floated the idea of replicating in Egypt today
aspects of a bygone era in Turkish politics.
Despite some similarities between the Egyptian and Turkish armed
forces, Egypt’s officers would be ill advised to try to emulate their
counterparts in Turkey. Not only would they be bound to fail but, in
the process, would make the struggle to build the new Egypt far more
complex and uncertain.
Egypt’s military commanders are not so much interested in the latest
manifestation of the Turkish model, in which a party of Islamist
patrimony oversees political and economic reforms as part of an
officially secular state, but rather an older iteration of it. This
version of the Turkish model was a hallmark of Turkey’s politics from
the time of the republic’s founding in 1923 until the early 2000s. It
offers a template for civil-military relations in which the military
plays a moderating role, preventing — at times, through military-led
coups — the excesses of civilian politicians and dangerous ideologies
(in Turkey’s case, Islamism, Kurdish nationalism, and, at one time,
socialism) from threatening the political order.
Turkey’s political system had a network of institutions that
purposefully served to channel the military’s influence. For example,
the service codes of the armed forces implored officers to intervene
in politics if they perceived a threat to the republican order, and
military officers held positions on boards that monitored higher
education and public broadcasting. Meanwhile, various constitutional
provisions made it difficult for undesirable groups — notably,
Islamists and Kurds — to participate in the political process.
It remains unclear exactly what the SCAF believes in.
The most prominent among the military’s channels of influence was the
Milli Guvenlik Kurulu, or National Security Council, (known by its
Turkish initials, MGK). Turkey’s 1982 constitution directed civilian
leaders to `give priority consideration’ to the council’s
recommendations so as to preserve `the existence and independence of
the State, the integrity and indivisibility of the country, and the
peace and security of the country.’ The MGK’s directives were rarely
defied. The officers who served on the council had a definition of
national security that ranged well beyond traditional notions of
defense policy, including everything from education and broadcasting
to the attire of politicians and their wives.
In some ways, the SCAF would not have to do much to approximate the
Turkish model on the Nile. The two militaries do share some important
similarities. For example, like the Turkish General Staff, which
worked tirelessly to ensure the political order that Mustafa Kemal
Atatürk and his commanders established after the end of World War I,
the Egyptian officer corps has long maintained a commitment to the
regime that its predecessors, the Free Officers, founded in the early
1950s. In both the Turkish and Egyptian cases, this sense of
responsibility stems from a sense that the military, equipped with the
best organization and technology, is set off from the rest of society
and is the ultimate protector of national interests. This outlook
tends to breed a suspicion — even hostility — toward civilian
politicians.
In addition, both militaries developed robust economic interests
directly tied to their countries’ political systems. In Turkey, the
armed forces became part of an economic landscape that favored large
holding companies controlled by a few established families whose
economic interests were connected to the status quo. In Egypt, the
military itself is directly involved in a wide array of economic
activities, including agriculture, real estate, tourism, security and
aviation services, consumer goods, light manufacturing, and, of
course, weapons fabrication.
Both the Turkish General Staff and Egypt’s present-day officers have
an aversion to politics and the day-to-day running of their countries.
They prefer to leave the responsibilities and risks of governing to
civilians, or, in Egypt’s case, to a delegate from the armed forces.
This sort of arrangement is precisely what it means to rule but not
govern.
Now, with the SCAF effectively in control of Egypt, there is evidence
that some Egyptians, both civilians and officers, are studying the
Turkish model and its political implications. Since assuming power in
February, the Egyptian military has taken measures to shield
commanders from prosecution in civilian courts, a protection Turkey’s
parliament just stripped from its own officer corps. They have also
floated proposals through non-military representatives to shield the
defense budget from parliamentary oversight, maintain ultimate
authority over defense policy, and even establish a National Defense
Council that resembles features of Turkey’s MGK before that body was
brought to heel in 2003 through constitutional reforms. And the
participation of military officers in Egypt’s electoral commission
looks a lot like the Turkish military’s surveillance of society
through membership on various government boards.
If the officers’ moves seem like a backhanded way of creating the
conditions favorable for an enduring political role for the Egyptian
army, they are. Still, members of the SCAF have been careful to say
that they will abide by Egypt’s new constitution when Egyptians ratify
the yet-to-be written document. They say that whatever role the
Egyptian people assign to them is the role that they will respectfully
fulfill. Of course, if the Egyptian people want some approximation of
the Turkish model, then the military is bound to discharge that
mission.
Yet if the members of the SCAF truly want to be like their Turkish
counterparts, they are going to have to be more directly involved in
the constitution writing process. Although some of the intellectuals,
judges, and other figures on the National Council who are charged with
drafting constitutional principles favor the military’s continued
presence in politics, their support is unlikely to be enough given the
mistrust with which revolutionary groups and others view the military.
In Turkey, although the military was not directly involved in writing
the 1961 constitution, the country’s officers stepped in a decade
later to tighten up aspects of the document that they deemed to be too
liberal. A little less than ten years later, Turkey’s generals stepped
in again and directly oversaw the writing of a new constitution (which
the country is now considering abolishing and replacing with a new
document) that not only reinforced existing levers of military
influence but also created additional means for the armed forces to
intervene in the political system.
The development of a Turkish-style role for the Egyptian officer corps
also presumes that there is broad elite support for such a system. In
Turkey, the officers enjoyed the support of judges, lawyers,
academics, the press, big business, and average Turks who were
committed to the defense of Kemalism against far smaller groups of
Islamists and Kurds who were long considered to be outside the
mainstream.
Despite some high-profile advocates, such as the politician Amr Moussa
and the judge Hisham Bastawisi, there are few influential supporters
for the military becoming the arbiter of Egyptian politics. This does
not bode well for the military should they seek to replicate the
Turks. On the eve of recent protests intended to pressure the SCAF to
meet various revolutionary demands, more than two dozen political
parties demanded that the military outline when and how it will hand
over power to civilians.
The only place where the military has support is among the Muslim
Brotherhood. This is significant. Indeed, the Brotherhood was a
central player in an effort to bring a million people into the streets
last Friday to demonstrate their support for the SCAF. Yet as
important as the Brotherhood’s support for the military may be, the
officers should take little comfort from its embrace. The Islamists in
the Brotherhood do not support the military as much as they want to
undermine the revolutionary groups, liberals, and secularist parties
that they oppose.
In addition, the Brotherhood and the officers are — just as they were
in the early 1950s — competitors rather than collaborators. For its
part, the Brotherhood can make claims to being better nationalists and
potentially better stewards of Egypt than the armed forces, which are
tainted by their association with the United States and Mubarakism.
Whatever backing the Brotherhood is currently offering the military
and the SCAF is surely tactical and does not extend to carving out a
political role for the officers after a transition to civilian
leaders.
Finally, the most important feature of Turkey’s system under the
tutelage of the military was the Turkish officers’ singular
ideological commitment to Kemalism. This was a motivating factor for
generations of officers and their civilian supporters.
In contrast, it remains unclear exactly what the SCAF believes in. The
Egyptians are not die-hard secularists, democrats, Islamists, or
authoritarians. Other than generic platitudes about democracy and
respect for the Egyptian people, the officers seem only interested in
stability, maintaining their economic interests, and preserving the
legitimacy of the armed forces despite having been the backbone of a
thoroughly discredited regime for 60 years. As a result, the SCAF
seems to be willing to hand over power to anyone who can guarantee
those three interests. It is this kind of political opportunism that
is fatal to a Turkish model on the Nile. Without a compelling
narrative about what Egyptian society should look like and the role of
the military in realizing this vision, it is unlikely that the
officers will garner the kind of support necessary in order for elites
to voluntarily give up their own potential power in favor of military
tutelage.
For all of the political dynamism, energy, and creativity that
Egyptians have demonstrated since Mubarak’s fall, the country is also
wracked with a host of debilitating problems: persistent protests,
economic problems, political intrigue, intermittent violence, and a
general state of uncertainty. To some Egyptians, it seems that the
military’s firm hand is necessary to keep all of the country’s
political factions in line while building the new Egypt. After all,
the Turkish officers tamed Turkey’s fractious and sometimes violent
political arena, and the country is now freer than ever before.
But such analysis is backward. Turkey’s democratic changes, which
remain far from complete, happened despite the military, not because
of it. Regardless, attempts to replicate in Egypt aspects of Turkey’s
experience would be met with significant opposition, increased
political tension, more uncertainty, and potential violence, all of
which create the conditions for the emergence of new authoritarianism.
With the many potential drawbacks of trying to copy the Turkish armed
forces, the Egyptian officers should not even bother trying.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68003/steven-a-cook/istanbul-on-the-nile