Ankara moves on Damascus

After a visit by the US secretary of state to Istanbul, Turkey and Washington have agreed to work together to hasten the end of the Syrian regime, writes Al-Sayed Abdel-Maguid in Ankara

Not a few Turks muttered curses as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Istanbul last week for talks with senior Turkish officials, and perhaps Clinton herself will have even caught a glimpse of the demonstrator who charged towards her convoy, shouting "stop your offences against Islam and the Muslim people" as she arrived in the city.

The man was immediately arrested and brought in for questioning, and though the results of the investigations have not been made public, some observers have conjectured that he could have been an agent of the Syrian regime, told to thrust himself before the television cameras in order to rouse anti-American sympathies.

Others say that the man could have been an Iranian who had taken advantage of the situation to decry the "Great Satan," or he could have been a Turk hired for that purpose. No observer suggested that the man was an ordinary Turkish citizen unaffiliated with any particular ideological camp who merely wanted to voice his outrage at the rule of cynical opportunism and double standards.

Yet, such thoughts nevertheless concluded an article by a columnist in a small-circulation Turkish weekly last week, which criticised what it called Turkey's plunge into the embrace of the West and into the arms of the US in particular.

On the day the article appeared, a fire-fighting helicopter crashed near the south-Western coast of Turkey, killing all on board, after the Russian-made aircraft had been hired in order to try to prevent the spread of forest fires near the popular resort town of Fethiye. The crash was seen by some as a sign that Turkey had no alternative to its marriage with the US.

Clinton's visit seems to have been a last-minute arrangement, as she had been on a tour of African nations and a stop in Istanbul had not been on her original schedule. Commentators immediately started speculating that something to do with the latest developments in Syria must have cropped up, and meetings were hastily sketched in with Turkish leaders as a result.

Following the meetings, the two sides agreed to work together to hasten the fall of the regime headed by President Bashar Al-Assad in Syria, aiming to set the country on course to a new future without Al-Assad but with the ruling Syrian Baath Party. A broadly sketched timeframe was also announced.

The next few weeks will probably now see steps being taken towards the creation of no-fly safe zones along the Syrian border with Turkey, especially in the light of the continued flight of Syrian refugees, which now number more than 53,000 and which observers expect to increase to 100,000.

Clinton saw no reason to hide the fact that Ankara and Washington were cooperating closely on such aims, and she confirmed reports in the Turkish press that the US embassy in Ankara had been coordinating with the Turkish government in order to give the rebel Free Syrian Army that is fighting forces loyal to Al-Assad material and military support.

Such assistance will apparently now increase, and it appears that Washington and Ankara have also been heeding the appeals of opposition groups in Syria to let their voices be heard and not for all Western assistance to be given to the opposition Syrian National Council.

Turkish alarm bells have been rung by the activities of Kurdish separatist movements in the border region contiguous with large tracts of Turkish territory in the south and south-east of the country, with reports in several newspapers stating that the Al-Assad regime is now using Kurdish separatists as proxies in a fight against Turkey.

Earlier this week, Syria released 1,200 prisoners who are members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), offering to train them in waging guerrilla warfare against Turkish military assets and infrastructure in Anatolia.

The release of the prisoners, Al-Assad's response to statements made by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Turkey would intervene militarily in Syria if the latter continued to allow PKK elements to infiltrate the country, was meant to be provocative, luring Turkey further into the Syrian quagmire.

Meanwhile, the Turkish army has stepped up manoeuvres along the border with Syria. Tanks, troop transport vehicles, ground-to-air missiles, and other hardware have been tested for their combat abilities, and aerial-defence systems and night-surveillance cameras have been on the alert, scanning the border in anticipation of hostile movement from the Syrian side.

It was against this backdrop that Clinton earned high marks from her Turkish counterparts, particularly for her assurance that the US administration shared Turkish concerns and that it would not allow the PKK to establish bases that could threaten Turkish security.

While such words may have gladdened the powers that be in Ankara, they are unlikely to resolve the Kurdish problem, especially given the mounting threats and counter-threats and the spectre of civil war if the Kurdish people's legitimate demands are not met.

The subject of Iran also arose in Clinton's talks with Erdogan, Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, and she did not conceal her anger at the news that Turkey had been giving economic aid to Iran in violation of international sanctions.

However, while Davutoglu was engaged in talks in Ankara with his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi, Turkish diplomats issued statements denouncing the Iranian chief-of-staff for having blamed Turkey for the deteriorating situation in Syria.

Davutoglu and Salehi may have smiled and embraced warmly before the television cameras, but that does nothing to refute the existence of tensions between the two countries. Turkey will not have been pleased with the reports aired on Iranian television to the effect that the Syrian army had arrested a Turkish general reviewing troops from the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo and taken him to Damascus for questioning, for example.

This suggests that Iran has been keeping close tabs on Turkish movements with respect to Syria. Had Iranian-Turkish relations been as smooth as the television pictures suggested, the Iranian leadership would have sent a delegation to Ankara asking Turkey to use its influence to free the 48 Iranian hostages being held hostage by the Free Syrian Army.

Yet, annoyed as Ankara may have been by the provocative statements coming out of Iran, it did not feel the need to respond in kind, perhaps not wanting to risk its ties with Iran unnecessarily.

Erdogan confined himself to a diplomatically worded, but pointed statement, saying that he had been "saddened" by such remarks from a government that was "shunned by so many countries in the world and that had no stronger defender of its rights than Turkey."

Meanwhile, the conference that Iran recently hosted on the Syrian question in Tehran turned out to be an embarrassing disappointment for the country, as it indicated that Tehran had few friends, given the handful of invitees that turned up -- something that will have warmed hearts in Ankara and Washington.

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Difficult decision

Political factions are divided over participating in an anti-Muslim Brotherhood demonstration on 24 August, Mona El-Nahhas reports

Trying to maintain Egypt's entity as a civil state, several political figures and movements are calling upon the public to take to the streets on 24 August in a bid to virtually overthrow the Muslim Brotherhood. Mohamed Abu Hamed, former parliamentary member, and Tawfiq Okasha, chairman of the recently banned Faraeen TV station, will lead the protesters who stressed the peaceful nature of their demonstration. "24 August will be a new revolution against an illegal group which is trying to build a state within a state," Abu Hamed said in press statements.

Abu Hamed is accused of having ties with figures of the former regime. Okasha has used his channel to attack the 25 January Revolution and the Brotherhood. He is facing criminal charges for inciting the assassination of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi who took office last month.

Movements known for their support of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and of former presidential candidate Ahmed Shafik including the Memorial Cenotaph demonstrators and the Egyptian Front for the Protection of the Armed Forces are said to be taking part.

Since the 24 August demonstration was called for over the Internet, there has been much talk about targeting headquarters of the MB that day. In retaliation or defence, the MB is reportedly using armed militia to protect their headquarters.

The MB has drawn up a plan to protect its headquarters on the day of the demonstration through coordinating with the security apparatus and the Armed Forces. Group members and supporters were assigned with forming public committees that will be responsible for safeguarding the headquarters on that day. MB lawyer Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Maqsoud said complaints accusing Okasha, Abu Hamed and Internet web pages of incitement, assaulting and burning down the group's headquarters have been filed at the State Security Prosecution.

Fearing that Egypt would enter into a circle of bloody violence on that day, several political parties, despite opposing policies of the MB and decrees made by President Mohamed Mursi, still decided not to take part in the 24 August demonstration. The 6 April Youth Movement, the Kifaya Movement, the Second Egyptian Anger Revolution Movement and the Revolution Youth Federation together with liberal and leftist political parties have so far announced their boycott of the demonstration.

Abdel-Ghaffar Shukr, a leading founder of the leftist Socialist Popular Alliance Party, stressed that his party will not take part in any demonstration called for by Okasha. "The call for overthrowing President Mursi in this way shortly after his election contradicts with democratic concepts," Shukr said. "Regardless of our reservations about Mursi's performance, we have other peaceful tools to press for our demands," Shukr noted.

The Social Democratic Egyptian Party declared its strong opposition to the demonstration. Party members urged the necessity to adopt a peaceful and democratic approach when opposing the policies of a certain political trend. "Although we have reservations of the MB policies and their attempts to control the media and the press and to build a religious state, we are not going to take part in such demonstration simply because those who call for it are trying to bring back the former regime," said Ayman Abul-Ela, a member of the party's higher committee.

The liberal Wafd Party decided earlier this week to boycott the demonstration. "The Wafd respects the ballot box that brought the MB to the top of the political scene. Everyone should respect electoral legitimacy," Wafd Chairman El-Sayed El-Badawi stated.

During a rally held on 9 August at Kom Hamada city, in the Beheira governorate, former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahi stated that he will not participate in the 24 August demonstration, which he said "is not going to be peaceful".

Sabahi pledged to defend the headquarters of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political arm of the MB, if it is attacked. "He who allows the burning of the FJP headquarters would allow the burning of all other party headquarters," Sabahi said. While opposing Mursi's policies, Sabahi said he stood firmly against attempts to overthrow the president. "A free democratic election is the only means to do this," Sabahi said, calling for giving Mursi another 100-day deadline to implement his electoral programme.

In a statement issued after a meeting of its secretariat-general on Sunday, the leftist Tagammu Party called for widespread public action "to oppose attempts which aim at turning Egypt into an MB emirate, ruled by the office of the supreme guide of the group." The statement called for standing firmly against attempts to control the state-owned media and press and announced the party's total objection of all "dictatorial measures" taken by Mursi and by the MB cabinet against voices from the opposition camp. Finally, the statement called for respecting freedoms, basic elements of the civil state and citizenship rights.

Egypt's National Party, one of the newborn parties founded after the 25 January Revolution said in a statement that party members will participate in the demonstration to express their rejection of decrees made by President Mursi, which it added served only the interests of the MB.

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Mursi stands up

Four weeks ago, the assumption was that the military would oust the newly elected president, but this week that same president removed the generals, reports Dina Ezzat

This week, Mohamed Mursi, Egypt's first freely elected head of state, acted against the generals making up the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) in week six of his presidency. Mursi, also the country's first ever civilian president, comes from the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood and took power on 30 June following a narrow electoral victory against one of the former aides of ousted president Hosni Mubarak.

During his first days in office, Mursi was considered both inside and outside Egypt to be a weak president who might not make it through his four years in office. Having entered the presidential elections as the Muslim Brotherhood's second choice, its first choice having been disqualified for legal reasons, Mursi was seen by many as the man elected to ward off Ahmed Shafik, Mubarak's last prime minister, and prevent what would otherwise have been a defeat for the 25 January Revolution.

Mursi was seen as a man walking in the shadow of the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, to whom every member of the group owes loyalty, the Brotherhood's deputy supreme guide, Khairat El-Shater, its original candidate for president, and Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Mubarak's former minister of defence, who refused to use the military against the demonstrators during the 25 January Revolution.

Tantawi had been running the country as head of the SCAF until power was transferred to the civilian president. However, this did not take place until the military had issued a "constitutional declaration" perceived across the political spectrum as limiting Mursi's power.

Before taking the presidential oath of office, Mursi officially resigned from the Muslim Brotherhood and from its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, which he had previously headed. In theory, this meant breaking his oath of loyalty to Badie, even if, as sources in the presidency and the Brotherhood have told Al-Ahram Weekly, Mursi still keeps in direct and indirect touch with Badie.

As for El-Shater, who had appeared with Mursi during the first days of the presidential campaign, he disappeared half-way through the election process, it being "Mursi who had asked the supreme guide to ask El-Shater to stay away, because he was offended at being called the 'Brotherhood's spare tyre,'" said a source from the group.

Once Mursi was in office, El-Shater disappeared, yet "the key members of Mursi's presidential campaign and of his current presidential team are originally from the campaign of El-Shater," commented a former member of the Brotherhood. Mursi and El-Shater keep in touch through these aides, and "when El-Shater went on a tour that included some Arab and Asian countries recently to try and attract investment to Egypt, he kept Mursi in the loop about his contacts and was supported with information from Mursi's office," he added.

In week three of his presidency, which should last four years according to the Constitutional Declaration issued by the SCAF in March last year, Mursi attempted to sideline Tantawi by issuing a decree calling for the parliament, dissolved in June by decree of the constitutional court, to reassemble. However, on this occasion the parliament only briefly reassembled, and "many of us thought that Mursi and the Brotherhood were not ready for a fight with the SCAF," one retired military source said. "Though it turned out that he was only waiting to attack again."

On Sunday, Mursi did attack, when the president, who had never really been accorded the treatment due to the country's military commander-in-chief, issued a decree ordering the retirement of Tantawi and the SCAF's second-in-command, Sami Anan. The two generals obeyed the decree, and they have accepted to act as advisors to the president.

The decree came against the backdrop of considerable disagreement between the two men, especially in relation to the management of the Rafah crisis following the killing of 16 Egyptian border guards while they were on duty on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip and Israel earlier this month. It also came following a presidential decree to remove the head of intelligence and several military generals.

Aides to the president say that he was disappointed at Tantawi's failure to act in line with a plan agreed by the president and the minister of defence regarding the security vacuum in Sinai. They also say that Mursi was angered by Tantawi's refusal to remove a second group of generals that the president had concluded had failed to live up to their responsibilities and had even been engaged in attempts to embarrass him personally.

The same aides say that a decision to allow Tantawi to retain his post as minister of defence and head of the SCAF pending the election of a new parliament and the formation of a new government later this year or early next year was taken some weeks ago, prior to the composition of Mursi's first cabinet and a few days before the Rafah attack.

However, Mursi had found it impossible to accept Tantawi's behaviour and had decided to act against him, the sources say, though accounts differ on when the decision to remove Tantawi and Anan was taken. Some sources say it was taken the day Mursi was unable to attend the funeral of the border guards in Cairo, seen as an affront to public opinion, while others say it was taken last Friday when Tantawi told Mursi that he would not dismiss the generals the president wanted to see removed.

On Saturday, Tantawi did not go to his office, and Anan was received by Mursi, being told that an announcement was going to be made "shortly". Both men "knew of the matter and the scheduled announcement", said Yasser Ali, official spokesman for the president, on Monday.

The move to remove Tantawi and Anan, Western diplomats in Cairo agree, was coordinated with Washington, which had originally proposed the retirement of the top SCAF generals in order to end the duality of power in Egypt. Today, the same diplomats are not concerned at the fate of the Armed Forces, considering that this is not threatened despite Tantawi's removal, but rather the fate of Mursi's presidency and the way in which it may now develop.

"What needs to be seen now is whether Mursi will turn into another Mubarak and into a dictator, though an Islamist rather than a military one," said one Cairo-based diplomat. With his decision to force the retirement of Tantawi and Anan, Mursi issued a set of decisions that made him not just the sole holder of executive power, but also the holder of legislative power pending the election of a new parliament. He also holds the reins of the new constitution, since he will be responsible for appointing a new drafting committee in line with Islamist tastes.

The same diplomat said that Mursi's holding of "too many prerogatives" is worrying, especially since they are held by a president who promised, but failed, to assemble elements from across the political spectrum in his government. This has "only two women, and one of them is a Copt, and she is the only non-Muslim in a government headed by an Islamist even if he is not a member of the Brotherhood," the diplomat said.

Mursi had earlier promised to have several vice presidents, including a woman and a Copt, but in fact he has only one more or less Islamist vice president, who is originally a policeman, and not a judge, and who is the brother of the minister of justice.

Fears at Mursi's turning into a dictator are not just current among Western diplomats observing the democratisation process in Egypt, but are also spreading among some non-Islamist politicians, who chose at the 11th hour to support Mursi against Shafik and who now say they fear he has already taken the path of excluding everyone other than "obedient Islamists", in the words of one politician.

The fact that journalists and TV anchors have been told they should scale down their criticisms of Mursi is also worrying, as is the fact that Mursi has decided to suspend his daily radio talk show in which he answered questions from the public. As a result, his decision to remove Tantawi and Anan, though it ends the duality of power in Egypt, could lead to much more than that.

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The political value of murdering Egyptians

The media has been fast to blame Gaza for the Sinai terrorist attack -- so fast it suggests an ulterior agenda, writes Ramzy Baroud

Two Land Cruisers filled with about 35 well-built gunmen in ski masks and all-black outfits appear seemingly out of nowhere. Behind them is vast, open desert. They approach a group of soldiers huddled around a simple meal as they prepare to break their Ramadan fast. The gunmen open fire, leaving the soldiers with no chance of retrieving their weapons.

This is not an opening scene out of a Hollywood action movie. The massacre actually took place at an Egyptian military post in northern Sinai on 5 August. The description above was conveyed by an eyewitness, Eissa Mohamed Salama, in a statement made to the Associated Press (8 August). The gunmen were well trained. Their overt confidence can only be explained by the fact that "one militant got out a camera and filmed the bodies of the soldiers."

One is immediately baffled by this. Why would the masked militants wish to document the killings if they were about to embark on what could be considered a suicide mission in Israel? "The gunmen then approached the Israeli border," with two vehicles, one reportedly a stolen Egyptian armoured personnel carrier. The BBC, citing Israeli officials, reported that one of the vehicles "exploded on the frontier", while the other broke through the Israeli border, "travelled about two kilometres into Israel before being disabled by the Israeli air force" (BBC News Online, 7 August). According to the BBC report, citing Israeli sources, there were about 35 gunmen in total, all clad in traditional Bedouin attire.

Their mission into Israel was suicidal, since, unlike Sinai, they had nowhere to escape. But who would embark on such a logistically complex mission, document it on camera, and then fail to take responsibility for it? The brazen attack seemed to have little military wisdom, but it did possess a sinister political logic.

Only 48 hours before the attack, the media was awash with reports about the return of electricity in the Gaza Strip. The impoverished Strip's generators have not run at full capacity for about six years -- since Hamas was elected in the occupied territories. The Israeli siege and subsequent wars killed and wounded thousands, but they failed to bend Gaza's political will. For Gazans, the keyword to their survival in the face of Israel's blockade was "Egypt".

The Egyptian revolution on 25 January 2011 carried a multitude of meanings for all sectors of Egyptian society, and the Middle East at large. For Palestinians in Gaza, it heralded the possibility of a lifeline. The nearly 1,000 tunnels dug to assist in Gaza's survival would amount to nothing if compared to a decisive Egyptian decision to end the siege by opening the Rafah border.

In fact, a decision was taking place in stages. Hamas, which governs Gaza, was a branch of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. The latter is now the lead political force in the country, and, despite the military's obduracy, has managed to claim the country's presidency as well.

In late July, a high level Hamas delegation met in Cairo. All the stress and trepidation of the last 16 months seemed to have come to an end, as Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal, his deputy, Moussa Abu Marzouq and other members of the group's politburo met with President Mohamed Mursi. The country's official news agency reported Mursi's declarations of full support "for the Palestinian nation's struggle to achieve its legitimate rights". According to Reuters, Mursi's top priority was achieving unity "between Hamas and Fatah, supplying Gaza with fuel and electricity and easing the restrictions on the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt."

Juxtapose that scene -- where a historical milestone has finally been reached -- with an AFP photo of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak standing triumphantly next to a burnt Egyptian vehicle that was reportedly stolen by the Sinai gunmen. The message here is that only Israel is serious about fighting terror. Israeli newspaper Haaretz's accompanying article started with this revelation: "Israel shared some of the intelligence it received with the Egyptian army prior to the incident, but there is no evidence Egypt acted on the information." This was meant to further humiliate Egypt's military.

Naturally, Israel blamed Gaza, even though there is no material evidence to back such accusations. Some in Egypt's media bounced on the opportunity to blame Gaza for Egypt's security problems in Sinai as well. The loudest amongst them were completely silent when, on 18 August 2011, Israel killed six Egyptian soldiers in Sinai. Then, Israel carried out a series of strikes against Gaza, killing and wounding many, while claiming that Gaza was a source of attack against Israeli civilians. Later the Israeli media dismissed the connection as flawed. No apologies for the Gaza deaths, of course, and AP, Reuters and others are still blaming Palestinians for the attack near Eilat last year. Then, Palestinian factions opted not to escalate, to spare Egypt an unwanted conflict with Israel during a most sensitive transition.

None of that seems relevant now. Egypt is busy destroying the tunnels, continuing efforts that were funded by the US a few years ago. It also closed the Gaza-Egypt crossing, and is being "permitted" by Israel to use attack helicopters in Sinai to hunt for elusive terrorists. Within days, Gaza's misfortunes were multiplied and once more Palestinians are pleading their case. "Haniyeh calls on Mursi to open border crossing closed since Sunday's Sinai attack, say[ing] 'Gaza could never be anything but a source of stability for Egypt'," reported Reuters.

Israeli officials and analysts are, of course, beside themselves with anticipation. The opportunity is simply too great not to be utilised fully. Commenting in Egypt-based OnIslam, Abdel-Rahman Rashdan wrote that according to the Israeli intelligence scenario, "Iranians, Palestinians, Egyptians, and Al-Qaeda operatives all moved from Lebanon to attack Egypt, Israel and defend Syria."

In Western mainstream media, few asked the question of who benefits from all of this -- from once more isolating Gaza, shutting down the tunnels, severing Egyptian-Palestinian ties, embroiling the Egyptian military in a security nightmare in Sinai, and much more?

The Muslim Brotherhood website had an answer. It suggested that the incident "can be attributed to the Mossad." True, some Western media outlets reported the statement, but not with any degree of seriousness or due analysis. The BBC even offered its own context: "Conspiracy theories are popular across the Arab world," ending the discussion with an Israeli dismissal of the accusation as "nonsense". Case closed. But it shouldn't be.

Before embarking on a wild goose chase in Sinai, urgent questions must be asked and answered. Haphazard action will only make things worse for Egypt, Palestine and for Sinai's long-neglected Bedouin population.

The writer is editor of PalestineChronicle.com.

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Bonaparte calling

-Majiri ?ê" currently showing on many satellite channels ?ê" is among the very few audiovisual works that have dealt with this critical period. In Egyptian film and television, it is preceded only by the late Youssef Chahine's 1985 film Adieu, Bonaparte, screened at the Cannes film festival that year, which starred the French actor Michel Piccoli and the Egyptian actor Mohsen Mohieddin who has since retired from the acting profession as a result of the rise of a form of religiosity that prohibits the arts ?ê" which became evident in the Egyptian film industry as of the end of the 1980s.

***

In Napoleon wal Mahroussah, the screenwriter Azza Shalaby did not rest content with documenting historical fact but sought to create a comprehensive and precise mosaic of the social and political fabric of Egypt during the three years in question. Shalaby says she spent over six months studying everything that has been written about the French Campaign in Arabic and French with the help of historian Helmi Shalaby, after which she spent nine months writing the serial.

The historical moment at which the French Campaign occurred was an extremely critical point in Egyptian history: the Protected, as Cairo was called, was at a peak of instability and political flailing. Shalaby had planned on giving each episode a title of its own ?ê" an idea she later abandoned for practical reasons and in order to avoid underplaying the interconnectedness of the series as a whole ?ê" but the first episode was to be called "Who rules Egypt?" It is a question that seems particularly urgent in the attempt to make sense of the French Campaign; and it is not easily answered. The first few episodes demonstrates the multiplicity of political decision-making forces, evidencing not so much plurality in the modern democratic sense as chaos. At the time it is clear there are very many influential figures in politics:

Murad Bey (1750-1801), played by Seif Abdel-Rahman, represents the summit of hidden or secret power; he is not the actual ruler. Murad Bey shares power with Ibrahim Bey (1735-1817). Egypt, which has been an Ottoman province since the Ottomans defeated the Mameluks in 1517 was still in effect ruled by the Mameluk beys while nominally under the Sultan-Caliph and the Sublime Porte. Shalaby hints at the power struggle between the two beys of the time, giving plenty of space of Murad's influential wife, Nafissa Al-Bayda (known as the Mother of the Mameluks), played by Laila Elwi, who enjoyed special spiritual status among everyday Egyptians at large.

However it is the Battle of Imbaba, depicted in the first few episodes, that sets out the sort of political details that form the structure of the serial. Through it we find out that Murad Bey has been in conflict with the Sultan since he stopped contributing some of the tax he collects to the Ottoman treasury. At the same time it is his disagreement with Murad Bey that drives Ibrahim Bey to withdraw from battle at the start, leaving Murad with some fellahin and other civilians to face the canon of the French army alone ?ê" whereupon Murad Bey flees to Al-Fishn, Beni Souief in Upper Egypt, pursued by a force led by General Desaix. Ibrahim, who has fled to Al-Salihiya, is pursued by another force led by Bonaparte himself.

It is also evident that Al-Azhar was the most influential institution in Egyptian history throughout the decades preceding the French Campaign; it was the weakness of political power that gave the sheikhs of Al-Azhar, headed by Grand Sheikh Al-Sharqawi (Ahmad Maher), enormous kudos. Political conditions had not permitted the emergence of a strong, institutionally sound independent state; Egyptians had no one to defend their rights apart from the sheikhs of Al-Azhar, who sometimes interceded on their behalf with the Mameluks to reduce taxes. This role was also performed by a variety of figures with special status in society: one scene reveals how Nafissa once interceded with Murad Bay and other Mameluks to reduce taxes.

***

In one of his rare interviews following Adieu Bonaparte, Chahine said something to the effect that, when an artist attempts to present history, the artist is in fact trying to say something about contemporary reality through history. His own film, for example, was a statement on how it was the failure of Egyptian society to open up to outside inspiration and develop that rendered it unable to repel the French Campaign. This tendency towards isolation, when Egypt closed in on itself, was an aspect of life in the 1960s-80s, and it drove Chahine to produce a remarkable art work to comment on it.

This too was an aspect of similarity between past and present that Shalabi drew on, but it wasn't the only one she registered. She was rather more drawn to the resemblance between the political, social and human details of that period to the present. This indeed is what becomes all too obvious in many episodes. Shalaby borrows accounts of the security breakdown that followed the French Campaign, for example to draw parallels with the security breakdown during the January 2011 revolution. It manifested in the early shutting of shops and workplaces, and people avoiding the streets after dark. In her script Shalaby hints at what the average citizen felt during the recent--and extended--security crisis.

In this context Shalaby uses her characters' dialogue to condemn institutions, groups and individuals: the sheikhs of Al-Azhar when they take issue with the Mameluks for leaving the borders open to invasion and paying attention only to tax collection and the accumulation of wealth which they later transport to the countryside for protection against loss or damage even as the average citizen is suffering debilitating shortages in basic necessities; Ali the ironsmith (Sherif Salama) condemns the sheikhs of Al-Azhar when they try to convince people to pay "the loans" requested by the Campaign, indicating that they--the sheikhs--are exempt. On more than one occasion Shalaby underlines the sheikhs' failure to stand up to the French and their readiness to follow their orders, especially after nine of them form a ruling diwan or council that is in effect a cover for French military rule. At one point they even declare those young men who wage the Cairo revolution against the French outlaws ?ê" something that shocks many including Ali and his mother Khadiga (Sawsan Badr).

On many occasions such condemnation adopted the perspective of class, since while the upper classes are concerned for their own interests about instability, it is the lower classes who suffer the brunt of both poverty and direct conflict with the French; for the majority of those involved in the resistance were among the fellahin or poor artisans, while merchants and sheikhs are too worried about themselves and their families to take part in any conflict: this was clear in Ali and his friend the stonemason to defend Cairo at the Battle of Imbaba, while Ali's brother Hassan (Bahaa Tharwat), a merchant married to an older merchant's daughter Ward (Arwa Gooda), whose father Mansour (Sabri Abdel-Moneim) represents a different class, decides to flee Cairo with his family as soon as he finds out about Napoleon's victory at Imbaba.

In this episode another tragedy occurs: the caravan in flight from Egypt is attacked by marauding Bedouins who rob them of their possessions, abduct their children, even raping some women. In the course of this Hassan loses his child Selim, who cannot be brought back until Hassan, on Ward's insistence, hazards a visit to the Bedouins accompanied by an emissary of Nafissa who bears a precious dagger as a gift and a message from Sheikh Al-Dawakhli of Al-Azhar to the Bedouin chief.

What goes for security of breakdown goes equally for sectarian tension, with the Christian merchant Saadalla, Ali's friend, complaining of being attacked by people who take issue with him sharing the religion of the invaders. Yet Ali and Said, Saadalla's employee, manage to repel the contemptible attack. In a later episode Ali finds out that his friend has barely survived a knife attack for the same reason.

No doubt Shalaby weaves an effective dramatic web: At the start of the series we have a fellahin family in Al-Fishn, made up of Ruqaya (Farah Youssef), her two children and her mother (Hanan Yosusef) and her father (Sameh El-Seraiti) who has lost the use of his eyes due to the ophthalmia rife throughout Egypt at that time. Ruqaya loses her two children when they are abducted by Murad Bey's soldiers, then her village is shelled by the French and both her mother and father die ?ê" whereupon she emigrates to Cairo. Here Shalaby presents a detail at once violent and beautiful: Ruqaya's mother, terrified of the French invasion, protects her daughter against rape by sowing her vagina shut in the eighth episode ?ê" one of the strongest, since it documents an extremely important detail of how the victims of the French Campaign are the fellahin and the poor, who are forced to hand over what little they have including their own children to Murad Bey's army who outdoes the French by looting the villages before they do.

Ruqaya lives with her sister in law Zeinab, who is married to Ruqaya's brother Mahmoud (Ashraf Moseilhi), sharing the house with Zeinab's father the ironsmith (Hadi El-Gayyar) and her mother Khadiga and brother Ali. The move pushes the drama forward as Cairo is where the political and social conflict reaches its peak. Here is a lower middle class family, in contrast to Hassan's upper middle class family. Thus the extremely intricate social mosaic presented in the serial.

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Shalaby says she enlarged several maps of the Cairo of the time in order to work out where and how these families lived ?ê" something that benefited her greatly ?ê" since she managed to place the ironsmith's family in Ruwai'i not far from the house of Nafissa Al-Bayda. Maps also allowed Shalaby to discover that the French merchant --Magllon--and his wife (Nafissa's friend and French teacher) lived nearby, something that benefits the drama too, explaining how Nafissa came to speak such fluent French long before the Campaign arrived in Cairo. Thus Nafissa manages to play the role of intermediary between leaders of the Campaign and ordinary Egyptians even as her husband wages a war of attrition against the French. From the first episode it is clear that the historical material, skillfully married to the drama, is extremely precise and structurally sound. Indeed this serial may differ from other Ramadan TV dramas in that it will be impossible for a viewer who has not seen the first episodes to follow.

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No doubt such complexity and precisions requires a similar level of directorial competence ?ê" something that does not always happen with many practical problems coming through clearly in the series: Here is a solid drama with countless errors of orchestration. One such error is the lack of extras and groups and the failure of the director to manipulate his filming style to hide that. Shalaby for example discovered that the first French forces did not arrive on the Egyptian coast through Abu Qir in the east; a large number of battalions in fact arrived at Agami in the west and walked a distance of several kilometers in the sand. The relevant scene showed too few French soldiers who did not in the least look French although Al-Majiri could have used European extras at least for the first few lines of soldiers. Many such scenes are not convincing.

And the beginning is a precursor to the many major events that will happen in the course of the next three years which the serial depicts. In the Battle of Imbaba it is said that Murad Bey will face the French with 20 thousand soldiers not counting the fellahin and others; and the way to present that would have required some 200 extras visually manipulated to yield a grand battle. Yet Al-Majiri fails to deploy those directorial tricks, with the result that the battle comes across as a very pale shadow of what it could've been. And the same goes for the first and second Cairo revolutions. Such weakness in battle scenes is unjustifiable in the light of the competence with which the director presents the famous naval battle between the French and the British led by Nelson ?ê" in which the majority of the French ships were drowned.

Another directorial problem is the choice of some actors for certain scenes: Neslson and other leaders of the British navy speak English with a strong Egyptian accent. This too is unjustifiable in comparison to the director's casting of the French army roles with the well-known French actor Gregorire Colin (star of the 1996 Locarno Golden Lion-winning Nenette and Boni, directed by Claire Denis) in the role of Bonaparte.

It is also noticeable how Al-Majiri seems to avoid scenes of violence that we find out about in the course of the drama. One important scene that reveals the violence and blood thirst of the French-allied chief of police, Farterromman (Sherif Sobhi), in which he cuts off the tongue of a merchant who announces the drowning of the French fleet before the public, is very badly executed; and one wonders if it is a weak point of the director's, which forces him to stay away from such scenes even though violence under the French Campaign was far more common than in other historical period. Either the director could not imagine some of what Shalaby wrote, or was unable to execute them. Yet on the whole this remains a powerful work with much effort in the way of writing, costume design (by Soha Khalid) and some stunning performances by young actors: Sherif Salama, Farah Youssef, Arwa Gouda; they were matched by such seasoned actors as Elwi, Badr and El-Gayyar, while Maher fails to go beyond his affected theatrical style and Seif Abdel-Rahman fails to act at all.

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Too little, too late

Iran's conference on the Syrian crisis failed to attract key regional and international players, despite the presence of Russia and China

Delegates from countries having "realistic and principled positions" on the Syrian crisis were supposed to gather in Tehran on 9 August for a "consultative conference" sponsored by the Iranian government, writes Bassel Oudat in Damascus, but despite the presence of delegations from Russia and China only 28 countries showed up, with key players in the crisis staying away.

Iran's efforts to resolve the crisis were met with suspicion by western and Arab states, most of whom boycotted the conference, saying that it was an "attempt at a distraction from the bloodbath going on on the ground and at strengthening Al-Assad's rule." It was "an insincere attempt to reconcile the warring sides," according to western diplomats, with Arab officials saying that "Iran's hands are covered in Syrian blood."

No senior officials attended the conference, and the only foreign minister attending came from Iraq. Contrary to Iran's expectations, it was mostly attended by diplomats from embassies in Tehran, a first sign that the conference was a failure.

In a statement made at the end of the conference, Iran warned that any sudden end to the rule of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad would have "disastrous effects on Syria," and it called for talks between the regime and the opposition to find a political solution to the crisis, reiterating Iran's opposition to foreign military intervention in Syria.

The conference came hard on the heels of several political, military and intelligence setbacks suffered by the regime in Damascus over the past few weeks. Among these were the recent defections of the Syrian prime minister, MPs and senior diplomats from the regime, which has lost control over large areas of the country, including in the northern governorate of Aleppo.

Meanwhile, Damascus also failed to protect 48 Iranians who were taken hostage by the armed opposition in Syria, Iran implicitly acknowledging that these had been members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard by saying that some of them had served in the Guard and had had their IDs with them.

The cracks in the Syrian leadership have taken Iran by surprise, implying that the Iranian leadership now recognises that the regime in Damascus is on the edge of collapse and something must be done to save what can be saved. Tehran has been trying to find ways of cutting its losses, with last week's conference indicating that it is trying to find ways of regaining its balance, even if this is now too late.

"After Syrian revolutionaries took control of large areas of the country, the Iranian leadership has been off-balance and confused," Loay Safi, director of the planning and policies bureau at the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC), told Al-Ahram Weekly. "It is now trying to take control of political initiatives as a cover for military operations by the regime and to buy time in the belief that the regime can resolve the conflict through military means."

"One of the goals of the Iranian conference was to mislead domestic and international public opinion by trying to convince them that Iran and Russia were exerting efforts to resolve the crisis politically. This would have hidden the real role these two countries have been playing in placing their national interests above the right of the Syrian people to establish a regime that upholds their freedom," Safi said.

The Tehran conference came at the same time as intensive Iranian diplomatic movements in the region, with the Iranian foreign minister visiting Ankara and the chair of Iran's Supreme Security Council, Said Jalili, going to Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad and Iranian diplomats visiting several Arab states.

The Tehran gathering also took place a few days ahead of a scheduled meeting of the Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to discuss the Syrian crisis, at which some Arab states intended to lobby member states to suspend Syria's membership of the organisation.

The tour of Iranian politicians in the region and the statements oscillating between hardline and more ready to compromise indicate that Tehran is indeed off balance and is trying to raise the Syrian crisis to a regional level in a bid to convince the international community that it should be involved in any solution to the crisis in Syria and that its interests should be protected.

On the eve of the Tehran conference, Al-Assad met with a six-member Iranian delegation headed by Jalili, envoy of the supreme guide of the Iranian Revolution. Traditionally, guests sit at Al-Assad's right, but on this occasion Al-Assad sat to Jalili's right, and the meeting was carried out by Al-Assad alone. According to the Syrian opposition, such departures from protocol indicate that "Al-Assad is under Iran's thumb."

Meanwhile, Tehran has been making covert threats of war to Ankara should Al-Assad be toppled, saying that it also holds Turkey responsible for the fate of the Iranian hostages. The escalation against Turkey is aimed to make it stay out of the battle for Aleppo and to dissuade it from establishing safe or no-fly zones in Syria.

During his visit to Lebanon, Jalili seemed to be seeking to replace Syrian influence in the country with that of Iran, declaring Iran's support for Lebanon and its support for the "resistance".

According to Safi, "Iran is not qualified to lead diplomatic action because it is too close to the Syrian regime. It has also made no efforts to contact the Syrian opposition, attacking it instead. The Iranian and Russian leadership is thus still gambling on the Syrian regime, despite its criminal actions."

"The Tehran conference not only failed in terms of the level and type of the participants, but also because it lacked the basic conditions for success. Iran knows that the first step to reach a political solution is to pressure the regime to stop its military crackdown and convince Al-Assad and his security aides to step down as a prelude to a transitional political process. However, Iran knows that the regime will never step down," he said.

Iran, Russia and China have been standing behind the Syrian regime since the uprising began in the country 17 months ago. Tehran has rejected a deal requiring Al-Assad to step down as part of a political transition, and the Syrian opposition has accused Iran of sending military personnel, lightweight weapons and tactical and communications expertise to Syria.

The Syrian opposition is also angry about Iran's defence of Al-Assad, asserting that the Syrian people are now not just fighting Al-Assad, but are also fighting Al-Assad's sponsor Iran. It claims that the military operations carried out by the regime have been run from Tehran, which is intervening to assist the regime even as the international community hesitates to arm the Syrian revolutionaries.

As the US and Turkey have been discussing post-Al-Assad Syria and contemplating a no-fly zone in the north of the country as an option to hasten the fall of the regime, Iran has been hosting a conference aiming to find a political solution based on democracy, a concept alien to Tehran.

Regional and international players believe that a political solution is no longer on the table, at least not in the format suggested by Iran, namely dialogue and power-sharing between the regime and the opposition.

Observers believe that Iranian-Syrian relations are now being tested, especially after leaks suggesting that if Tehran abandons Damascus it could rehabilitate itself in the eyes of the international community, ending the economic sanctions against it as part of a deal that could include recognition of Iran's nuclear programme.

The question remains of how solid the Syrian-Iranian alliance now is: will both countries float or sink together, or is the alliance contingent on domestic, regional and international calculations that could be revised at any time?

Will Iran, in other words, sell out Al-Assad's regime and try to escape the deluge, or will it fight on, all guns blazing?

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