Egypt turns to Russia. "Putinism in Cairo? The Rise of the Russian Model"
Vladimir Putin on Thursday hailed the possibility of a run for the presidency of Egypt by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the architect of the July 3 coup against the elected Muslim Brotherhood government. Al-Sisi flew to Moscow this week in search of such support and of arms sales. The implicit message is that he is unhappy with the criticism of his coup by American politicians and threats on Capitol Hill to delay further US arms aid (the US gives Egypt $1.3 billion a year in military aid and $200,000 a year in civilian aid; these amounts have been overshadowed in $20 billion in pledges for this year alone from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait). Egypt is allegedly seeking $2 bn of arms from Russia, to be paid for by the United Arab Emirates, including fighter jets and helicopter gunships.
Al-Sisi’s bromance with Putin may be a very bad sign for Egypt’s political future, because he may want not only arms and diplomatic support from Moscow but also approval for his war on independent journalists and demonization of his political enemies. Both these tactics are reminiscent of Putin’s own.
Putinism as defined by Anne Applebaum of the London School of Economics consists of several distinct political repertoires, including:
Managed elections
Managed media (helpful for the managed elections)
Corporate capitalism
Hydrocarbon rent-seeking (similar to Saudi Arabia)
Demonization of political critics as foreign agents
Fear of citizen mass mobilization as a CIA-sponsored “color revolution"
Another problem is that the European Union is Egypt’s largest trading partner, and Europe wants the officers to go back to their barracks. Europe has a great deal of leverage over time that will allow it to at least try to combat the turn to Putinism.
http://www.juancole.com/2014/02/putinism-cairo-russian.html
Another attraction to a dictator is that having Russia as your arms supplier frees you up to use your military as you see fit. Assad has had much more freedom to use his military to defend himself than Mubarak had. And one of them is still in power and the other is not.
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