Can Tony Blair Mess up Egypt even Worse?

http://www.juancole.com/2014/07/blair-egypt-worse.html

Can Tony Blair Mess up Egypt even Worse?
By Juan Cole | Jul. 3, 2014

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has agreed to advise the government of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Blair maintains that he will not be paid to do so, but critics suggest that he will have an opportunity to engage in influence-peddling with British firms investing in Egypt. Blair is rumored to make $30 million a year from consulting and business deals.

That a former prime minister of a major European democracy should publicly associate himself with the regime of al-Sisi is shameful. Al-Sisi has ordered a brutal crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood sit-ins that left over a thousand dead and went on to have some 20,000 Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters arrested. Dozens of major Muslim Brotherhood figures have been arbitrarily condemned to death, often without much in the way of formal court proceedings (presentation of evidence, ability to face one’s accuser, etc.). The government has also turned on the progressive youth movements that demanded a recall election last year this time, jailing dozens of prominent youth leaders for daring to engage in unauthorized protests. But unauthorized protests were precisely what allowed al-Sisi to come to power.

One of the attractions for Blair in working with the United Arab Emirates and al-Sisi is apparently that the latter two have turned against the Muslim Brotherhood. Blair is a profound Islamophobe and hates the Muslim religious Right, even though he has been perfectly happy to shill for the Christian religious Right. Al-Sisi has declared the Muslim Brotherhood a “terrorist organization” despite the group’s decades of peaceful organizing and avoidance of violence. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have also lobbied the UK government to investigate the Brotherhood in Britain as a terrorist group.

Since Blair was so good at railroading Iraq on false charges of having weapons of mass destruction, he no doubt has been hired in part to do a similar number on the Brotherhood. (The Muslim Brotherhood and I don’t share values, but they are not terrorists and there are no grounds to exclude them from a legitimate role in a democratic society. If the Morsi group committed crimes while in office, they should be tried, but you can’t inflict collective punishment on the whole organization).