Is It Egypt's Turn Now? Anti-Sissi Campaign Gaining Traction on XEgyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and his allies fear online calls for an uprising - including the trending hashtag 'It's your turn, Dictator' - may spark offline protests, inspired by the fall of Assad in Syria
This is a story worth watching, but posts on X are not usually a bellwether for anything. Journalists tend to overstate the importance of social media, where armchair activists can write what they want risk-free, unlike actual events on the ground. This is probably since the reporters spend so much of their own time within their own social media echo chambers.
There are superficial similarities between pre-revolution Syria and Egypt - both had dictators and an Islamist opposition. But Egypt already had its regime change in 2012 when the Muslim Brotherhood won elections. Islamist rule quickly became unpopular and there was mass public support for the military coup by now-president Sisi. Average Egyptians have no appetite for the Islamists to return to power, and the Islamists are the ones who are behind the social media campaigns that so impress clueless journalists.
The place to look next is not Egypt but Iraq.
Six notable Iraqi Sunni politicians issued a statement on December 14 calling for a “comprehensive national dialogue” to address political and economic grievances.The officials emphasized the need to address issues that have caused “widespread public discontent and anger,” including corruption and “injustices in prisons.” The officials also emphasized that Iraq should be an independent country void of external influence. The officials rejected the use of violence to achieve political transformation and reforms. The Baghdad-based Center for Political Thought interpreted the statement as a warning to the Shia Coordination Framework that the Iraqi federal government could face a major “restructuring” if it does not address these grievances.
So far the Iraqi leadership has been rejecting calls to reform.
The Iranian backed militias in Iraq are clearly nervous about the Syrian revolution, so much so that they declared that they would stop attacking Israel. This indicates that the Iraqi people are not interested in being used as pawns in Iran's proxy game.
Iraq is about 55% Shia and 40% Sunni, but many of the Shiites are nationalist and do not want Iranian influence either. Prominent Shia cleric Ayatollah Ali al Sistani is one of them. He seems to support a recent US backed initiative to dismantle the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella group that includes militias more loyal to Iran than Iraq - including groups that have fired drones at Israel.
The Arab world doesn't like to back losers, and Iran has been looking a lot like a loser over the past several months. Iran still make daily promises to attack Israel directly, but after two months of those threats no one is taking them seriously, and Iran knows that Israel would respond with far less restraint than its October reprisal attack.
The "strong horse" model is still a major factor in Arab politics and Iran's horse looks mighty sickly to the Arab public.
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