• Looming and parallel succession crises  - John R. Bradley
How did the paths of these once radically different countries thus converge?

• Egypt's legitimacy crisis in the aftermath of flawed elections  - Amr Hamzawy
Egypt's 2010 parliamentary elections have left behind a political scene that is simultaneously frustrating and puzzling.

• Saudi succession affects a broad circle of countries  - Theodore Karasik
Iran will take advantage of the succession.

• Iran's interests  - Sadegh Zibakalam
None of the complications that Mubarak's succession presents for Iran exists in the case of Saudi King Abdullah.

Looming and parallel succession crises
 John R. Bradley

The Saudi-owned satellite television station MBC broadcast a soap opera during Ramadan 2007 that celebrated the life of King Farouk. The Egyptian regime, which came to power by ousting Farouk in 1952, had initially tried to scupper an Egypt-based production of the same series by refusing funding and limiting access to the relevant historical sites. The Saudi monarchy's subsequent decision to embrace the series therefore took on political overtones, especially when it proved to be hugely popular among the Egyptian masses.

The real irony, though, was that the Egyptian regime should have been so hostile to the prospect of the series airing in the first place. After all, the pre-Nasser monarchical model, of father handing down power to son, would now seem to be favored by the Mubarak dynasty as much as it is by the Saudi royal family. Indeed, the rehabilitation of Farouk might even perhaps have been usefully employed as subtle propaganda by the Mubarak regime itself, although to be fair political subtlety is hardly its strong point.

What is indisputable is that, while from the 1920s until the 1970s Saudi Arabia and Egypt were the Arab world's polar opposites, it is now possible to talk of looming succession crises in both countries that also increasingly resemble each other, despite the rhetoric, in terms of populist Islamist fervor and limited political representation. How did the paths of these once radically different countries thus converge? And how do the two distinct succession battles relate to broader geopolitical and religious issues the hoo-ha over the soap opera helped to obscure?

The al-Saud ruling family's conquest of the vast territory named after themselves in 1932 was the result of the violent suppression of tribal and religious opponents and the imposition of strict Wahhabi hegemony. Cairo at the time was, by contrast, celebrated for its religious diversity, progressive Islamic intellectualism, and parliamentary democracy. Gamal Abdul Nasser, for all his own dictatorial tendencies, knew a backward Islamic theocracy when he saw one, and his tirades against the Saudi monarchy, on the back of his ousting of Farouk, found enormous traction throughout the Persian Gulf.

However, since the oil boom of the 1970s, Egypt's diminishing role in regional affairs has corresponded to the al-Saud's meteoric rise. One result has been the irrevocable Wahhabization of Egyptian society. Anwar al-Sadat invited the Muslim Brotherhood back from exile in Saudi Arabia, using their Salafism to counter the leftists. Meanwhile, millions of impoverished Egyptians travelled to work in Saudi Arabia, also becoming exposed to Wahhabi social norms that they, too, would eventually bring back home. That the political stagnation and social decay during Hosni Mubarak's three decades in power have increased the Islamists' appeal was confirmed this month in a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center. It revealed that a majority of Egyptians now support stoning as a punishment for adultery, hand amputation for theft, and death for those who convert from Islam to another religion: all part of what passes for an official legal code in Saudi Arabia.

That things in Egypt are now so directionless that Farouk, in the midst of an Islamist revival, has become an object of nostalgia might at first glance seem good news for the pro-Gamal Mubarak forces, or at least not bad news. But there remain, of course, crucial differences between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Not the least is that Egypt is still, nominally at least, a democracy, whereas in Saudi Arabia hereditary rule is its founding principle.

The passing on of power in Saudi Arabia after King Abdullah's death may well be messy, and will certainly be lacking in transparency, but the various branches and different generations of the royal family will ultimately reach a consensus in private, as they always have in times of crisis. Widespread talk of a split in the al-Saud's ranks, and possible social unrest, are as usual wide of the mark. The process of private consultation is accepted, however grudgingly, as inevitable by the majority of the Saudi people, who will patiently await a public announcement and be most eager to see that social order is maintained.

In Egypt it is precisely the intense public scrutiny the Mubarak dynasty will face if Gamal is anointed as president-to-be, along with attempts to reconcile the move with the country's superficial democratic process, that will be the biggest obstacle to a smooth dynastic transition of power. As such, the question of saving face may actually be an important factor in whether Gamal decides to stand for president, if the military establishment gives the go-ahead.

Should he decide not to, the risk for him is that, in addition to being humiliated and subsequently sidelined by the new regime (with all the implications that has for his business interests), his failure will also be claimed as a crushing victory by the Islamist-led opposition that is fiercely opposed to the idea of hereditary rule. But if Gamal is "elected" president it will be popularly perceived as the final nail in the coffin of Egyptian democracy, the Islamist-led opposition will likewise be galvanized, and the risks of a popular revolt cannot be discounted.

Either way, the consequence will be an acceleration of the Egyptian regime's tried and tested strategy of adopting the Islamists' agenda as a way of pacifying its most vocal critics. Those who stand to benefit in the long run, in other words, from Gamal's dilemma, whichever way he falls, are the Islamists. The Saudization of Egyptian society will continue to deepen, like a coastal shelf, and how the Mubarak regime must envy the al-Saud's iron grip on power in their country even as their Wahhabi agenda so threatens his own.-Published 9/12/2010 © bitterlemons-international.org

John R. Bradley is the author of "Inside Egypt: The Land of the Pharaohs on the Brink of a Revolution" (2008) and, most recently, "After the Arab Spring: How Islamists Hijacked the Middle East Revolts" (2012).

Egypt's 2010 parliamentary elections have left behind a political scene that is simultaneously frustrating and puzzling. The frustration is readily apparent--domestic observers and some local and international media correspondents have documented numerous violations that marred the elections. Most notably, security forces staged an organized intervention on behalf of the ruling National Democratic Party's candidates, hindered some judges overseeing the elections from doing their job, and blocked many observers from either entering the polling stations or remaining long enough to evaluate the election process. Vote-buying was widespread and acts of violence at polling places resulted in some loss of life and damage to public property. This dishearteningly lengthy list of violations has greatly limited the integrity, transparency, and competitiveness of the elections. It has also stripped the credibility of the ruling establishment's promise to hold free and pluralistic elections of which Egypt would be proud--and which would have been a huge step forward on the path of democratization.

For the next five years, Egyptian citizens will have an NDP-dominated People's Assembly. The NDP won over 90 percent of the seats, with opposition and independents' share declining from 24 percent in the 2005-2010 parliament to less than 10 percent today. Despite its relatively strong numbers in the last parliament, the opposition was still unable to stop the NDP from pushing through its constitutional amendments and legislative action agenda, and was ineffective in its watchdog role and repeated attempts to hold the executive branch accountable. One would assume, then, that the ruling party's almost absolute monopoly of the legislative process in the new People's Assembly will mean the opposition, with very little representation in parliament, will enjoy an even more extremely flimsy oversight role.

The 2010 parliamentary elections, by almost completely unifying the legislative and executive branches, will only further aggravate the existing problems in Egyptian politics. The People's Assembly will have a ruling party controlling 90 percent of the seats and a stunted opposition with only a handful of non-influential deputies, while the Muslim Brotherhood (whose deputies were the most effective watchdog within the opposition) and the liberal Wafd Party are completely absent. The assembly will lack the legitimacy of popular approval, which comes only from fair and transparent elections. A parliament like the newly elected assembly only deepens the negative repercussions of one of the most serious structural imbalances in Egyptian politics, namely the weakness of the legislative branch and the continual decline of its oversight role.

Furthermore, at a time when Egyptian society is witnessing heightened sectarian tensions between Muslim and Christian citizens, and the security, religious freedoms, civil liberties, and political rights of Christians are being challenged around the Middle East, the new People's Assembly in Egypt for 2010-2015 will under-represent Copts. Out of its nearly 800 candidates, the NDP only had 10 Copts, while the liberal Wafd Party nominated five Copts and the leftist Tagammu three Copts, in addition to a handful of independent Coptic candidates. Copts thus represent less than two percent of the new People's Assembly, meaning they are underrepresented relative to their numbers (most unofficial estimates place Copts at 10 percent of the population) and relative to their influential role in Egyptian society.

In evaluating the outcome of the election and what it means for Egypt's political scene, it is difficult to assume that the ruling NDP and its various executive branch bodies manipulated the electoral process with the sole purpose of attaining total control over parliament. There is no doubt that the NDP was looking to keep its comfortable, greater than two-thirds majority in the People's Assembly, continue to consolidate its position as the dominant party, diminish the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in parliament, and limit political competition.

But in approaching the elections, the ruling party also wanted to achieve a complementary set of political objectives in the 2010 elections, most prominently to strengthen the position of the cooperative opposition parties in the People's Assembly by substituting their deputies in place of the seats held by the Muslim Brotherhood members.

The NDP also had a strategic interest in conducting the electoral process with enough integrity, transparency, and competition to enable the party to defend its reformist credentials and forge a new image of itself with the Egyptian public.

Finally, given the western (especially American) interest in the parliamentary elections and the government's outright rejection of international monitoring, the NDP was aiming to stage the elections in a way that gave credibility to both the executive bodies' management of election details and to the local monitoring.

The final results, however, reveal clear gaps between this set of NDP objectives and the actual outcome. The NDP has 90 percent instead of 80 percent of the seats in the People's Assembly and the opposition has only a handful of spots. Furthermore, the electoral process was plagued with violations related to the Higher Electoral Commission's weakness and the security agencies' overwhelming strength; and domestic observers and the local and international media were harassed to such an extent that the outside world is openly denouncing the elections and raising concerns over how the presidential elections in 2011 will be run.

What prevented the NDP from carrying out its objectives? Is election abuse so run-of-the-mill in Egypt? Is it the extreme weakness of the registered opposition parties, which the NDP would have liked to see win more seats? Or is it the structural contradiction between the desire to dominate politics and policy making on the one hand and allowing a degree of limited pluralism on the other?

Whatever the case may be, Egypt is facing a new political crisis. The parliamentary elections, both in the way they were run and in their results, were far too removed from fairness, competitiveness, and the essence of democracy to generate a legislature that can effectively monitor the executive branch. Consequently, the newly elected People's Assembly is bound to lack genuine popular legitimacy and to shed negative light on how the ruling establishment will stage the upcoming presidential elections in 2011.-Published 9/12/2010 © bitterlemons-international

Amr Hamzawy is research director and senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center, Beirut.

Recent discussions concerning Saudi succession surfaced when King Abdullah flew to New York City for surgery and his brother Crown Prince Sultan, himself ill, returned to take charge over everyday Saudi affairs. Aware of the dangers in the aging leadership, King Abdullah created a framework that will allow the ruling house to take sensible account of age and fitness when it decides on the next step in succession.

While the above is fascinating to Saudi watchers, another key question emerges: what are the general strategic ramifications of the Saudi succession issue? This is significant because much of the regime's legitimacy comes from its role as the guardian of Sunni orthodoxy, the majority branch of Islam and the branch followed by most Saudis. Future kings are expected to follow this mantra in their world view and foreign policy decision-making processes. In addition, it is important to remember that policies a new king adopts are not necessarily apparent while he is still a prince.

In the immediate neighborhood, Yemen, the GCC, Iran and Iraq will be watching very closely for shifts in policy toward them, while any future Saudi king will see the same threat perceptions. Yemen, with its numerous domestic issues and the home of al-Qaeda Arabian Peninsula, will surely be pushing a much stronger influence and be a major threat to the kingdom; Yemeni stakeholders will take advantage of the succession. The GCC states will align and support a smooth transition and will watch keenly for signals of any shift in Saudi foreign policy. It is assumed by GCC states that any successor will continue to expand Saudi influence over them.

Iran will take advantage of the succession. As a regional challenger, Iran threatens Saudi interests in Lebanon, where it operates with Syria and its Shiite proxy Hizballah to undermine the Saudi-supported government; in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, where it supports the terrorist organization Hamas against the Palestinian Authority; in Yemen, where it is assisting rebels who are fighting the Saudi-supported regime of President Ali Abdullah Salih; and closer to home in the Arabian Gulf, where it operates to curtail Saudi interests in Iraq and project its power into neighboring countries, particularly via their Shiite populations.

If Iran gets the upper hand, the royal family during and after the succession may face serious threats by Saudi Sunni radicals determined to stop the spread of Shiite Islam, and by Saudi Shiites encouraged by the rise of Iran and its Shiite regional allies. Both sides would seek to exploit the situation, leading to instability in Saudi Arabia and possibly in the region. Iraq itself would watch carefully and perhaps move closer to Tehran.

Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinians form another tier. In contrast to the GCC and Yemen, the Levant has witnessed more explicit Saudi-Iranian rivalry and a Saudi effort to roll back Iran's influence. Yet even within the economic and political strategies pursued by each power on such issues as Lebanon and the Israeli-Palestinian question, there have been nuanced "rules of the game" that tended to dampen sectarian strife and that may now be rejected. Lebanon may fall into violence with the loss of the "Abdullah factor" and Syria will be more able to pursue its independent regional agenda. Turkey, under the neo-Ottomanist theme that is emerging in Ankara, will likely try to solidify its reach into Saudi Arabia's domain. Egypt, facing a potential succession crisis itself, will watch for signs that the Saudi succession is smooth and observe how the Saudi example may be used in Egypt.

The United States, United Kingdom and other European states as well as Russia, China, Pakistan and India--the outer core from Riyadh's point of view--will be watching for any changes in the kingdom that could affect their strategic relations. These touch on counterterrorism policy, energy, arms purchases and training programs, and religious "dawa" activities that will likely need to be reviewed.

Overall, several factors will come into play that all of the above countries will be watching closely. Primarily, what type of relationships will emerging Saudi princes have with the aforementioned players and issues? A secondary issue is the Wikileaks episode and its fall-out. Third are regional crises and conflicts, notably those involving the Sunni-Shiite divide as well as the eventuality of either attacking Iran over its nuclear weapons program or, alternatively, living with a nuclear Iran.

Continuity in strategic ramifications seems to have been the norm in the past. But Saudi leaders who may be in the succession line will react and be emboldened by evolving threats, developments and machinations in an increasingly complex neighborhood and challenging world. In the past few years, the old pan-Arab discourse of "rejection" and "confrontation" has shifted toward the vocabulary of "engagement": with Israel, with old Arab rivals and, on occasion, with Iran as a form of containment. This may all be rejected during and after Saudi succession.-Published 9/12/2010 © bitterlemons-international.org

Dr. Theodore Karasik is director, research and development, at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis in Dubai.

If a foreign observer was present in Tehran during the recent parliamentary elections in Egypt, he or she would have been surprised by the lack of enthusiasm displayed by the Iranian media. Given the importance of Egypt both as an Islamic state as well as perhaps the most important Arab state bordering Israel, one would have indeed expected the Iranian media to have been full of news and views about that country's elections.

The elections, and more fundamentally Egypt as a regional power, are of course of immense importance to the Islamic regime. But the lukewarm coverage of that country's elections reflected Tehran's underlying problem with the important issue of a successor to Hosni Mubarak--a problem broadly shared when it comes to Saudi Arabia, the second power in the region.

In its simplest form, the question is reduced to, "who do the Iranian leaders wish to succeed Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah?" Who, and why? None of the candidates or political rivals challenging Mubarak really appeals to the Iranian leaders. For years Mohamed ElBaradei, as director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was portrayed in Iran as "an American lackey and agent".

The Egyptian secular opposition doesn't appeal to Tehran either. A hard-line Iranian newspaper close to the government cautioned "the Muslim people of Egypt not to be duped by the propaganda of decadent western powers that are trying to replace the bankrupt Mubarak regime with yet another western-inclined puppet." A similar newspaper warned that the "Mubarak regime has expired. . . . The Americans are seriously thinking of installing a new regime in that country. A regime, or for that matter a leader who will have all the hallmarks of change but will maintain the same old policy of serving the West and Zionism." Such a description not only includes ElBaradei, but in a broader context involves practically every secular, liberal and western-inclined potential successor to Hosni Mubarak.

This leaves us with the Islamic groups. But here too, the Iranian leaders are not content. The media coverage for the Muslim Brotherhood movement was not at all as positive as might be expected. The reality is that Islamic Iran does not share a great deal of common ground with the Muslim Brotherhood. From the Shiite Iranian leaders' perspective, the Brotherhood, in the final analysis, represents Sunni Islam and its adherence to "Sunnism" is both strong and deep-rooted. Secondly, the Brotherhood, at least in Egypt, is not sufficiently anti-western and, more importantly, anti-American. The Islam of the Sudanese leaders, Hamas or Hizballah in Lebanon is much closer to Iran's favor. In short, none of the present opponents of Hosni Mubarak particularly appeals to Tehran.

This, of course, is the view of the hard-line Iranian leaders. The opposition, including the reformists, supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and others, supports both ElBaradei and the Brotherhood activists. Unlike the Iranian leaders, for the reformists the anti-American issue is of no significance. The more independent newspapers close to the reformists attach importance to the position of Mubarak's opponents regarding human rights and civil liberties.

But it is the hardliners who ultimately shape relations between Iran and Egypt. Not only do they have no clear vision regarding Egypt's future leadership, but Tehran also opposes any change in relations between the two countries. In October, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tried to repair three decades of broken relations with Egypt. After a close aide of Ahmadinejad visited Cairo and held talks with senior Egyptian officials, some newspapers close to the president reported the resumption of flights between Tehran and Cairo. But the president's attempt failed to change anything and the entire project was shelved.

Relations between Egypt and Iran are symbolic; they bear little practical significance. It is only in dealing with Palestine and Hamas that the two countries have business to transact; otherwise, they go their separate ways. There have been many attempts in Iran to break the ice as far as relations with Egypt are concerned, including the recent one by Ahmadinejad, but they have always failed.

The situation is however very different with Riyadh. The succession issue with regard to Saudi Arabia is more important from the Iranian perspective. Iran and Saudi Arabia are geographically too close for Iran to ignore events in that country. It was against this backdrop that Ahmadinejad promptly dismissed comments attributed to the Saudi leader disclosed by the recent Wikipedia leaks. King Abdullah had urged US leaders to attack Iran in order to prevent it from becoming a nuclear power--a request shared by other Arab leaders in the region, including Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait and Jordan. Interestingly enough, rather than these Arab leaders responding to the reports, the Iranian president himself dismissed them and stated that "relations between Iran and its Arab neighbors are strong and deep-rooted." His comments reflect the importance of relations with these states, and particularly Saudi Arabia.

None of the complications that Mubarak's succession presents for Iran exists in the case of Saudi King Abdullah. The king has no secular, western or Brotherhood opposition. The only consideration Iranian leaders have regarding his successor is that he be less anti-Iranian than the present Saudi leadership.- Published 9/12/2010 © bitterlemons-international.org

Sadegh Zibakalam is professor of political science at Tehran University.