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Thursday, February 26, 2026
[Salon] The military tightens its grip on Egypt’s economy - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
The military tightens its grip on Egypt’s economy
Summary: from statistics to bread to electricity and the Cairo Stadium President Sisi continues down the path of strengthening the generals’ hold on the economy whilst sharply escalating fines for avoiding mandatory conscription unless you happen to have US$5000.
We thank Hossam el-Hamalawy for today’s newsletter, an edited version of his 3Arabawy Egypt Security Sector Report. Hossam is a journalist and scholar-activist, currently based in Germany. He was involved in the Egyptian labour movement and was one of the organisers of the 2011 revolution. Follow his writings on Substack and X.
The military grip on statistics
Last week’s appointment of Maj. Gen. Akram al-Gohary, as acting head of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), once again highlights how one of the state’s most politically sensitive civilian institutions remains firmly under military management.
Founded in 1964, all CAPMAS directors have been army generals. The agency is not a neutral technical body. It produces inflation figures, labour statistics, census data, trade numbers and poverty indicators—the metrics shaping economic policy, IMF negotiations and public narratives. Control over CAPMAS, therefore, means control over how social and economic reality is officially measured. For instance, the agency simply stopped publishing its annual report on poverty rates in 2020 since the numbers contradicted the constructed reality of the regime’s propaganda.
Gohary’s career reflects this logic. A 1991 Military Technical College graduate, before moving into CAPMAS leadership, he served as director of the Armed Forces’ Administration of Information Systems which, since 2021, fell under the umbrella of the upgraded Military Intelligence Authority structure. His predecessor, Maj. Gen. Khairat Barakat was a career infantry officer who previously headed the Armed Forces’ Administration of Officers Affairs and the Administration of Military Records.
Equally telling is President Sisi’s reliance on “acting” appointments. Gohary was named for a one-year renewable term under a presidential decree published in the Official Gazette. Barakat himself was first appointed on 14 February 2018 and remained in place through seven consecutive annual renewals, a mechanism that keeps institutional heads permanently dependent on presidential favour.
Air Force in Charge of Bread Now
Bread subsidy costs surged despite falling global wheat prices after the state handed control of imports to the Air Force-run Future of Egypt Project for Sustainable Development, dismantling a decades-old civilian procurement system based on open tenders, reports Saheeh Masr.
Under a November 2024 presidential directive, wheat purchasing shifted from competitive international auctions to direct contracts and intermediary deals. Within a year, bread subsidies jumped by more than LE26 billion (approx. US$540 million) in the 2025/2026 budget, even as global wheat prices fell by nearly 13.6 percent.
Critics say the military body has been paying around US$30 per ton above world averages. Official figures show it sold wheat to the state for between US$225 and US$275 per ton, while global prices dropped to about US$177 by late 2025. Between March and December 2025, the agency imported roughly 3.5 million tons of wheat.
Meanwhile, the regime has paired coordinated digital propaganda with on-the-ground political theatre to defend the agency from criticism. Networks of inauthentic accounts on X pushed synchronised hashtags praising the agency as Egypt’s “food basket,” a pattern consistent with managed influence operations rather than organic debate.
Simultaneously the military organised tightly choreographed field tours for parliamentarians and regime-linked media figures showcasing curated “success stories.” Addressing his guests Air Force Col. Bahaa el-Ghannam, the Future of Egypt’s director, said that the agency is prepared to float its subsidiaries on the Egyptian Exchange, pursuing initial public offerings (IPOs), once they meet listing requirements.
Established in 2022 under the Egyptian Air Force, the utterly untransparent Future of Egypt Authority for Sustainable Development (Mustaqbal Misr) is the new centerpiece of President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi’s national development strategy and has rapidly evolved from a land reclamation project into a massive conglomerate with a diverse business portfolio
Youth and Sports Ministry Hands Cairo Stadium Project to Army Engineers
In his very first move as Minister of Youth and Sports, the new appointee, Gohar Nabil, is already pressing ahead with Sisi’s favourite playbook: monetising public assets under military supervision.
The ministry has announced a massive “investment project” at Cairo Stadium featuring a commercial mall and parking complex built inside the historic sports facility. The project will be managed by a private company but overseen by the Armed Forces’ Engineering Authority with promised total inflows over 25 years of more than LE25 billion according to the cabinet’s statement.
Powering the Generals: SE and Egypt’s Military Business Empire
Schneider Electric (SE) began operating in Egypt in 1987, later investing roughly €300 million over 35 years and building major assets, including its Badr factory, a distribution centre in 10th of Ramadan City, and engineering hubs. Before the military’s economic expansion after 2013 SE was already embedded in strategic state infrastructure.
In 2016, the company announced it would build four control centres for Egypt’s national energy grid, a core sovereign system. It later participated in digitising electricity distribution infrastructure, including the South Sinai Control Center in Sharm el-Sheikh inaugurated under the Ministry of Electricity.
These grid and control systems fall within sectors that, after 2013, increasingly came under the oversight of military and security institutions.
The first clearly documented institutional partnership with Egypt’s military economic apparatus appears in September 2015, when SE signed cooperation protocols with factories under the Ministry of Military Production. In 2016, cooperation extended to the Arab Organization for Industrialization to localise renewable energy manufacturing.
By the early 2020s, SE’s systems were integrated into mega project infrastructure, including the New Delta wastewater treatment plant administered by the Air Force.
In 2022, the company supplied electrical equipment and automation systems for the El Hammam wastewater treatment plant within the New Delta agricultural expansion—which falls under the control of the Air Force-run Future of Egypt Project—and was officially carried out by the Armed Forces’ Engineering Authority. The same year, Schneider provided technology for desalination facilities in the El Galala development zone, a project also supervised by the Armed Forces’ Engineering Authority.
SE, moreover, embedded itself inside Sisi’s New Administrative Capital. It delivered smart-building systems for major commercial developments such as PARAGON and infrastructure for Knowledge City.
Recently, SE joined a strategic partnership for the IL Monte Galala Towers and Marina, a LE50 billion prime real estate development overseen by the military. The industrial partnership deepened further last week when SE signed a protocol to assemble data-centre units inside factories of the Arab Organization for Industrialization, one of the main pillars of the military-economic complex
Conscription Is Mandatory Except for Those Who Can Pay
Parliament last week approved sweeping amendments to the Military and National Service Law, sharply escalating penalties for draft evasion and skipping reserve duty. Under the new rules, those who evade compulsory service after the age of 30 now face prison and fines ranging from LE20,000 to LE100,000, up from the previous LE3,000 to LE10,000. Reservists who fail to report when summoned risk jail time and fines between LE10,000 and LE20,000, replacing the earlier LE1,000 to LE3,000 range.
Lawmakers presented the measures as a defence of national duty and respect for military sacrifice. Curiously, this renewed love for patriotic obligation follows several government initiatives inviting Egyptians abroad to settle their conscription status with a convenient bank transfer of 5,000 US dollars or euros. Service to the nation remains sacred unless you can wire hard currency fast enough.
Wednesday, February 25, 2026
Fr. Bob's Reflection for the First Sunday in Lent - Guest Post
In 1976, author Doug Alderson wrote a remarkable article for Campus Life Magazine, describing a 2,000-mile hike he made along the Appalachian Trail. Stretching from Georgia to Maine, the trail passes through New York – and even through the grounds here at Graymoor.
Doug set out on his journey just after graduating from high school, carrying more than a backpack. He was burdened with unanswered questions: Was there a God? Did life have a purpose? And what was his place in it all?
In the article, he wrote, “There had to be more to life than money, TV, parties and getting high.” His hike became more than a physical challenge; it was a search for inner peace – a journey to discover who he truly was.
The journey proved far more difficult than he had imagined. The trail often became steep and dangerous. Rain fell day after day. His clothes were constantly soaked, his feet blistered and wet, and at night his body ached and shivered from the cold. Yet, despite the hardship, Doug pressed on.
Those long hours alone on the trail gave him time not only to think, but to grow. With no one around to influence him, he came to know himself more deeply.
Five months later, Doug returned home, a changed person. He joked that even his dog looked at him strangely – as if to say, “Where have you been? You look different.”
He was different. Doug had found what he was searching for. He discovered that God exists, that life has meaning and that he himself had a purpose. Reflecting on his experience, he wrote, “I was my own person. I liked what I saw in myself.”
Doug Alderson stands in a long tradition of people who stepped away from the noise of life to reflect on its meaning. Moses did it. The Old Testament Prophets did it. John the Baptist did it. And in today’s Gospel, Jesus does it as well.
In the wilderness, during 40 days of solitude, Jesus encounters three great temptations. We might think of this moment as a preview of the Gospel – revealing just enough to help us understand who Jesus is and what He came to do.
The temptation story first reveals Jesus’ humanity. He faces the same inner struggle we all face: the battle between good and evil. Yet there is something strikingly different about His response. Jesus never even considers giving in to Satan’s false promises. Not once.
In fact, the devil himself acknowledges that Jesus is no ordinary man when he says, “If you are the Son of God.”
At the same time, this scripture passage reveals Jesus’ mission. It points us back to the first reading, when Adam and Eve are tempted by the devil and give in. From that moment on, humanity became enslaved to sin.
But Jesus comes to undo that damage. Where Adam and Eve failed, Jesus remains faithful. He comes to free us from slavery and to restore what was lost.
As we begin the season of Lent, this Gospel is especially fitting. It reminds us that Jesus has already won the battle. At the end of these 40 days, we will celebrate His victory over sin and death.
And if we unite ourselves with Christ – through prayer, fasting and trust in God – that victory becomes ours as well.
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A.
Spiritual Director
Tuesday, February 24, 2026
Monday, February 23, 2026
Sunday, February 22, 2026
Saturday, February 21, 2026
Friday, February 20, 2026
Thursday, February 19, 2026
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Fr. Bob's Reflection for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Guest Post
Many of us are familiar with the legendary track and field athlete, Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals for the United States at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Far fewer people, however, know the name Luz Long.
Luz Long was Germany’s top long jumper at those same Games and one of Adolf Hitler’s favorite athletes. During the Olympic trials, Long broke the long jump record and stood as the clear favorite to win.
When Jesse Owens stepped onto the field to qualify, Hitler abruptly left the stadium – a pointed snub toward an athlete he considered inferior. Owens fouled on his first attempt and fell short on his second. One more failure would mean elimination.
Then, just before his final jump, Owens felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Luz Long.
Long quietly suggested that Owens draw a line in the sand a few inches before the takeoff board, giving him a safer launch point. Owens followed the advice – and it worked. He qualified by more than a foot.
In the days that followed, Owens and Long formed an unlikely friendship, staying up late into the night, talking about life and the troubling state of the world. When the long jump finals arrived, Owens defeated Long for the gold medal. Yet it was Long who lifted Owens’ arm in victory as the two took a lap around the track together, arm in arm – while Hitler glared in disapproval.
Ordinary athletes do not help their rivals. But Luz Long was not ordinary. He found joy in another’s success, even when it cost him personally.
That spirit brings us to today’s Gospel. Matthew’s Gospel was written primarily for Jewish converts to Christianity, many of whom struggled to understand how Jesus’ teachings related to the Law of Moses and the words of the Old Testament prophets. Jesus addresses that concern directly. He makes it clear that He has not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it.
Think of it this way: adulthood does not destroy childhood; it completes it.
Jesus then deepens the Law with striking examples. Moses taught that adultery was wrong. Jesus goes further, teaching that even entertaining the thought of adultery can lead us down the same path. If we stop planting the seeds of sin, the sin itself cannot take root.
There is a scene in the famous play, “Peter Pan,” where the children ask Peter how he can fly. He answers, “Just think wonderful, beautiful thoughts.” Those thoughts lift him off the ground and into the sky.
In many ways, the Christian life works the same way. Wonderful, beautiful thoughts lead to wonderful, beautiful actions – and can send us to Heaven.
And that brings us back to Jesse Owens and Luz Long. Long responded to Owens in the way Christ calls us to respond – because He chose to be different. Jesus never asks His followers to be merely ordinary. He calls us to something greater.
Jesus does not invite us to ask, “How far can I go before I sin?” Instead, He invites us to ask, “How much more can I do, because I love?”
The key to living the Gospel is learning to shape our hearts and minds with what is good, true and beautiful. Only then can we live as Jesus lived: loving in ways the world often considers impossible.
And so, the message of today’s Gospel is clear: live your ordinary life in extraordinary ways, just as Christ Himself did.
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A.
Spiritual Director
Why does the Church put ashes on us, anyway? | The Catholic Company®
Why does the Church put ashes on us, anyway? | The Catholic Company®
The Catechism reminds us that penance is ordered toward joy and freedom, not despair (CCC 1439). So ashes are not the end of the story. They are the beginning.
Cross
Jesus Carrys the cross
Feb 18, 2026
By Get Fed
Ash Wednesday is one of the most recognizable days in the Church year. Churches are full. Foreheads are marked. The words are familiar. Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
But from the Church’s own teaching, Ash Wednesday is far more than a reminder of mortality or the start of giving things up. It is a liturgical doorway into conversion.
In Scripture, ashes are never merely symbolic. They are an outward sign of an interior posture. Throughout the Old Testament, ashes accompany repentance, mourning, and humility before God. Job sits in ashes as he confronts his frailty. The people of Nineveh cover themselves in ashes as they turn back to God. Daniel prays in ashes as he intercedes for his people.
Jesus Himself assumes this meaning when He says, “If the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes” (Matthew 11:21).
So when the Church places ashes on our heads, she is not performing a ritual for its own sake. She is teaching the body how to pray repentance before the lips ever speak.
The Catechism explains that conversion is not first about external works, but about the heart turning back to God. Interior repentance is “a radical reorientation of our whole life” (CCC 1431). Ashes are meant to express that reorientation visibly.
What many Catholics do not realize is that Ash Wednesday is deeply connected to baptism.
The Catechism teaches that penance is a continual conversion after baptism, not a replacement for it (CCC 1427). Lent exists because the baptized still need ongoing purification and renewal.
The ashes remind us that we have already died once. In baptism, we were buried with Christ and raised to new life. Ash Wednesday recalls that baptismal death so that we may live more fully the life we received.
This is why the Church’s call on Ash Wednesday is not merely “stop sinning,” but “return to the Lord.” Joel’s words are proclaimed every year: “Rend your hearts, not your garments” (Joel 2:13).
Ash Wednesday is about reclaiming baptismal identity, not earning forgiveness through effort.
The Church allows two formulas when ashes are imposed.
Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return, drawn from Genesis 3:19.
Repent, and believe in the Gospel, drawn from Mark 1:15.
One reminds us of our mortality. The other reminds us of our mission.
Together, they reveal a truth we often overlook. Ash Wednesday is not meant to leave us discouraged. It is meant to place our fragile lives squarely within the hope of the Gospel.
The Catechism teaches that hope anchors the Christian life even in repentance. God’s mercy always precedes our effort (CCC 1428). Ash Wednesday is not God scolding humanity. It is God inviting humanity back.
So why does the Church begin Lent this way?
Ash Wednesday is intentionally stark. There is no music. No Gloria. No Alleluia. The liturgy is stripped down so that nothing distracts from the truth being proclaimed.
But the Church is also deeply realistic. She knows that human hearts need physical reminders. The Catechism says sacramental signs “prepare us to receive grace” and help sanctify the circumstances of life (CCC 1677). Ashes function in this same pedagogical way.
They tell the truth about who we are and who God is.
We are fragile. God is all-powerful. We need saving. Christ has already come to save.
Perhaps the most surprising truth about Ash Wednesday is that it is not pessimistic. It is hopeful. The Church does not place ashes on the unredeemed. She places them on those who belong to Christ.
Ash Wednesday proclaims that death does not have the final word, because it is marked on people who are already destined for resurrection. The ashes will be washed away. Easter will come.
The Catechism reminds us that penance is ordered toward joy and freedom, not despair (CCC 1439). So ashes are not the end of the story. They are the beginning.
Tuesday, February 17, 2026
Monday, February 16, 2026
Sunday, February 15, 2026
[Salon] The Iran Endgame - Guest Post by Leon Hadar
https://leonhadar.substack.com/p/the-gradual-militarization-of-iran
The Iran Endgame
When Bluffing Meets Reality
Leon Hadar
Feb 15, 2026
Another U.S.-Iran crisis, another round of carrier deployments and ultimatums, another set of predictions about imminent warfare. Yet here we are again, watching Washington and Tehran engage in their familiar dance of brinkmanship—a choreography that has become depressingly predictable over the past four decades.
The current confrontation, triggered by Iran’s brutal crackdown on domestic protests and America’s deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf, follows a script we’ve seen before. President Trump threatens “something very tough” while simultaneously acknowledging talks are underway. Iran’s Supreme Leader warns of “regional war” while his foreign minister pursues “fair and equitable” negotiations through Omani intermediaries. Regional powers—Turkey, the UAE, Saudi Arabia—scramble to prevent a conflict none of them want.
How will this end? The same way these standoffs always do: not with a bang, but with a grudging return to the status quo ante, dressed up as strategic victory by both sides.
The fantasy that maximum pressure plus military threats will produce Iranian capitulation has been tested repeatedly and has failed each time. The Trump administration’s withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 and subsequent “maximum pressure” campaign did not bring Iran to its knees—it brought us enriched uranium at near-weapons-grade levels. The Israeli and American strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025 did not eliminate Iran’s nuclear program; they likely accelerated Tehran’s determination to acquire a deterrent capability.
Now we’re told that deploying additional carriers and threatening sustained bombing campaigns will somehow achieve what previous pressure failed to accomplish. This reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how coercive diplomacy actually works. You cannot bomb a country into submission while simultaneously demanding it negotiate from a position of weakness. The contradiction is not just tactical—it’s strategic.
Consider the operational realities that our saber-rattlers prefer to ignore. Even if the United States launched a sustained air campaign against Iranian nuclear and military facilities—which analysts suggest could require weeks of operations—Iran possesses formidable retaliatory capabilities. Tehran’s missile arsenal can reach every U.S. base from Qatar to Iraq. Its proxies, though weakened, retain capacity to strike across the region. The Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of global oil passes, remains vulnerable.
More fundamentally, ask the critical question that seems to elude Washington’s planning: what happens after the bombing stops? Does anyone seriously believe that pulverizing Iranian facilities will produce a pliant regime eager to accept American terms? The more likely outcome is a nationalist backlash that strengthens hardliners, accelerates nuclear weapons development (now with domestic political legitimacy), and transforms what is currently a manageable adversarial relationship into a genuine blood feud.
The historical parallels should give us pause. American military interventions in the Middle East—from Lebanon in 1983 to Iraq in 2003 to Libya in 2011—have consistently produced outcomes worse than the problems they aimed to solve. The region is littered with the wreckage of grand strategies that looked brilliant in PowerPoint presentations but collapsed upon contact with Middle Eastern realities.
Iran’s domestic upheaval, while significant, does not fundamentally alter this calculus. Yes, the regime faces genuine legitimacy challenges. Yes, the protests reflect deep-seated grievances. But the notion that American military action would somehow empower democratic forces rather than rally Iranians around the flag betrays a stunning ignorance of nationalism’s power. Ask yourself: when foreign powers bomb your country, do you blame your government or the foreigners dropping the bombs?
The regional dimension compounds these difficulties. Despite their differences with Tehran, neither Turkey, nor the Gulf states, nor even Israel’s current leadership shows enthusiasm for a full-scale U.S.-Iran war. They recognize what Washington seems determined to ignore: such a conflict would destabilize the entire region, disrupt energy markets, potentially draw in Russia and China, and create chaos that makes the Syrian civil war look manageable by comparison.
So how does this crisis actually resolve itself? Through the unglamorous process of diplomatic engagement that both sides are already pursuing even as they trade threats. The talks in Muscat represent the only realistic pathway forward. They won’t produce a comprehensive solution—the U.S.-Iran relationship is too complex and antagonistic for that. But they can establish temporary arrangements that address immediate concerns: some restrictions on Iranian enrichment in exchange for limited sanctions relief; understandings about regional behavior; mechanisms to prevent military incidents from escalating.
This outcome won’t satisfy anyone completely. Hawks will denounce it as appeasement. Iranian hardliners will claim vindication. But it beats the alternative: a war that America cannot win militarily, cannot afford politically, and cannot sustain domestically. Recent polling shows 85 percent of Americans oppose war with Iran. That number won’t change just because we’re told this time will be different.
The Trump administration faces a choice. It can continue pursuing the fantasy that threats and pressure will produce Iranian collapse, risking a conflict that serves neither American interests nor regional stability. Or it can embrace the messy reality that sustainable arrangements with adversarial powers require mutual accommodation rather than unilateral demands.
This doesn’t mean abandoning American interests or ignoring Iranian malign activities. It means pursuing those interests through sustainable policies rather than maximalist positions that sound tough but prove unenforceable. It means distinguishing between core security concerns—preventing nuclear weapons, protecting American personnel—and broader regional competitions that can be managed through diplomatic and economic tools rather than military force.
The current crisis will likely end where most such crises do: with both sides stepping back from the brink, claiming they achieved their objectives, while the fundamental tensions remain unresolved. Iran will continue enriching uranium at levels that maintain nuclear threshold capability without quite crossing into weapons production. The United States will maintain military presence and sanctions while pursuing episodic diplomatic engagement. Regional powers will continue their own chess games with both Washington and Tehran.
This is not a satisfying conclusion. It doesn’t offer the clean resolution that policymakers crave or the dramatic victory that would justify carrier deployments and congressional resolutions. But it reflects the reality that some problems cannot be solved—only managed. And in the Middle East, where American attempts at problem-solving have consistently made things worse, management begins to look like wisdom.
The alternative—another American war in the Middle East, this one against a more formidable adversary than any we’ve faced in the region—would accelerate precisely what Iran most desires: American disengagement from a region where our military presence has become more liability than asset. That would be the supreme irony: we bomb Iran to demonstrate strength and end up hastening our strategic retreat.
Better to recognize now what we’ll eventually acknowledge later: that dealing with Iran requires not the fantasy of military dominance but the hard work of diplomatic engagement, regional coalition-building, and the kind of patient, differentiated approach that accepts outcomes short of total victory. The current confrontation will end this way eventually. The only question is how much damage we inflict on ourselves and others before accepting that reality.
Saturday, February 14, 2026
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