The crisis Egypt has been facing since Ethiopia announced the diversion of the course of the Blue Nile in order to fill up the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is a practical example of the chaos that Egypt has been experiencing under the Muslim Brotherhood.

The crisis Egypt has been facing since Ethiopia announced the diversion of the course of the Blue Nile in order to fill up the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is a practical example of the chaos that Egypt has been experiencing under the Muslim Brotherhood.

The confused official policy suggests that the government was surprised by the Ethiopian decision, which means that the president who returned from Addis Ababa did not know during his negotiations with the officials there that Ethiopia planned to divert the course of the river, hours after his departure, or that he did not have the capability to deal with the Ethiopian step, suggesting that there was a state incapable of acting in the best of its national interests.

This official confusion has been evident in two ways: the first is that senior officials have mentioned contradicting figures of the potential impact of the dam on the amount of water Egypt gets from The Nile. The president has mentioned figures inconsistent with those reported by official and non-official experts, while the minister of irrigation has kept silent as if the ministry has not been concerned at all.

The prime minister who previously worked as a minister of irrigation and had been the chef de bureau of the former Minister of Irrigation, Mahmoud Abou Zeid, for many years has not uttered a single word to give the impression that he is competent and knowledgeable about anything. By doing so, he has confirmed his incompetence, not only in his present position, but also for any government position, even at the middle management level. Thus, the Egyptian people have been bewildered between official downplaying and media alarming.

The biggest problem is that President Morsi’s administration did not ask experts to present their opinions for dealing with the situation; rather, it gathered politicians in the well-known secret meeting to present their views, without providing them with any information or evaluation of the situation so that they could express a correct view. This is precisely what has showed all Egyptians the misery the Egyptian administration has reached, and the extent of deterioration in which their political elite has sunk.

Not a single expert affiliated with these parties, whether in the affairs of The Nile, the African affairs, or national security, has coherently talked about this crisis, including the Freedom and Justice Party, to which the president belongs. Only the leaders of the parties showed up, which affirms the individualism these parties follow.

Besides, what they said in the meeting confirmed that none of them had read a book, a report, or even an article on the topic he went to talk about, not to mention the political scandal related to broadcasting a dialogue, which was supposed to be secret and discussed the available options for Egypt to solve the issue. The great disaster was that instead of apologizing, the president declared that the message reached Ethiopia, which means that we have turned from the pattern of managing a state into the pattern of managing a workshop where the workshop owner would loudly say something to a worker so that his neighbor or competitor would hear, thus building lines for reconciliation or escalation.

As far as administration officials, i.e. the president’s aides, are concerned, we have not heard any firm opinion from them in this concern. This may be acceptable because they cannot be specialized in everything, but what is unacceptable is that none of them has tried to ask for the help of experts so that the position of the state appears coherent and specific. It seems that the administration does not have any experts in water and African affairs, and it has not asked for their help because there are no Brotherhood experts since Morsi’s administration deals only with Brotherhood members. Even their allies could only be in touch with the Presidential Palace in respect to matters related to public relations, such as the numerous national dialogues that come up with nothing.

This confusion which has prevailed at the official level in Egypt, whether in terms of managing the crisis as a national one that concerns all Egyptians, of the internal or regional political actions, or of the national mobilization vis-à-vis an external danger, confirms that the Brotherhood, represented by Morsi and his aides, are incapable of managing a crisis at this level, which means they cannot manage an isolated island in the ocean let alone a state the size or importance of Egypt.