Inspired by events in Tunisia,
Egyptians are holding sizable anti-government protests in many
cities today. In this context, it’s worth highlighting
a critique Jackson Diehl made last week:
More surprising is the Obama administration’s de facto suport
for Mubarak’s immobility. On Tuesday,
Obama called Mubarak; according to a White House “readout,”
they discussed “a broad range of issues, to include the New Year’s
attack on a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria, developments in
Tunisia and Lebanon, and how best to advance Middle East
peace.”
According to both the statement and my own sources, here is what
the two did not discuss: the need for change of any kind in Egypt.
This in spite of the fact that Mubarak just staged a rigged
parliamentary election in which his opposition was systematically
and sometimes brutally suppressed and has scheduled a similar
presidential “election” for later this year that would extend his
term in office — and Egypt’s political stasis — for another six
years.
By failing to mention reform, Obama effectively placed a public
U.S. bet on Mubarak’s ability to prevent any spread of Tunisia’s
unrest. According to the White House statement, the president
“shared with President Mubarak that the United States is calling
for calm and an end to violence…” The statement went on to repeat
U.S. support for democracy in Tunisia — a position the
administration adopted only after Ben Ali’s overthrow. But
observers in Egypt and across the Middle East were quick to get the
message: Obama’s support for “free and fair elections” does not
extend to Egypt.
In one sense this is unsurprising: For two years the
administration has soft-pedaled the cause of reform in Arab
autocracies and above all in Egypt. The thinking seems to be that
Mubarak’s help is needed in the Arab-Israeli peace process, which
Obama has futilely focused on at the expense of other issues; that
there is no alternative to Mubarak, despite the emergence of
a mass reform movement behind Nobel peace prize
winner Mohammed ElBaradei; and that there is no possibility of
a popular revolution in Egypt.
That analysis may be correct — but it ignores
the lessons that Middle East experts are drawing from Tunisia.
The
Carnegie Endowment’s Michelle Dunne cites three: “First,
widespread economic grievances such as youth unemployment can
indeed quickly translate into specific demands for political
change, and second, this can happen even in the absence of strong
opposition organizations.”
“The third lesson of Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution was perhaps
the most memorable of all: When long-postponed change finally
comes, it is often startling how relatively little effort and time
it can take.”
These lessons apply to a number of Arab autocracies, including
Algeria, Libya, Jordan and Syria. But for United States, the stakes
are highest in Egypt. In that respect, Obama’s silence on the need
for Egyptian reform isn’t just short-sighted. It’s dangerous.
Indeed it is, and it will be interesting to note what, if
anything, Obama has to say about events in Egypt in tonight’s State
of the Union address.
