"to those who cling to power through.. the silencing of dissent"

Posted By Marc Lynch Thursday, January 22, 2009 - 1:03 AM Share

 On his first day in office, Barack Obama placed calls to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordan's King Abdullah, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. 

Excellent!  What a perfect opportunity to talk to

"those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent"

 Hosni Mubarak -- whose regime has spent the last several years locking up Ayman Nour for challenging him in the Presidential election, brutally cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood for the sin of competing in Parliamentary elections, disciplining independent judges who tried to oversee elections, extending Emergency Law, harassing bloggers, torturing and beating political activists, and indicting independent journalists --   no doubt warmly welcomed the discussion of how it felt to "know that you are on the wrong side of history."

Oh, they didn't talk about that? Pity.  At least immediately engaging on Gaza is a good first step. 

One other thing: everyone in the region will immediately notice that Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah was not on the list. Especially the Saudis. Obama also skipped Saudi Arabia during his trip to the Middle East in July -- which was also noticed. In each case, I'm sure that there were very good reasons:  in July, no doubt time was tight and he couldn't go everywhere; today, he no doubt wanted to touch base with the front-line states to demonstrate his commitment to engaging with the Gaza crisis. But these sorts of perceived slights add up quickly, and I wouldn't be surprised to see something a bit nasty about Obama (but seemingly unrelated) come up in one of the Saudi media outlets in the next few days.

 

JOE BUCK

1:05 AM ET

January 22, 2009

shouldn't he be talking to someone with channels to Hamas?

Obama has ruled out talking to Hamas, but peace requires that the people who are fighting actually agree to it. If he's serious, won't he have to bring in some country that is on speaking terms with Hamas as well as with the West? Qatar, maybe? Or is there a better candidate?

 

BRETT

3:28 AM ET

January 22, 2009

One other thing: everyone in

One other thing: everyone in the region will immediately notice that Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah was not on the list. Especially the Saudis. Obama also skipped Saudi Arabia during his trip to the Middle East in July -- which was also noticed.

Good catch. That's a major oversight on Obama's part, when you consider that Saudi Arabia is the de facto regional leader in the Arab World (but don't tell the Egyptians). I wonder if he thinks Bush was too close to the Saudis, or what not. More likely, it was a blunder - but as you mention, this is the second time he's avoided them.

 

SETH EDENBAUM

4:21 AM ET

January 23, 2009

Aardvark Jan 22

"He should instead push ahead on marginalizing al-Qaeda, while refusing to allow its terrorism to exercise a veto over the possibility of new, constructive relations with the vast majority of the Islamic world (including moderate Islamists, I would add)."

Aardvark Jan 21
"those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent"

[And the Saudi Monarchy isn't on the top of the list?]

"But these sorts of perceived slights add up quickly, and I wouldn't be surprised to see something a bit nasty about Obama (but seemingly unrelated) come up in one of the Saudi media outlets in the next few days."

So why was it a blunder?

 

MRS BLACK

2:20 PM ET

January 23, 2009

Ask and you shall receive

Turki lets loose in FT this morning:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a11a77b0-e8ef-11dd-a4d0-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

 

SABA7SABA7

3:51 PM ET

January 26, 2009

brutally cracking down on the

brutally cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood for the sin of competing in Parliamentary elections

Residents of areas partly controlled by Ikhwan mayors and party organisers, such as Dar es-Salaam, are grateful for this. They quite like the fact you can still buy a Stella at the shop down the road or your daughter can walk about unveiled (if she wants to) and accepting a Ramadhan iftar is not predicated on you taking classes or accepting dodgy literature.

 

Marc Lynch is associate professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University.

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