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Why Does the U.S. Get All the Tornadoes?
Posted By Marc Lynch
Thursday, February 3, 2011 - 11:39 AM
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The Obama administration has been trying increasingly forcefully to persuade Hosni Mubarak to allow an "orderly transition" which is "meaningful." The administration has sent this message privately through multiple channels and has gradually escalated its public statements up to the President's statement on Tuesday that the transition must be meaningful and must begin now. Yesterday's frenzy 0f regime-orchestrated mob violence shows clearly that Mubarak is not interested in following this advice, and like so many dictators before him intends to cling to power by any means necessary. By unleashing violence and refusing the demand for an immediate, meaningful transition, Mubarak has now violated two clear red lines laid down by the President. There must be consequences. It's time to meet escalation with escalation and lay out, in private and public, that the Egyptian military now faces a clear and painful choice: push Mubarak out now and begin a meaningful transition, or else face international isolation and a major rupture with the United States.
Mubarak's actions should not have come as a surprise. His strategy was obvious from the start: to try to buy time until the protest fever broke, by offering a variety of token concessions, seeking to divide the opposition by co-opting political party leaders, playing on Western fears of Islamists, stoking nationalist resentments against foreign interference, carefully protecting his relations with the military leadership, and cashing in on decades of good relations with international leaders. His strategy thus far has been only partly successful -- the regime has clearly been surprised by the energy and tenacity of the protestors, as well as by how little international support he has found. Indeed, while many people have argued that Mubarak's unleashing of the thugs against the protestors in Tahrir Square came with Obama's blessing, I'd say it was quite the opposite -- an act of desperation when Obama privately and publicly rejected his "concessions" as inadequate.
What now? I would say that the time has come for the Obama administration to escalate to the next step of actively trying to push Mubarak out. They were right to not do so earlier. No matter how frustrated activists have been by his perceived hedging, until yesterday it was not the time to move to the bottom line. Mubarak is an American ally of 30 years and needed to be given the chance to respond appropriately. And everyone seems to forget that magical democracy words (a phrase which as far as I know I coined) don't work. Obama saying "Mubarak must go" would not have made Mubarak go, absent the careful preparation of the ground so that the potential power-brokers saw that they really had no choice. Yesterday's orgy of state-sanctioned violence should be the moment to make clear that there is now no alternative.
The administration's diplomacy thus far has been building to this moment. It would have been far preferable if the quiet, patient diplomacy had worked, without an explicit call by the U.S. for Mubarak to be thrown from power. It shouldn't be a surprise that Mubarak has preferred to stick with the depressingly familiar playbook of the struggling despot. The violence unleashed yesterday was as predictable as it was horrific. But that it happened after a series of highly public American warnings against such violence must now trigger an American response. After Mubarak violated clear American public red lines -- on violence and an immediate, meaningful transition -- there's really no choice.
The administration has already condemned and deplored yesterday's violence. It must now make clear that an Egyptian regime headed by Hosni Mubarak is no longer one with which the United States can do business, and that a military which sanctions such internal violence is not one with which the United Staes can continue to partner. The Egyptian military must receive the message loudly, directly and clearly that the price of a continuing relationship with America is Mubarak's departure and a meaningful transition to a more democratic and inclusive political system. It must understand that if it doesn't do this, then the price will not just be words or public shaming but rather financial and political. If Mubarak remains in place, Egypt faces a future as an international pariah without an international patron and with no place in international organizations or forums. If he departs, and a meaningful transition begins, then Egypt can avoid that fate.
Al Jazeera English, Feb 2, 2011, via Flickr Creative Commons
Arabs are awakening and $200/barrel oil is coming soon! Mubarak is Imperial US puppet and Israeli Agent. He compounded the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza by barbaric Israel, the MASTER of Imperial US. He closed Egypt’s border with Gaza and prevented even food or medicine to go through since 2002 because Israel had given itself (with US weaponry) the right not only to occupy Gaza since 1967 but to close its ports too. Jew US President Harry Truman ‘created’ Israel in 1948 with Jew, exhibitionist W. Churchill, who trained the Israeli thugs in the Jewish British Brigade. The Jew-controlled US press portrayed Truman as great. He was a sissy psychopath who dropped two atomic bombs on Japan AFTER it had surrendered and used blacks and homeless as guinea pigs to test the effects of tuberculosis, syphilis and radiation. Since 1948, the US has given $80 billion/year AID to Israel and more when Israel decides to grab more Arab land in yet another of its ‘PRE-EMPTIVE’ wars because Jehovah had told them Arabs, Moslems, true Christians and Easterners are poised to invade it!! Since 1948, ALL US Presidents, but JFK, were Christianist converts from Judaism (Bush clan) or had Jew blood, including Mr Obama.
US could have just taken out Bin Laden with missiles, upon good intelligence. But Jew-run Imperial US wanted ‘free’ oil from Iraq for Israel and mineral wealth from Afghanistan! US ‘gentiles’ paid for the follies of Jews Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, R. Murdock and 12-tribes: 35K actual dead, 700K crippled vets, $5 trillion projected cost, a wrecked economy for the next two decades, and loss of trust in US Integrity because of its unqualified support for genocide-committing Israel, not to mention the deaths of 1.2 million Arabs, true Christians, Moslems and Easterners. Is Israel worth it?!
You wouldn't happen to be Muslim would you?
Take you medicine, will you and calm down.....
Whew, forgot to take your meds today didn't you
I'll just point out a brief math mistake. Your claim that Israel received $80.0 billion annually since 1948, from the US would place the total dollar figure somewhere north of $5.00 Trillion. Your numbers don't hold water.
As for the rest of your rant. Let's just leave it on the trash-heap of history, where it belongs.
Why hasn't this hateful rant been deleted? It certainly doesn't contribute to the discussion.
There's always a choice. As Jack Sparrow liked to say "there's what a man can do and what a man can't do".
Mubarak can fight the demonstrators. He can leave the US sphere of influence. There's nothing that says he has to toe the line. Remember, Egypt used to be a Soviet client state back in the day.
Meanwhile, given that there are no shortage of despotic states around the world, including those that retain cordial relations with the US, why, do you think they would continue to support America, when they see how quickly their little corner of the world, where they rule by whim, be shaken to the point of abdication, if not death.
I'm just wondering.
More than that, what happens if Mubarak, like Iran, decides that he can and does put down the revolution?
There's a time for discourse and a time for laying down the rules. We fund Egypt's military -- if they want the checkbook, Mubarak needs to go NOW.
Obama must give Mubarak his marching orders - now!
Spot-on Marc. And time is of the essence. Mubarak and his thugs have exploited the brief silence from the American Administration to organise this orgy of violence you referred to. The pressure must be kept on and the message must be loud and clear. The Administration has handled this very well so far and would be a shame to lose traction at the final critical moments of the "end game"!
Why did the 2010 Eyptian elections pass by unnoticed?
Interesting that Marc Lynch didn't even bother to blog about the Muslim Brotherhood losing all its seats in the first round of the parliamentary elections there last November, instead being preoccdupied with Wikileaks?
Why isn't he mentioning those elections now ? Why didn't these "democracy demos" break out then a la Iran, Marc?
It seems very naiive to believe that , behind the scenes, the US has not been assiduously helping to shore up the status quo in Egypt. Obama did not lift one finger to help the Iran green movement to overthrow Ahmadinejad and Marc applauded him for it. Mubarak was going anyway. The idea that even Obama would facilitate the empowerment of the salafi islamists in Egypt of all places seems entirely fanciful.
Hasn't this message already been delivered?
I fear this message has already been delivered: what else could Admiral Mullen have said in his phone calls? Worth another try, but only if we are willing to follow up by canceling training programs and contracts, withdrawing advisers and in general making it real.
Daniel Serwer
www.peacefare.net
@DanielSerwer
The Egyptian people not Obama should give the marching orders.
The Egyptain people long accused of beeing patsy, indifferent accepting ruthless criminal regimes for so long are awakening and they are settting the ceiling for other Arab countries to rise against their own long time criminal regimes. I have no doubt the Egyptian people will be the one that give the marching order for Mubarak and Suleiman to get out of office and they should not leave them go and take refuge in London or Tel-Aviv but should put the entire regime on trial for alll the crimes committed against the people and the Arabs all these years. I would not mind if I see Mubarak hang in Tahrir Square. Mubarak interview with American television is an insult to the people of Egypt and this insult is added to injury by non other than Omar Suleiman who dismissed the young people of Egypt claiming they are tools of "foriegn conspiracy". Common, give the people of Egypt some credit for their determination to uproot once and forever, criminal dictarorial and military regimes that started with Nasser, continued with Sadat and will be finished once and for all by ending Mubarak and Suleiman. Suleiman is nothing but a "tarator" "la bekesh wala bensh" slave of his master Mubarak. It will be an insult to the Egyptian people to even accept Suleiman as an temporary president when he hauled all kinds of insults against the people. Obama should tell Mubarak, he should listen to the people who wants him to get the hell out of office. His continued presence brings instablity and endanger the state... His absence will bring peace to the streets. The people of Egypt, dont give up now... never again...
Marc Lynch is associate professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University.
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