There is an excellent article on the origins of the Egyptian situation in The Weekly Standard this week. The author has also written Strong Horse on Arab culture and the Middle East. His subject is the consequences of Obama’s “reaching out” to enemies and despots.
It was the June 2009 uprising following the Iranian elections that first showed Obama’s mettle. While millions of Iranians took to the streets to demonstrate, the administration dithered for two weeks before taking a stand. That alone showed the sort of weakness and passivity that emboldens bad actors. But the rationale for the White House’s silence only made it worse.
Obama did not want to antagonize the Iranian government because he wanted to engage them over their nuclear program. Every regional ally—from Jerusalem to Riyadh—told him that this was a fool’s errand, but the president was not to be deterred, even as the Iranian rulers thumbed their nose at the American president and told him they did not want to negotiate.
The administration also wanted to engage Iran’s ally, Syria, even as Damascus was supporting foreign fighters making their way into Iraq to kill American troops and our Iraqi allies. Furthermore, the Assad regime continued to back both Hamas and Hezbollah, who had laid siege to American allies in Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, and Israel. Instead of bringing Damascus into the American column, Obama’s outreach pushed an ally, Saudi Arabia, into the Syrians’ arms.
Because the Saudis interpreted U.S. engagement with Syria and Iran as a retreat from Lebanon, they believed it was the better part of valor to court the Syrians, in hopes they might help attenuate Iran’s influence in Lebanon. Moreover, the House of Saud and Syria struck a deal over Iraq, where they would coordinate efforts to weaken, if not topple, an American ally, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. A series of massive car bombings in Baghdad did precisely that, and again the administration did nothing to protect its friends or punish its enemies.
I have previously commented on Obama’s foolish policies. He seems to think that talk will induce enemies to change to friends. His own career does not support this idea as he was first elected to office by disqualifying every opponent. His US Senate campaign succeeded by convincing a judge to unseal divorce records of his opponent. In none of these instances did talk accomplish anything. Thuggery was his method.
We are now in a situation that would not have occurred with another president, say John McCain. How it will end is not a pleasant prospect. The author, Lee Smith, has added some comments at Powerline.
Maybe it’s worth recalling the Peter Rodman essay where he noted that Eisenhower called the 1956 Suez Crisis his greatest foreign policy mistake. After getting our British, French and Israeli allies to stand down and handing Nasser the Egyptian president’s only foreign policy victory in a career marked by disastrous adventurism, Eisenhower couldn’t understand why the Egyptians still hated the US.
So no matter what Obama thinks he can get from Mubarak, the American president is not going to win the affection of the Arab masses. The administration’s concern is appropriate insofar as Americans do not like to see people crushed in their own streets by their rulers, especially when those rulers are US allies and get American aid money.
That said, whatever Obama wanted from Mubarak should have been conducted in private–not just because that is how you treat allies, no matter how mad you are at them, but also because to do otherwise, to make public demands, sets up the likely possibility that you will be rebuffed in public.
Obama tried to take Mubarak out to the woodshed, but the Egyptian knows he doesn’t have to take the US commander-in-chief seriously, because of his actions in the Middle East the last two years. Whether or not you think that Obama is right to deal with a US ally the way he has treated Mubarak, or whether Mubarak should step down immediately, the fact is that Mubarak knows Obama does not need to be taken seriously.
As I say in the piece, the US president did not project power in the region because he failed to observe the cardinal rule of Middle East politics–reward your friends and punish your enemies.
That rule goes back beyond Nicholas Machiavelli. Harry Truman once stated his political philosophy by recounting an aphorism about a Roman Senator. “His downfall began when he took his friends for granted and tried to bribe his enemies.”
Thuggery was his method.
I’ve had occasion to know some people who were outwardly compliant and subservient in public, but in the home they would beat their children/wife.
Kind of like the American Left.
I don’t think he’d stand much of a chance with Michelle unless he brought a club, and maybe not then.