What next for Egypt, the USA and the Middle East?
As Washington struggles to come to terms with a rapidly changing Middle East, US President Barack Obama is acutely aware he must get Egypt right, for the wrong side of history eagerly beckons.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8290551/What-next-for-Egypt-the-USA-and-the-Middle-East.htmlFaced with a dilemma that has long troubled Western leaders, including Britain's, Barack Obama's administration has not covered itself in glory vis à vis Egypt.
Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, was conspicuously caught between two natural inclinations - encouraging the forces of democracy and preserving an autocratic but deeply loyal friend of the United States and its allies.
Initially, she said that although the US supported "the fundamental rights of expression and assembly", in her view the Egyptian government was "stable".
The next day, as the turmoil deepened in Cairo, she declared that reform "must be on the agenda" of the Egyptian government, which should respond to "active, civil leaders".
Vice President Joe Biden, whose foot is never far from his mouth, rejected the suggestion that Mubarak was a dictator and questioning whether the crowds of Egyptians were indeed making "legitimate claims".
Those were dangerous words. The US provides $1.3 billion military aid annually to Egypt, money which helps fund a repressive apparatus that Washington now more than ever does not want to be closely identified with.
Rather late in proceedings, Mr Obama himself produced a more calibrated response on Friday, edging away from Hosni Mubarak and effectively putting the Egyptian leader on notice. "This moment of volatility has to be turned into a moment of promise," said the US president, who urged that "reforms that meet the aspirations of the Egyptian people".
It was a similar choice of words to that used a day earlier by William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, whose reactions have been less equivocal than the Americans' but equally cautious.
"It is important in this situation to respond positively to legitimate demands for reform... that would be my advice to Egyptian leaders and to many others around the Arab world," he said.
Reform, of course, is very different from regime change, which is what those on the streets of Egypt's cities seem to be demanding, and Mr Obama is acutely aware he must get Egypt right, for the wrong side of history eagerly beckons.
Some in his administration still feel stung by criticism that they did not stand up for Iran's Green Movement when it braved Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's thugs in the summer of 2009.
Failure now to support Egyptian men and women braving police bullets and batons, and being too closely identified with an ageing agent of tyranny, could wipe out Washington's credibility with a generation of young Arabs. Cairo, the very city where the US president famously declared a "new beginning" in relations between the America and the Muslim world early in his presidency, could become the graveyard of that ambition.
Excessive hesitancy as events unfold would furthermore give the US and Britain less leverage in the future of the Middle East's most populous country if - or when - Mr Mubarak leaves the stage to what promises to be a muddled cast of actors, which would include the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups.
The West's support for Mr Mubarak needs little explaining. He has been an ultra-reliable friend in a volatile region. Diplomatic US cables provided courtesy of WikiLeaks have revealed that the Egyptian president cooperated on brokering a ceasefire between Hamas and the Israelis, slowing the flow of arms to militants in Gaza and Washington's initiative on containing Iran.
The cables also disclosed that Mr Mubarak himself habitually warned that by fostering reform in his country, Western powers could open the door to extremism. He often invoked the example of the Shah of Iran, another unpopular secular leader who was deserted by Jimmy Carter with very unhappy consequences.
The comparison however does not quite fit. In Egypt, there is no charismatic fundamentalist such as the Ayatollah Khomeini waiting in the wings. The protestors have not yet hinted at any allegiance with the Brotherhood or any other group which would flower into support for a theocratic rule.
Unfortunately for policy-makers in London and Washington, neither is there a moderate moderniser or enlightened figurehead ready to carry the people's hopes into the breach. A Cory Aquino, Vaclav Havel or Megawati Sukarnoputri always comes in handy when an autocracy is crumbling.
Successive governments on both sides of the Atlantic share the blame for that lack. Mr Mubarak was allowed hog the arena to the heartless exclusion of others. Formerly vice-president to Anwar Sadat, the West stood by as he failed to appoint a vice-president of his own, grooming only his son Gamal for a succession that is now unlikely to happen.
Mr Obama and the current and former British governments have only nudged and prodded Cairo on human rights. For all its liberal pretensions, the US administration in fact ended the policy of publicly naming dissidents and shaming the regime's treatment of them that was part of George W Bush's "freedom agenda". State Department and Foreign Office realpolitik has determined that the risks of pressurising an old ally were too great.
Had Mr Bush not allowed his initiative to liberalise the Middle East be crushed by the weight of the Iraq war, and had Mr Obama done more than offer empty words of encouragement for civic society, Mr Mubarak might - against his expectations - be in a stronger position today. Gradual reform might have gone a long way to preserving his reign and with it his Western friends' stake in a crucial regional power.
In two years, Mr Obama has shown himself to be a quick learner.
Let us hope he absorbs the lesson provided by Egypt and the uprisings elsewhere in the Middle East, which is that clear and consistent support for freedom will, in the long run, serve America best.
