- Democracy, Islamism, and the 21st Century January 31, 2011
- The Obama Administration Wings It On Egypt January 29, 2011
- Defying Hillary, Egypt Blocks the Internet January 27, 2011
- Complete State of the Union Text Leaks January 25, 2011
- As Egypt Erupts, Will Obama Remain Silent? January 25, 2011
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AmSpecBlog
The Wages of Winging It
John Guardiano is far too kind in his assessment that the Obama administration's Egypt strategy (if one can even call it that) is explained by an abundance of caution or temperamental conservatism. A better explanation is simple incompetence.
Consider this report on the thinking within an unnamed administration policymaker's office, before Mubarak's speech on Friday. "The mood was buoyant," because "the favored bet would have been that Mubarak was about to 'do an LBJ' and repeat what President Lyndon Johnson did in 1968 in the face of a wave of protests: announce he would not stand in the upcoming presidential election." In other words, it wasn't that policymakers were worried about letting Mubarak fall so much as they were delusional about the willingness of an authoritarian dictator to loosen his grip of his own accord.
Until Mubarak's statement on Friday, Obama had deliberately avoided contacting him, on the theory that "president-to-president intervention should be held in reserve as a last recourse" since "any exchange with Mubarak would require Obama to say whether he supported Mubarak's continued rule." So they tried to indirectly signal that he should offer concessions to the protestors. But this was the same administration that, last fall, helped kill a Senate resolution to support a transition to democracy in Egypt, and the same administration that, despite warnings that it was time to prepare for the end of the Mubarak era by pushing for political reform, had done nothing of the sort. Given that, and in the wake of administration statements that Mubarak wasn't a "dictator" (Biden) and that his regime was "stable" (Hillary). Why would Mubarak assume that Obama would care whether he embraced reform?
Mubarak finally did announce yesterday that he wouldn't seek another term, but it was pretty obvious that that wouldn't be enough anymore to calm the protests down. Now pro-Mubarak forces (most of them paid thugs affiliated with the government -- the backlash is clearly coordinated) are attacking the protestors, and the Obama administration's calls for an "orderly transition" have become a bad joke. Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, a columnist for the UAE-based newspaper The National, sums up the perception abroad: "The White House has not looked weaker & more indecisive in decades."
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Uli Kunkel| 2.2.11 @ 5:12PM
This is the by-product of electing a radical, unaccomplished, jive talking charlatan, who has for 2 years been misappropriating his most undeserved position of President of The United States. He's never managed an ant farm...
Will things ever be the same? Obonehead should resign, yesterday!!!
Red Phillips| 2.2.11 @ 5:35PM
I think Tabin and Guardiano are in a contest to see who can be the most naive and muddleheaded democracy cheerleader. It is not clearly in the US's best interests for Mubarak to fall (althought it appears to be too late for that now), and it is not clear that whatever replacement "democracy" provides will be better for us. But whatever. As long as the T & G gang can feel better about themselves and the crusading ideological nation they crave by happy-faced democracy fetishizing is all that is important I guess.
Good grief! The situation in Egypt is complicated and does not lend itself to a simple-minded good vs. evil dichotomy or easy "solutions" on the part of the US. This kind of mess is EXACTLY why we shouldn't be meddling over there in the first place. It is lose lose. Either tick off the masses for being seen as too friendly to the regime or risk a worse outcome by betting on the Devil you don't know.
This felt need by interventionist "conservatives" (Ha!) for the President of the United States of America to say the right thing regarding the internal politics of some far off country is actually kind of pathetic. It betrays some sort of child-like pathology. They seem to want the great daddy democrat (small d) in the sky to assure them that he is on guard and everything will be ok.
We need to untangle ourselves from the powder keg that is the Middle East and mind our own business. Then it won't matter what the President of the United States thinks about Egypt or whoever else. They'll have to work it out on their own. We'll be too busy reaping the benefits of not having to spends so much fighting evryone else's battles.
Occam's Tool| 2.2.11 @ 6:10PM
Yes, Red, just like it didn't matter to the US in 1933 that Weimar went down and the nazis took over in Germany.
The problem with the isolationist perspective is that it ignores the principles of good statescraft, which are similar to that of medicine---deal with problems when they are SMALL, and then you don't have to when they are LARGE.
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.2.11 @ 7:07PM
Doctor,
Red will never figure that out. He is stupid and we have no words to cure stupid here.
He lives stupid, and sadly, he will probably die stupid.
We can sometimes aleviate insanity...but we just can't help stupid.
Ken
Red Phillips| 2.2.11 @ 10:11PM
"He is stupid"
Where did you graduate from medical school Ken?
Red Phillips| 2.2.11 @ 10:21PM
Occam, for interventionist it is always and forever 1939. That is your fall back trump card for every intervention regardless. Don't you grow weary of always playing it?
Non-interventionists do not reject normal diplomacy. In fact, we favor greater diplomacy in lieu of saber rattling and bully pulpit sermonizing. But the problems, large or small, are usually not ours to deal with. That is the interventionist's compulsion. You want to own every problem.
Clint| 2.2.11 @ 10:49PM
"Non-interventionism on the part of the United States over the course of its foreign policy, is more of a want to aggressively protect the United States' interests than a want to shun the rest of the world."
"Non-intervention is similar to isolationism, however fundamentally different. While isolationism includes views on immigration and trade, non-interventionism refers exclusively to military alliances and policies."
Red Phillips| 2.2.11 @ 11:09PM
Clint, I don't believe the foreign policy and immigration issues can be disentangled. (They can for libertarians, but not for conservatives.) Immigration restrictionism follows naturally from foreign policy non-interventionism and vice versa. Just as the "invade the world, invite the world" mindset flows naturally from the universalistic totalizing form of liberalism know as neo"conservatism."
Clint| 2.3.11 @ 12:44AM
There are at least 10 types of libertarians and beyond that degrees of types of libertarians.
"Paleolibertarianism:
Paleolibertarians differ from neolibertarians in that they are isolationists who do not believe that the United States should become entangled in international affairs. They also tend to be suspicious of international coalitions such as the United Nations, liberal immigration policies, and other potential threats to cultural stability."
Red Phillips| 2.2.11 @ 11:09PM
Clint, I don't believe the foreign policy and immigration issues can be disentangled. (They can for libertarians, but not for conservatives.) Immigration restrictionism follows naturally from foreign policy non-interventionism and vice versa. Just as the "invade the world, invite the world" mindset flows naturally from the universalistic totalizing form of liberalism know as neo"conservatism."
Clint| 2.2.11 @ 11:57PM
How "Bout We Agree That:
1. Illegal Aliens are Illegal Invaders.
2.American Oil Companies Should Drill Baby, Drill Our Oil and Marginalize these Middle East Agendas.
3. Jettison The Beatable Peter Principle Poster Boy & Alinskiite Socialist Obama & Start Vetting & Drafting A Winner Conservative Candidate. ( Name some candidates you may support)
4. Stop The Obama Health Scam.
5. Cut Deficit Spending with everything on the table for discussion & debate.
more later.....
FREE tea| 2.3.11 @ 12:20AM
"---The next phase for the Globalists is engineered
'chaos', upheaval, wars etc.. This will be used to
exhaust and demoralize, to 'bring in' the stubborn
Middle East into the franchise slum fold. Then the
collapse of the U.S. will be completed and the
RED Chinese police state and eugenics 'model'
will be there to take all."
------------------WHO said that?
BTW ----RED China has NOT ONLY been de facto
handed our technology and most advanced military technology ----AND the Panama Canal
--BUT bases on BOTH our coasts.
"Did you just hear me?! ---THIS IS TREASON."
NOW-----say that to yourself...
Consertive View| 2.3.11 @ 10:23AM
Has anyone figured out yet that a President bent on social reform within the United States is absolutely clueless about what to do with social reform somewhere elce?
nova9047| 2.3.11 @ 11:56AM
It's time for the demonstrators to collect their refuse and go home. They won a promise of free elections; so go build a political party system. Mubarak is retiring. The Muslim Brotherhood can nominate their "peaceful" candidates. That's democracy. No harm, no foul.