Facts: Last week, thousands of Egyptian demonstrators filled the streets of Cairo to protest the appointments of autocratic president Hosni Mubarak. A week later, with over 800 wounded and uncertainty looming, Egyptians from all walks of life continue to demonstrate and riot. Experts predict the culmination of the chaos to peak today.
Opinions: Mubarak must step down, but the U.S. must do a better job making good on its rhetoric to promote democracy. The paradox that the U.S. both funds Mubarak and now reprimands him must end.
The series of events that rapidly snowballed into the largest public demonstrations in modern Egypt caught everyone by surprise, including U.S. policy makers and diplomats. However, with such turbulence and chaos, the U.S. must manage its policies in Egypt with nuance and attention to detail, which U.S. diplomacy has habitually overlooked.
Hosni Mubarak has been president of Egypt since 1981 and has continued his tenure with the help of U.S. foreign aid, which amounts to $1.5 billion every year. In exchange for money, which Mubarak invests in his military and police, the U.S. is guaranteed a partner for relative peace and stability in the region. One problem — Mubarak has not won a fair election since 1987 due to candidate and voting restrictions. The close ties the U.S. has with the Mubarak regime do not reflect well on this country, which prides itself as the leader of democracy.
The Egyptians have borne the curbed freedoms and restrictions of the autocratic Mubarak regime and now that they are demonstrating and demanding a change, it’s not enough nor fully appropriate for President Obama to comment on the situation by saying, “The U.S. will continue to stand up for democracy and the universal rights that all human beings deserve.”
President Obama’s acknowledgment that Egypt must undergo a transformation is fitting to the situation, yet it has come far too late. The President stated, “It is not the role of any other country to determine Egypt’s leaders, only the Egyptian people can do that.” Nevertheless, the irony persists as the U.S. lent tremendous support to a repressive regime out of convenience. Convenience never makes sound policy, especially in the long term. If our nation is so concerned about democracy and human rights, then we should not have allowed the propagation of this contradiction to the point of festering.
Obama is right. Egypt’s must decide for itself, but the U.S. must own up to its policies that prolonged the repression of Mubarak. Moreover, Obama must move swiftly to convince his spoon-fed thug to step down. Yesterday, the White House worked to persuade Mubarak to resign immediately and tender his presidency to incumbent Vice President Omar Suleiman. However, it will take more than cajoling and rhetoric for a smooth transition.
In this time of crisis, the last thing the U.S. should be doing is evacuating all non-critical diplomats. When crisis calls, diplomats should remain to assess the problems, which they may have overlooked previously. The uncertainty of Egypt should provoke concern among Americans regarding the fragile, yet essential, relationship between both nations. In the future, the U.S. must conduct its policy in a preventative way, as to avoid this type of calamity again.
