Egypt and Others

The situation in Egypt has been dominating the news for the past few weeks, as well it should, in light of egalitarian movements now afoot in other Middle Eastern nations, at this time Libya. While these events have yet to clearly evolve into partisan politics in this country, I think it’s a matter of time before they do, with the line of Mubarak supporters forming on the right. For most of us more time is needed to reach reasoned conclusions.

This is not true of Niall Ferguson and of Newsweek which featured his article, “Egypt, How Obama Blew It,” on last week’s cover, which went to press three days after Mubarak resigned.  Whether this is a case of presumed prescience or simply jumping the gun, it drew my immediate attention.

The writer lost me right off the bat by contrasting Barack Obama’s missing “the wave of Middle Eastern democracy” with Otto Von Bismarck’s having caught  and surfed “the revolutionary wave of mid 19^th-century German nationalism.”  It’s quite a stretch to compare supporting a political movement in a string of nations stretching across a hemisphere with nationalizing contiguous Teutonic sovereign entities covering an area smaller than the State of Montana. Few people would consider the word “balkanize” in relation to Prussia, Bavaria and the other former nation states that constitute today’s Germany.

In making his point the writer mentions the chagrin of Israel and Saudi Arabia over events in Egypt. But he didn’t suggest continued support of Mubarak so it can be assumed that he felt we have been tardy in our support of the uprisings. It’s a mystery to me how America could have effectively supported “democracy” while controlling possible mob rule in so many nations covering so large an area in view of our military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe he envisioned holding Lawrence of Arabia auditions, assigning the winners to the various nations. Imagine the fun the political right would have if we openly advocated overthrowing our accommodating dictator friends. It would probably be prudent to let someone like G. Gordon Liddy or Oliver North, select the Lawrences. 

I don’t know what Obama did or didn’t do to blow it. There hasn’t been a clear explanation for Mubarak’s 24 hour about face. I think it highly probable that strings were pulled by the White House. One can guess what the cessation of $1.5 billion of our foreign aid would have done to the salaries, morale and loyalty of the Egyptian military. Word has it that both our Secretaries of State and Defense favored delaying the transition. This should add perspective to our habit of passing all responsibility for an event to a member of a president’s cabinet, as in the case of Donald Rumsfeld and the invasion of Iraq.

I haven’t drawn any conclusions as to how our government should have reacted, other than that it would have been foolhardy to support the status quo. What does concern me is that a magazine to which I’ve subscribed for over fifty years would print this sort of tripe and worse yet feature it on its cover. Considering Newsweek’s change in management, it smells strongly of the effluvia from Citizens United.