Will Inboden is a Distinguished Scholar at the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas-Austin, and a Contributing Editor at Foreign Policy magazine.
Even as events in Egypt play out almost faster than the news cycle itself, last night’s news of Mubarak’s desperate grasping at power reverberates across the Middle East, and around the globe. The dictator’s defiance is a challenge to freedom, and conservatives across the Anglosphere should recognize it as such. But if February is to be remembered in history as the month of liberty for the people of Egypt, the current standoff must soon give way to a democratic transition. And the United States can play a crucial role.
Specifically, the Obama Administration – ideally President Obama himself -- should immediately and publicly call on Mubarak to step aside now. Republican leaders should do the same. And the White House and Republican leaders should together announce America’s active bipartisan support – diplomatic and economic – for free and fair national elections that are open to all peaceful parties in Egypt. It should make clear to a transitional post-Mubarak government supported by the military that the United States expects it to be just that – transitional – and that its two primary responsibilities are to preserve basic order while taking active steps to support multiparty elections.
The United States has nothing to gain from supporting Mubarak any further at this point. The octogenarian autocrat has already written off the US and feels beholden only to his own interests. Meanwhile, the Egyptian people clamoring for Mubarak to go still wonder if the US supports their aspirations for liberty, opportunity, and a better life – or stands with the dictator whom they see as the obstacle to those aspirations. President Obama and Republican leaders need to speak out publicly and unequivocally, so that the Egyptian people wonder no more whose side we are on.
Amidst the prevailing standoff in Tahrir Square, not to be forgotten is that before Egypt, there was Tunisia. And before Tunisia, there was Iran. It was, after all, the 2009 Green Movement protests in Iran that first signaled that the Middle East of the 21st century would not be consigned to the status quo of the previous 50 years, when autocrats and theocrats alike stifled freedom and held forth their false promises of stability or revolution, respectively. Just as Iran’s Green Movement protests helped sow the seeds of events in Egypt today, so now Egypt’s protests are terrifying Tehran, where the mullahs fear any further inspiration for Iran’s reformers. Ironically, today marks the anniversary of the Iranian revolution. It was thirty two years ago on February 11 that the Shah fell from power, replaced by Ayatollah Khomeini and his murderous regime.
Some commentators take away the wrong lesson from this history, and conclude that America should always support dictators in the region, lest there be more Islamist takeovers such as Iran in 1979. The right lesson is rather this: America should support freedom in the region, which provides the most enduring type of stability and antidote to extremism. As Charles Krauthammer writes today, the United States needs to adopt a freedom doctrine that supports democracy and democratic reformers across the region, while opposing the Islamists who might seek to hijack it. A robust freedom doctrine would include political liberty, economic liberty, and religious liberty – all of which are inimical to the Islamist agenda.
What this coming week holds, let alone the rest of the month or year, remain uncertain and will no doubt defy the best prognostications. There are no sure guarantees that Egypt will not be taken over by the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood. But such a dismal fate would become more likely if the US remains on the sidelines or behind Mubarak – and will be less likely if we extend our support now to the Egyptian people in Tahrir Square.
UPDATE: Well one thing I suppose I got right when first writing this post is that "events in Egypt play out almost faster than the news cycle itself" -- Mubarak's defiance of last night gave way today to the reality that he has lost his country, and he at last is stepping down. Let us hope that this will mark February 11 as the day when the Egyptian revolution of 2011 overtook the Iranian revolution of 1979 as the region's pivot point. As the Obama Administration continues to play catch-up, their flat-footed posture over the last two weeks mirrors their neglect of the last two years. The White House now needs to make a forceful, clear, and direct statement to the Egyptian military and the Egyptian people of American support for their transition to democracy. Republicans should do the same, and can contribute further by developing the tenets of a "freedom doctrine" that supports democracy and opposes anti-democratic Islamist ideologies, much as the US distinguished democratic elements from communist parties in post-war Europe. For a lesson in what not to do, one needs only look at the Obama Administration's woeful record in Egypt the last two years -- and consider that in this area the George W. Bush Administration got it right.
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