Has Obama Been Tough Enough With Egypt?

Has Obama Been Tough Enough With Egypt?: "

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama tried the impossible:
winning the hearts and minds of Egyptians furious with their autocratic
ruler while assuring a vital ally that the United States has his back.

The four-minute speech Friday evening represented a careful balancing
act for Obama. He had a lot to lose by choosing between protesters
demanding that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak step down from a
government violently clinging to its three-decade grip on the country.

“The United States will continue to stand up for the rights of the
Egyptian people and work with their government in pursuit of a future
that is more just, more free and more hopeful,” the president said.

Yet he offered no ultimatum or specific demand, saying instead that
Mubarak had a “responsibility to give meaning” to his pledges of better
democracy and more economic opportunity.

The U.S. response is challenged by a massive mismatch in the
perception and reality of its power. Despite spending billions in Egypt
to establish a bulwark of American influence in the Middle East, the
U.S. has little capacity to determine whether the 82-year-old Mubarak
weathers the protests or is toppled, analysts and past administration
officials say.

In his first television appearance since protests erupted three days
ago, Mubarak said Friday he asked his Cabinet to resign. He said he
would reconstitute it yet outlined no concrete democratic reform. He
also defended the brutal crackdown on protesters, who’ve faced baton
beatings, water cannons, rubber bullets and tear gas.

Speaking shortly after, Obama didn’t endorse regime change. Nor did
he say that Mubarak’s announcement was insufficient. Instead, he said he
personally told Mubarak to take “concrete steps” to expand rights.

Does that mean that Mubarak should step down after three decades in
power? Should he announce that he won’t run again for president? What
about constitutional changes? Is it time to scrap emergency laws in
place since 1981?

Administration officials would not say.

Obama’s address was the most forceful of the day, but it stuck
largely to the script already set by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton and White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

“What will eventually happen in Egypt is up to Egyptians,” Clinton
said, noting that the Egypt government could ease tensions by rapidly
introducing democratic reform. “That moment needs to be seized, and we
are hoping that it is.”

“The legitimate grievances that have festered for quite some time in
Egypt have to be addressed,” Gibbs said. “And violence is not the
response.”

The reality is that the United States can do little to control or
direct the anger in the Arab world unleashed two weeks ago when Tunisia
chased its long-time ruler from power. Yet the U.S. can do severe harm
to its own interests by coming out too forcefully for or against the
uprising.

Washington’s perceived ability to pick and choose governments is
limited to a very few places. It does not wield that power in the Middle
East, where Islamic parties completely opposed to the United States are
often the most likely democratic alternatives.

“This is the most serious foreign policy crisis the administration
has faced,” said Aaron David Miller, who worked two decades at the State
Department and is now a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center. “The
paradox is, there is little if anything the administration can do.”

That doesn‘t mean it won’t try.

The White House said earlier Friday it would review the $1.5 billion
in annual aid to Egypt, an unsubtle warning that it still has some pull
with Cairo.

The State Department issued an unusual warning to Americans to avoid
all but essential travel to Egypt at the height of the winter tourism
season.

“The U.S. doesn’t believe revolutions are the way to go,” said Robert
Danin, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a State
Department specialist on the Middle East under President George W. Bush.
“Revolutions are violent. They have unanticipated outcomes.”

Still, rhetoric matters. After spending billions backing its few Arab
friends, the U.S. has damaged credibility in the Arab world, leaving a
narrow space for Washington policymakers.

Without a bold statement of solidarity, it’s tough to see how the
United States will gain the sympathy of Egyptian protesters fighting a
security apparatus that has worked closely with American counterparts
and may be using U.S. equipment to repress them.

Obama aimed high: “The people of Egypt have rights that are
universal. That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association,
the right to free speech and the ability to determine their own
destiny. These are human rights and the United States will stand up for
them everywhere.”

But he tempered the bold idealism of a world of universal rights with
a strong plea for peaceful protests. And he was clear that Mubarak’s
government still had some U.S. support. “We are committed to working
with the Egyptian government and the Egyptian people,” Obama said.

The need for balance is obvious. Completely alienating Mubarak would
be a disaster for the U.S. if his government weathers the storm,
possibly harming cooperation in the Mideast peace process or on
counterterrorism.

Scott Carpenter, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, said the United States will have more options once it becomes
clear which side will prevail. “We cannot dictate anything,” he said.

Others decried what they deemed a reactive approach to U.S. foreign policy.

“We don’t side with the regime or the protesters when it matters,”
said Michael Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “By
being so cautious and cynical, we end up not winning the hearts and
minds of either side.”

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