Frenemies ‘R’ Us

Much ink has been spilled over the historic transfer of power now underway in Egypt, so I won’t waste too much time stating facts here.  President Hosni Mubarak, 82, has been Egypt’s benevolent despot for 29 years.  Following the assassination of Anwar Sadat, Mubarak took power in 1981, and subsequently dismissed his Vice President.  The mood has turned as Egypt is ashamed of itself and its unrepresentative government.  Millions have taken to the streets to protest; this morning, the revolution turned bloody.  The world has turned it’s eyes to the United States for swift and proper response.

This past November, Egypt’s “democratic” elections proved to be a sham.  When riots started last week in Cairo, (the site of Obama’s historic speech of Muslim Outreach,) we were confounded, as Mubarak was our ally.  This week, we are escorting him out the door.  These developments have left the rest of us looking for an intellectually consistent thumbrule to apply to our foreign policy, as we did not foresee this crisis, and we likely will not foresee the next crisis, or the one after that.

Whereas leftists support riots wherever they may occur, realists fear the rise of Islamists, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, in Egypt through the democratic process, and rightly so.  Albeit corrupt, Mubarak has kept Islamists at bay in Egypt.  So, do we support democracy in this instance?

I believe, yes:  We must always support the democratic process, no matter the outcome.  We must not publicly endorse one side over the other.  We may, behind the scenes and through diplomatic ties, root for one side over the other, but not publicly.  In keeping with this thumbrule, the United States reserves the right to publicly oppose (or sanction) any outcome which disagrees with our core values; this is ethical realism.

The purpose of this thumbrule is to encourage representative governments throughout the world.  If we have learned anything through our three decades worth of Middle Eastern excursions, an unrepresentative government is much more difficult to deal with.

If this thumbrule had been applied to Pakistan in 2007, an ally regime with a population supporting extremism, we would have supported the peaceful transition away from Pervez Musharraf.  The declaration of martial law, and indeed, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, could have been avoided.

And if this thumbrule had been applied to Iran in 2009, a hostile regime with a population eschewing extremism, we would have supported the peaceful transition away from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  The casualties incurred during the Green Revolution, including the public killing of Neda Agha-Soltan, could have been avoided.  I believe the Obama Administration’s current response to the Egyptian crisis would have been correct for the Iranian crisis, a missed opportunity if there ever was one.

In both of these situations, however, we should have supported the will of the people, regardless of the outcome.  In Egypt, we have another opportunity to get it right, but we must realize our limitations in and leverage over the region.  I am not naïve enough to think this position is easy, for it requires unwavering resolve against despotism, which I don’t believe we have at this point in our history.  It also takes unwavering resolve against temptation, as certain despots with certain assets may seem more acceptable than those without (see: Saudi Arabia).  Again, in this regard, we leave a lot to be desired.  If we treat regimes based on the degree of freedom they allow within their country, we can declare: Frenemies No More.

Finally, it should be noted that Thomas Jefferson, the Beacon of Liberalism for Left and Right alike, was apprehensive in the face of the French Revolution, a ten-year period of political and social turmoil.  Although initially a supporter of the French Revolution, Thomas Jefferson, who had previously “sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man,” revealed in a 1793 letter his dismay over the excesses of bloodshed in France, expressing “too great a sensibility at the partial evil by which it’s object has been accomplished there.”  See my Permanent Revolution post for more on this, but, put simply, yesterday’s Jacobins are today’s Islamists.

The lesson from this is that, as Americans, it is OK to question the outcomes of democracy applied loosely if freedom eventually suffers from it.  This is nothing new under the sun; we will question our values again.  But, I believe doing so is a testament to those very values.